Traditional teaching methods are changing, and the skills future marketers need are evolving faster than universities can adapt. How can post-secondary institutions prepare students for a profession where change is the only constant? In today's episode, CEO of the CMA Alison Simpson interviews Kyle Murray, Dean of the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfred Laurier University. Kyle's approach: Embrace experiential learning, integrate Generative AI, and prioritize uniquely human skills such as adaptability and emotional intelligence. His most important insight? Cultivate a 'forever student' mindset - because in marketing, the most valuable skill is learning.

[00:00:00] Presenter: Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs with your host CMA CEO, Alison Simpson.

[00:00:26] Alison: For today's episode, I'm pleased to welcome Kyle Murray, the Dean of the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfred Laurier University. Kyle took over as Dean in July of 2024 after a distinguished career at the University of Alberta School of Business, where he served as the acting Dean with a PhD in marketing and psychology.

[00:00:44] Alison: Kyle brings deep expertise in innovation and behavioural change, utilizing experimental psychology and behavioural economics to better understand the choices that people make. He's consulted with clients in government and Fortune 50 companies and also been a founder, advisor investor in a series of startups.

[00:01:02] Alison: In his new role as Dean, Kyle is focused on expanding the university's leadership and experiential learning, also in engaging alumni and enriching a culture of innovation that encourages risk-taking and challenges convention. With generative AI and other technological disruptions reshaping how we educate future marketers and the skills that they'll need to succeed, this culture is even more important than ever before.

[00:01:25] Alison: Kyle's recent transition from Alberta to Ontario has also given him some fresh insights into regional differences in our Canadian education system, as well as their impact on business talent development. And this is one of the many topics that we will discuss today. Kyle, I'm really looking forward to a great conversation, and it's an absolute pleasure to share the mic with you today on CMA Connect.

[00:01:46] Kyle: Thanks, Alison. I'm really excited to be here. I'm a big fan of CMA and my first time on the podcast, so yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

[00:01:53] Alison: Kyle, I'd love to start by hearing your story. First, what drew you to higher education and teaching the marketing profession?

[00:01:59] Kyle: Yeah, I think it's just, I love learning and I really enjoy the university environment. I'm a researcher at heart and I like the scientific method.

[00:02:08] Kyle: This time of year, especially, the university is just such an exciting and energizing place to be, so that's really what drew me into it. I actually started my career as an entrepreneur. I was involved in a few startups, and that sounds better than it is. What really happened was I graduated in the early 1990s with an undergraduate degree in psychology.

[00:02:28] Kyle: And I could not find a job, so I had to start my own, make my own job, start my own business. But that, that worked out well because after a few different endeavours, I was able to sell them and that allowed me to go back to get a PhD. So I suddenly found myself with some time and a little bit of money and flexibility, and so I went back to get a PhD.

[00:02:48] Kyle: I still wasn't entirely sure what I'd do. I knew I liked research. I didn't know how I'd like teaching in the university environment. I taught my first class. I fell in love with it. I got a great job offer here in Southern Ontario, actually at the Ivey School at Western Ontario, and that's where I started my career.

[00:03:04] Kyle: And I've been in academia ever since. Marketing in particular, I think I was drawn to just because I find people fascinating. My, my background was in psychology as well as marketing. So just consumers and consumer decision making, why they do what they do. I still find it fascinating and I'll probably never get tired of asking questions about that.

[00:03:25] Alison: I love that, in many ways, necessity is the mother of invention. You graduated in a challenging economy and created your own path, which is amazing. I also love that you've got that entrepreneurial and builder mentality and experience, and then came back to higher education, because I think having that real world experience is so powerful for educating the marketers of tomorrow as well.

[00:03:49] Kyle: I agree. I think it's a helpful mindset to have, but I have to say sometimes it's a mindset that bumps up against the bureaucracy that is a large university or even a mid-sized university. It can be challenging at times as you wanna move quickly, and one of the things I've really had to learn is patience.

[00:04:04] Kyle: Things don't move as fast in a big organization as they do when it's a small shop. And I think I've learned that over time to some extent. But it's still certainly a challenge.

