What does Subu do at work?

For some, this is may be an innocuously easy question. But for me this has remained, till date, the bane of my life.

One day, I was asked by a novice trainee (who shall remain unnamed), “What do you do at work?”

No sooner had my auditory cortex received this signal that my brain cells got all tangled up into paroxysms of thought. Simply put, an infinite stretch of time passed in between those seconds in which my mind feebly attempted to frame a response, to answer this mother of all questions.

My standard response for the low IQ people goes something along the lines of “I am the guy who is partly responsible for some of those ads you see everyday”. But, given that this trainee’s LinkedIn profile indicated a 98 Mensa, my brain knew that it would not be able to fob him off with such a simplistic answer.

The next formulation from the dorsolateral parts of my brain went along the lines of “I am the guy who designs the strategy that informs the advertising that you see everyday”. This response, unfortunately, begs the question “what kind of strategy?”

This is where things begin to get interesting, because there are planners, and there are planners. In the space of any given eight hours of a working day, I could be wearing any one of four hats, not to mention the twenty-four permutations between them.

Veering between the extreme left and the extreme right of the planner brain, there are four cognition states – the marketing planner, the brand planner, the communication planner and the creative planner.

Good things happen when each of them are conscious of the other, while signing a peace treaty to keep respectful distance between themselves. However, bad things happen when each of these dudes (cognition states) decides that it is better than the others.

Or, even worse, if each decides to do the job of the other. You may be tempted to ask, “what is the worst that can be?” The ill effects could vary from the pedestrian problem of poor motivation up to utter desecration and destruction of brand value.

However, keeping in spirit with new-age gurus who encourage us to think positively, we shall veer away from these downright pessimistic scenarios and think of all the positive things that could happen if Jack does not behave like Jill.

For one, there would be horses for courses. Or, in other words, one would not try to fit a round peg in a square hole. (Is this becoming an article on analogies?). A realization of these four differing profiles would help direct bespoke skillsets and competencies to the client problems at hand. On the other side of the same coin, it would help clarify the planner’s mind on his own career path. This clarity would contribute immensely to both the efficiency and the effectiveness of the planner.

Another chain of reasoning could question whether the four profiles are mutually exclusive? The sushi knife evades us on this question. The author submits that these profiles are exclusive on inputs, while they may bleed into each other on outputs. Put differently, while problems are exclusively addressed by the appropriate skillset, the proposed solutions may bleed into adjacent profiles. For example, a market portfolio solution may need to get expressed in brand terms, to illustrate it in to an unskilled stakeholder. However, bleeding beyond adjacent profiles would not be without risk. After all, one would loathe presenting a portfolio solution with creative campaigns!

But forgive me, for we drift far away from the original question “What do you do, at work?”

Alas, for the educated, there is no simple answer to this question. The best intelligent elevator pitch would be along the lines of “I am the guy who designs appropriate solutions, which could be marketing, brand, communications or creative strategy, that ultimately informs the products, brands and advertising that you see everyday”.

Or, put simply, I am a ‘creator of gestalt for consumption’.

I wonder, how many people would understand that?

In the very least, now you know, why this question has tormented me for all my working life.


This article was reprinted here: http://www.afaqs.com/planning-room/article/133_-Planner-framework