Tuesday 30 June 2009

As Good As It Gets

I love the argumentative and awkward character that Jack Nicholson plays in the movie “As Good as It Gets!” It's Jack, but even more obstreperous than normal. Coming out of the Doctor's surgery he turns round to all the patients in the waiting room and utters the immortal lines “What if, this is good as it gets?” to a bemused reaction.

And that's how most directors of marketing and sales seem to think when reviewing the lack of alignment between their teams. Well it's not very good, but it's as good as it gets.

Now there is plenty of both anecdotal and scientific research about what happens with this failure to align. However, what people are looking for is how to fix it.

I think people want simple, not complex solutions.

It's not about technology.

It's not about software.

It's about people, that simple.

If marketing is seen as Fancy-Dan head office function and sales is seen as a Neanderthal field function. Then why the surprise?

The first task is to break down that head office/field office barrier and get people mixing, talking and going on calls together.

Simply put, what they first need to do is they need to spend time together

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