Lately I have had a lot of dealings with employees of large organizations who are frustrated at their boss and colleague attitudes to marketing, and online marketing in particular.

These organizations got big, and now it seems nobody wants to try anything new. What worked for them in the 1980′s or earlier is just fine thankyouverymuch.

Sound familiar?

The problem is the smart people (ie. the people talking to me ) know they haven’t got the luxury of “business as usual” and the “open checkbook” option for marketing success is a fast-vanishing beast.

There are three common attitudes that seem to sum up most of the counter-arguments against doing something smart and new:

1. That’s not the way we do things – Regardless of your industry or specific business, if you keep doing things the way things have always been done A) you won’t get new results, and B) you will not be able to stand out in a market full of me-too.
2. If I was them I would prefer this – Are you the target market? If no then shut up and find out what your target market prefers. These are the kinds of people who get the Chairman’s wife to select the website color scheme.
3. It might be a good idea but I just don’t want to – We all have to do things occasionally that we don’t like. Live with it. Is it right should be the question you are asking, not “will it be hard work and keep me away from playing Tower Defense and drinking beer”.

In the first example I see this mostly in not just large companies but those who dominate their market through historical inertia. The problem is those companies will be out-innovated and either have to keep buying up their smaller competitors (and then crush their innovative spirit) or actually come up with some new ideas.

The second type are dangerous in that they think they can speak for their customer but are so out of touch with the target market they are likely to take their business in disastrous directions. On a small level it could be “I think it is time for a new user interface because the old one is stale”, through to Sony and Microsoft dismissing the Wii controller as a novelty. I bet they are not feeling so smart now Wii Sports has become the best-seller of all time …

Unfortunately the last one is the most difficult to overcome if you are not the boss. It’s seen in projects large and small, commercial and voluntary. This is the reason why open source projects often have lousy documentation, and why we are always surprised and delighted when we get the help we ask for. The companies who are willing to do what it takes are the ones who succeed, not the ones who avoid the hard jobs until they can’t be ignored, then try to hire an underling to delegate them to!

Are these attitudes familiar in your work? What other damaging attitudes do you see in business? Please share in the comments …