[00:04:13] Alison: Before joining the CMA I spent four years in the startup world. It really is about evolve or die. So I can absolutely relate to needing to relearn some patience when I came back to a bigger organization for sure.

[00:04:25] Alison: So I know you've worked in Ireland and Australia as well as Canada, so I'd love you to share any differences that you've seen and how marketing's taught internationally compared to how we teach it here.

[00:04:35] Kyle: Yeah, good question. I was also in France for a little while, but I was at INSEAD, so it was an English program, which luckily for me 'cause

[00:04:42] Kyle: my French is terrible. So that was, I had enough trouble just getting groceries. I wouldn't want to teach in French, but there's small differences regionally for sure. Like I would say both Ireland and France, you get some of that European flavour. There's a different perspective on the world, certainly geopolitically, and Australia too, a little bit more of a Commonwealth and maybe Asian influences there.

[00:05:05] Kyle: But t the end of the day, whenever I taught marketing or taught people about marketing in any of these places, it just comes down to the same thing that we'd always talk about anywhere is, you need to understand your customer and then find some way to create some compelling value for them. And there's some, there's definitely some cultural pieces there that are different.

[00:05:23] Kyle: What might be compelling in Ireland is different than what's compelling in Canada some of the time. But at the core it's just trying to understand people.

[00:05:30] Alison: That's a great reminder that as much as the world around us is different, as much as technology and other things are changing, how we market the basics are still mission critical.

[00:05:40] Kyle: Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. And I think we get challenged sometimes with changes in the world, whether it's tariff policies or new technologies, and it is easy to get caught up in those things because they're so important and they're so immediately critical. But we're still very much people-driven.

[00:05:57] Kyle: Commerce is still people-driven, it's relationship-driven. It's that understanding people, understanding customers, understanding clients, why they buy what they're buying, what's gonna motivate them, that's really universal, at least in the western world. Might be a little bit different if you get into the Middle East or Asia.

[00:06:13] Kyle: But in the Western world it, it's pretty much the same.

[00:06:17] Alison: Now after a very successful decade teaching at the Alberta School of Business, what attracted you to make the move to Waterloo last year?

[00:06:24] Kyle: This is gonna be a bit of a biased a response, but really I'd known about the Lazaridis School for a while, the Bachelor of Business Administration Program,

[00:06:32] Kyle: the BBA program in particular, is truly one of the best in the world. They're global leaders here in undergraduate education and especially experiential education, and I thought this was really important. My view was the future of education in business, and, but maybe in other fields too is experiential.

[00:06:50] Kyle: It's more and more learning by doing, so we can adapt quickly. We learn some of those people skills that we need in organizations. Lazaridis is very good at that. So it's a big part of what attracted me. I have to say that some of it is also just timing. Both my daughters were at an age where they could be independent and that freed my wife and I up to consider making a move.

[00:07:11] Kyle: I also, I always liked Ontario and I like Southern Ontario and I've enjoyed being, close to Toronto, but also having the tech community around here in Waterloo, there's just I think a lot of exciting things going on. And when it comes to the students themselves, we have really strong demand for this program, but we're also really good at placing students.

[00:07:31] Kyle: And so if you're a Dean, it's nice to come to a place where, we had 12,000 people apply for 1500 spots last year. And when they graduate, we place 97% of them. So that is a foundation. Really makes my job a lot easier. And so that was a big part of why I was drawn here.

[00:07:50] Alison: The proof points are incredibly compelling.

[00:07:52] Alison: That job placement rate, gotta be one of the best in the world, so congratulations for that.

[00:07:56] Kyle: Yeah. And so just continue that plug maybe a little bit is, one of the things that, that I worry about, being in a university setting is youth unemployment in general has been creeping up. It's, somewhere north now, 15%, which is not good.

[00:08:09] Kyle: I mentioned I graduated in the nineties, it was 18 or 19% at the time. It, it can set a lot of people back in their careers. I think one of the things that's really great about business schools and our school in particular is at the end of the day, we are pretty good at getting people jobs.

