Imagine if you were suddenly in charge of rebuilding America’s infrastructure. Or overhauling our society’s healthcare. Or restructuring the tuition economics of higher education. How would you answer such a call?
Twenty years ago, you might have led the effort as a problem-solver-in-chief, creating a plan by breaking the big challenge into smaller pieces, hiring analysts to crunch some options, and then forging a compromise solution among competing stakeholders.
A Different Approach
OK for then, but not today. Or so argues Bill Matassoni, who capped his recent rollicking memoir of a forty-year marketing career with the bold claim that society's big complicated challenges now require some fresh thinking and leading. The book’s title sums up the proposition: Marketing Saves the World.
“Marketing?” I asked, as we started discussing the book. “That’s going to save the world?” (Disclosure: in 1987, Bill Matassoni hired me into McKinsey & Co., where we worked together for a couple of years—long before either of us worried about rescuing civilization.)
“Well, it’s not just marketeers I’m talking about. All leaders have to reorient their thinking for big challenges ahead. They have to adopt a new sensibility and skills, which I’ve seen revolutionizing marketing over the last ten years.”
As we talked further, it became clear the skills and sensibilities he envisions are not about “fixing problems” but rather reinventing systems: the complex, interrelated processes, information flows and incentives that surround any domain of human society or business operating in today’s global economy. Matassoni argues that reinventing systems creates more and widely distributed value; and if done right, allows all stakeholders to share in the rewards and enjoy better lives as the system grows and adapts into the future.
“Two principles ground this approach,” Matassoni explained. “First, replacing traditional, linear marketing strategies (e.g. creating specific value, communicating it, then capturing it) with more dynamic systems thinking, and guiding the interrelationships among system elements, to create broader, ongoing growth. Second, relentlessly pursuing ‘win-win’ strategies so every stakeholder gets an outcome they desire—which Nobel-prize-winning economist John Nash has shown drives the best results. “
Matassoni wasn't promoting so much a specific methodology, but rather suggesting a conceptual shift for all leaders today: rethinking how to solve big problems with a new marketing-inspired mindset.
Five propositions emerged from our conversation. Ask yourself if any of these are now shaping—or should be shaping—your leadership too.
1.System change begins with system thinking. Many leaders today opine about “fixing the healthcare system” or “transforming the energy conservation system,” or building strategies for this or that business across “the entire ecosystem of an industry.” But how many, as Matassoni pointed out, do the homework to really understand what “system thinking” means? Or actually utilize its well-established tools and practices? What’s your own level of understanding about how to change a complex system, and redesign it so it continues to evolve and adapt?
“If you’re going to move beyond incrementally fixing narrow problems— for example, not just lowering drug prices but rather transforming healthcare overall (e.g. simultaneously improving access, innovation, affordability, health outcomes)—you have to understand at least some system dynamics. Get familiar with basics of information stocks and flows, feedback loops, intervention points, etc. The work of Donella Meadows is a good place to start. You need enough background to work with systems specialists who will be on your team.”
2. Humanize your systems thinking with intangible values too. That said, if you bury yourself too deeply in systems thinking, with its often bloodless diagrams, you can lose track of real people. Matassoni commented further:“With everything dynamically connected now, you can’t just map information flows and feedback loops. You also have to pay attention to human emotions and purpose. Old marketing often missed that. Reinventing win-win systems goes beyond money and market share—you also have to consider things like different stakeholders’ sense of identity. In a healthcare system, how does the work doctors do define who they are, and what they aspire to be? Or nurses? Hospital administrators? What meaning do pharma researchers bring to their clinical trials? How do patients expect to be treated?"
3. Harness action with superordinate goals. To get at the intangible values of a system—and also prioritize the right information flows and feedback loops, Matassoni stressed that that leaders must define success ultimately with “superordinate goals”—communicating higher-level hopes and desires that can inspire people to pursue change together. Tomorrow’s leaders will bring marketing-style savvy to explain why overcoming this or that big challenge really matters to people. They reach for higher aspirations than the narrower objectives of classical problem-solving.
“Rebuilding America’s infrastructure is not just filling potholes or shoring up bridges. A great leader will engage partners and followers about transformational system change, for better transportation to all help people access better food, get education, improve their skills, connect more regularly with their families.”
4. Run experiments, and keep learning. Matassoni insists that system reinvention must be an ongoing process of learn-by-doing. “Why aren’t our leaders running more experiments to redesign the systems of healthcare or higher education? Why aren’t we learning more from norm-breaking pilot programs in every major social domain? For example, restructuring the astronomical costs of attending college by learning from so-called income-share agreements, pioneered by Ashoka entrepreneurs and Purdue University --making loans to students, secured and paid off to 'investors' with slices of their later career earnings?”
5. Embrace the energy of capitalism. Traditional approaches to complex and dynamic issues without a known solution—be they societal or commercial dilemmas—often employ the multi-stakeholder discipline of “wicked problem-solving.” Matassoni’s prescriptions echo some of that methodology—getting all the stakeholders around the table, understanding their different goals, engaging in adaptive learning—but he also criticized potential pitfalls. First, too much collaboration for collaboration’s sake: “In search of building trust, you can devolve into self-defeating incremental and ‘play nice’ compromises. You need stakeholders around the table to fight each other, to get better solutions. And you have to keep sorting for winners, and then fire people who can’t deliver or just want to obstruct things. Who’s ‘around the table’ has to keep evolving.”
Second, avoid the feel-good corporate social responsibility: “When businesses participate—as they must—you want them pushing for everything they can get to help their bottom line—supported by the redesigned system. At the same time, though profit is important so is supporting the dignity and self-worth of everyone in the redesigned system. Healthcare reform that punishes drug companies, humiliates doctors or treats patients as stupid will fail.”
Third, beware a zero-sum game: “The key is rethinking systems for more growth, constantly making the overall pie bigger, so everybody gains more from the reinvention. The clever leader knows how to keep selfishness and even greed in the center of things, while at the same time finding ways so everyone wins what they’re due—both tangible and intangible rewards.”
Final Thoughts
Matassoni closed our conversation with a brief inspirational summary.
“The marketers of tomorrow are the best people to communicate why 'problem-solving' has to shift towards redesigning systems that can become self-sustaining. If you seek out other people who break the rules, look beyond older frameworks of just products and markets, and have some brains and guts to call out the deeper needs of our fellow human beings, the sky will be the limit.”
