We Are Strategic Partners, Not Just Implementers of Instructions

Emily Mayock, who leads the communications team at Case Western Reserve University, is redefining her team’s role within the 200-year-old Cleveland institution. While maintaining their service orientation, she is positioning her team as strategic partners and experts, working with internal stakeholders to achieve shared goals.

Emily Mayock, Associate Vice President, Strategic Communications

When she first joined Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Emily Mayock had no managerial responsibilities. She had the opportunity to help lead her department of almost 60 people during a recent leadership transition, an experience she describes as transformative—teaching her invaluable lessons in leadership, team building, and driving meaningful organizational change. “It’s been a journey of growth, both for me and for the team,” she says.

In this interview, Mayock shares her insights on leadership, data-driven storytelling, and the evolving role of marketing and communications in higher education. She shares in her own words how she’s scaled teams, fostered cross-departmental collaboration, and is challenging traditional perceptions of what marcomms professionals are capable of.

I can’t even begin to express the importance I think higher education plays in someone’s life—not just preparing them academically and giving them research or clinical opportunities, but readying them socially for the real world and opening their eyes to a much broader view. I am from a small town, and every day I consider myself lucky to have had higher education—both my own college experience and now in my role over the past nearly 15 years—to expand my worldview. (Sometimes literally, like through study abroad.) That’s not to say higher ed is the only route; it’s not. But for many of us, it’s a life-changing privilege academically, professionally and personally that we are fortunate to have.

I’ve had the chance to grow our team significantly over the years. And now that we've built up our team, I'm focusing on how we can use data to tell CWRU's story, both externally—to draw in students, engage donors, attract research funding and more—and internally. We do a lot of incredible work within our department, and I think people across the university don't know what we do or the extent of what we do.

Show me the data

In terms of output, it’s not enough just to make sure we have enough content for the daily newsletter (one of the many resources we publish on a regular basis). It’s about how the content maps to our purpose and priorities, how it performs, and based on the information that we get about how it performs, how do we do it better, or how do we decide not to do it? Did the emails we produced turn into leads, or got someone to apply, or got someone to make a gift? Let’s look at the actual impact we’re having, and then try to report on that.

We just had our annual team retreat, and at the start of the meeting, I told everyone the university’s priorities and the things we need to be focused on in the six months ahead. I had them each set personal goals, then share those with their team. Their smaller teams set their own goals, and then the larger team came together, and we set team-wide goals. We’re looking at what projects to take on. To do so, we’ve also created guiding principles for the department, and we’re setting service levels based on the complexity of projects. Then, we have a prioritization matrix in which we look at the requester, the audience, and what’s the impact if we don’t do it—is there a legal risk, a revenue loss if we don’t do it? That’s how we decide whether to take on projects or not.

Understanding each individual

When I joined CWRU, I didn’t have any managerial responsibilities; now, my team is almost 30 people, within a division of 60. When managing teams, it’s about understanding who the person is and what their mindset is—not forcing them into a different mindset but rather trying to stretch them within their role. The way I approach conversations with direct reports is: "Let’s talk about thinking more strategically about what you are doing. Let’s talk about developing your skills, then actually analyze your results and figure out how you can create content that is better and more effective."

A lot of my work is learning different personalities and understanding and appreciating those personalities, because not everyone is me, and that’s honestly a good thing. I have a very large team, and a lot of different personalities, a lot of different styles, and it’s just learning about each of them individually and how they work and how I can motivate them to be the best version of themselves.

The best things about higher ed

Let me just say that people in higher education are the BEST. All of us are stretched thin, and all (or most) of us are working with limited budgets. Yet if you ask anyone in higher ed for advice, insights or a few minutes to chat, and they will almost always say yes. That’s my biggest way to stay up to date: connect with people, either in real life or on social media (I love the #HigherEdSocial Facebook group), and ask—and answer—questions. 

For general higher ed news and trends, I think it’s important to subscribe to some of the industry newsletters. And for general professional development or overall marketing, web and digital trends, I always suggest looking outside higher ed first to learn from the folks with big budgets on what works. People often tell me, especially when it comes to websites, "Well, our competitor school does this, so we should too." And I always push back that just because they do it doesn’t mean they do it successfully. Look to the places (often outside higher ed) that have money to do extensive user testing, persona development, and more, and see what you can build from them.

Translating complex ideas

While we often think of marcomms as simply broadcasting a message given to us by other divisions, we are often the catalysts for changing and refining that message, because we are a public-facing team. For example, my media relations team will work with faculty members and researchers to translate their often deeply complex research into language that the general public can understand, and they will connect faculty to journalists to help explain difficult news stories in ways that have major impact. Their work is invaluable in making sure our faculty members not only educate our enrolled students, but also our community at large.

We’re experts in our domain

I’m meeting with the deans and senior leadership to say, ‘Okay, what are your goals? What do you need?’ Then, I meet with my team to say, ‘These are their goals. Now, how do we meet them?’ and work with them to brainstorm ideas. We are repositioning ourselves as experts in marketing and communications; as people who are partners in solving business problems. We are not just there to churn out whatever we’re being told to. Instead, we are the ones devising strategies that can help them.

I’m also looking to work with others at the university to build a professional development program for people, especially those in admin roles across the university, who are told social media or newsletters or various other kinds of communications are part of their jobs. We can train them on best practices, and then they can put that on their resume. To me, it’s not just about promoting my team or making sure people know about us, but also skilling up people across the university and empowering them to be better brand stewards and brand representatives.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.