[00:08:24] Kyle: We're fairly responsive to what industry wants and the talent that we develop. And yeah, 97, 98% get jobs and it's even higher in co-op, it's 99% plus. So I think that's an important part of what we do.

[00:08:36] Alison: I can see why you have the level of demand you have for the program too.

[00:08:39] Kyle: Yeah. It doesn't hurt, right?

[00:08:40] Kyle: Ultimately students, they wanna learn, but they want to see the light at the end of the tunnel too, and parents as well. And so yeah, that really helps with demand. Of course.

[00:08:49] Alison: Absolutely. So now that you're just over a year in Ontario, I'd love to hear what differences have you seen or what surprised you about Ontario's education system compared to Alberta's?

[00:09:01] Kyle: Yeah. Because I started my career in Ontario as a professor, I had a fairly good sense of how things were here. It certainly, it's a great place to be. I think close to Toronto, there's a lot of really interesting jobs for graduates. There's also enough good business schools, even great business schools, that it's very competitive, which makes us all a little bit better.

[00:09:21] Kyle: But the one thing that did surprise me that was different from when I was here, 15, 16 years ago, was grade inflation at the high school level. And some of that might be legitimate because students today are pretty impressive. But it means that something like 30% of the applications to university now, in Ontario, are from students that have an average in the nineties, and that makes it really difficult to select.

[00:09:46] Kyle: Who are the good students? I joke sometimes with our alumni who are senior executives, there's a whole bunch of CEOs with grades in the eighties, future CEOs with grades in the eighties that we're turning down. I'd love to be able to accept, but the grade inflation at the high school level in Ontario is high.

[00:10:02] Kyle: There's a high percentage of the class comes out with good grades.

[00:10:06] Alison: Definitely is a surprise to me to hear that. And when I think about the number of friends I have who talk about their kids getting nineties, I've always thought there's no way I'd get into university today. 'cause I certainly didn't have a 96 or 97 average.

[00:10:20] Kyle: Yeah, I mean, when I was in high school, if there was somebody who had an average in the nineties, it was one kid and they were brilliant and working really hard. And a lot of really good students that were getting into university were in the eighties. I think one difference between Alberta and Ontario,

[00:10:37] Kyle: part of the reason grade inflation wasn't as severe in Alberta is because the province has a standardized set of exams. So in each of the major subjects, there's a provincial exam you have to take. Everybody takes it if they're gonna get through those courses, and it's worth quite a bit. When I took it, it was probably 50% of your grade.

[00:10:54] Kyle: I think now maybe it's 30% of your grade. And if you as a teacher have class grades that are really offside with your test grades, people are gonna ask questions and so that, that helps keep grade inflation down a little bit. Not entirely. There's still some, but I think it's, it helps a little.

[00:11:11] Alison: Now, I know you recently co-authored an article on the important role that business schools are playing in Ontario's economy so can you share with our listeners some of your thoughts on this?

[00:11:19] Kyle: I'd mentioned already youth unemployment is at a fairly high level, 15, maybe 16% right now. And even in some really traditionally strong careers like software engineering, computing science, we're seeing jobs disappear.

[00:11:34] Kyle: Other places that have, are traditionally popular careers, medicine and law, they're hard to get into, but also there aren't that many jobs when you get out, so they have to be somewhat constrained. The reality is there's a lot of jobs in the business world, from accounting to finance, to marketing, to supply chain management.

[00:11:52] Kyle: And so that's what we really have been good at. We've placed 98 or percent or so of the students. And so part of what I was writing about, and I should say that the article was co-written with Detlev Zwick, who's the Dean at the Schulich School at York University. Part of what we were writing about is just, there's a lot of talk about the importance of STEM jobs and jobs in technology and healthcare, and those are important fields, but we probably don't talk enough about business, and I think

[00:12:21] Kyle: the opportunities in business are probably broader in scope than they are in healthcare or STEM. Just, you can work in technology, you can work in healthcare, you can work in almost any area of business or not-for-profit or government requires the kinds of skills that we teach. So part of, I think the argument that we were making is we just really need to give more attention to what business schools are doing and the success we're having in finding students jobs and starting companies.

