Last week I had two very different experiences talking to people in charge of central marketing functions at large professional services firms.  One Head of Marketing was extremely keen to empower the fee earners at her firm to create and share content - she understood that it was important for clients and prospects to get a true insight into the knowledge of those at the coal face of her business - an authentic message from those in the know. The other, frankly, was not at all keen to empower these folk.  She used words like 'control' and 'manage' and was pretty keen to be the place where all comms came from. You can imagine which one I made more progress with!  

It got me thinking about Octopuses.  At Passle we love an Octopus - ours is orange and called Clive.

The thing about the Octopus is that their brains are spread throughout their bodies.   Two-thirds of their neurons do not reside in their heads but in their tentacles (arms).  Organisations are like this too - the central brain is important but more important are the brains in all the 'arms' of the organisation. The thoughts and knowledge of the experts at the business-end of the organisation are crucial to the success of the company. It is the knowledge of these trusted advisors  that needs to be celebrated and shown off.  My advice - be smart, be like an octopus.

To read more about Octopuses click here