Archive for marzo 2014
Neuromarketing y marketing íntegro: de las emociones a las relaciones
Actualmente las empresas están descubriendo las enormes aplicaciones que desde la neurociencia, se pueden incorporar al marketing, de hecho, desde hace unos años se puede hablar perfectamente de neuromarketing, que en palabras de Philip Kotler es:
El término neuromarketing describe la investigación cerebral sobre el efecto de los estímulos del marketing.
Desde la perspectiva del neuromarketing se parte de que los consumidores, como los individuos, tienen una parte racional y una parte irracional. La parte racional en el consumo, se dedica a dar un razonamiento lógico y formal a la decisión de compra y es desde los inicios del marketing, el rol que se adopta como eje central de estudio y aplicación. El problema, como saben todos los que se dedican al estudio en el campo de las ciencias sociales, es que los individuos pueden mentir y de hecho, mienten, algunas veces de forma voluntaria y otras veces, porque no se dan cuenta de las manipulaciones y tretas que el cerebro les y nos juega a todos.
La focalización del neuromarketing en la parte irracional, los afectos, juega mucho con el abanico de posibilidades que ofrecen nuestros sentidos. Hasta ahora, el marketing tradicional era casi en exclusiva visual y el producto era ofrecido para que la compra se efectuase con los ojos. En estos momentos y gracias a los estudios del nueromarketing, los expertos y las empresas están descubriendo un auténtico torrente de posibilidades con el resto de sentidos: gusto, oído, olfato y tacto. Lo que se pretende con ello es asociar una marca a una serie de sentimientos concretos que provoquen unas emociones determinadas en el consumidor, haciéndole preferir la compra de un producto o servicio sobre otro. Sin embargo, como avisan los propios expertos, entre la emoción generada y el propio producto o servicio, debe existir una coherencia que haga sostenible y creíble la venta, es decir, que mantenga en pie las percepciones de calidad o el mensaje que se quiere comunicar.Sin embargo, personalmente considero que el neuromarketing es un paso más hacia el verdadero campo futuro del marketing, lo que yo denomino marketing inter-relacional. Las teorías del marketing hasta el día de hoy se han centrado únicamente en la relación que la marca o el producto crea con el individuo. Bajo la perspectiva de la empresa íntegra, sabemos que existen dos dimensiones básicas para una compañía, la dimensión de la coherencia y por otro lado, la dimensión de la integridad, que se logra cuando la triada PENSAR- HACER-DECIR de la empresa están en sintonía con la misma triada del entorno.
El marketing, como una parte más de la empresa, debe dirigir sus objetivos hacia la meta de lograr una actividad integra, ya que es la única forma de fortalecer y consolidar de manera definitiva el mensaje comunicativo, el relato que se busca contar. Un buen ejemplo es Starbucks, cuyo mensaje coherente del café encaja y se completa con su acción íntegra en su entorno, potenciando las comunidades de agrícolas que le venden su materia prima con programas de diverso tipo. Un mal ejemplo, empresas textiles que cosen su ropa en países subdesarrollados permitiendo las malas condiciones, empresas de alimentación que usan productos potencialmente peligrosos para la salud, empresas que ofrecen una experiencia de usuario pero que no tratan de igual forma a sus empleados.
Tarde o temprano, esos comportamientos en el entorno de la empresa, acaban llegando al consumidor y distorsionando o completando, la parte emocional que tienen sobre la marca.
La cultura del esfuerzo es insuficiente.
Una de las palabras que más se escucha a los padres que tienen cierta edad y sobre todo a los abuelos, es eso de que los jóvenes de hoy no tenemos muy desarrollada la cualidad del esfuerzo. Los expertos hablan de una falta de "cultura del esfuerzo", sobre todo en la educación. Se nos da a entender que hemos dejado de lado esa capacidad de sacrificio, lucha o denuedo a la hora de ver cumplidos nuestros deseos u objetivos.
David Roncero comparte un artículo de Pilar Jericó publicado en El País titulado Dónde está la cultura del esfuerzo. La autora dice en el mismo:
Necesitamos recuperar la cultura del esfuerzo. Es el único camino para desarrollar el talento, para ser competitivo como persona y como sociedad.