[00:12:49] Kyle: And it, you know, encouraging people to go on to other things. Some go on to be lawyers, some go on to science careers. But I think those basic skills, whether it's reading a financial statement or putting together a marketing plan, are super valuable across a large range of careers. And so that's essentially what we are arguing is, don't forget about us.

[00:13:09] Kyle: We're working hard, doing a good job. Our students are very successful. We wanna make sure that, not so much for the schools themselves, but for students in high school or even other programs in university, thinking about where their careers can go. We can play a big part in that and in lots of different ways.

[00:13:25] Kyle: Not necessarily just an undergraduate degree or a traditional MBA, but all kinds of training. Even if what you need to learn is just a little bit about finance or a little bit about marketing. Those are the kinds of things that that we do, and we do them very well.

[00:13:39] Alison: Now, building on that, there's no doubt that the marketing profession is undergoing absolutely tectonic shifts and Gen AI is a prime example, but certainly not the only example.

[00:13:49] Alison: So how are universities adapting to meet this challenge and really ensure that students are gonna graduate with the skills that they need, especially when those skills are evolving quickly?

[00:13:59] Kyle: Yeah, that's a good question. That's one that we wrestle with all the time. I can tell you from my time as a professor and some of my colleagues, it was nice to teach a course that was more or less the same year to year for a couple of years.

[00:14:11] Kyle: When we first, you know e-commerce was first rising on the scene becoming an important part of marketing and social media was part of marketing. You could see professors sort of struggling to keep up with all the changes. Facebook's updating its algorithm all the time, and the details of how you'd actually implement something on those platforms was changing.

[00:14:30] Kyle: So I think that keeping up with the changes that have been going on in marketing or elsewhere is challenging. What we try to teach students is to be adaptable. I think experiential learning, having the opportunity to work in teams, to work with different types of technology, to try different things, to do some of those things under a little bit of pressure and a little bit of stress,

[00:14:51] Kyle: that's helpful, and that's where we put a lot of emphasis on experiential learning. I also think being digital from kind of day one right away, getting immersed in technology, encouraged to use those tools, having experience with it, which to be honest, you don't have to do with most students these days.

[00:15:06] Kyle: Most of them come to university with very strong technical skills, social media skills way beyond my own. They're, they've been doing it their whole lives, so they're pretty good at it. But then the other two things, which are fairly new to universities and new to business schools, but we do put a lot more emphasis on trying to make sure students are resilient and adaptable and have a good sense of how to manage their own wellbeing.

[00:15:31] Kyle: They have some of that empathy and emotional intelligence they're gonna need when they get into these roles. Those human skills, those are some of the things that I suspect will survive as being incredibly important, even as technology continues to improve. On the flip side, some of the technical skills might be decreasing a little over the next few years in value and see some of the things that Gen AI is already doing, some of the ability to automate certain tasks, whether it's writing or design or coding.

[00:16:01] Kyle: And so my perspective on that is we need to right away start teaching students to partner with that technology. We can't be afraid of it. We have to make sure we use it even though it can be scary. And there's certainly some challenges for universities and yeah, how do we make sure people aren't cheating?

[00:16:17] Kyle: How do we make sure our evaluation methods are testing students and not testing the machines? So there's, I don't wanna minimize the challenge in any way, but I think there's some things we can do and it really is around making sure we immerse people in technology right away, and we put a lot of focus on those human skills.

[00:16:36] Alison: Earlier in our conversation, we talked about the importance of basics, so while Gen AI and other innovations are certainly changing how we do it, understanding the basics continues to be important. And there are some people globally that think this might be a time where the four Ps of marketing might be redefined.

[00:16:56] Alison: What are your thoughts on that?

