Eighty-four percent of marketing leaders and employees report experiencing high levels of ‘collaboration drag’ when working with other functions, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc. Collaboration drag occurs when marketing teams experience too many meetings, too much feedback from colleagues and unclear decision-making authority when working cross-functionally.
“Marketing leaders are under pressure to work on an ever-growing number of cross-functional projects,” said LaRocca-Cerrone. “Collaboration drag leads to an overall sense of frustration within the marketing function, creating unnecessary extra work and leading to employee burnout. But it’s not just employees it harms: it’s also hurting commercial performance.”
Enterprise Alignment is Insufficient, CMOs Must Invest in Talent
Marketing employees who experience high collaboration drag are 15 times more likely to feel burned out and nine times more likely to plan to leave the company in the next year.
By investing in and developing marketing talent, CMOs can reduce collaboration drag by 23%. CMOs should prioritize developing their teams’ interpersonal influence, critical thinking, technical skills, and using on-the-job learning programs to unlock practical mastery.
“Resolving collaboration drag by improving executive alignment won’t work, because changes at the leadership level don’t impact how work gets done at the team level,” said LaRocca-Cerrone. “Developing marketing talent will help marketers build the skills they need to thrive in complex decision-making environments. CMOs must focus in on specific skills and create learning environments that cement new skills and encourage development.”
Drive Intentional Culture Change to Reduce ‘Nice-To-Have’ Collaboration
CMOs should improve marketing workflows and change management to ease the burden on their teams. Marketing leaders should clarify where the team’s responsibilities for certain projects start and end, empower their team to say “no” to low-priority collaborative work and prioritize their team’s participation in areas where marketing can drive the greatest impact.
“Collaboration drag cannot be solved by changing how other functions work,” said LaRocca-Cerrone. “Developing marketing’s talent and processes will equip the function to thrive in inherently difficult cross-functional environments.”
