Power to the (marcomms) people: how to be a force for good growth

For Build Up’s first in-person event of 2023 we switched up our format – running an interactive workshop to explore ‘how to be a force for good growth’ with leadership, business & workplace coach Rachel Birchmore (Founder, AreBe) and strategic marketer Isabelle Galley (AECOM).

In recent years our built environment industry has made positive strides to be more climate and nature conscious, equitable and diverse, but there is much more to be done if we’re going to grow sustainably. This session explored the challenges and opportunities our marcomms professional community has in being a proactive force for good growth, no matter your seniority or role.

To kick things off, we asked everyone to think about two questions:

“What does being a force for good growth mean to you?”

And then:

“Where would you place yourself on a scale of 0-10? 0 being you don’t think you are able to influence anything and 10 being that you’re right in the mix, super influential and have total value-alignment with your organisation.”

We then formed four groups with a mix in each of people from every part of the scale and set about discussing our first workshop question.

“Where are the opportunities and where are the blockers to being a force for good growth?”

It was great to see a wide range of thoughts from around the room as well as a lot of us facing the same challenges – for example:

Opportunities

• Being at the centre of an organisation, seeing and hearing what goes on as well as what’s coming down the track
• Knowledge and understanding of the market
• Able to make connections between people in an organisation that aren’t immediately obvious to others working in more siloed teams perhaps
• Passion for the industry and an ability to be an articulate advocate

Blockers

• Being ‘juniorized’ and/or not included in the development of business strategy
• Being a ‘one-stop-shop’ and asked to be the photographer / designer / marketer / social media guru as well as proposal or even HR manager!
• Not knowing what to say yes/no – being unclear on values and business goals
• Having to educate business leaders on marketing/comms to gain approval and buy-in

?After a lively feedback session, and keeping our opportunities in mind, we then gave each group a challenge to solve in order to be a force for good growth:

1. Altering the perception of marcomms
2. Accelerating change
3. Influencing and realising strategy
4. Conflicting values

We got some awesome ideas from groups, not only on their own challenge but also on others as we circulated around the room to share thoughts. Safe to say, the flip boards were full!

The last portion of the workshop was feedback time on each of the challenges – thank you to our group spokespeople!

Some of the insights on each challenge:

Altering the perception of marcomms – from ‘ultimate one-stop-shop’ to value driver

• We need to take responsibility to professionalise the function of marketing and communications, starting with our own continued professional development
• Role clarity and attracting diverse, specialist talent is important
• Evidence our value (not just ROI!) and how our work is aligned to achieving business objectives
• Educate businesses on what we do and be transparent about it
• Be our own PR!
• Be proactive about sharing insights
• Better resource management
• Have team leads with sufficient levels of authority and autonomy
• Grow with the business

Accelerating change

• Perform competitor analysis to evidence why change needs to happen
• Empower the next generation
• Get external support / advice
• Broaden perspectives by looking beyond the built environment
• Bring in diverse views
• Be more transparent / accountable to lead the way for broader change
• Change our language (no jargon!)

Influencing and realising strategy

• Ask (and keep asking!) to be part of important conversations
• Build trust and an established reputation
• Clarify roles and responsibilities, including strategy
• Mirror technical titles – ‘CMO, Senior Associate,’ – to be included in the c-suite / associate level discussions
• Have professional boundaries – protect your time

Conflicting values

• Remain authentic
• Advocate for transparency and be transparent
• Learn from mistakes
• Take opportunities to influence decisions
• Share / debunk – move the conversation forward
• Ask: how do we constructively influence the direction of the business for the better?

Finally, we asked everyone, what will you do differently as a result of this workshop to be a force for good growth?

There is no right answer – we all need to grab it and go for it – power to the (marcomms) people!

Find out more about our upcoming events throughout 2023 and invite others to say hello and get involved. See you soon, the Build Up team x

Build Up Network - a community of communications professionals and practice owners who work in the built environment.