[00:16:58] Kyle: Oh, that's a good question. My whole career people have talked about, you know, should we teach the four Ps? Should that really be at the core of marketing? I know 20 years ago, there were a few universities in the U.S. who moved entirely to a curriculum based on relationship marketing, kind of CRM driven systems, which maybe it makes a little less sense today than it did back then, but I think it is a tough question.

[00:17:23] Kyle: There's always going to be challenges to, how do we conceptualize broadly what marketers do? To me, that's what the four Ps are reasonably helpful with in an introductory class. You wanna think broadly about what marketers do, but I think it, it is hard to fit the importance of relationships into the four Ps and some aspects of what we can do now with technology don't fit in as well.

[00:17:46] Kyle: So I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of curriculums, we won't move away from that. We're still gonna teach some of the other classic models like the BCG matrix and those kinds of things, but we're probably gonna have to supplement that with a bit more of a nuanced focus as well. And that's gonna include things that are changing fast.

[00:18:06] Kyle: And again, that's a challenge for universities. We're not known for being really fast at adapting, but we're getting there, especially in business schools. You have to give a lot of credit to the faculty who are willing to put themselves out there and be a little uncomfortable and take some risks.

[00:18:21] Kyle: Maybe not everybody, but most faculty members are and that's good. Prior to say the, let's say the pandemic as kind of a turning point, but prior to that, the history of university teaching was chalkboards to overheads, to PowerPoint, but not a lot else changed. And then all of a sudden we're using all kinds of technology and we're faced with all kinds of new technologies that directly affect student learning.

[00:18:44] Kyle: I see that as an exciting time, but it's certainly a challenging time as well.

[00:18:47] Alison: In many ways I think that there might be a fifth P of marketing building on what you're saying that's all around people.

[00:18:53] Kyle: Yeah. And maybe that always should have been there. Already in our conversation, it's come up a few times how important it is to understand people and have good emotional intelligence and those kinds of softer skills.

[00:19:03] Kyle: I think that's always been important, but it's probably even more important today. So maybe, or maybe we need a different conceptual structure entirely. That'll be tough to do, okay, because we're all used to one. My view of it still is, it doesn't hurt to talk about the four Ps as a way of thinking about what marketers do, but it clearly is no longer a comprehensive, complete system for thinking about what marketers do.

[00:19:25] Kyle: So either, yeah, we have to adapt it. Maybe there's a, another P, some people use other acronyms. But at the end of the day, I think it still is going to come down to understanding your customers and creating value for them. And we can conceptualize that in a few different ways.

[00:19:41] Alison: Now from an educational perspective, you're dealing with two competing challenges.

[00:19:45] Alison: You've got students using Gen AI for their work, which as you said earlier, you should encourage because that's part of today's reality. But that can make traditional evaluation difficult, and you also need to ensure that they're AI literate for their career. I know it's early days, but how are you navigating this paradox?

[00:20:01] Kyle: So the vast majority of students are actually super ethical and try really hard not to cross any lines. There's a small group that will, take advantage of every tool or opportunity they can to find an easier path. The real problem with Gen AI, you kind of summed it up exactly right, which is we really want them to learn how to use it because we want them to go out into the world with the skills to be able to apply these new tools to be more productive at the work they're going to be doing.

[00:20:29] Kyle: But those same tools really make things like a take home essay no longer feasible for us. Because I still think a good writer is better than what a Gen AI will write. The problem is the weaker writers, it will pull everybody up to that kind of, I don't know, C+, B-range. And it's really tempting if you're time-pressed to use it to solve a calculus problem or to answer a question

[00:20:54] Kyle: you might have in, I don't know, an HR class or to, do something creative even, or spur some creative ideas in a marketing presentation. So we have to walk a thin line between saying, look, we want you to use it, but ultimately we still wanna be able to evaluate what you're doing.

[00:21:12] Kyle: And we may see some, in some cases, reverting to an old style of evaluation, either oral exams or written exams in class with pencil and paper. And then in other cases, we may just say, yep, please. We expect you to use Gen AI. Just tell us how, show us the prompts you used. Show us the method you used to go through it and build that kind of thing into the assignments.

