Business life is a rat race. So many meetings, presentations, emails. Breakfast to go. Working lunch. Late dinner. It’s crazy. Then, all of a sudden, things grind to a halt. The meetings get...

It all started in 2020. The world was just beginning to grapple with a pandemic. Shops and schools had to close. Events were cancelled. Firms asked people to work from home. Global travel ground to...

If you love customers, leadership could easily be your biggest challenge. How to help customers, when others don’t care? How to convince people who don’t report to you? How to innovate, when...

Who thrives? The people who have more than just ideas. The people who figure out how to make stuff happen, how to mobilize people, how to ship. A few days ago, I sat down with Rusty Pepper for a...

Fran Crippen loved the water. The US long-distance swimmer had beaten his competition many times. 7 medals in 6 years—one gold, four silver, two bronze. Olympic games in reach. Expectations were...

A few days ago, The Marketing Society asked me to share with their senior marketers the insights from the largest ever study on marketer success. Seats were arranged in a circle, so I could see...

(From my Marketing Week column) When Marketing Week’s editor, Russell Parsons, asked me to write an article to accompany the launch of Marketing Week’s Top 100 Most Effective UK Marketers, I...

Making it to the next level can be exciting. More responsibility, more options, more pay. But how to get promoted? Perhaps your firm has a fixed promotion schedule, and it’s either “up” or “out.”...

When the numbers don’t add up, business dreams evaporate, change movements stall, projects die. Perhaps people love your idea. Perhaps no one asks if the numbers work out....

Last weekend, my partner and I took a bicycle tour to a small village near our home, called Adendorf. Each year, it hosts an iconic garden exhibition – a sales show with plenty of champagne and...

As a marketer, people are paying you for the firm’s most important job (next to innovation): finding customers – at the lowest possible cost. Finding customers is an art and a craft. The art is your...

I love the Airbus A380. It’s an engineering masterpiece. The world’s largest airplane. Quiet. Spacious. Loved by passengers. Yet the A380 demonstrates what happens to businesses and careers when...

Who’s the most powerful person in a firm? The CEO? No. The CFO? No. The head of sales? No. It’s the customer. When a customer complains, the CEO sits up. When a customer wants to leave, the head of...

“You can help us build a love brand. I want to hire you,” the CEO said. Nina was thrilled. Her last years in consumer goods had been tough. Tight margins. Aggressive competitors. A firm, in which...

Who wants to be a middle manager? Not many people. It’s nice to be the trainee – young and cool; it’s nice to be the CEO – with all the power. But the rest? Stuck in the sandwich’s middle. No longer...

Everyone in the boardroom turned to me in anger. I spent much of my former career doing two jobs: leading large brands and running major marketing transformation programmes. I loved both. And in...

We love the familiar, the recognisable, the known. And when it comes to picking a team member, many people are looking for a clone. Men recruit men. Creatives recruit creatives. Number crunchers...

Do you thrive in a matrix organisation? In a matrix, everybody is in charge--and nobody has all the power. The person who can tell sales what to do, doesn't exist. The person who can tell product...

Trust in politicians has evaporated. Consumer trust in brands is at an all-time low. And too many executives don’t trust their bosses. What’s the problem? Perhaps it’s professionalism? Brexit, for...

The internet is great. If you know something and you want to write a blog that 100,000 people read, you can. If you want to do a podcast that 100,000 people hear, you can. The internet is also great...

Brave leaders change the world. Air traffic controller Anthonius Gunawan saved the 160 souls on board Batik Air 6231, by staying in the tower, so the plane could escape minutes before the earthquake...

You are in the business of change. In fact, we are all in the business of change. We try to get customers to accept our offer. We try to get colleagues to support our cause. We try to get friends to...

Hard work is appreciated. Or so people hope. That’s why they put in the long hours, go the extra mile, give their best. But then, things go nowhere. The big meeting gets cancelled, budgets get cut,...

To make change happen, shed light on the issue. Measure customer feedback, costs, time wasted – whatever your currency is. Make sure your data is solid. Praise those in the top left corner who are doing well; no need to shame those in the bottom right-hand corner – the chart will do it for you.

Tell people how you got to where you are. Talk about the hurdles. Share your tricks. Give hope. As a leader, the most precious thing you can help others build is confidence. And it’s free.

If you want dissatisfied customers, lock them in.

For breakthrough results, harmony isn’t the recipe. Fighting is. Under one condition: the fight has to be constructive.

Tell customers it’s a middle seat upfront. Then, be generous. Give people a free drink, more air miles, a discount coupon, an extra report, your premium service package. Make the middle seat wider.If people feel good about your middle seat, they may come back. For sure, it’s fair.

Sheryl Sandberg has a point. In her book ‘Lean In’, Facebook’s current COO asks women, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Sandberg is a public role model. Her book has empowered millions of...

“What’s the point of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)?” I asked Marketing Week readers that question. Why? Well, here is a baffling paradox: Each day, the world’s marketers create billions of cash...

Use the power of travel for change. In organizations, get people to meet customers, switch departments, take on cross-functional work. Do the same yourself—and leave your country now and then. That one new perspective, that one new idea, that one new priority that you acquire can make all the difference.

Elvis didn’t invent rock 'n' roll. Steve Jobs didn’t invent the smartphone.* Google didn't invent web search. All three took an idea, twisted it, made it better—and changed the world. People love...

Reach out to three people who disagree. With your project. With your political perspective. With your moral view. Listen and say: “Thank you.” It’s not about making promises. It’s about genuinely learning what it will take to bridge the gaps.

I've got good news. Until December 1st, our publisher, McGraw-Hill and 800-CEO-READ offer a 40% bulk discount for our marketing leadership book The 12 Powers of a...