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gossipchii · 3 years

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Spectrum

FF.net: here / AO3: here

Characters: Tachikawa Mimi and Takenouchi Sora

Pairing: Sorami

Words: 3100+

Notes: There’s no other explanation to this other than I love these two. And I hope to be more than Mimi.

HAPPY PRIDE! LOVE IS LOVE!

Enjoy!!!

To Mimi, love was something she understood from a young age. It had never been the subject to ask any explanation for; she simply had always embraced it. She felt it in the small things, such as the cherry blossoms growing on the trees during spring, or with the rainbows that came after a big rainstorm.

She had had great teachers, too, the best ones, even. The way her parents loved each other, by how her dad always opened the door, of any kind, to her mom, or left a bouquet of flowers every seventh of the month on their dinner table, as if they had just started dating, made her heart ginormous. She loved love and was not afraid to express it.

She had always had many boyfriends, even if they tended to last a couple of months only, but each one of them Mimi could have sworn at some point of their relationship, had to be the love of her life. Her friends tended to roll their eyes at her, Mimi was a hopeless romantic, and she could not deny it, she did not want to.

When she was eleven, her world turned upside down, when her parents told her they would move to New York, the Big Apple, which she had only seen on movies. She was at shock at first, of course, but she was sure she could handle it. She had always been a sucker for adventures, after all.

"Aren't you scared of learning a new language?" her oldest friend, redhead Sora, was helping her packing. Their mothers had introduced them to each other when Mimi was in diapers, and Sora was only a year older than she was. Mimi's mother was passionate for anything luxurious, and she considered flowers a luxury, she always had. Hence why she had to take Ikebana classes, which was how she met Toshiko, Sora's mother.

They had been best friends ever since.

"I have been practicing a little bit! One, two, three!" She counted with her fingers, in English with a thick Japanese accent, which left Sora speechless. Mimi was her own kind.

"I will really miss you." Sora said after closing the last box in the brunette's room. It felt cold, wrong even.

"Don't be silly, daddy promised we will come visit every summer at least," Sora embraced Mimi, and it was the very first time she had felt sad about moving. New York was exciting, of course, but it did not have Sora.

New York was a whole universe apart from Tokyo. Sure, they were both huge cities, but the mentalities from one another, it was hard to believe they were both under the same sky.

Mimi had learned so much more about love during the six long years she had lived there. For starters, contrary to what most of the media she consumed while growing up had wanted her to believe, sexual orientation was a spectrum, which had as many options as humankind would let it. Mimi had remained a love lover, and that also meant she had, well, experimented here and there. And she had enjoyed every piece of it.

When her parents gave her the option to study her junior year of high school in Japan once again, she accepted without hesitation. New York would always be waiting for her, but Japan felt more distant than ever, and she somehow felt a part of her was missing.

She was especially excited to see her childhood friends, especially Sora, whom she had not seen for two years, but had kept in touch via e-mails and text messages. God bless cellphones and the internet. Sora had told her that she was in a relationship during those years they had been apart but had just broken up.

He had other priorities; Sora explained.

Since Mimi´s parents never had the heart to sell their old apartment, Mimi could have it all for herself, which was a dream for someone who loved experimenting with art like she did. She had seen so many cool ideas on design magazines, she could not wait to bring some western into good old Tokyo.

Sora was waiting for her at the airport, with a very tiny, very discrete, but with the most beautiful handwriting WELCOME HOME MIMI sign. She had written it in English, too. Mimi squealed the moment she saw her and ran as if she was in one of her favorite rom coms, to embrace the redhead.

"It has been ages, Sora, you look fantastic!" and she was not lying. Last time they had seen each other, Sora was fifteen and she was fourteen, during the teenage years, each one counted as at least five. Sora had not grown in height, Mimi was still slightly shorter, but it had always been like that, however, she looked grown, almost adult. Perhaps it was being an Ikebana master daughter, but Sora's posture and presence was impeccable.