[00:21:35] Kyle: Right now it's pretty manageable. I'm not super concerned about today's technology. I'm a little more concerned about technology 10 years from now. And I think it really means we have to change the way we evaluate students. Some of the classic evaluation tools of take home exams or projects or spreadsheets, all those things.

[00:21:55] Kyle: Now you can get a lot of help, if not have the assignment done by the machine. It's, yeah it's gonna be at the centre of what we talk about at universities for at least a decade.

[00:22:06] Alison: I think that's also gonna be at the centre of what we talk about in business and marketing for years to come as well.

[00:22:11] Alison: So we, in many ways, we'll be figuring it out together.

[00:22:14] Kyle: Yeah. And so my perspective on that is because that's true, because you're gonna need these skills in business and marketing. If we have to err, I'd prefer that we err on the side of our evaluations aren't quite right, rather than saying, we're just not gonna use it, we're gonna try and block it and shut it down and, make it illegal to use these tools at the university.

[00:22:36] Kyle: I think that would be the wrong way to go. So we'll figure out the evaluation, but we'll make sure that we integrate the tools into the way we're teaching.

[00:22:44] Alison: Understanding Gen AI and how to use it is gonna be mission critical for any of your graduates, for anyone in business today. So that, that definitely feels like the right approach.

[00:22:54] Kyle: Yeah, I think it, there's a lot of, there's a lot of analogies, but it'll be a little like when Excel first comes out or spreadsheets first come out saying, don't use that. It makes it too easy to solve equations. We want you to write it out by hand. And I actually have had, I've had this discussion with a stats professor, not at the current, in my current institution, but elsewhere where they really wanted, they're stats professors, they spent their whole life doing, detailed statistics and the math behind it.

[00:23:22] Kyle: And they really wanted to teach executive MBAs how to do regression by hand. And I was saying to them, no executive MBAs are ever gonna do a regression by hand. Sure, it's helpful to understand the output and how you can make use of that, but they're probably not even gonna run it at a computer so that at least you should teach them how to do it with some software.

[00:23:39] Kyle: But probably you should really focus on how do you get insight from those results and from the output from a regression or whatever the technique might be rather than teaching them do it by hand. And it took a couple years to make that change and eventually we made that change. So yeah, it is important to be able to use the tools.

[00:23:55] Kyle: I don't think we wanna say, spreadsheets make it too easy 30 years ago, anymore than we wanna say Gen AI makes it too easy today because the rest of the world wants it to be easy. They want people to be more productive, they want them to do more in less time. And so yeah, we have to integrate that.

[00:24:11] Kyle: But yeah it's, it'll be an interesting challenge and. I think we'll see some really exciting leaps forward in what students can do in the same amount of time because they have these tools.

[00:24:20] Alison: When we first met, I was talking about how I probably wouldn't get into college today given how sophisticated and smart students are, and you just described them as literally being better at everything.

[00:24:31] Alison: What do you think contributed to the level of excellence that we're seeing in today's students?

[00:24:35] Kyle: Yeah, it's a good question. I tend to see students when they get to the end of a competition, so at the end of a case competition or a brand challenge or a hackathon. So I see the finalists. If we have 300 teams, I see the last six.

[00:24:49] Kyle: So it's, it's a biased view. Or I see this weekend we'll have a, an orientation day and I'll see all the presidents of the student clubs up presenting about their clubs. So I tend to see students who've gone through the gauntlet and have already been tested. But I tell anybody, if you really wanna see

[00:25:08] Kyle: how bright the future is, just come and watch one of these competitions or challenges or spend some time talking to one of our students, and they're so impressive. So yeah, when I say better at everything they're really for the most part, very well-rounded. They're strong quantitatively cause they had to be to get into the program and we have a fairly rigorous program.

[00:25:27] Kyle: What really impresses me is the communication skills, the ability to present and explain ideas and the confidence with which they did that. As most undergraduates, when I was an undergraduate, they went out of their way to not make eye contact with the professors so they wouldn't get called on and not have to answer a question.