Personalmente estoy de acuerdo al cincuenta por ciento con la afirmación de la Sra. Jericó. Entiendo el talento como la unión de dos dimensiones, la actitud y la aptitud, es decir, la suma de nuestra inteligencia emocional más nuestra inteligencia racional, lo que sabemos y como lo ponemos en marcha. Bajo mi óptica, centrarse en el esfuerzo es como hacer ejercicio con una sola pierna o un solo brazo.
Mi propuesta es que necesitamos recuperar además de la cultura del esfuerzo, también la cultura de la procuración. Y aunque esforzar y procurar pueden usarse como sinónimos, etimológicamente no significan lo mismo:
Esforzar: Proviene del latín y está formado por el prefijo "ex-" y el sufijo "fortis (fuerza)". El prefijo "ex-" significa "desde, a consecuencia de, a causa de, por causa de" y "fortis" es "valiente, decidido". Por tanto, esfuerzo es "desde lo valiente, a causa de ser valiente, por causa de lo valiente, lo decidido".
Procurar: Compuesto del prefijo latino "pro-" más el sufijo "curar". El prefijo "pro-" denota "en virtud de, en favor de, a cambio de" y "curar" es "cuidar". Procurar es por tanto, "en virtud de cuidar, a cambio de cuidar, en favor de cuidar".
Quizás la diferencia sea demasiado sutil, pero es fundamental y se ve más claro cuando ponemos el sujeto a esas acciones. El esfuerzo es algo personal e implica únicamente al individuo, sin embargo, procurar hace referencia al entorno, a los medios, en tener presente y cuidar lo que nos rodea. Como explica Pedro María Olive en Diccionario de sinónimos de la lengua catellana (1891):
El que se esfuerza saca todos los recursos de sí mismo; el que procura se vale de todos los medios exteriores que se le ocurran. El primero solo confía en sus fuerzas, y trabaja por darlas toda la extensión y vigor que considera necesitar para lograr su fin; el segundo solo atiende a este, y se vale de cuanto cree puede coadyuvar a él. Cuando hago todos mis esfuerzos para levantar un peso enorme, solo me valgo para hacerlo de mis propias fuerzas: cuando procuro levantarlo, además de mis propias fuerzas, empleo máquinas, auxilios, maña.
Por lo tanto, no solo es necesario cuando deseamos obtener un deseo u objetivo, poner toda nuestra energía, fuerza o valentía, sino que también necesitamos conocer qué instrumentos, herramientas o estrategias vamos a usar. Y ambas cualidades son necesarias para actuar con talento, pues de nada vale empeñarse en atornillar un tornillo con un martillo, como tan insuficiente es tener el destornillador y no querer usarlo con la energía necesaria.
Beloved leader. The leadership of Steve Jobs.
La traducción al español aquí.
And hated leader. Because, if anything should to have clear a leader, it is that not going to be able to reach to captivate everyone and get everyone follow it. Leaders connect on an emotional level, and therefore, they are like the parts of a LEGO or a puzzle and thus, they might form in the future a wonderful things with a team and with other people, for hard we try, we not will accomplish nothing, or in worst of the cases, we will to try to force the junction of the two parts and that one or both blocks will might break.
And hated leader. Because, if anything should to have clear a leader, it is that not going to be able to reach to captivate everyone and get everyone follow it. Leaders connect on an emotional level, and therefore, they are like the parts of a LEGO or a puzzle and thus, they might form in the future a wonderful things with a team and with other people, for hard we try, we not will accomplish nothing, or in worst of the cases, we will to try to force the junction of the two parts and that one or both blocks will might break.
Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple, has become one of the most representative figures of recent times. His leadership, in essence, has been loved by some and hated by others, being difficult to find, as in the cases of a genius, a terms means. Even after his death a few years ago, his figure is still increasing the expectancy and controversy wherever it might is spoken about him. Which of course happened with a film based on part of his biography, JOBS, directed by Joshua Michael Stern and performed in the title role by Ashton Kutcher.The leadership of Jobs may be classify into a natural leadership (see article on leadership types), however, it is worked with effort, conflicts, struggles and confrontations. This is because Jobs had a very strong personality, the fruit of a personal context where the abandonment of his real family he will let deeply marked.