"Says Tokyo's favorite princess," her and Sora had always had what Mimi liked to think as a spiritual connection. They were so incredibly different, in every single aspect, however, any time their eyes linked, they could communicate in ways Mimi could not dare to try with anyone else. "Did you seriously only bring a couple luggage?"

"Silly little Sora, the rest is being shipped, obviously!"

It had been a month since Mimi had arrived back to Tokyo, she had had enough time to unpack, and get familiar with the language once again. Classes had also started, and as much as she did not want to admit it, she had felt like an outsider. Sure, she was amicable with the rest of the girls in her class, but she could sense the hypocrisy behind their smiles. Mimi was very sensible with people's vibes, after all.

Sora tried her best to be there whenever she needed her, but Mimi understood she was close to be driven insane. Not only was Sora on her senior year of high school, and applying to the best design schools in Tokyo, but she was still managing to be in the tennis team, help her mom with the school and stay as a top-notch student. Mimi's head was in pain by just imagining it. She was grateful Sora had managed to save that Saturday night just for them, for old time's sake.

"Sorry I'm late! My mom had ordered forget-me-nots for the school, but they sent carnations instead! Can you imagine the chaos? We had to make like a million calls in order to get three hundred forget-me-nots in time for the exhibition next week, I almost had a stroke!"

Sora took out of her bag chips and sodas for their movie night. She also brought out skin care products, since she knew Mimi loved them. That was Sora in a nutshell, always going above and beyond for everyone, but especially for those close to her heart.

"You sound so stressed, and remember, stress is not allowed in the Tachikawa household!" Mimi was already in her PJs, she helped Sora with the snacks, and they both proceeded to sit in the living room. "Nu-uh, you must get into your sleepwear, otherwise you would be breaking the most important rule of slumber parties!"

Sora rolled her eyes and got into the bathroom, to get out wearing, not a silk set like Mimi was, but running shorts and an oversized tee. Sora had a unique kind of beauty; while Mimi had a face you could be able to catch on a runway, Sora had a face that made you look. No wonder most of the guys at school were even scared to talk to her, she was mesmerizing, even with no makeup and her short auburn hair all over her face.

"You have no idea how much I needed this evening, it's exactly what kept me going throughout the week!" Sora stole the chips from Mimi and smiled, she felt a punch in her stomach which she decided to ignore. "What are we watching?" Sora asked completely clueless of her anatomic pain.

"One of my favorites, The Notebook, the kind of love story that makes you want to die," Sora raised her eyebrows, not surprised by Mimi's exaggerations.

It was no lie The Notebook was one of Mimi's favorite movies, but she could not focus on the movie even if she were being paid to do so, and not because she had seen it at least fifteen times, but because she could not keep her eyes off Sora, and her reactions on the star-crossed lover's story. Sure, Mimi had experimented with women back in New York, but they had never been her very best friend.

"No way he fixed the house for them!" Sora was slowly cleaning up the tears that were fighting to get out of her eyes, as she caught Mimi staring at her.

Sora, on the other hand, had never experimented anything, of barely any kind. She had lived in Japan her whole life, and the most extreme adventure of her life was missing the train while she was on her way to visit her dad in Kyoto. In her very structured brain, heterosexuality was the only way of loving, the one-way couples existed. Then, why was she feeling magnetic towards Mimi's hazel eyes?

Mimi was the one to make the first move, holding her hand gently, to see what Sora's reaction on it was. She was static, but did not seem against her touch, either, so she slid closer, removing the bare centimeters that were separating them to each other. Her hand moved up Sora's arm, to her collarbone, neck and stopped right at her cheek. Sora's whole body was on fire, she had never been touched with such care, with such kindness.

Words were not necessary when the unspoken language between their gazes was so powerful. Maybe it had been a second, maybe it had been an hour, but Sora's lips were all over Mimi's, as if she had wanted to do it all her life, as if she had needed to do it all her life.

The kiss had started sweet, a peck savoring Mimi's strawberry infused lipstick, but had slowly increased in heat, Sora's body felt sweaty. Their lips had understood each other perfectly, adapting to the other's pace, and need. Sora's thoughts had been emptied for the whole time, and she wanted it to remain like that. Whenever she thought, she tended to overdo it, and she really did not want to ruin the moment.

Until their lips had to be separated, not because they wanted to, but because they needed to catch some air. Mimi's lips seemed swollen, and Sora's hair was messier than before. They were both panting, cheeks flushed.

And then it hit her, the big wave of thoughts entered Sora's brain and she got scared. What had she just done? That was Mimi sitting in front of her, that was Mimi who she had been kissing as if they were the couple in the cheesy Hollywood film they were watching. Tears filled her eyes once again, she was shaking.

"I'm sorry but… I really need to go." She grabbed her backpack and ran as fast as she could. She was not brave enough to face Mimi once again, because she was the reflection of what she had done, and she was not ready to hear it out loud.

Mimi was left alone in her parent's small apartment, because somehow it still did not feel like her's. She hugged herself and tried to force herself into finishing the movie, which was almost impossible, since her tears barely let her see anything.

What had she been thinking? Sora was all she had in Japan, her only sincere friendship, and she had to be stupid enough to let her feelings lead the way and ruin the only thing that was right with her life. Her chest was in so much pain, Sora would probably never speak to her again, and she could not blame her. Mimi was not stupid, and she knew Japan was one of the most homophobic countries in the world, even if it was the 21st century for fucks sake!

In New York things were much more different, and sure, homophobic folks existed here and there, but it was 2005 and her gay friends were allowed to hold hands in public, even show other signs of affection. Yeah, same sex marriage was not allowed just yet, but they were close to getting there! Japan was miles away from any kind of acceptation… God, what had she been thinking? Perhaps she should start looking for planes, to go back to where she belonged.

Sora ran, she ran so fast she felt her legs could detach from her body. She was not sure why she was running so fast, the one thing she wanted to get away from was on top of her shoulders. She was aware she had been the one to make the final move and kiss Mimi, the facts were there, what she wanted to know, to understand, was the reason behind her actions. She had never seen girls in a romantic or sexual way, she barely even had a close relationship with many girls.

But she had not been on drugs, or alcohol, or any other substance she could blame her actions on. She had just been drawn to Mimi's pink lips as if it were the natural thing to do, as she had kissed her ex-boyfriend so many times. She stopped running to catch a breath, she was not even close to her home, because she had been running without a destination in mind. She knew she had acted like a jerk by leaving Mimi's apartment, but she really needed to be alone, clear up her thoughts.

She grabbed her phone and texted Mimi, "can we talk about this tomorrow? I need to clear up my thoughts."

"Sure ," Mimi replied unable to write a dry message. Happy faces tended to relax situations, right?

Mimi and Sora agreed to meet in Sora's apartment to have breakfast. They could have had their conversation in a restaurant, or café, but the mere thought of being heard by anyone, drove Sora insane. No, they needed privacy.

Sora still felt guilty about leaving in such a rude way the night after, so she tried her best to cook an American breakfast, with pancakes and sunny side up eggs. She bought bacon, too! Very early in the morning, considering she had barely even slept.

Mimi knocked Sora's door, with a knot on her stomach. She could smell from the hallway the breakfast she had prepared, and she hated to admit she was hungry. Sora was a great cook, another talent to add to her never-ending list.

"Hi," Sora opened merely a second after she had knocked, making Mimi believe she had been standing behind the door for a few minutes. She seemed nervous, considering she could not stop playing with her hands. Who was she kidding, Mimi was crazy nervous, too.

"I brought flowers, which is probably stupid considering I came to the Japanese kingdom of flowers," it was a single orchid, beautifully sitting in a nice pot. Sora grabbed it and placed it in the middle of the kitchen table. It all had been arranged as a nice brunching spot Mimi would go to on a Saturday evening in the American city, her heart skipped a beat. "You didn't have to go this far with the breakfast, you know?"

"It's nothing," she shrugged her shoulders, which Mimi could see since Sora was wearing a tank top. She had never noticed the amount of freckles Sora had on them. "You know how much I enjoy cooking, please sit or it will get cold."

They ate in silence, making a mundane comment here and there, about anything but the one subject that was burning on both of their chests.

"I want to apologize for leaving like that yesterday, it was rude. No matter how confused I was feeling, that had not been your fault."

"I understand, really. You don't need to apologize, I seriously thought you would never speak to me again."

"Why would you think that?" Sora's voice sounded hurt.

"Well, considering the circumstances… it could get weird. I've been there before."

"But Mimi, before anything we are friends, best friends even. Sure, I am still very confused about my actions last night, but you did not offend me. I can not promise I could see women in a romantic way, I did not even know it was an option until last night but… I would never want to lose you."

"It must have come as a big shocker to you, right? So many of the people I had mentioned in my mails and letters were girls. To me love never had a specific sex attached to it, not even when I was a kid. I have been working with my sexuality for my whole life. I do not expect you to figure it out in a single night."

"So you…?"

"I have fallen for girls before, yes. I believe I do like girls more than I like boys. Girls tend to be more sensible and open with their feelings, you know? Of course, I do not expect my feelings to be reciprocated, there may even be a chance I am just confused because you are the only person who I feel at home with in this country. I am sorry I let myself get controlled by my feelings, I tend to do that a lot."

"Wow Mimi, I had no idea."

"I do not think I have ever said this out loud, I am not the best at speaking."

"Are we sure The United States is in the same planet as Japan?"

"Right? Japan may be advanced in technology, but you guys still live in the 15th century for so many other things."

"In my household I think we live in that century for most of the things, including beds," both Mimi and Sora laughed, cleaning up the air. "You are so brave, Mimi. For never being afraid of being yourself. You are such a blessing to anyone who ever runs into your life, I will never understand how you do it."

"I guess I have been lucky to, for the most part, run into the right people. Thank you, Sora, for not seeing me as a monster."

"Are you kidding? You are way too pretty to be a monster," they held hands, speaking once again everything they could not say out loud with their eyes.

Mimi knew she could not ask Sora to be with her, not in that moment, not the way she wanted her to be. But Sora was still for her, and she knew she would always be. She was grateful she could still be herself with the redhead, no matter the circumstances.

#digimon adventure #tachikawa mimi #takenouchi sora #sorami #mimi tachikawa #sora takenouchi #fanfic #fanfiction #mimi x sora

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mortlend40507 · 6 years

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How To Lead When You’re Not In Charge: A Manual for Marketers

There are few things more butt-clenchingly aggravating than watching a great set of marketing recommendations decay in a stakeholder’s rubbish heap. It happens to me. A lot. So I ponder the problem. A lot. I figured it out:

We’re asked to lead, but we’re not in charge.

Stakeholders—internal or external— hire us to provide direction and leadership. They pay a premium for our knowledge. But the moment we enter the room, we’re powerless. We don’t control budget. We (usually) can’t fire or hire. So we get all brilliant and stuff. We deliver our genius.

And it molders on the stakeholder’s shelf.

Do stakeholders just love watching us suffer? No. We’re brought in to Improve All The Things. But the stakeholder is stuck between two competing goals:

Improve things

Don’t break anything

That causes a communication problem. We show up and speak of Hope and Dreams:

Hopes and Dreams: “Hey! We’re gonna improve this and fix that and it’s gonna be great for you and let’s gogogogogogogo.”

But along with your enthusiasm, the stakeholder gets a different, three-part message:

Risk: “Mwahahahaha I’m going to fucklebucket the hell out of your work and leave you with nothing. When you get fired, I’ll get a sweet long-term contract out of this.”

Effort: “I’m going to give you recommendations that take time and effort. Good thing you have to do the work.”

Ambiguity: “I’m not sure if this will work. If it does, though, it’ll make a great case study.”

That’s what we bring to the table: Risk, effort, and ambiguity. So stakeholders push back against the tactics you recommend. They resist because:

They know they’re risking their bonus/reputation/performance/career/goals

They know they’re going to have to invest resources they may or may not have

They do not know what the outcome will be

If we want to lead when we’re not in charge—if we want our stakeholders to take action—we have to clarify the risk, minimize the effort and get rid of the ambiguity.

We can do that by establishing frictionless clarity.

Clarity

Clarity smashes risk and ambiguity to bits. It’s a big concept. Provide these three things, though, and it’s attainable:

An easily explained, planned, and resourced task

Define a tactic on which the stakeholder can act. A mushy, ill-defined task amplifies risk and ambiguity:

“Invest in content” is not well-defined. I can’t explain it. Stakeholders can’t plan it. And there is no way to determine how much effort it will take. I can’t begin to identify cost, schedule, or outcome. It amplifies risk and ambiguity, frustrates the stakeholder, and leaves the marketer with a doorknob-shaped imprint on their tuchus.

“Hire a professional editor to manage content production” is well-defined. It’s clear. Stakeholders can write it down. They can set criteria for hiring. They can appropriately delegate. They can figure out the cost (risk) and make a decision.

A perceived, relevant benefit of executing the tactic

Show that the tactic has ginormous upside. Say this and watch a rational human being roll their eyes back and stare at their sinuses:

“People will read your stuff” or “you’ll improve engagement” doesn’t work. Why does the stakeholder care about “engagement?” They probably don’t. They have a specific goal they want to accomplish. You just explained why their investment would check a box on someone’s resume.

So you must translate “engagement” to something meaningful for the stakeholder. You don’t need to create a direct action-to-dollars connection. Just show a benefit the stakeholder understands. Abstract connections work just fine:

“People will stay on the site longer, increasing the chances they’ll buy. They will also share our content more often, which will help us rank higher in search results and get us more social media visibility. And, if we stick with it, we might get media coverage.”

That explains the tactic in the stakeholder’s terms. They want more customers. They want more social media visibility. They’d love some media coverage.

Any task has defined Good Things that may happen if they act. It’s your job to explain why an action matters, not in your terms, but in theirs.

A perceived, relevant penalty for inaction

Show that inaction has a clear downside.

“We are losing share-of-voice and will continue to do so if we don’t increase visibility. That will continue to hurt search rankings and brand strength, which will hurt revenue,” describes a penalty that’s darned relevant.

You can describe previous problems, too:

“We got laughed off the Internet for the typo in our last article, but we can’t expect perfection from the copy team. Only disciplined editing will help us avoid the next mistake,” may not feel directly relevant. But everyone cringes at the thought and wants to avoid a repeat.

Don’t cry catastrophe every time, though. You’ll lose credibility. I don’t recommend this:

“If you don’t invest in content, you’ll be out of business in 2 years.”

It may be true (I guess), but who’s going to listen to that?

Show a clear penalty for inaction. Make sure it’s something the stakeholder can get their head around.

Clarity? Check

Clarity gets you one step closer to that lovely place where stakeholders are ready to act, rather than resist. It reduces perceived risk and ambiguity.

Clarity makes it far easier to lead when you’re not in charge.

Frictionless

In science, friction involves coefficients and forces and Greek letters and stuff. From my perspective, friction is what keeps me from wrecking my car.

In marketing, friction is a ratio:

Friction = Benefit:Effort

The more the benefit outweighs the effort, the higher the ratio, and the closer to frictionless you get.

I like to play a lot of “what if” games. In my experience, they work best.

Here’s my favorite: I spend a lot of time coaching stakeholders to compress their images. It’s never a priority when we start. I’ve created a bald spot banging the back of my head against the wall behind my desk chair, all because no one compresses their images. What does work? Showing stakeholders the benefit to effort ratio of compressing a single image:

“Compressing this one image will reduce home page load times by 50%. It will take 1 hour and we can handle it. That costs you $125, total. Your average order size is $50. If this increase helps generate ten orders, we’ll see a 3.2:1 return on investment.”

That’s easy. Compressing that one measly image takes one hour of my time. It doesn’t require any stakeholder effort. If it helps generate just ten orders, this action has a 3:1 return. Why would you not do this?!

More important, why wouldn’t you go through the whole site, compressing every image? To support that, you might say:

“You think that’s good?! If you compress every image on the site, you can reduce average page load time by 3 seconds. It will take 4 hours and we can handle it. It will cost you $500, total. Your average order size is $50. If this generates just 100 additional orders, we’ll see a 10:1 return on investment.”

It doesn’t matter if my numbers are exact. The story is clear: The benefit crushes the effort required. This tactic is nearly frictionless.

Unclear benefit? Compare costs

Sometimes the benefit isn’t clear. Then I compare the cost of my recommendation to the cost of the alternative:

“Producing a great blog post will cost you $1,000. Say we do four of those. That’s $4,000. If just one post gets three links from sites with NN citation flow and NN trust flow, they’ll help us with SEO for a long time to come. On the other hand, if you tried to buy or knock on enough doors for equally high-quality links with no new content, you’ll pay $5,000+ per link. That’s $15,000. I don’t know the exact benefit. I do know that this tactic costs less than one-third the alternative. Oh, and it’s safer.”

This doesn’t reduce friction. It shows friction is relatively low. Which is almost as good.

An easy out decreases friction

Sometimes you can reduce friction by emphasizing that a tactic is easy to reverse:

“I know you like having ™ after each mention of our brand. But that’s using up 3–4 characters in our PPC ads. We can use those characters to write better ads. That’s our main way to improve clickthru rate and quality. If we don’t improve quality score, we’ll continue paying 130% per click. It’ll take a few minutes to change. Our brand resonates without the (TM). If we can improve clickthru by .5% we’ll get 500 more visits a week, which at current conversion rate means 100 more customers. And, if it doesn’t work, we can switch back.”

Here, the context is the company’s PPC advertising performance. There’s fantastic upside. Most important, we can reverse the change anytime. Why not try it?

Frictionless? Check

If the benefit to effort ratio is high enough, a tactic becomes nearly frictionless. At that point, the stakeholder will act on your recommendation.

How To Grow The S**t Out of Frictionless Clarity

There are specific things that’ll help you create frictionless clarity:

Have the answers at your fingertips

Fast responses to relevant questions reduce friction. The longer the delay between question and answer, the greater the friction.

If you don’t have answers when they need them, you cause round trips. Every time you take a question back to your team or another expert, you force everyone to disengage and re-engage. No one likes that.

Unless you have one hell of a memory (I do not) you need all the useful information at your fingertips.

The best way I’ve found to get close to perfection? A knowledge base: A collection of useful information you organize for fast, question-based reference. That’s my definition, by the way. I accept responsibility if I butchered the real one.

This knowledge base should at least include:

The numbers that matter: Revenue, cost per conversion, etc.

A list of relevant stakeholder questions that crop up frequently

Even better: Answers to any relevant stakeholder questions

Answers to common questions in the various disciplines

Evernote is great if you want information on and offline across several devices. You can answer questions with a delay of a minute or two. You can enter each item as a note, tag them and then collect them into folders.

You can share Evernote notebooks with others, using it as a team resource.

If that’s not what you want, check out Atlassian’s Confluence Questions. It’s web-based and built as a knowledge base from the ground up. It comes with their wiki product, Confluence, so you can build out more detailed explanations and answers.

