The material names the attitudes IRG associates with a da Vinci growth CMO: curious, agile learner, connected, collaborative, servant leader, courageous, inspiring storyteller, impact obsessed, and speed. Each is explained by reference to how Leonardo da Vinci actually worked.
The assessment is a spider chart scored one to five, and it plots two lines rather than one. What the leader currently has, and what the role requires. The gap between them is the output.
Key findings
- Curiosity is argued from the pace of change in marketing. The claim is that few functions have evolved as much as marketing over the last decade, which makes willingness to learn a leadership attitude rather than a personal trait.
- Collaboration is presented as a necessity, not a virtue. Marketers have had to expand the number of agencies, consultancies and outside partners they work with.
- Servant leadership is stated bluntly: CMOs with big egos will have a short tenure.
- Speed is defined by what it replaces. Endless debate over a positioning statement, a compromise media plan, and three months spent on an annual strategy.
- Storytelling is aimed at both head and heart, because daring plans need stakeholders to take a leap of faith.
Curious and agile learner
The argument starts by conceding the counter-case: it is easy to argue that the fundamental objectives of marketing will never change. What has changed is everything else, and few functions have evolved as much as marketing over the last decade.
The da Vinci parallel is his appetite for learning. His research, his apprenticeships and his sketches of thousands of experiments are offered as evidence of both the breadth of his interests and the agility of his mind.
Connected and collaborative
The explosion of expertise needed to succeed has forced marketers to work with many more agencies, consultancies and outside partners than before. Going to market is complex enough that connecting internally and externally has to be an instinct rather than a task.
The da Vinci case is unusually honest about motive. He collaborated out of necessity. He was notoriously slow, rarely met deadlines, and that regularly led to an income crisis. He only really started excelling after opening a studio and engaging a team to help execute his ideas.
Servant leader
In a world of competing stakeholder interests, the stated key is building on the diversity already in the room to generate new ideas. The consequence for the leader is direct. CMOs with big egos will have a short tenure.
The quotation used is da Vinci’s own line that nothing strengthens authority as much as silence, read here as an argument that listening and empowering the people around him were what unlocked their potential.
Speed, impact and storytelling
Speed and obsession with impact are defined against the old rhythm of the function. The days of endless debate over a positioning statement, of hunting a vanilla compromise media plan, and of three month annual strategies are described as over. The da Vinci parallel is his constant experimentation to see whether ideas held up in real life, which the material notes we would now call agile, iterative improvement or design thinking.
Courage and storytelling close the set. A CMO who can bring purpose, vision and strategy alive to head and heart can win the leap of faith daring plans need. Inspiring CMOs are described as working from a positive point of view, taking the receiving end’s perspective for every audience, and managing their own energy as well as the energy around them.
Scope and limitations
The assessment is self-scored on a one to five scale against what the leader judges the role requires. It measures a perceived gap, not performance.
Source
This page summarises The da Vinci Growth CMO Attitudes explained, by Institute for Real Growth, 2021-01-07.