If you read my earlier post on what it was like to come into my new role, I suggested it was similar to being a raft captain who had been thrown overboard in the middle of a rapid, only to then climb back in the front of the raft in the middle of pure chaos
I’ve been thinking a lot about this and now I’m not sure the analogy still holds water (see what I did there 😉 ). Safe to say I’m at a point where I feel like I’ve made it to the back where I could captain us out of immediate danger. However, now I’m left facing a totally different boat related problem analogy. Okay, hang with me here …
You’re on a boat. A big one this time, and you’re the Captain in charge of all crew and operations aboard. You’re in the middle of the ocean. Still with me? Okay cool, here’s the deal. Your rudder is out. To make matters worse, your engines are out too. You’re in trouble, but that’s not the worse part. You guessed it, there’s a hole in bottom of ship and you’re taking on water… but here’s the kicker, you’re a good captain and you’re not going to bail on your ship because you like a challenge (remember, you like challenges!) and this is what you signed-up for.
Alright Captain, what’s the play here?
Okay, enough fun with weird analogies, although I have used this exact one with my team at work to put some things in perspective. I’m not quite the Captain of the boat per-say, but call me the guy who’s in charge of getting the engines back up and running. The rudder is our analytics and insights teams across the organization, and the product experience (our various apps, partner experiences, etc.) is the hole in the boat. In order for us to make it out (and turn this company around successfully), we’re going to need to believe in the product team fixing the hole, and the analytics team getting the rudder going (get it? insights lead you in the direction that’ll make you successful… like a rudder… never mind). And that leaves us as a marketing department to get the engines up and running (i.e. what is going to get us moving and moving fast once we know the direction and have something that works).
So here we are, May 24, 2018, in the middle of fighting the good fight and getting internal portions of the organization aligned and running properly. It’s an exciting time to be here, and I look forward to continually turning on portions of the marketing engine more and more as time goes by.
Oh Captain, My Captain!
-Alex