To better understand the kind of the leadership of Steve, we may are necessary before, a set of categories and concepts previous that may allow compose the management style of one of the founders of Apple.
The first is the difference between leadership and management style or direction. Every leader has a management style, but not every he have it this latter, they are leaders, because we remember that to be a leader, we need followers, and that coherence checks our essence. Therefore, we must not only try to identify the points that make up the leadership of Jobs, also, the points of his management style.
One theory that I like it and that i believe most significative about management style it is the Bill Reddin theory, mainly his work How to make your management style more effective. The author argues that a good manager is one who with a number of resources, that he is able to answer the questions as what do we achieve?, Where and when will we do it? and how are we doing?. In his words, "the managers have a responsibility to be efficient, after, they have to manage the situation in which should be generated the efficency and then, they have to decide which style they going to use ...".
Under this view, Reddin states that managers are mainly focus in two areas, or oriented to task (now also we would say at product or at the customer) or oriented to relationships. Appears of crossing both dimensions, the following matrix of leadership styles:
The best place would be described as "integrated" as it defines a management style that not only cares because things go smoothly and on schedule, but also because the team keeps a number of personal and stable relationships.
Under this matrix, Jobs fits into the style profile "dedicated", characterized by:
- Determined / Aggressive / Self-confident
- Very active / Driver / Great initiative
- He sets tasks and standards for subordinates
- Great self-confidence / Independent / Ambitious
- He uses rewards, punishments and controls
- The tasks are the first.
Reddin says that they "tend to dominate others. They offer numerous verbal guidelines to subordinates. Their time perspective is immediate, so when they have to choose, they prefer the "Do it now". [...] they judge their subordinates depending on what they produce.
That's the management style of Jobs during the early years of his career. But something was not going well. His close acquaintances go left the boat (traumatic was the march of another founder, the legendary Stephen Wozniak), products like Lisa and Macintosh suffers sales problems and endow a great advantage to its competitors (IBM and Microsoft). His position begins to be discussed by the directors board and finally, he abandoned Apple. His reaction becomes paranoid and only provides a argument, "with him or against him".
His return, years later, coincided with a very difficult situation for the company he had founded. Many doubted that he will was to able of to cope at situation and to change it, everyone had in their mind the first Jobs management style. But something had changed. As he oneself recognizes and collects in many existing biographies on the market, he looks it away from what he himself had created, the blow had supposed betrayal, he supposed to him the need for a change in his personality.
He realized that his personal life was erratic (far away of his daughter, angry with the mother of the same, the bitter distance with many of the friends he had known in the beginning), and conducted an internal conquer for later, to change his external side. This process of the need to achieve internal victory to achieve external victory follows the logic the Dr. Covey, he has so well explained in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
Its old style of management, which Reddin checks as autocrat, he changes and moves towards the benevolent autocrat, characterized by:
- Decisive / he has the initiative
- Diligence / Energetic
- Finisher / Engaged
- Evaluator of the quantity, quality and time
- Sensitive to the costs, benefits and sales
- Achieves results
- Innovation and creative capacity
A despite that, he continued oriented to tasks, he follows from the negative side of it, he recognizes his faults and shortcomings and he knows he has to improve its focus on relationships. Something that Jobs was costing it too much, but it was gradually improving.
What Jobs was able to find was a management style that was consistent with his leadership. A natural leadership clearly autocratic, typical of people with a great personality, with the ideas very clear and self-confidents. A leadership based on:
- Simple and clean is beautiful
- I am the consumer and I know it what I want as a consumer
- The only way is do it well. The mantra is quality, quality, quality.
- The products are not only a physical thing, they have to have a soul, generate feelings.
- Between the company and the consumer, there must be an emotional bond.
- Curiosity. The knowledge is in the place that you least expect to find.
- Everything matter, there are not small things. The detail is king.
- Work with the best, with the people committed, with those who believe in you. No good or bad workers, only there are employees who demonstrate every day that are best. Talent is a flow, not a stock.
We prove that one natural leadership that is part of his esence, that founds and builds his beliefs, is reinforced with a right style direction, what result a coherence that has only one path, success. Something that Jobs embodies as anyone.