You can also use a spreadsheet, a bunch of text files (for the nerdier among us) or an actual database tool. Just make sure it’s fast and easy to search.

Do not expect stakeholders to use it. That doesn’t just create friction. It glues them to the floor. It also forces them to wade through subject matter and fogs up clarity.

The knowledge base is your tool, designed to help you answer questions. Frictionless clarity.

Maintain a consistent narrative

Never, ever contradict yourself or your team. Or at least be prepared to explain why you’re changing course. Avoid the accidental course change. It’s stressful for everyone, causes many, many round trips, and erodes everyone’s trust in you as a leader.

If the narrative careens off-course, everyone focuses on the confusion. Clarity goes spiraling down the toilet. Friction turns all surfaces to sandpaper. It’s not pretty.

You can maintain a consistent narrative by recording it. Create a place where you can take a glance at previous messages, meeting notes, etc. all at once.

I use text files. I also like to use Evernote. If I’m working with my team I send notes, etc. to our project management tool. Most PM tools provide an e-mail address for each project. Anything you send to that address gets added to a single message thread.

I still screw this up all the time, by the way. I always will. But this cuts my screw ups in half. Progress!

Don’t beat a dead jellyfish*

Politics can ruin anything, of course. Since we’re not in charge, we can’t just say “Get over it.” We don’t control who pooped in whose proverbial cereal bowl.

We do control how we explain tactics to stakeholders. So focus on that. Establish frictionless clarity.

So, if it’s clear the stakeholder can’t or won’t execute on a tactic, move on. Hounding them will only frustrate them. You’ll distract from the doable stuff, increase friction, and suck the life out of every meeting.

*Jellyfish disgust me. Also, one stung me and I had a rash for a week. So the idea of a dead one, or a beaten one, doesn’t haunt me.

Get help editing

I won’t say “have someone edit everything you write.” My editor says this all the time. But sometimes she goes on vacation. Or sleeps. Slacker. The reality is you can’t always do that. So have a few automated backups:

Grammarly is a godsend. Paste, review, revise, save. Be sure to read the edits before you approve them, by the way. It’s still a computer trying to speak English.

Don’t test everything

The whole point of frictionless clarity is that some things don’t need to be tested. You don’t have to test whether a faster site is better. You don’t have to test whether good writing is better.

Take action. Then measure the result. Do A/B tests on the subtle stuff.

Most folks won’t agree with me on this. But not everything needs to be tested. We get paid for our expertise. Sometimes you have to rely on that.

Do learn everything

Leaders who aren’t in charge must know how stuff works. That lets you bring clarity through quick answers and reduce friction by reducing round trips.

Learn new stuff. At least one new thing every month. Examples? Learn:

To be a better marketer, by learning the basics

To be a better writer

How web servers and browsers work

HTML basics

CSS 101

A little bit of one scripting language

How to leverage the crap out of Excel or Google Spreadsheets (or both)

How to use Powerpoint without making stakeholders’ eyes bleed

Lead Without Being In Charge

As marketers, we have to move organizations closer to goals through effective communication. We can’t do that if recommendations sit on conference room tables. Stakeholders have to act on our advice. It’s up to us to make that happen.

It is not easy. You have to be brave. When you start, you’ll get dirty looks, and hear how you’re “stepping on toes.” Hold your ground. Be diplomatic and respect everyone on the team. Don’t take it personally if stakeholders resist. Remember, they have to assess risk, effort and ambiguity. They have to be skeptical. Doing otherwise would be irresponsible. The tension between risky change (you) and secure status quo (stakeholders) is a natural and important result.

If a business is anything short of a disaster, that tension will always tend to inaction. If you want stuff to happen, you have to lead. But you’re not in charge. To do that, demonstrate frictionless clarity and move the audience to “Why not?”

Go change the discussion.

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#How To Lead When You’re Not In Charge: A Manual for Marketers

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restatebrk24219 · 6 years