The conversation about replacing the CMO is happening in your organisation right now, either in the boardroom or in the room adjacent to it. Before it produces another appointment, I want to suggest one question that is not currently on the agenda.
What would we find if we examined the commercial system the CMO is operating inside before we decide whether the person or the structure is the problem?
That question is not asked often because it is slower than a hiring decision and it produces answers that may implicate choices made before the current CMO arrived. Examining the commercial system means looking at measurement frameworks built by previous leadership, technology decisions approved by the board, agency relationships inherited from predecessors, and incentive structures that have been running unchanged for years. Some of what examination finds will be uncomfortable for people in the room.
The alternative is a third CMO appointment into the same structural conditions, with a different candidate, the same architecture, and a high probability of a similar outcome. That is a faster decision with a predictable cost.
Examination takes six weeks. A CMO appointment takes six months and has a twenty-two month average tenure before the conversation starts again. The arithmetic is not subtle.
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