Tag: Training

As a second-year commerce student, and someone who has always been interested in the In’s and Out’s of marketing, being offered an internship with Marketing Eye was a dream come true. Whilst I do love my university degree and am no doubt learning the key fundamentals that will assist me in my future careers, it is all relatively theoretical. At Marketing Eye, and in my position as an intern, I was given the chance to actively use the skills I have been taught, engage with real-life tasks, and ask deeper industry-specific questions. 

The lines blurred sometime in the last 10 years, but I don't know exactly when it happened.

Having started my first business at 25 years of age, specializing in technology marketing, I thought I had it all. A marketer who understood technology marketing and who could talk the talk which at that time seemed to be, the height of the dot com boom, the most lucrative marketing position one could hold.

Then of course, someone came along and started talking about company culture, and marketers took a turn to start embellishing the on-boarding process of new recruits, with a mixture of "people marketing" with "technology marketing" - and for a time, that was all the rage. It seemed to be the only thing people were talking about and marketers started to play a role in human resources, giving recruiters and in-house HR managers the tools to "sell their brands" like they were a front line sales executive needing to close the deal in order to reach their quotas.

The next 12-months is going to be incredibly different for people who work at Marketing Eye. After years of working hard at establishing a product and service that is unsurpassed by industry standards, driven by technology, systems and processes, we are now working tirelessly on how to build the right culture going forward.

There have been many hit and misses and lots of unnecessary frustration, but finally I think as a team we have hit the nail on the head and I am about to test it to the nth degree.

Flat Organisational Structure

Weaning employees off hierarchy-driven decision making has been a test of both patience and perseverance. Gen-Y's have been told that they need leadership in order to be successful, yet some of the most successful companies in the world, like Google, are saying quite the opposite. Their investment in a flat organisational structure has not only shown dividends on the balance sheet, but it has created a workplace and culture that the world-over admires and respects.

For smaller companies that have an established organisational structure, driven largely by an entrepreneur, it is more difficult to adapt to a flat organisational structure with the primary reason being that both parties; the entrepreneur and the employees, find it difficult to let go.

I have been travelling the world growing "my small business" and have found that it is almost impossible to be the leader I would have hoped to be, living the life I do. I certainly am no role model in this department, nor do I follow the many books I have bought over time on "how to be a good leader" no matter how much I try but ultimately fail in my pursuit.

It’s happened to all of us at some point, where we are at a meeting and have lost our train of thought, forgotten the name of our colleague or the person we are meeting with, or just forgotten important details that we really need to remember.

Whether you are a small company or a large one, you and your team can do better. If you look at the best companies in the world, they always invest in training their staff and in particular, their managers.

Having been in business now for 10 years, I certainly have had my fair share of employee attitudes.

 It goes with the territory and it goes with my training as a Manager and ultimately leader of the organisation.