Interview
The Gist
- Aspiring CMO? Copulsky recommends engaging in proactive and purposeful planning in your career path.
- The power of networking. This step is crucial for climbing the corporate ladder in marketing and maintaining strong, reciprocal relationships.
- Become an adaptable leader. Today’s CMOs need a diverse set of skills beyond marketing, including analytics, finance and technology.
Jonathan Copulsky, senior lecturer of marketing at Northwestern University and seasoned marketing leader, provides invaluable insights into the makings of a chief marketing officer in this episode of CMSWire's The CMO Circle.
Copulsky reveals the critical lessons in his CMO Accelerator program, designed to prepare future marketers for a spot in the C-suite. He covers how to initiate strategic career conversations, the true power of networking and what skills you need today to thrive in an executive role.
Table of Contents
- Episode Transcript
- How to Start a Conversation About Your Career
- The Skills Future Marketing Leaders Need
- How to Stay Relevant in a Rapidly-Changing Field
- The Power of Networking for Career Advancement
- Where Mentorship Fits in to Climbing the Career Ladder
- Keys to Successful Marketing Leadership
- Concrete Steps to Move Ahead Now
Episode Transcript
Michelle Hawley: Hello and welcome to another episode of the CMO Circle. I'm Michelle Hawley, your host and senior editor at CMSWire. Today we have with us Jonathan Copulsky, marketing leader, senior lecturer at Northwestern University and award-winning author.
We're going to cover what exactly it takes to become a chief marketing officer, something Jonathan teaches in his program called the CMO Accelerator. Hi, Jonathan. Thank you for joining me today.
Jonathan Copulsky: Delighted to be with you, Michelle. Look forward to our conversation.
How to Start a Conversation About Your Career
Michelle: Yeah, I'm excited to dig in here. You've got a lot of expertise in the marketing world, and now you're shaping future generations of CMOs and teaching them the skills and knowledge they need to advance in their careers. So right off the bat, what kind of conversations should people have if this is the career move they want to make? What should they be saying to their bosses?
Jonathan: Good question. Let me just step back for a second. One of the things I've noticed over the years is that people expect to move to the next level if they do a good job. And one thing I've learned, both about my own career and others' careers, is that we need to be more purposeful in setting out where we want to be and then work our way backwards to identify the steps we can take and the actions we can perform that will get us a little bit closer.
So back to your question: The conversation with our colleagues, bosses and leaders should all be about what I want to be when I grow up and how I can take what I'm currently doing to ensure that I'm building skills, learning new things and setting myself up for future success. It's about being ambitious but also realistic about how long it might take to get from here to there.
So having that dialogue about aspirations, future career and where I want to go is essential. Also, being humble enough to recognize and accept when we hear things that may not be exactly what we'd like to hear as feedback and constructive criticism.
Michelle: So, what does that conversation starter look like if you're having your one-on-one meeting with your boss and maybe they haven't asked you that question in a while, like where do you see yourself in five years? How do you even start that conversation?
Jonathan: One of the observations I have is that many bosses never ask that question, sometimes because they themselves may never have thought about that.
The easiest way can be something as simple as saying, "If you have time, I'd love to talk about how I can set myself up for future success. What should I be doing? Where should I be working? What should I be learning?" So, ask permission to have that conversation. What doesn't work is when they say, "I want to be a CMO in three years, and I need your help to get there. What are you going to do for me?" Those don't tend to work as well.
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The Skills Future Marketing Leaders Need
Michelle: What other challenges, besides being more purposeful about where you want your career to go and starting that dialogue, do you see pop up with people who want to move from that mid-level marketing career up to an executive level?
Jonathan: I think the biggest challenge is that people, assuming someone is well-qualified and they've had good experience, often don't recognize that the skills and expertise that got them to where they are may be insufficient to take them to the next level. Where there tends to be gaps is less about technical or functional skills and much more about leadership, interpersonal and collaborative skills that will be essential for success in more senior roles. That's the biggest challenge.
The second challenge may be that there may be specific gaps from a functional standpoint — perhaps they've worked in media but don't have the same level of expertise in data and analytics, or they've worked in data and analytics but haven't had a chance to develop their creative skills.
Michelle: In your program, you touched on this with the skills that leaders, CMOs and future CMOs need. What kind of skills do you focus on in your CMO Accelerator program that you might not see in a traditional marketing course?
Jonathan: The program we started to roll out earlier this year, and we will continue to roll out over the next year in different cities around the country, is a one and a half day program. It's absolutely impossible that we're going to teach everybody what they need to know to be successful as a CMO. So this is really meant as a first step to turbocharge people towards that.
