Easily one of my favorite articles this month….insightful, inspired and an idea worth spreading…

by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Leaders must be firm and foster accountability, but they also must know when to forgive past wrongs in the service of building a brighter future. One of the most courageous acts of leadership is to forgo the temptation to take revenge on those on the other side of an issue or those who opposed the leader’s rise to power.

Instead of settling scores, great leaders make gestures of reconciliation that heal wounds and get on with business. This is essential for turnarounds or to prevent mergers from turning into rebellions against acquirers who act like conquering armies.

Nelson Mandela famously forgave his oppressors. After the end of apartheid, which had fostered racial separation and kept blacks impoverished, Mandela became South Africa’s first democratically elected President. Some in his political party clamored for revenge against members of the previous regime or perhaps even all privileged white people. Instead, to avoid violence, stabilize and unite the nation, and attract investment in the economy, Mandela appointed a racially integrated cabinet, visited the widow of one of the top apartheid leaders, and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that would clear the air and permit moving forward.

Forgiveness can be costly, like the massive amounts of debt forgiveness toward countries like Greece to help create a stable foundation for restoring growth to Europe. Forgiveness can sometimes mean investing in groups that have done something negative — a counterintuitive but often very effective strategy. A striking example, which I recount in my book SuperCorp, occurred in South Korea, not a country known for being kinder and gentler, and yet forgiveness and seeking harmony were at the heart of a major business success.

Shinhan Bank, a fairly new entrepreneurial bank, was set to acquire Chohung Bank, a larger, much older establishment-oriented bank that had hit hard times, when Chohung employees staged an embarrassing action. To protest the takeover, 3,500 men shaved their heads and piled the hair in front of Shinhan’s headquarters in downtown Seoul. Shinhan signed an agreement with Chohung’s union that astonished some observers. Far from taking revenge for the protest (or walking away from the deal), Shinhan agreed to raise wages, promise no layoffs, have equal representation of both banks on key committees, and wait three years for full integration. These and other investments in the future generated a significant payoff. Within a year, shareholder value had increased (it decreases in a majority of mergers) and employees from both banks were informally integrating, with the union neutralized. Within three years, Shinhan Financial Group was outperforming not only the industry but the entire South Korean stock market.

“Revenge is not justice,” says General Douglas MacArthur, as played by Tommy Lee Jones in Emperor, an engrossing new feature film about the surrender of the Japanese to American troops at the end of World War II. Like the hit movie Lincoln, the movie Emperor dramatizes a turning point in history replete with leadership lessons. (The movie will be released March 8; I saw an early screening thanks to producer Gary Foster, a …more 

http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2013/02/great-leaders-know-when-to.html?

This post is a follow up to my original post titled Hey Start ups marketing can be your BFF”  I promised to give you specifics on how you can leverage the experience of a marketer even before you start writing code or very early in your development. 

So here are a few ways a marketer can add value:

So let’s take it right from the beginning. You’ve got a great idea for an app or web service. Typically you have identified a problem or market need and are convinced that your idea will meet that need or solve the problem.

1. Well hold on… before you hit the basement or garage let a marketer help you validate a few things with a simple online survey a digital marketer can get you in front of a few hundred people in 5 days max . With a survey you can quickly validate that you have identified a problem that enough people have - Is there a market? without a market you have nothing. You can validate that it is something they would be willing to pay for. You can get some insight into your monetization strategy and most importantly You can get insight into what you should build to solve the problem. A well written survey can reveal what features, scenarios you should prioritize. How many products do you know where people don’t even use half the features? think of all the coding hours you can avoid if you let the marketer help you before you start coding. A survey can also reveal different ways of looking at a problem. So you haven’t written any code but you have valuable data about who will be into your product or service, how much they’d pay and what features or scenarios to focus on.
2. This research can be supplemented with existing research that a marketer will know how to find and provide you with valuable insight about your market, competitors, trends in the category, consumer or business behavior etc.
3. Now you start coding at the same time you have the Information architect/UX/graphic designer working on the experience. This is where you could really benefit from the eye and point of view of a marketer and here is why…. if you fast forward to when the site is live it is the marketer who is going to be responsible for driving people to the site or app. It will be the marketer who is responsible for ensuring people convert and try and buy the product/or service and it will be the marketer who is responsible for making sure that people activate and use the product, keep coming back and become advocates. So let’s rewind now… a marketer working with the the UX team can ensure that marketing is built into the product. An example of building marketing into the product is how Dropbox acquires new customers by incenting users to refer others. That is built into the product. A marketer can look at your sign up flow and ensure it is as friction less as possible. They can look at the experience and help you design a “getting started experience” that will get people using the product and seeing value immediately. Then the marketer can help you design into the product ways and mechanisms to drive advocacy/sharing/referrals in a seamless integrated way as opposed to as an after thought post launch.
4. On the business side a marketer can help you with your Elevator Pitch help you figure out how to message and position your product. 
5. They can help you with your business model and help you figure out how much it is going to cost you to acquire customers.
6. They can help you with your compete strategy and figure out how to differentiate your product.

I always find it interesting when the last to be hired is the marketing team…typically you find that in businesses that aren’t making money and quite frankly haven’t figured out how they are going to. A marketer can look at a business and tell you whether you should focus on BtoB vs. BtoC because of acquisition costs. A smart marketer can look at a business and tell you who you should partner with and what compatibility or integration you should enable in order to draft off of another business that already has an audience.

Now I’d like to do a quick round up of what i believe the world would look like if marketers could write code….what an awesome world it would be for consumers and customers.

1. If a marketer could write code - sign up flows would be frictionless I mean really how many times have we filled out those damn same forms…why isn’t there a central sign up form API that has my info and allows me to sign up at any site in 1 click? if i could right code there would be such a thing.
2. If a marketer could right code - Sites would just ask you why you came and deliver you to the right set of pages. I want out look at black dresses  and red shoes, evening purses and jewellery …go. assemble my store please
3. If a marketer could code - sites would know who you were the minute you hit the site and deliver those black dresses all in a size 7 the shoes size 8 that’s all I should see and prompt me if I am shopping for myself or my family member.

Just some ecommerce examples…but I digress…you get the point though…do not wait until you are launched and have burned through your money because all you did was hire a PR firm to get you some buzz and now you are scrambling to get customers, downloads and get them activating and coming back….

Get a marketer on the team at the beginning…