CONCLUDING REMARKS
As we stated at the outset, a primary objective in writing this book was to share the many lessons we have learned along the way about what it takes to successfully shift ahead to stay relevant in a fast-changing society—Joel from his academic perspective and Allen from his in-the-trenches perspective. While there were many places throughout this book we could have inserted our favorite personal stories, we decided to save them for the end.
ALLEN ADAMSON
It was, perhaps, the most important piece of wisdom I received during my many years working as a marketing executive, given to me by Ken Roman, the CEO of Ogilvy, in the very early days of my career. And it continues to have an impact on how I approach business—and life, for that matter.
This advice was not handed to me before or after a particularly challenging assignment but, rather, during my job interview with Ken. It was actually my first job interview after graduate school, with Ogilvy & Mather, a still much-venerated communications firm. Suffice it to say, I was somewhat nervous. I knew that I knew my stuff, but I was going to have to convince the people who would be paying me that I knew my stuff. After a full day answering questions from a host of managers about marketing segmentation, media analytics, and other areas of functional process and procedure, I was told to stop by Ken Roman’s office for the ultimate thumbs-up, thumbs-down meeting. Gearing myself up for yet more questions on marketing strategy, I was surprised when after the initial exchange of pleasantries, Ken asked me to tell him about the last book I had read and the last movie I had seen, and how they had affected me. Thankfully, after a moment of fumbling, I was able to pull together a pretty decent response, after which Ken explained the reason for his question. It was that, as a client representative, among my most important responsibilities was to stay in touch with what was going on in the world, far outside the boundaries of any specific marketing initiative. I had to be the social barometer, the cultural point person, the ears and the eyes for our clients. I could be as diligent as possible in knowing my marketing stuff. However, if I wasn’t intellectually curious and creatively aware of contemporary trends and social issues, I would not be able to serve my clients well. I would not succeed in the business.
I took this advice to heart both as a newbie account guy and, as I ascended into positions of higher authority, the supervisor of class after class of newbie account and creative people. In my role as a manager, I counseled that, to best serve clients, it was essential to get out of the “bubble.” I encouraged my employees—and my colleagues—to get real, to make oneself aware of what was happening in the real world, beyond strategy documents and research reports. To not let themselves get consumed by the emails and spreadsheets, the trade publications, the industry conferences, and the general information overload on whatever it is they were supposed to be selling. To not be so consumed by the “busyness syndrome” to which so many of us fall victim. We forget to look up. We forget to look around. Consumers don’t live in a vacuum. As marketing professionals, we can’t operate in one.
Many of the people we interviewed for this book talked, in one way or another, about this need to get out of the bubble in order to be credible and to be genuinely valuable to consumers. It was a common theme, with good reason. Those who are successful at shifting ahead know that staying in touch with the cultural zeitgeist is critical to their success. All these many years later, I want to thank my first boss for his sage advice. Ken, while I’ve been extremely diligent in keeping up with my marketing skills, I have been equally diligent in ensuring I would be able to provide more than a pretty decent response to your original question. I know what’s going on out there in the market beyond my assignments, and I know why it matters. Your advice has served me, and hundreds of other marketing people, very well.
JOEL STECKEL
I am a relatively successful marketing professor at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University. Forty years ago, I was a math and physics major at Columbia University. Although I did not wear a pocket protector or horn-rimmed glasses, I would certainly have qualified as a geek. My “shift ahead” from geek to marketing professor was a process—a process that involved answering the door when opportunity knocked while respecting my own DNA.
In the late 1970s, when I was in college, kids went straight to graduate school. They did not take time off the way most students do today. As a senior, after realizing that I didn’t have the type of mind that would enable me to reach what was then my dream—a Ph.D. in math and a career as a math professor at a prestigious university—I had to find something else to do. Given the environment, it was going to involve school, not work. Not wanting to endure medical school or law school, I decided to make a last-minute application to business school and was admitted to the Wharton School’s MBA program. In retrospect, the reason I went was that I didn’t really have anything better to do.
Not surprisingly, I hated business school. I was a young twenty-one, not motivated for a career in commerce or happy with the material in the courses I was taking. After four years of advanced mathematics and physics, an MBA program seemed easy at the time. The most boring course? Ironically, it was marketing.
To alleviate the boredom of MBA courses, I took mathematically based Ph.D. courses as substitutes. It was easier and more entertaining to solve equations using calculus in economics than it was to shift supply and demand curves to the right or left to find a new equilibrium. Through those courses, I became acquainted with three men that would change my life. The first was Abba Krieger, a statistics professor. Abba needed a teaching assistant for his statistics course and I needed to make a little money, so this former math major got the job being Abba’s teaching assistant. Abba took me under his wing. He introduced me to a professor of marketing, Len Lodish, whose research was on mathematical models in marketing. I had barely gotten a B in my introductory marketing course (while being totally bored). I did not even know that mathematical models in marketing existed. Then Abba introduced me to Len over lunch one day and at that lunch, Len explained what he did. I then worked as Len’s research assistant. It was the first intellectually appealing thing I did in business school. Len advised me to stay at Wharton beyond my MBA and get a Ph.D. What a great idea.
Abba then introduced me to Professor Jerry Wind, the man who would become my dissertation adviser. I began my dissertation research and the rest is history.
I often think back and wonder what would have happened back at Wharton if I didn’t take Ph.D. courses as an MBA student. What would have happened if I assisted a professor other than Abba Krieger? I might never have met Len or Jerry. The initial lunch I had with Len Lodish was a turning point in my life. A door opened, and I entered. Opportunity knocked and I answered. I entered the world of marketing. I shifted ahead into an intellectually appealing field for which I had some aptitude.
Oh yes, that aptitude is in my DNA. I was able to build a successful career by applying my mathematical skills. My career has focused on building mathematical marketing models, using statistics to analyze marketing data, and teaching students how to do the same. I have been president of an important professional organization and the editor of one of our journals. Most ironically, I now teach the course that bored me almost forty years ago. I guess my students will now know that I only got a “B” in it when I was in business school. Well, they should know, too, that the course they are getting is very different from the one I got.