Chinese New Year is upon us

Chinese New Year is upon us. Children have had their CNY assemblies at school and the pressure was on to find the perfect outfit - or at least a red shirt! The offices, streets and homes are decorated with lanterns, flowers, kumquat trees and also monkeys as we celebrate the start of the Year of the Monkey. The cards and emails arriving all wish a Happy - and a prosperous - New Year.

However prosperity feels harder than ever to achieve. Growth is slowing, a fact that brings new challenges for marketing leaders. Where are the next opportunities? How do we change beliefs and behaviours? How can we find new growth by driving demand?

Brand Learning recently conducted a global research study into the drivers of growth. Carried out with partners including The Marketing Society, we sought to uncover the hallmarks and unusual practices of the organisations and leaders that are achieving exceptionally high growth rates. (You can find out more about the study here: http://www.brandlearning.com/growth-drivers/)

We identified 7 characteristics of growth driving leaders - Customer Centricity, Curiosity, Commitment, Courage, Cultivating talent, Collaboration and Conscious speed. Our research showed that the most effective leaders combine all of these elements, rather than just focusing on one or two.

Curiosity is a characteristic we hope would be at the heart of marketing leadership, as we spend time in shops, bars and homes, immersing ourselves in our consumers' lives. But all too often we get too used to our own trusted paradigms, to our traditional understanding of the market, with the result that we fail to be truly Customer centered. My own experience as a marketer is that I only truly connected with my consumers - whether they were frequent flyers, mums or patients - when I stopped asking them about my particular project and instead asked them about themselves, their lives and their hopes and dreams. This took Commitment  - to the agenda of our consumers, not to my own - and then real Courage to push through on what I had heard. To ensure the business could deliver what was needed, I had to  Collaborate with my colleagues in other functions and our agencies to make the necessary changes. I also had to Cultivate the talent of my team members and colleagues so they were able to fulfil their potential impact too.

The 7Cs taken together provide a cocktail of ingredients that make for true performance, growth - and prosperity.

As you go into this Lunar New Year, I'd encourage you to take the time to identify how you personally perform against the 7Cs and deliberately focus on strengthening one or more of them inyour personal leadership approach.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!!

Read more from Brand Learning here.

Photo credit: image by Vector Open Stock, see more from them here.