What we're trying to do is three things: help people understand what the role is and what it isn't; understand how you actually get the role, what the process is from a recruiting standpoint, selection standpoint, so forth; and then once you have the role, how can you be successful?
So we're really trying to bucket it into building people's understanding. And then along the way, we're also asking them to do an honest assessment of what their skills are, what their expertise is, how that's been reflected in experiences they've had and then really thinking about what their network is and how good is their network in terms of getting them to where they want to be so that when someone's thinking about a CMO, they'll be at the top of the list. And then thinking about once they get that role, what are some other additional skills that they'll need to build to be successful within it? And so how can they set up a learning education program for themselves that will get them there?
Michelle: Have you ever had anyone come into the program who, you know, came in wanting to be a CMO, learned more about the role and what it entails and then left thinking:maybe this isn't for me?
Jonathan: Well, the program is still relatively new for us, but that's a great question, Michelle. I do think there are some people who haven't necessarily left saying, "Forget it, never want to do it again." But I have had people who, interestingly enough, I'm going to have lunch with someone today who made this reflection: "Maybe this is not quite what I want to do, or maybe let me think a little bit more about that."
The title sounds incredibly attractive. Chief Marketing Officer — who would not want to be that if you're in marketing? But I do think some people sometimes reflect and say, "The things I really enjoy doing are much more at the operational functional level as opposed to the leadership level." And that's okay. Not everybody in the world can be, should be, or wants to be a CMO, and that's okay.
Michelle: Do you think that's where that hesitation comes from, having more of the leadership and the red tape and not getting to be more creative in your role?
Jonathan: Maybe that's it. It may also just be a recognition that the things they may have enjoyed about their current role, they'll get further and further away from. So you go from doing something to managing something to managing people who are managing other people who are doing something. And people may have really enjoyed the hands-on execution of some things, and that's okay.
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How to Stay Relevant in a Rapidly-Changing Field
Michelle: It's a field that's really changing rapidly with all the technology that's coming into play. What kind of strategies do you teach in your course, or do you just recommend in general for marketers, especially those who want to take that CMO role, to stay relevant and make sure they're learning the most relevant information?
Jonathan: I'm a big believer in education. One of the things that we talked about, I co-authored a book a couple of years ago called "The Technology Fallacy," and this is really about why some companies, legacy organizations, were better at harnessing the power of technology versus some others.
And what we discovered was that the companies that tended to be better at harnessing the power of technology tend to be much better at what we call the absorptive capacity. And that's just a term that describes the ability of an individual and organization to always be learning. So whether it's AI, whether it's other types of technology, whether it's situations about governance and risk and regulation, we always need to have this open mind.
I often recommend to people the book by Carol Dweck called "Mindset." And it's about the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. And in the book, Dweck talks about the importance of always learning. And the CEO of Microsoft read the book and he had this epiphany. And the epiphany said: When I've been at Microsoft, I've always been looking for know-it-alls. After reading the book, I've started to look for learn-it-alls.
So we do encourage that mindset, which is, okay, let me think about my learning agenda. So as a practical matter, what we talk about in the class is: What are you going to focus on learning in the next six to 12 months? And that may be taking a course in AI, it may be taking a course in leadership, it may be taking a course in interpersonal dynamics, whatever that is, or what books do I want to read, or who do I want to meet or what conferences do I want to attend. So having a learning program is pretty important.
And just for a second, to go back to the question we asked before, one of the outcomes from the conversation that you have with your boss about “what do I do next” could be: Let's agree that you're going to sponsor me to go to X program or Y program. That will solve my learning.
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The Power of Networking for Career Advancement
Michelle: Kind of going back a little bit, because you briefly mentioned networking and being top of mind for people when they're looking for someone in a role. Could you talk a little bit more about the importance of networking and even mentorship when it comes to climbing that career ladder in marketing?
Jonathan: Well, let's separate those into two things. You could be a mentor, you could be a mentee, and let me come back to that. Let's talk a little bit about networking.
I've been in the marketplace for 45 plus years. I know a lot of people. I'm connected with 10,000 people on LinkedIn and so forth. And I'd say every once in a while, my phone will ring. I'll look at the person's name and I'll say, "I haven't heard from them in two, three years. I bet they lost their job." And I pick up the phone and say, "Hello, David, or hello, Michelle, hello, whatever." More often than not, that's the case.
And so there, we haven't spoken in a while, but by the way, I'm looking for a job, maybe you can help me. You know, because it becomes very transactional. So it's really about, you know, stepping back and saying, "So who's in my network today? How strong are those relationships? And how good am I at maintaining that relationship?"
And years ago, I read one of Adam Grant's books, but it's really about making sure that there is reciprocity in that relationship. It's not just I'm taking, but I'm also giving back. So we actually ask participants in the program to write down who are the 15 to 20 most important people in their network, how strong is their relationship and to what extent is it valuable to them to increase the strength of that relationship. And then we ask them to do the same with people who they think should be in their network and identify that.
And we'll come back and talk about sort of an action program, but just going through that process, what some people realize is that their network is a lot more thin than they would like, and even relationships that they have are more weak than they should be given the importance of those people to their future.
Michelle: Yeah, I think that sounds like a great idea, because LinkedIn is out there for people to try to network with people, but I feel like it's become more of this hub for just kind of grabbing as many connections as you can. And you haven't met a lot of these people, haven't spoken to a lot of these people. And so like you said, if you need to reach out later on, when you need a job or you're looking for an opportunity, they're not really going to be thinking of you as an actual person to put in place. They don't know you.
Jonathan: Often networking becomes like, "I better network because I'm looking for the job." Or I better network because my boss told me to network more. As opposed to, you know, that's just part of a skill that we cultivate and develop.
And that relationship is, it goes both ways. You need to give something to the people in our network. And sometimes we are privileged to get something from them in return. And I always tell students of mine who are in degree programs, when you have a conversation with somebody, finish the conversation. Say thank you, send a note afterwards. It doesn't need to be handwritten, but send a note, whether it's an email or text or whatever.
But the last question to ask them is, "Is there anything I can do for you?" And some of my students have said, "Well, you know, I'm just like 23 years old. How can I possibly help them?" I said, "Just ask. Because even if you can't help them, they'll appreciate it. And you may be surprised. Sometimes there may be something in your experience
Maybe they have a son or daughter who's looking for help and they may have some relevant expertise. Maybe there's somebody else who's looking for a part-time employee. You may be the right person. So never forget. Finish a conversation. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Where Mentorship Fits in to Climbing the Career Ladder
Michelle: And then on the mentor-mentee side of things, whether it's someone within your own organization or someone outside the organization, how does that kind of fit into climbing the career ladder?
Jonathan: Let's start from a mentor perspective, right? The reason why people are willing to be mentors is because they have had help along the way. They want to share, pay it forward, if you will, with other people who they recognize could use some help. And it's much about a relationship as it is about a formal role.
Some organizations have tried to put people in formal roles and more often than not, that doesn't work well because there's not necessarily the right kind of chemistry. Mentor-mentee relationship is more about sharing, listening, being humbl, and also stepping back and you're a good mentor. It's not about giving advice, but it's helping the person to discover what's getting in the way.
I'll talk about myself sometimes, you know, here's the 10 bad things that you shouldn’t do. Here's the people you should meet, And we immediately start to go into advice mode. And that's really not what mentoring is all about. Mentoring is about saying, "Why do you think you're not doing it? What's getting in the way? What would you like to do?" So it's about asking questions and for the mentee about being honest enough and authentic enough to share some of those things that are still getting in the way.
And I'm a big believer that if we could identify, what are the obstacles that face us and then honestly confront them, those will help us a long way to start to come up with programs of how we get over those obstacles.
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Keys to Successful Marketing Leadership
Michelle: When it comes to leadership in the CMO role, when you're focusing on your CMO accelerator program and you're teaching students in that class, do you have a particular style of leadership that you feel fits well today that maybe has changed in the past?
Jonathan: So if you look at how this role of CMO has evolved, 20 years ago there were not lot of CMOs and then the role came out and now there are a bunch of roles, sometimes chief customer experience officer, chief customer officer, chief marketing officer, any number of different roles that kind of play in this space.
But what has become evident is, first of all, the role involves a lot more analytical prowess than ever before, involves a lot more understanding of finance than ever before and it involves a lot more dependence and reliance on technology enablement than ever before. So the role requires a leadership style which is very collaborative with colleagues in the operations area, in the finance area, in the technology area, in the risk area. So being able to have a style, which is as much listening as it is telling, it becomes important to that.
The other thing is, there's still, particularly in business-to-business where I do a lot of work, a lot of, let's say, misunderstanding about the role of marketing. And so to a certain extent, the CMO needs to be an evangelist for the power of marketing and how the power of marketing can really help to influence business success, which means that the CMO has to better understand what the drivers are of success to the business and how what they're doing as a marketer aligns against that. So collaboration, understanding really the business itself and then understanding how you persuade and collaborate with people.
And when we recently had a panel of very experienced CMOs, when we asked them about what mistakes have they made,some said that they didn’t spend enough time understanding the business basics because they were both so focused on marketing, and where does the global aspect kind of fit into that now with companies?
Michelle: Marketers aren’t just marketing locally or even just the United States, they're marketing all across different nations. How do you teach students to look at those different global trends and how can they market differently to different types of people?
