We’re living in an era obsessed with overachievement.
Tech billionaires tout themselves as the sole architects of progress, preaching the virtues of moving fast and breaking things. Eager to emulate this mindset, companies chase disruption at all costs.
But here’s the irony: Marketing teams have spent the last decade moving fast and breaking things, only to find themselves stuck in an endless cycle of fixing. Fixing broken analytics. Fixing disconnected martech stacks. Fixing fractured messaging. Nothing is ever complete enough to set a new standard.
Somewhere along the way, teams have lost the value of the humble process of setting a process.
Comedian David Mitchell once offered this funny observation on the British game show Would I Lie To You?:
“One of the codes I live my life by is that my appearance should be in no way noteworthy. But then again, not so unnoteworthy as to be in itself noteworthy.”
David explained his code with the example of a person who wears a gray tie that’s so colorless, so unnoteworthy, that it actually becomes noteworthy in itself.
I thought of David’s “code” when someone sent me an Inc. article from a couple of years ago that pitted content (and the disruptive iconoclasts who go against the grain of conventional processes to create it) against predictable processes (and the people who follow them).
I’ll explain how I think it ties to Mitchell’s life code. But first, a bit of a rant. (You can watch it in the video below or read it — with even more detail — right here.)
Content vs. process
The Inc. article warns organizations not to overlook “hyper-performers.” OK, you might say, who would argue differently?
But what prompted my rant is the mischaracterization of hyper-performers based on a quote the article mentions from a mid-1990s interview with Steve Jobs:
“I found that the best people are the ones that really understand the content. (By “content,” think what truly drives results in your business.) And they’re a pain in the butt to manage. But you put up with it because they’re so great at the content. And that’s what makes great products. It’s not process. It’s content.”
Can you think of anyone getting attention for how seemingly good they are at disrupting the status quo and creating value but who is also a pain to manage?
In the interview, Jobs recounted how Apple’s engineering team told him they’d need five years to develop the mouse, and each one would cost $300 to build. So, he hired an outside firm that developed one in 90 days that would cost $15 to make.
A remarkable achievement. But later in the interview, Jobs implies that process always gets in the way of innovation:
“Companies get confused. They want to replicate initial success, and a lot of them think somehow there’s some magic in the process. So, they try to institutionalize processes, and before long, people get confused that the process is the content.”
That’s wrong.
Process and content must be in balance for either one to achieve remarkable results. All remarkable content — including the content of a product and the experiential content that marketers create — is built on standardized, repeatable processes.
Jobs recognized the need for an innovative way to develop the mouse because Apple’s standard, well-understood processes informed its engineers that the kind of mouse Jobs wanted would take five years and cost $300. But having that well-understood process in place allowed him to recognize that need.
Finding a firm to design an inexpensive mouse in 90 days was just Step 1. Success came because Apple developed that mouse quickly and then improved its existing, repeatable process to set a new standard for producing mice.
The creative solution and the repeatable process made it work.
Jobs could only know that developing an inexpensive mouse in 90 days was innovative because Apple’s engineers had already set a standard.
Why content and marketing need both
Most organizations have at least a few hyper-performers in content — creative or subject matter expert stars who bust their butts to craft remarkable things.
In some organizations, these creators have no content standards or processes to follow. In others, the hyper-performers get excused from the established process to avoid disrupting their disruptiveness.
Without a standard operating process to establish what “remarkable” looks like, organizations struggle to spot the value these star employees generate.
Let’s say you’re a new content leader at a company where the product marketing, brand, and PR teams all produce thought leadership without visibility into each other’s plans. As a result, the content often conflicts.
You might conclude that there’s no hope for changing the way these iconoclastic content-focused hyper-performers work — so why create a process at all?
That’s a mistake.
Without a standard way of doing things (a process), the business can’t determine which content should be prioritized or eliminated from contention. Everybody gets to decide what “remarkable content” looks like from an individual or team lens. When someone says, “That sucks,” and someone else says, “That’s awesome,” they’re both right — because no standard exists.
Some might say, “Let the performance data decide.” But with no standard process, the data isn’t enough.
For example, you can’t determine whether the content performed well or poorly unless each piece followed an established distribution and promotion process. You won’t know if the success or failure had more to do with the content itself or the promotion of it. Did it fail because it wasn’t promoted effectively, or did it succeed only because of an extensive promotional campaign?
AI as disruptive hyper-performer?
The promotion of generative AI as the “hyper-performer” in the proverbial content room illustrates my point.
For example, OpenAI has advised people to prompt its new reasoning models in a particular way. But as Marketing AI Institute’s Mike Kaput notes in a recent LinkedIn post, many say doing the opposite of what OpenAI advises produces superior results.
Who’s right? Everyone.
Only humans can assign meaning to ChatGPT or any generative AI output. And people use their own learned experience to determine “superior” results.
If you don’t have an established process for assessing the output, whatever output you believe to be superior is superior. It’s like asking whether one movie is better than another. You might hold one view while someone else holds another. Everyone is right.
Standard processes show where to innovate
Taiichi Ohno, who pioneered the Toyota Production System, once said, “With no standard, there can be no improvement.”
That’s why the push for remarkable content in modern marketing must strike a balance with a collaborative process. Some of the most hyper-performing professionals I’ve met are managers who created a company-wide method for developing creative endeavors.
It is the process, the standard, and the business-as-usual approach that lets them see the possibility for innovation. Yes, it slows things down. It does so purposely.
It’s easy to see the value in the innovative superstar who doesn’t want to conform to the process but frequently creates incredibly valuable things.
However, you only see how remarkable the results are by comparing them to the results from content created consistently and at scale.
Process and content must work together symbiotically.
Welcome process disruptions
I’d bet money that the Apple engineers weren’t a bunch of dullards who didn’t get it. They were probably extraordinarily competent people who looked at the situation and said, “This is what it currently takes.”
Would they have been open to investigating ways to improve and innovate the process? Jobs doesn’t say.
If they weren’t, then Jobs makes a good point about moving the innovation to someone who might innovate the process to an extreme. A process is only as strong as its ability to evolve and improve.
Your process should be in no way noteworthy but not so unnoteworthy as to be in itself noteworthy.
A great content process is like excellent plumbing: invisible and adaptable. It should foster improvisation and innovation by allowing for the integration of remarkable exceptions.
And that brings me to my ultimate defense of the process person vs. content person. An innovative process is (or can be) content itself (i.e., the contents of a great strategy).
Remarkable, standardized processes need the unique, out-of-the-box thinking, design, and execution associated with great products. And the teams responsible for the process are no less valuable or innovative than those who think up the things that process will produce.
Your team members won’t create remarkable content every day. But on the days they do, your process will help you recognize, repeat, and improve on it.
It’s your story. Tell it well.
Updated from a March 2023 story.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute