Digitization turns our world upside down – new business models, new organizational structures, new management, increasing automation and experimental strategies based on data. Corporate management, controlling and marketing demand completely different skills today, then just 10 years ago. Business is changing in all means and this can be felt most clearly in marketing. Growth Hacking, the evolution of marketing – in many cases still smiled at as a “buzzword” – is eating Marketing for breakfast. NO – this is not about social media or another goofy new tool, Growth Hacking really is a totally new approach to digital marketing.

What is Growth Hacking?

Growth Hacking describes a discipline that combines various methods of digital marketing with the goal of efficient growth. It’s all about improving your so-called “NORTH STAR METRIC” – the one and only, most important, KPI – which is crucial to the success of your business. A Growth Hacker is an interdisciplinary marketing manager who understands virality, PR, SEO, SEM, product design (basics), UX, marketing tools (technology stack), email marketing, content marketing, funnel marketing, behavioral psychology, brand positioning, and storytelling. These disciplines are traditionally organized in separate departments in larger organizations – Growth Hackers combine those and act across them.

Growth Hacking comes from startups, which are forced to grow as fast as possible with little human and financial resources. The better a startup may hack its growth, the faster its value increases and venture capital funds will, therefore, fund them round over round. Only those who are at the top in the race of start-ups receive venture capital and can thus continue their international triumphal march.

However, corporations and medium-sized businesses are also fascinated by the new methods that “conventional” agencies usually are not able to provide, yet. Growth Hacking does not require large teams, but creativity, speed, technical know-how (simple programming skills) and strong data analysis skills. The challenge lies in finding and developing this know-how or to hire it.

Unfortunately, there is still far too little experience in our latitudes with this discipline and the best work is often done at one or in a startup. The industry is clearly losing out in the “war of talents” in this area. In most cases one will have to invest in the targeted training of young talents – the first structured training courses are slowly emerging  (see Growth Base in cooperation with Lauder Business School).

Data & Experiments

Data is the greatest blessing of digitization, it allows targeted analytical action and is the basis for automated decisions. Growth hackers love data and use a so-called “technology stack” that helps them to work as efficient and automated as possible on the basis of true data. Check out the automated workflow of a SaaS company (e.g. CB Insights), in my opinion, is a perfect example of automation.

Marketing Stack Automation Flow by CBinsights.

The process improves best through ongoing analysis of data and iterative experiments. Texts, colors, the arrangement of links – everything plays a role – and growth hackers are constantly testing and experimenting how they can optimize the so-called “conversion rate”.

Become a Growth Hacker yourself!

If you’ve got an appetite for more – then it’s best to buy a few books, experiment a little yourself and work step by step to become the next Growth Hacker yourself. I’ll be happy to give you reading tips and link you to professional growth hackers from our network if there is a need.

Last week, I traveled to San Francisco and Berkeley, California to join the exclusive professional classes of Innovation Orbit for the latest on leadership, innovation techniques, and how to change corporate culture.  Innovation Orbit is a global executive training program focusing on innovation strategies, culture and tools used by leading corporates, public entities and startups. The classes rotate between Vienna, Austria, Shanghai, China and San Francisco, California.  Next year, Nairobi, Kenya will be added.

Like leading MBA programs, the secret sauce in this program are the hand-picked, multi-cultural leading professionals with diverse backgrounds. The discussions and presentations covered the challenging topic about changing a ‘non-innovative’ corporate culture from the ground up.   The speakers reminded us of one very famous quote by Peter Drucker: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This means that defining the right KPIs and training your managers is not enough.  Organizational leaders need to create a mindset and environment for change and motivates all stakeholders.

As important is identifying those who will never change.  This is probably one of the hardest things to do.  After last week, I am happy to share with you some simple “rules & tools” to make this happen.

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Change starts with me

If you are willing to change as a manager you have a chance to change your corporate system. Like a human body you will naturally face anti-bodies within your organizational system which are simply not ready to adopt change right from the beginning (expect this group to be something like 20% of our colleagues) and a large group of around 60% who will see what’s coming up “new” – being indifferent – and the rest will be ready to adopt and drive change with you. Follow this last group and forget about those, who are not willing to see the future of a better, more creative and inspiring working environment.

People support what they create

One of the most important drivers of corporate culture is the commitment and drive of all managers, across hierarchies, within your organization. Peter Drucker once said “Culture eats strategy for Breakfast” and this the Damocles Sword everybody in Silicon Valley will remind you over and over again. You need to reduce the negative factor of managing people from distance by involving them directly. Managers need to see the future and be the natural creators of change that happens within your organization. Experienced Managers suggested the concept of GEMBA walks in order to make managers start to understand an organization from the ground up again, instead of falling into the so-called “Melon Trap”.

Change happens in the here and now

If you are willing to change – don’t wait. It is never the right moment and it will never be better. Your personal work-life-balance is bullshit, if you realize and be honest with you that work will always eat up a little more of your time than family because this is what you live off – BUT you can make a difference concentrating on tasks and projects which give you energy instead of fighting against windmills that eventually drive you into burnout.

Cultural Change is not esoteric

I believe everything you do only make sense if you measure your performance. This is the most simple tool you may use for reflection and you need to take into account that measurement always come with a human misbehavior or misperception (not important if this happens on purpose due to biased reporting – or not). 4 KPIs should help you to consciously drive change in your system and make a true difference.

• OHI (Organisational Health Index) by McKinsey
• ESAT (Employee Satisfaction)
• CSAT (Customer Satisfaction)
• CASHFLOW improvement

5 things you should train your management

Whatever you do needs to be driven and created by the management itself, therefore you need to make sure they are the right role models and that they live values rather than only talking about a mission. Train your managers constantly in 5 different fields and make them true leaders and drivers of your next level leadership team.

• Nutrition
• Mindfulness
• Constellation (like Family Constellations / Aufstellungen)
• Design Thinking
• Rapid Prototyping

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Interested in learning more about leadership, next level innovation and the future of corporate organizational design? Contact us and see what you can learn from the fastest companies in the world out of Silicon Valley and China.