How to Expertly Escape “Just do what they did!”
Being told to copy someone else’s work doesn’t just infuriate designers. Marketers are often asked (or told, if we’re being honest) to “do Instagram like that,” “make a website just like this one,” or “create a mailer like they did.”
Rather than starting with the audience and the goal, folks want you to skip to the final product, one that they saw work for someone else.
Who’s the audience? Who knows. What’s the strategy? Who cares. It worked for them. But hey — this ad featured blueberries. You don’t have to do blueberries. You’re the expert. Do this organization’s version of blueberries. Get creative.
Being told to copy someone else’s work kind of makes you want to explode, doesn’t it?
It’s because there’s a difference between being inspired by and blindly copying something, but I don’t need to tell you that.
You know what it’s like to set a meeting to discuss project goals with colleagues so you can develop a strategy that will resonate with the audience only to have that meeting devolve (like it usually does) into a painful group think about some other organization’s approach. Despite your efforts to lead a goal-oriented conversation, you end up looking around the room in disbelief as your colleagues try to figure out how to make blueberries work for your organization.
The result?
A cobbled together, haphazard plan built from someone else’s tactics instead of from the audience and goals. You end up being told to copy someone else’s work. There’s no room for you to bring strategy, no hypothesis you are testing. No intentional effort towards cultivating that community of brand advocates. Ultimately, you don’t even want to stand behind the plan, but you’ll be held responsible for its success or failure.
#strategymoment: What can I do to change the dynamics with my colleagues so I can start planning from the audience and the goal(s) instead of being told to copy someone else’s work?
The kind of group breakdown you’re experiencing often occurs when roles and responsibilities are unclear. For example, you think it’s your colleague’s job to bring the organizational goal(s) and your job to develop the strategy. Meanwhile, your colleagues don’t seem to be thinking about goals and are behaving as if it’s their job to define the tactics and your job to execute them. Breakdowns like these also tend to happen when there is a lack of trust or a combination of the two. Whatever the cause, what’s happening is a signal there’s a longer-term issue to work on resolving.
In the meantime, here’s what can you do about it now:
- Don’t wait for the next meeting to take action
- Define a realistic amount of change you can lead now
- Identify a broker who can help with buy-in
- Engage the broker with positivity and humility
- Co-plan the next meeting
- Co-lead the next meeting with excitement and enthusiasm
1. Don’t wait for the next meeting
If you wait for that next meeting, you likely will encounter the same dynamics. You’ll be presented with “the” idea again and hard pressed to make progress towards personalizing the approach for the audience.
2. Define a realistic amount of change
Although your intentions are to bring marketing best practices, your colleagues are likely to just see and hear change. Change can be scary, cause folks to feel attacked, and trigger people to get defensive. It’s tempting to try to go all out for control of marketing, but today’s change needs to be small enough not to be scary, inclusive enough not to trigger defenses, and positive enough so the group buys into this little bit of change. You need to shift what is happening to a more productive place, not change it entirely right now.
What’s happening now is idea generation. It’s an ill-timed groupthink that’s driving everything. You might not think it’s their job to generate these kinds of ideas, but it would be too big of a change to entirely take away idea generation from this group as a first step.
That means your goal should be to set the stage for a group brainstorm that happens at the right time. What do you need to make that happen?
- A defined audience problem and organizational goal in-hand when you walk into the brainstorm
- Some proven brainstorming approaches to help make the shift
- Buy-in to try those different approaches during the meeting
3. Identify a broker
First, you need a broker, someone in the group who can help reduce the gap between group members and build more of a coalition. That means you aren’t necessarily looking for the person with the most powerful title or the person who keeps bringing “the” idea to the table, although the broker could be that person. You need someone who will be open to innovating with you and someone others tend to listen to.
4. Engage the broker with positivity and humility
Reach out and invite the broker to grab a coffee or a lunch. In that informal setting, it’s time to suggest some fun additions you were so excited to find and think could make those group planning meetings even better. The goal of this conversation is to gain agreement to start preparations for the next meeting. To get there, you need to exude excitement and fill their mind with what could be. Help them see the future you do, an atmosphere where everyone is having fun and sharing their best ideas. You also need to be open to their feedback about what they think and how they imagine their colleagues will react.
