It is not clear who the Concerned HSV Residents are who put the Marketing HSV – White Paper together. But here is another opinion.
First, it is agreed that most of the points made in the White Paper are right on target. This community has serious challenges – marketing being a principal one – which are only being exacerbated by ridiculous moves being taken by our CEO. Failure of past boards of directors to recognize and address the situation is even worse.
However, the proposed solution of a Chief Marketing Officer operating autonomously from the CEO with a separate budget, etc. is misguided. It is only a recipe for disaster and further wasting of our precious resource dollars. The idea is similar to the hiring of consultants to create a Comprehensive Master Plan to solve all our problems. It simply won’t work.
In the real world of business The Chief Executive Officer is always The Chief Marketing Officer. That’s not to say there won’t also be a marketing vp, director, manager or similar position – the titles are irrelevant. But leadership comes from the top and there is no successful corporation whose leader does not possess and express all the requisite marketing knowledge, skills, characteristics and training needed for the corporation to grow and prosper. How they got the talent is irrelevant. It matters not if they started out as engineers, accountants, salesmen, or came up through the school of hard knocks. Somehow they acquired marketing savvy along with the other leadership and management abilities needed to run a corporation.
Simply put, the CEO must be the Marketing Leader or the enterprise will fail. Our present CEO has none of these skills. Our enterprise is failing.
The solution therefore is twofold:
- The CEO must be replaced with someone who does have the proper credentials and experience in marketing as well as the management, background and leadership skills we need.
- The Board must then work with this new leader to reorganize the entire POA business structure and management team to meet all of our marketing and other needs.
Yes, this will undoubtedly be costly. It is known that there are employment contracts to be dealt with, etc. Besides the CEO there may be other staff who are redundant or not suitable and must be reassigned or terminated. But, it is better to fix the root problem now than continue to play wait and see and ultimately hope to push through another member dues increase.
Anonymous HSV Resident May 1, 2019
Lloyd Sherman
05/02/2019 — 7:13 am
The twofold solution proposed in this excellent article is spot on! As an ex-business consultant, this is exactly the approach I would be taking. When I took a consulting assignment, I was the replacement for the CEO/Owner and all actions, procedures, policies, etc. proposed, we not just proposed, but implemented and monitored before we left the project. In most cases, the CEO/Owner had to be replaced. Casual observation of actions taken by this administration can be tied directly back to the “peter principle” being alive and well in HSV. A complete retooling of management is required. In this kind of an organization, everything rolls downhill and everything at the top of the hill must be changed. We need a qualified/experienced CEO who has been there and done that. While it would be nice to have a Marketing executive, with the right leadership an underlying and hungry protege with a minimum of five years of hands-on experience might also be an alternative. Until the action suggested in this article is accomplished, we are likely to continue down this wasteful and frustrating path.
Andy Kramek
05/02/2019 — 9:45 am
I am not sure that I can completely agree with this one. In my 25+ years consulting experience I have seen both approaches tried. In some cases the chosen method worked, in others it failed. Fundamentally it all comes down to the individual, their skill set and ability implement the correct actions. The greatest danger that I see is that one of two scenarios are followed:
[1] No change! I think we can all agree that some, fairly drastic, change is absolutely imperative as the current approach is clearly not delivering.
[2] The Wrong Change! By this I mean that we have to avoid the trap of the politician’s syllogism (We must do something! THIS is something! Therefore we must do THIS!).
Whatever route is taken, success will depend on the individual people involved, their skill sets and ability to implement the goals set by the Board. Plus, of course, an ability to work without disrupting the existing organization’s operations.
Kirk Denger
05/07/2019 — 10:18 pm
The trap we are experiencing now is “The Wrong Change.” This Wrong Change” CNU’s CMP has been disrupting our existing operations for the last 12 months since it was adopted. Our existing operations are firmly in place for the last 48 years and will be Happy when the CMP with it’s CEO are gone.