Jonathan: If I could do my own career over again, I would have spent more time living in other countries and I don't think there's any substitute for that. To the degree that you could spend some time, I'm looking at a former colleague of mine who's recently taken on the role of chief technology officer for one of the largest consumer packaged goods companies, and he's posting to LinkedIn. And I've never seen this before over the course of his career. He’s going to all these different sites around the world and listening. So there's no substitute for being there, boots on the ground, so forth.
So I highly encourage people when they get a chance, whether it's a tour of duty, whether it's a project, whether it's business and so forth, to actually get out and listen and not presume that we're doing it necessarily better in the US than in other countries because often what we see is the countries that made adaptations to their particular circumstances, we said: that's brilliant. What can we do to copy that?
Michelle: Yeah, I agree. I think being able to be there and see how people are is probably the best thing that you can do and to prevent things like brands trying to go into a new country with, you know, say Target or McDonald's, and then it's not working out because they don't realize that people don't want that specific thing or they're not following cultural norms.
Concrete Steps to Move Ahead Now
Michelle: So we've got time for one more question, for anyone who's an aspiring CMO that might be listening. What kind of concrete steps can they take to move ahead?
Jonathan: So in the program, we spent a fair amount of time on reworking. Worksheet one is really taking your experiences and assessing your experiences relative to a set of capabilities and skills. Now we use a recently developed a piece of work done by the Association of National Advertisers, the ANA, which is marketing capabilities. And I have found that that's a good way to look at this.
So we say: look at the entire set of skills and then think about each of your experiences discreetly and to what extent they've allowed you to either master the skill, get exposed to the skill or not at all and then see where the gaps are. So step one is really looking honestly at your experience, skill-based expertise, and identifying gaps.
The second thing is really looking at that network, looking where there's strengths, where there's weaknesses, where there's gaps and absences and so forth.
Then the third is sort of pulling together into an action plan. The other thing, which I would say, and I notice this repeatedly with people, is how to tell your story and being able to give that one to two minute thing. And I've shared with you both a video as well as an article by a colleague of mine at Kellogg, the title of it is [“How to Talk About What You Do (Without Being Boring)”]. And it’s interesting.
So when we run the program, we start off with this introduction, and I asked people to watch the video with Craig, read the article so that they really can tell the story. And you can see people struggling because often, the story is, well, I'm Jonathan and I live in Chicago and I've done a lot of things and looking forward to spending the day with you.
And you really want to tell a story so that when you do meet somebody and they ask that question, they'll tell me about yourself. That they get excited about who you are, but they also have now an opportunity for a dialogue. The other book I'd recommend, David Brooks wrote a book, probably about a year or two ago, and it was really about how to have a conversation with people.
So, you know, developing your conversational skills and you do that through having conversations like we're having. So I would encourage people, and this is true for any leadership role, but particularly for CMOs, to really cultivate those listening skills and think about, you know, how do you ask people about themselves? Because we all like talking about ourselves.
So how do you get that skill, have that networking conversation, have that career discussion, have that conversation with a potential recruiter where you plant some seeds so that they can ask good questions about you and you're asking good questions about them.
Michelle: Well, quick follow-up question for you there then. If you've looked at your network, you've seen some gaps, you've identified the people or the kind of people that you want to add to your network. With so many people working from home or working in a hybrid capacity, what are the best ways then to get out there and find people to network with?
Jonathan: Once again, I could go back to one of your early questions. You know, that's a good conversation to have with your boss. Sharing your plan with your boss. I mean, that's what we encourage people to do. Say, this is what I'd like to do. This is what I want to learn. There are the people I'd like to meet and so forth. And, you know, do I have your permission to travel to a different city or to have a lunch with people or attend a conference and so forth? So I think most bosses, certainly any good bosses, are inclined to help their people be successful.
So having the conversation, asking people who you work with for permission to do that, but sharing that. The sharing part is the skills, the network, the actions, the expertise that you want to develop. All things which, in my experience, when you do come to somebody as a boss, and I've managed large organizations, both Deloitte for a number of years, CCH where I was a leader and member of the executive team and other organizations, even at Northwestern. When somebody comes to me with a plan, I get excited because then I see that they have that growth mindset that Sasha Nadella at Microsoft is looking for. I want to help.
Michelle: Thank you so much for being here today, Jonathan. It was great speaking with you.
Jonathan: Thank you, Michelle, and I appreciate the opportunity.
Michelle: Thank you for tuning in for another episode of the CMO Circle. Don't forget to check back next month for an all-new episode. And in the meantime, you can check out our other CMSWire TV shows, Beyond the Call and the Digital Experience.
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