What your CSO isn't telling you.

Early in my career, the global chief strategy office flew in from London to meet us.

It was a big deal.

We prepared the department's best work from the year.

Our boss made us rehearse our presentations.

Like preparing a talent show for inbound royalty.

We did our best tap-dance and he was nice enough.

At the end of day, he took us to a fancy dinner, where over drinks, he encouraged us to ask him tough questions.

As the ever-ambitious planner, I asked him, "What's the absolute fastest way to become CSO?"

To which he replied--looking me dead in the eyes: "Pretend-- better than anyone else around you-- that you actually know what you're doing."

That was confusing as hell.

I thought the definition of becoming CSO was consistently being the 'smartest person in the room' at all times.

So, I dismissed it as dry British humor.

On reflection, more than a decade later, it turns out he was giving me honest advice.

More on that and a few other things your CSO isn't telling you.

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It's true: We don't know what we're doing either.

Confronted with a difficult problem/brief/situation, planners often think that their CSO isn't telling them what to do because they're too busy to.

The reality is, we're not telling you what to do because we don't know either.

The only difference may be that we may have seen something like 'that' a few times before and we survived.

Meaning, despite not having an 'answer,' we do probably do have more pattern recognition, more tools and most importantly, more confidence that no matter how hard/bad the situation feels, it'll be okay.

In fact, we've embraced the lack of any 'right answer' to be found. Ever. We've stopped looking.

Being CSO is 20% superior knowledge and 80% superior calm in the process of figuring something out.

Or, at least, pretending to have a healthy amount of each at all times.

Running out the clock is a thing.

More often than not, if you're setting up time with your CSO-- you have a problem.

Very rarely, do we get calls like, "Hi, just wanted to tell you everything's going great, the project is as smooth as ever and the client is listening to our recommendations. Bye."

Those conversations typically happen before they get to us. As they should.

So, after hearing your problem, the first thing we decide is simple: do something or do nothing.

And what your CSO is not telling you is most of the time we choose the latter.

We run out the clock and let things play out (excluding anything truly disastrous, criminal or HR-related, of course).

Usually, not because we're lazy or dismissive or cruel or stupid, but because most of the times, inaction is advantage.

A CSO that is consistently doing something, fixing things, stepping in, pulling rank is a CSO that is conditioning her/his team to always call for (and expect) help when times get tough.

Strategic inaction is a short-term gamble, but a long-term investment in building the capability of the total team. In fact, we often resist our own impulse to help.

We just can't tell you that.

You're much more important to us than we are to you.

The reality is the most junior planner knows more about the real consumers' lives than we ever will.

We're too old to know why Y2K fashion is making a comeback for Gen Z.

We've never played Valorant.

And we barely understand all the fuss about Charizard. Or Prime. Or Reverse Mochas. Or a Beast Burger.

It's very, very important-- like business important-- that you tell your CSO what you think about any given insight, strategy or idea.

That, you consistently push-through any nagging insecurity of 'sounding stupid' to explain why something will not work.

Truly great insights (and ideas) are buried deep between the gap of assumption and nuance.

We, CSO's, have a lot of assumptions that need to be pierced by your nuance.

We don't tell you, but your greatest value is your dissent.

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