[00:25:44] Kyle: Try and avoid presenting in front of the class if you could. And our students, for the most part, not everybody, but for the most part, are eager to do that. They're really good at it. And I think some of that certainly goes to their preparation before they get to university. So at the high school level and earlier, they have more opportunities to do these things and they're encouraged and supported.

[00:26:03] Kyle: It's less competitive. We were worried about standing up in front of the class because you stood up in front of class and said something you shouldn't have you'd probably would hear about it for the rest of your high school life. Where I think students today as a group, are much more supportive.

[00:26:16] Kyle: It's easier to take risks, it's easier to learn 'cause your peers are going to be supporting you through that process. But they also have more exposure to technology earlier, teachers are better. It's like sports. If you watch an old hockey game from the 1960s or seventies, it doesn't really compare to the way we play hockey today.

[00:26:35] Kyle: And it's not that people changed a lot, it's just the training is better, the coaching is better, people are more intense about what they're doing. And yeah it really makes universities fun because business schools like ours, we have all these really bright, excited and exciting students who are really engaged.

[00:26:53] Kyle: Yeah it's hard not to be optimistic about the future when you spend time around them.

[00:26:58] Alison: Absolutely. We have the CMA NXT program, which is in partnership with RBC and it's on college campuses across the country, including yours. And to your point, when we bring those communities together, we're there to educate them on marketing, to give them access to the CMA and

[00:27:14] Alison: marketing communities and we have virtual talent nights, and every time that I'm joining one of those sessions and listening to the students from across the country and Laurier, it is so inspiring to hear and it absolutely leaves me knowing that our profession and our country are in very good hands and for the future leaders.

[00:27:34] Alison: So it's encouraging that you're seeing that to an even deeper level in the role that you have?

[00:27:40] Kyle: Yeah I certainly think so. And if anybody, sometimes people will ask me that question, you know, I've read about this generation being bad at this, or, this generation is flaky on that.

[00:27:50] Kyle: And they'll say, yeah, it's probably always been the case. There's, generations are a lot of different people, so there's some people that are, flaky and some people that aren't that engaged, but I think if you go to any of the great business schools in Ontario, you're gonna see a cohort of students that are exceptionally engaged and bright and confident.

[00:28:10] Kyle: And it's also fair to say they still lack experience and context and they haven't spent a lot of time yet in full-time work. So they have a lot to learn, but in terms of their ability, what they're capable of, yeah, it's impressive and it makes my job a lot of fun. I enjoy days like today where I get to meet students and talk to them and get to know them a little bit,

[00:28:33] Kyle: 'cause they're great people.

[00:28:36] Alison: So when you think about the marketing leaders that are gonna be hiring your graduates, what advice do you have for how we can continue to nurture the marketing graduates in their first roles where they've got amazing potential, good skills, but it will be for many of them their first job.

[00:28:54] Kyle: Yeah. And so what, when I say these students coming in are fantastic and better than ever, it's true. They're even better when they go out and they're even better, they'll be even better 10 years from now, especially if they can get into organizations that do those things, that mentor them, that spend time with them, that, that put in the effort to help them grow into the roles.

[00:29:14] Kyle: I do think that one of the things that's easy to forget is because they're so talented, it's easy to forget that they still don't have much experience with the world. They've traveled more than I would've at that age, and they, the internet exposes them to a lot of different ideas and things

[00:29:29] Kyle: than most of us would've when we were that age, but they haven't done the nine to five, or eight to seven or whatever it is, workday for, months or years on end. And so they have a lot to learn in terms of how do you shift from being a student to not being a student and having a full-time job.

[00:29:49] Kyle: So I think that's easy to overlook because they seem so competent right away. But they've never done it before and they're fast learners and they're adaptable, but it'll take them a few months just to adapt to what work life is like. You don't, being a student, you have a lot of demands, but you also have a lot of flexibility. When you start your day, when you study, when you work on things.

[00:30:11] Kyle: And I think most of us can relate if we can remember back to our first serious job. It's a little bit shocking to be, oh, every day I have to get there at the same time and do the same things? And I think it's easy to forget how hard that is because the students seem so capable, but they're still figuring their lives out.

