Changing Corporate Goals

How to Deal With Changing Corporate Goals

It has become relatively commonplace – the top leadership changes, and the new CEO has substantially different ideas about the company’s direction.

Your carefully constructed strategic Marketing plan just got the rug yanked out from under it.

What to do? Use your Marketing By Objectives approach to become one of the first and most important players on board with the new reality.

The process doesn’t change. Only the inputs must be adjusted.

If the CEO issues a strategy document, you have all of the new information at your fingertips. Read it thoroughly (twice) and pick out the elements that should or could be supported by Marketing.

If the new direction is revealed piecemeal, you’ll have a greater challenge, as you’ll have to perform the strategic review after each major announcement.

Here are some key points to take into account:

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      Weighting. The weighting distribution will change, even if most goals remain the same. This is a simple but essential adjustment to your Marketing By Objectives master plan. Once your insert the new weightings, examine what this does to your existing programs’ scores. If any score drops precipitously, it’s obviously a red flag to begin considering exit strategies.

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      New objectives. Compile a list of every new objective first, prioritize them, then compare each of them in light of your previous list. Prioritizing first assures you will make the most efficient use of your time. If it is apparent that some of the new goals will have relatively low weighting, it may be sensible to consider them later – perhaps even next year.

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      Pet programs. If any of your marketing programs were weighted artificially high because of top executive preferences, now is the time to reconsider them more objectively. The corollary obviously is to be aware of potential preferences among the new executive team.

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      Sharpen your tools. You worked hard to create a system that works, so try to make it work with the new inputs. But be sensitive to the human tendency to hang on too long – if the old tools simply won’t work, start over. You’ll very likely find strong support among the new executive team for launching an initiative to support their vision.

Transitions are stressful. Let your Marketing By Objectives process take away the emotional component and let you become a key player in the new regime.