Got a great question…someone asked me how you demonstrate value when you work in the softer functions?
In many companies, there’s an unspoken pecking order, usually with sales or anything revenue driven being first. Often at the bottom are the “support” functions…like communications. Having been a COO, I can definitely relate to how challenging that can be….a couple of suggestions should you find yourself in this type of role….
- Anchor your purpose to something tangible and measurable…no matter how soft your function is, there’s a metric somewhere. In my COO role, one area I was responsible for was people engagement. Usually, the approach is to have more lunches, networking events….but it felt mushy. So I focused on our annual employee satisfaction survey results. There were several questions which disturbingly low numbers…those were the questions we focused on. Our employees didn’t feel that we did enough for their development: so we launched training programs, had our senior folks run special classes, and communicated these at every town hall by publishing attendance stats. The year after, we saw improvement in the score.
- Be mindful of the optics. If you’re a support function, don’t make your team so huge that people snipe about your function, or that in an economic downturn, you become the most logical place to target. You want to be lean and show that you’re as aware of the P&L as much as anyone else. I like to keep the team as small as possible, and upgrade talent to gain bandwith.
- Be both proactive and reactive. Ask for feedback on how you’re doing….but also come up with ideas and suggestions for the individual. I especially like transferring best practices as a way to get everyone on board. I had a weekly meeting with each of my colleagues just like I did with my boss to talk about what they needed and how we could help.
- Be obsessed with delivering value every day. No matter what your function, you should know at the end of every day how you moved the ball forward. It’s too easy for everything to become rote.
- Find your harshest critic. Find the biggest naysayer in the organization and listen to what they have to say. Unless they’re a complete jerk, they might be saying things everyone is thinking but isn’t saying. I had one respected person I always went to for feedback because I knew he wasn’t a fan. Some of his points were right on, and he appreciated that I cared about his opinion. I didn’t always do what he wanted me to, but at least I listened.
Is it easier just to do what the function requires? Absolutely. But if you want to move from “nice to have” to “must have”, you’re going to have to play by the same rules as everyone else.