Uncharted Waters

I fell in love with surfing about 12 years ago.

After retiring from professional rugby, I discovered a void was left behind when I no longer had the privilege of being outside every day, training with a brotherhood of friends for a game that challenged me both physically and mentally.

I began searching for that outlet elsewhere. In the years that ensued, I tried replacing rugby with everything from running and tennis to cycling and swimming to just plain hitting the gym. But nothing came close to measuring up. Then, by good fortune, a friend persuaded me to go on a surf vacation in Costa Rica, and everything changed.

For me, being out on the waves is at once incredibly physically taxing and almost meditative—a heady mix of adrenaline, clarity, calm, and focus.

Some surfers even experience what is called a “flow state”—when you can see and feel what’s coming before it happens. It’s an incredible feeling (one that I experienced on occasion when I was on the rugby field as well). You see what you’re about to do before you actually do it with complete clarity and perfect execution. You are almost unaware of how things happened so perfectly.

But what’s also true of surfing is a moment of perfection can quickly be followed by one that challenges you to your core. I’m talking about the wipeouts that involve significant time underwater in complete darkness with no sense of where the surface may be while the wave pushes you deeper. In those moments, trapped, spinning uncontrollably underwater, I am always reminded that no matter how deeply I think I’ve come to understand it, the ocean is—and will remain—utterly humbling.

Surfing taught me to keep striving to improve and not to get too comfortable. 

What begins as a perfect, glassy, sunny day can suddenly turn into a dark, cold, and uncomfortable place when you’re under a wave. In these situations, I remember the importance of giving up control. You can’t fight the power of the ocean. Out-of-control situations must reach their natural conclusions before you can act and decide on your next move.

Then it’s time to ask the hard questions: Do I paddle back out to try and catch another wave? Or do I paddle back in and live to fight another day?

Surfers with talents far better than my own have an ability to read waves and keep themselves out of trouble. They also know how to balance a desire to ride ever more challenging waves with a realistic assessment of their own experience and athletic ability.

Iconic surfers like Kelly Slater have almost uncanny “wave judgment”—an ability to calculate a good takeoff spot by considering factors like ocean topology, currents, tides, swell size, wind direction, and years of experience.

In competitions, Slater always seems to be in the right place at just the right time despite little evidence that what’s about to happen will happen. Slater sometimes even paddles away from where you’d expect the next wave to break.

Few spectators can often understand why he is doing what he’s doing—why he’s taking the risk when he can score on waves breaking further inside. But almost without exception, what he foresees comes to pass (big, high-scoring set waves), and he’ll close out a heat with high scores coming right at the end.

Slater and other great surfers develop an instinct about what will happen next. In conditions the rest of us would characterize as completely unpredictable, these guys always know the best place to seize an opportunity.

Savvy marketers are much the same: Like pro-surfers connecting with their environments, marketers know that finding great moments for customer engagement takes good timing, a lot of preparation (amidst a huge number of variables), and an ability to adapt to what’s happening at any given moment.

As marketers, we’ve been re-organizing ourselves to infuse more data and insights into our decision-making, aiding our radical focus on customer centricity.

When the patterns shift, we know we must be equipped to spot the right moment to engage. We must be ready to go where our customers take us, adapt our plans, and execute with agility. That’s why, here at T-Mobile, we encourage our teams to take in all the dynamic voices and the shifting landscape (the data, insights, and perspectives), and to embrace the fast-moving culture our customers exist within.

Moving our teams to constellations that focus on key customer experiences (versus our previous vertical taxonomies of expertise like advertising, media, social, strategy, etc.) has been a significant evolution of our organization. For example, the results so far for our product management teams have been exciting: Greater clarity of priorities in key customer experience improvements, more time to execute with our development partners, more frequent releases, and better experiences for our customers.

So which surf break are we heading to next?

We're headed toward uncharted marketing territory—a near future in which (in the words of my friend and Beautycon CEO Moj Mahdara) “niche is the new norm.” It’s a future in which the majority of our customers check the “none of the above” or “other” box.

Moj visited us a couple weeks ago for a discussion on how brands can evolve customer experience for a generation of Pivotals (otherwise known as Gen Z)—a generation that refuses to be defined by segments, demographic profiles, or broad behaviors.

As a marketer, I’m so excited about the new challenge. It’s in our T-Mobile DNA to question the status quo, and I’m looking forward to building relationships with a generation that connects with companies based on a shared set of values.

More on this soon, but rest assured: Some waves are on the horizon and we can’t wait to catch them...

Nick Drake is the Executive Vice President of Marketing & Experience at T-Mobile USA, Inc. He can be found on Twitter @drakenic and on Instagram @tmobilemax.