We live in an era that is obsessed with over -the -reaching.
Tech billionaires apply as sole progress architects and preach the virtues to move quickly and break things. Companies that imitate this way of thinking pursue disorders at all costs.
But here is the irony: marketing teams have spent the past decade to move quickly and break things just to be in an endless cycle of fixation. Fixing broken analyzes. Repair of separate martech stacks. Repairing broken messaging. Nothing is ever complete enough to set a new standard.
Somewhere on the way, the teams have lost the value of the modest process of determining a process.
The comedian David Mitchell once offered this funny observation In the British game show Would I lie to you?:
“One of the codes I live after is that my appearance should in no way be remarkable. But on the other hand, not so inconceivable that it is remarkable in itself. “
David explained his code with the example of a person who wears a gray tie that is so colorless, so unnoticed that he actually becomes remarkable in itself.
I thought of David’s “code” when someone sent me An Inc. article From a few years ago, in which content (and the disruptive iconoclasts that violate the grain of conventional processes in order to create them) violate foreseeable processes (and the people who follow them).
I will explain how I think it is associated with Mitchell’s code of life. But a bit of a rant first. (You can watch it in the video below or – with even more details – read it here.)
Content vs. process
The Inc. article warns organizations not to overlook “Hyper-Performers”. Ok, maybe you say who would argue differently?
However, what prompted my scolding is the false characterization of hyper-performers based on a quotation of the article from the article An interview in the mid -1990s With Steve Jobs:
“I found that the best people are those who really understand the content. (By “content” you consider what drives the results in your company.) And you are a pain to manage in the butt. But they fired it because they are so great in the content. And that makes great products. It is not a process. It is satisfied. “
Can you imagine that someone gets attention to how well they disturb the status quo and create value, but who is also a pain to manage?
In the interview, jobs told him how Apple’s engineering team told him that they would need five years to develop the mouse, and everyone would cost 300 US dollars to build. Therefore, he hired an external company that developed a developed in 90 days that would cost 15 US dollars.
A remarkable performance. But later in an interview, jobs implies that the process always stands in the way of innovation:
“Companies are confused. They want to repeat the initial success and many of them think that there is somehow magic. So they try to institutionalize processes, and soon people are confused that the process is the content. “
This is wrong.
Process and content must be in balance so that both remarkable results can be achieved. All remarkable content – including the content of a product And The experimental content that the marketers create is based on standardized, repeatable processes.
Jobs recognized the need for an innovative way to develop the mouse, since Apple’s standard processes informed its engineers that the desired type of mouse jobs would take five years and cost $ 300. But this well -understood process made it possible for him to recognize this need.
Finding a company to design an inexpensive mouse in 90 days was only 1. Success because Apple quickly developed this mouse and then improved its existing, repeatable process to set a new standard for the production of mice.
The creative solution And The repeatable process made it work.
Jobs could only know that the development of an inexpensive mouse in 90 days was innovative because Apple’s engineers had already set a standard.
Why content and marketing need both
Most organizations have at least a few hyper-performers in content-creative or professional expert stars who blow up their butt to create remarkable things.
In some organizations, these creators have no content standards or processes. In other cases, the hyper performers are excused from the defined process to avoid that their disorder is disturbing.
Without a standard operating process, to determine what “remarkable” looks like, organizations have difficulty recognizing the value of these star employees.
Let us assume that you are a new content leader in a company in which the products for product marketing, brand and PR teams run all the pioneers without siching each other’s plans. As a result, conflicts frequently.
You could come to the conclusion that there is no hope of changing the way this iconoclastic content-oriented hyper-performers work. So why create a process at all?
This is a mistake.
Without a standard method (a process), the company cannot determine which content should be prioritized or eliminated. Everyone can decide what “remarkable content” looks like from an individual or team lens. When someone says, “This is shit” and someone else says: “This is great”, they are both right – because there is no standard.
Some could say: “Let the performance data decide.” But the data is not sufficient without a standard process.
For example, you cannot determine whether the content cuts off well or poorly, unless every piece followed a defined distribution and doctoral process. You will not know whether success or failure has more to do with the content itself or the promotion of it. Did it fail because it was not promoted effectively, or was it only successful because of an extensive advertising campaign?
AI as a disturbing hyper-performer?
The promotion of the generative AI as a “hyper-performer” in the proverbial contents shows my point of view.
For example, Openai advised people His new argumentation models are calling for in a certain way. But as Mike Kaput of the Marketing AI Institute in a recent LinkedIn post, many who do this say Opposite Of what Openai advises, there are superior results.
Who is right? All.
Only people can assign chatt or generative AI output meaning. And people use their own experiences to determine the “superior” results.
If you do not have a defined process for evaluating the output, the issue you keep as superior is superior. It’s like asking if a film is better than another. You could keep a view while someone else holds another. Everyone is right.
Show standard processes where they are innovative
Taiichi Ohno, who did the Toyota production system pioneering work, once said: “There can be no improvement without standard.”
Therefore, the move for remarkable content in modern marketing must bring a balance with a collaborative process. Some of the most hyperformative specialists I have met are managers who have created a company -wide method for developing creative efforts.
It is the process, the standard and the business approach with which you can recognize the possibility of innovation. Yes, things slow down. It does this on purpose.
It is easy to recognize the value in the innovative superstar who does not want to adapt to the process, but often creates incredibly valuable things.
However, they only see how remarkable the results are by comparing them with the results from consistent and on the scale.
Process and content must work symbiotically.
Welcome process disorders
I would bet on money that the Apple Engineers weren’t a few dullards who didn’t understand it. They were probably extraordinarily competent people who looked at the situation and said: “That is what it is currently needed.”
Would you have been open how you would improve and innovate the process? Jobs don’t say.
If this were not the case, it is good to move the innovation to someone who is innovative for an extreme innovation. A process is only as strong as its ability to develop and improve.
Your process should not be remarkable in any way, but not so unnecessary that it is remarkable in itself.
A great content process is like an excellent sanitary installation: invisible and adaptable. It should promote improvisation and innovation by enabling the integration of remarkable exceptions.
And that brings me to my ultimate defense of the process person and the contents. An innovative process Is (or can) be content itself (i.e. the content of a great strategy).
Remarkable, standardized processes require the unique, from which the box think, design and the execution associated with great products. And the teams responsible for the process are no less valuable or innovative than those who think about the things they will produce.
Your team members do not create remarkable content every day. But on the days you do, your process helps you to recognize, repeat and improve.
It’s your story. Say it well.
Updated from a story in March 2023.
Hand injured content:
Cover picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute