Joe Homan from Shire Pharmaceutical, How Leading by Example Can Win You a President’s Award

This past weekend I learned that Joe Homan from Shire Pharmaceutical won the company’s prestigious CEO Award. I’m excited for Joe, but I’ll be honest, this didn’t shock me at all. I’ve known Joe for 14 years and I can tell you that he’s definitely someone that strikes you as "CEO Award Caliber". As I listened to Joe’s top projects from last year, I started to think about the leadership qualities that enabled him to succeed. That list of qualities led to the creation of this blog post! So, I’ve included a list of things you can do in order to be a better leader in your organization (inspired by Joe Homan). So, if you’re in Corporate America and you want to win your company’s President's Award or CEO Award, then read on!

Joe Homan's Award at Shire and a Recurring Theme
I asked Joe about the projects he worked on that lead to his nomination. The three projects he explained to me were extremely impressive. For example, Joe designed, developed, and implemented Shire Training Camp, an award winning program that brought over 300 employees together for industry-related training. The Baltimore Business Development Authority presented the project its coveted Innovator Award. As I learned about each project, I saw a recurring theme. Joe’s expertise, work ethic, and leadership style enabled his team to generate excellent results. Let’s take a look at Joe’s combination of characteristics that helped him win a CEO Award. They might just help you win one too…

If you want to be nominated for your President’s Award, you should:

1. Know Your Area of Expertise and Work Hard
Joe is a passionate guy. He digs what he does for a living and it shows. No matter which part of the organization you focus on, you should know it inside and out. Educate yourself constantly, read the top books and blogs in the industry, test your knowledge frequently, and take classes when applicable. But education is not enough. You need to work hard, and I mean really hard. You need a strong work ethic in order to inspire people. When you inspire people, they talk about you. When they talk about you, your story goes viral. When your story goes viral, it ends up being heard by important people. Don’t underestimate the power of working hard…

2. Go Above and Beyond
In a nutshell, this relates to going above and beyond for your team and other teams in your organization (sometimes not related to what you do). Yes, you heard me correctly. If you can help other parts of the organization, do it. I’m a big believer in karma and helping others typically pays off in the end big time! Over the past 14 years, I’ve seen Joe bend over backwards to help people (both professionally and personally.) Think about the viral example I used earlier in this post. It absolutely applies here as well. Help others reach their goals and they won’t forget it. And, they will probably communicate your assistance to others in the organization.

3. Be a Great Listener
I know, some of you cringed when you heard this one. It’s not easy to do, right? Great leaders understand people, they know everyone is different, and each team member needs to be managed differently. Sometimes you need to sit back and just listen to what others have to say. It’s amazing what you’ll learn… Again, not easy to do, but is a consistent trait I’ve seen in great leaders. Joe is a great listener and I’m confident others in his organization feel the same way.

4. Empower Your People
One thing I learned quickly in my career is that you cannot do everything yourself. Great leaders delegate and empower their people. If you cannot do this effectively, then you’re probably going to have a hard time leading a high performing team. (More on generating results next.) Joe has a military background, which might explain his thorough understanding of how an effective team works. In the military, if your team doesn’t perform well, you can die. Sure, it’s not the same in Corporate America, but there are other consequences to not performing at a high level. There’s definitely a fine balance between micro managing and not being involved enough. Those leaders that strike the right balance reap great rewards. (And no, I didn’t mean for that to sound like a fortune cookie!) :-)

5. Generate Outstanding Results
This is a given. You need to execute at a high level and generate outstanding results. Anyone can take a budget and do something…but it really only matters if you meet and exceed your goals. You can have 4 of the 5 characteristics I listed down, but if you can’t generate results, you won’t impress anyone. It’s basically the viral killer, or worse...it can be negative viral. You don’t want that to happen. So, if you can exceed your goals with regard to revenue, profit, decreasing costs, by innovating, etc, then there’s a good chance you’ll get noticed. After which, let the viral effect I explained earlier take over. :)

So, you want to be a President’s Award winner?
So there you have it, a post inspired by the news I heard this weekend about Joe Homan from Shire Pharmaceutical. If you start working on the 5 items listed above, maybe you can get noticed and nominated for your company’s President’s Award or CEO Award. Actually, it just hit me that I can wrap this post into one line. Work hard, help others, listen, empower your people, and generate outstanding results. Now put that in your email signature! Just kidding. So even though I’m congratulating Joe in this post, maybe next year it will be you…

GG

Job Titles, Overtitling and Undertitling | How Ash from Army of Darkness Was Spot On

Ahh, the classic quote from Ash in Army of Darkness (watch the video clip above if you don’t know what I’m referring to!) I’m a big horror movie fan and this quote always cracks me up… And Bruce Campbell delivering the line makes it even better. So why the video clip? Well, I had a great conversation recently with several internet marketing professionals about job titles and I thought this clip was a good example of overtitling (more on that later). The question I posed was this, “Does a big and fancy job title hurt you or help you down the line?” And, does it even effectively communicate what you actually do on a regular basis? Recruiters and HR professionals deal with undertitling and overtitling all of the time and I figured I would give my 2 cents on the issue.