[00:30:28] Kyle: They know they want to contribute to the world, and I'm confident they're gonna contribute to the world, but it's not clear yet exactly how, and they're gonna change their minds and probably change their careers a few times in their twenties. So they need mentorship. They need flexibility. I think it's great when organizations can build a model that sort of says, we'd love you to spend your whole career here, but we recognize you might not.

[00:30:51] Kyle: And we're also happy to have really strong alumni out of our organization elsewhere in the world for years to come. And that's not easy for some places because they invest a lot in their new grads and their new hires. But yeah, you, I think the biggest thing beyond all the talent is, they still have a lot to learn about how to function in outside of the student world.

[00:31:13] Alison: Those are great reminders. We've all been in, in the work world for a long time. And you do forget how jarring it can be when you first join.

[00:31:21] Kyle: Yeah. And it's some of the little things like little cultural things that we take for granted that are new to them. Like how do you be personable in a work environment?

[00:31:29] Kyle: How do build relationships there? It's not like it is in university. It's not like the friends you had in high school, it's a more professional setting. All those little things that we've forgotten that we learned, they still haven't learned. And we try to teach some of them but a lot of that it's gonna come on the job.

[00:31:46] Alison: Kyle, I end each episode of asking our guests to share one piece of advice for our listeners who aspire to executive roles in marketing.

[00:31:53] Alison: Now given you have a very unique perspective on the marketing profession and a direct line to the future marketing leaders, I'm really excited to hear your advice.

[00:32:00] Kyle: If I have to pick one piece of advice, and there's an obvious bias here, but given how fast the world is changing, I think we have to embrace being forever students. Constant learners. because there was a time where at least we believed you could get a undergraduate degree,

[00:32:19] Kyle: that was the end of education. You work 40 years, you retire, it's all good. I just think now we have to, not necessarily a formal education, you don't have to go to university, but you have to be open to learning constantly. I think marketing, that's probably the case and that a lot of people that go into marketing like change.

[00:32:36] Kyle: They like to be creative, they like new things and so they're pretty good at adapting. But as we all know, that's not the case of a lot of organizations, not the case in my organization. You get comfortable, things get slow to change and you're not as willing to learn new things. I think being that forever student, probably the most important thing going forward is we face an uncertain and rapidly evolving world.

[00:32:59] Alison: That is absolutely mission critical advice. Keeping the curiosity and that learner mindset is, I think to your point, important in any business, even more important in marketing, because we tend to be on the forefront of change whether it's consumer technology or marketplace, we tend to be the first to be impacted and the first that really need to understand it.

[00:33:20] Kyle: Yeah. And leaders culturally in a lot of ways and leaders in work. So if I can cheat your question and throw in a second answer, and this relates to the other things I've been saying, but I, if you can find people you like to work with and colleagues and mentors who are not just people you respect, but people that you enjoy being around,

[00:33:39] Kyle: I think that makes your career much more fun. It's gonna be a lot more enjoyable. You're gonna be happy to go to work, and if you can find that kind of place, then the leadership part of it takes care of itself. But it's really great to have people around you. And you should seek them out, and not just hope it happens that way,

[00:33:58] Kyle: but seek out those people that kind of elevate you and help embrace your, the growth of your career, and you can do the same for them. I think that people side, the relationship side, is something that's easy to forget in your career as you focus on technical things or technological change. But yeah,

[00:34:13] Kyle: my second piece of advice other than learning all the time is find people that you can work with and learn with and grow with.

[00:34:20] Alison: You can definitely cheat that. That was a great second piece of advice. Kyle. Thank you, and it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. I know you're incredibly busy with the school term and I really appreciate you making time for the CMA and our listeners and providing such great insights.

[00:34:36] Kyle: Oh, it was a lot of fun. Happy to do it and I really appreciate you having me on.

[00:34:45] Presenter: Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit the cma.ca and sign up for your free My CMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news and industry trends.