As tempting as it might be talk about how to fix the meeting, focus on what is working and how — together — you can make them even more awesomely fun and productive. I know, I know…you hate the current meetings — but you need to find something you can build on. Maybe you appreciate how excited folks get (what you want to do is keep things interesting to make sure you don’t lose that excitement…and you found some awesome and simple additions to try), how folks bring ideas (what you want to do is create a space for the generation of even more ideas…and you found some fun things to try with the group), etc.
If you instead focus on what doesn’t make sense or what isn’t working, you’re setting yourself up for a debate about what’s been happening, which doesn’t help you get any closer to what could be. You’re also being confrontational and behaving like a bit of know-it-all, and let’s be real — nobody likes a know-it-all. Even if you are your most positive self, it’s possible the person won’t immediately see the value of switching things up or agree with you that it’s needed or would be fun. If the person disagrees with you, be humble. Be open to their concerns and genuinely try to understand their perspective so you can return later with other suggestions that address these concerns.
5. Co-plan the next meeting
People tend to disengage and even get intimidated when they feel they are being talked at so the co-planning process needs to be collaborative. You need to make sure the broker feels important and like a trusted partner. Seek their advice and input, ask for their ideas, and make sure they help define how the session will go. Including the broker in meeting planning helps with buy-in of other meeting members when the two of you show up aligned and enthused.
You could say, “Here’s where I was thinking we might start our planning. What do you think? What am I missing?” In that way, you are setting the conversation on a productive path and making room for the broker’s point of view.
Together, define:
- the audience for this effort (come ready with a few ideas in case this person doesn’t know and invite their feedback)
- the problem or value-add from the audience’s perspective (make it outward focused on a specific audience need or enhancement rather than inward on some organizational goal — the 3 e’s are a great place to start)
- the organization’s goal for the effort (e.g., registrations, donations, web visits, more followers/subscribers, etc.)
- the brainstorming activities you will undertake and their ground rules
- the next steps you will pursue after the brainstorm (e.g., what will you do with the ideas generated, how will you gather participant feedback about how it went, etc.)
- anything else the broker deems necessary
It might take more than one conversation to pull it all together. Once you have set the stage for the next meeting by alerting the full group in advance that you two have put together some fun ideas and are excited to co-lead it.
6. Co-lead the next meeting with excitement and enthusiasm
The goal of this meeting is to brainstorm with a purpose and make everyone feel included, smart, and entertained.
- Start with a compliment and explain why you’re doing this (e.g., group is always so excited — want to keep things interesting and maintain the excitement, group always brings ideas — want to try generating even more ideas, group been becoming more collaborative — want to facilitate even more collaboration, etc.)
- Let them know the two of you have been working on a few additions to how things usually go, are really excited to give them a try together, and are looking forward to their feedback afterwards — but this for the next however long, you two are asking them to roll with whatever without judgement
- Set some ground rules and make sure everyone is comfortable
- Share the audience definition, problem statement, and goal you two generated
- Explain the activity
- Let the group know they need to generate a certain number of ideas — say 20–25 — without passing judgement on any of them. It’s not always the best approach for a brainstorm, but for a group like this, having a group goal is helpful in uniting everyone and having a reason to keep the conversation moving is crucial to avoiding being presented with “the” idea.
Stay as enthusiastic and positive throughout as you can. Reward the folks who are participating with encouragement and compliments. Yes! Awesome! So good!
What should you do if you start being told to copy someone else’s work during the brainstorm?
Here’s when the number of ideas being generated is helpful. You can compliment “the” idea and keep the group focused on how many more ideas they still have to generate. For example: “Yes, that one’s on the list. Thanks for sharing it. Folks, we need 10 more before we…”
At the end, explain what will happen next
Let the group know how you will use the ideas and thank everyone for participating. Invite them to reach out later to share any thoughts they might have about this meeting with either of you.
Remember, being told to copy someone else’s work can be frustrating — and downright infuriating — but it’s not impossible to overcome by switching up how you’re managing the process. Focus on the small change you can make now, reward others for embracing innovation, and celebrate the step you’ve taken to position your audience at the heart of the effort.