Let's start off with some basic definitions:
The definition of overtitling is holding a job title that is too senior for what you do and the level of experience you have. I believe smaller companies and agencies do this all the time… They want to attract and retain top talent, so they hand out big job titles.

As you might expect, the definition of undertitling is having a job title that is too junior for what you do and your level of experience. Larger companies that have a steep hierarchy developed by HR professionals tend to undertitle. “I’m sorry Joe, but our professional blueprint for job titles says that you have 3 months to go before I can give you the title of “Director”. I know you just generated $20MM in revenue for us across multiple channels, but our HR folks say it’s no go. Don’t laugh, I’ve seen this happen to people.

So, as Ash clearly demonstrated with the “Duke” in the video clip above, his overtitling wasn’t going to help them out in their given situation, right? “OK, you are so powerful that you need multiple fancy titles, but you’re still in a heap of trouble!” :-) BTW, if you enjoy horror films and haven’t seen the Evil Dead trilogy, I highly recommend it! Sam Raimi is a genius… And more importantly for you entrepreneurs out there…watch the making of the Evil Dead and learn how he dropped out of college knowing he could create killer films (no pun intended). He did, and with big risk comes big reward. He’s got serious moxy. Now back to job titles...

A Quick Lesson In Humility…
Early in my career, I ended up golfing with an executive at my company and we had paired up with 2 other gentlemen. If you golf, you know that usually by the second or third hole, the inevitable question pops up… “So, what do you do for a living??” I went through an elaborate explanation of what I did, being excited about the web booming and being part of it on multiple dimensions. Then, the executive I was playing with (who was also on the Executive Team no less), said quite simply, “I work in {enter the department name here} and I help our employees {enter the description here}”. What?? Dude, you’re a big deal! ;-) His response left a big impression on me. He didn’t need to throw around his title and that he was on the Executive Team of a multi-billion dollar company. He just told people what he did. I think that’s a good policy to have…

Internet Marketers Define Your Job Titles
So, with web marketing booming and new channels always emerging, what job title do you want? Do you want a traditional job title like “Director of Internet Marketing”, which is fairly broad and can mean focusing on multiple channels or do you want a highly focused title like "SEM Strategist”? There are some people who have broad and deep skill-sets in online marketing, but I think most people breaking in now have a strong focus. I actually consider myself fortunate to have started when I did (1994), which enabled me to gain a broad skill-set in online marketing (based on starting when the web hit). However, what if someone mainly focuses on 1 or 2 channels or focuses on analyzing those channels, or selling products and services for a distinct channel. Which type of title makes sense? Should they include a highly focused title that clearly explains what they do? I’m not here to answer that question, but I think it’s extremely relevant in today’s dynamic marketplace.

Here's a Recommendation for Developing a Job Title That Makes Sense
OK, here’s my 2 cents on job titles for internet marketers. Sit down and map out exactly what you do on a regular basis. Include all the details, whether you focus on web analytics or manage paid search or develop viral campaigns or focus on natural search. Seeing your job responsibilities on paper will help you get a firm grip on what you actually do. Then start some divergent thinking and jot down all the possible job titles. Then choose the top 5 for your given position. You can mix and match, expand on some titles, create new titles, etc. I highly recommend being as specific as possible and seeing how that sounds… I’m not saying that the position titled “Director of” or “VP of” should go away, but if you are a professional focused on a certain area of an industry, it will probably benefit you to have a focused job title. For example, I think Director of Social Media Marketing is focused enough… Once you have a few killer job titles, go to the leader of your respective organization and present them. What’s the worst that can happen? They say no? They might see your point and make a change. It could help you and others in your company down the line.

If all else fails...
...and you find yourself without a strong job title, you can always try to combine everything you do into one title! Check out my "About Glenn Gabe Page"...where I created a new title called Chief WebDeVideoSearchMarketBuzzAnalytics Officer.

Now try and put that on a business card. ;-)

GG