Being Comb-Shaped is a philosophy, and a way of thinking. For Marketers it refers to the broadening of their knowledge. It’s about becoming more of a generalist, not a specialist.

Comb-Shaped Marketers don’t have specific roles, and aren’t necessarily experts at just one thing. Instead they work across teams. They are the managers, leaders and directors, orchestrating teams and helping the specialists do their roles effectively.

Being Comb-Shaped means to actually understand what other peoples’ roles entail, not just that they exist, and their goals. It’s about understanding the processes, nuances, and blockers that effect the ability to perform individual tasks, or work together as part of a project.

A Comb-Shaped marketer is a generalist. It is their role to constantly try to understand how things work, how roles fit together, and how individuals and specialists come together to form effective marketing teams.

The role of the Comb-Shaped marketer within this team is to lead and prevent the formation of silos. Because of their generalist skill set, Comb-Shaped marketers are the glue that binds a team together, and help specialists communicate and effectively work together. Their understanding of how elements of marketing fits together makes them highly effective, leaders, managers and directors.

Comb-Shaped Marketers are the present and future managers and leaders of both marketing teams, and organisations as a whole. Their broad understanding and knowledge of different peoples’ roles makes them the perfect candidate on paper to be an effective manager.

Of course there are many other factors that affect whether or not a marketer will be an effective leader or not, but by living up to the philosophy and creating a mind-set of being Comb-Shaped you are going to put yourself in an incredible position to become an effective leader.