So I just listened to this fascinating conversation with Kathleen Schaub — longtime tech marketer, ex-IDC CMO advisor, and now author of “The Really Big, Messy, Real World: Rewire Your Marketing Organization to Navigate Anything.”First off, yes, that title is a mouthful — but once she explained it, I got it. Marketing is messy, unpredictable, and human. It’s not some vending machine where you put in budget and pipeline pops out. And if you’ve ever tried to forecast your lead flow by campaign type and then had it all go sideways? You know exactly what she means.

Kathleen’s been in the game a long time. From retail marketing to product marketing to working with hundreds of CMOs across startups and tech giants alike during her decade at IDC. What’s cool is she’s seen the patterns — the hype cycles, the disconnects, the exec team misalignments — and now she’s putting that into a framework we can actually use. Not another “do these five tactics and win marketing” book, but a legit mindset shift.

The whole thesis of her book is that we need to rewire how we think about marketing. Because the world has changed — and keeps changing faster than we can keep up. AI, customer behavior shifts, macroeconomic swings… it’s chaos. And we’re trying to navigate it with models built for a more linear, controlled world.

One thing Kathleen says really stuck with me: “Marketing is more like the stock market or the weather.” And if you’ve ever run a multi-touch attribution model or tried to get sales to align with brand campaigns, you know exactly how unpredictable that system is. It’s not about control. It’s about adaptation.

She spent a bunch of time studying other complex, turbulent environments — like emergency response teams, the military, even healthcare — to see how they operate under chaos. What can marketers learn from them? Turns out, a lot.

Her approach boils down to two foundational capabilities: agility and what she calls “market system health.” Think of agility as your ability to respond and adapt quickly — pretty straightforward. But market system health? That’s more like building up your immune system. You can’t avoid every downturn or misfire, but if your org is resilient, you’ll bounce back faster.

Now, the mindsets part is where it gets practical.

Kathleen lays out four marketing mindsets in the book. My favorite? “Think like an investor.” Instead of seeing marketing spend as a cost center, she wants CMOs and founders to think like they’re making bets — strategic, long-term investments aimed at creating future value. You wouldn’t yank all your money out of a 401(k) because one quarter underperformed, right?

She also talks about shifting from linear planning to navigation. Picture plotting a boat journey: you’ve got a destination, but you need to adjust course constantly due to currents, storms, or obstacles. That’s how modern marketing should operate — iteratively, flexibly. There’s even a concept she mentions called wayfinding (from the world of design), which is about finding your path even in unfamiliar territory.

Naturally, the topic of AI came up. Kathleen was refreshingly grounded about it. Yes, CMOs and marketers are under pressure to “do more with less” thanks to AI hype. Yes, AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc., are now everywhere. But she made a critical point — most people are still using AI for surface-level stuff like writing emails faster or tweaking ad copy. The real opportunity is in the analytical and strategic side — using AI to augment decision-making, model scenarios, and understand the why, not just the what.

She’s especially intrigued by causal AI, which can help answer those deeper “what-if” questions and identify triggers and indicators that can drive smarter strategies. Way more valuable than basic predictive analytics — which, let’s face it, most companies aren’t even doing well yet.

Another important topic they covered was the evolving role of the CMO. Is marketing gaining more influence or losing it to CROs? Kathleen had a nuanced take: it’s less about titles and more about integration. The future isn’t sales vs. marketing, but blending both at the edge. She’s not against CROs per se, but she warns against making them just glorified sales leaders with a sprinkle of marketing.

In fact, she flipped the script and asked: What if marketing owned revenue? Could marketers actually lead the revenue charge instead of reporting to it? Her answer: yes — if they can shift their mindset from running a department to influencing the entire business. That’s the level of strategic thinking the next-gen marketing leader needs.

And here’s what I appreciated most — she’s not pretending to have all the answers. The book isn’t a checklist; it’s a map for developing your org, your team, and your thinking. Some parts are easy. Others take real work. But the underlying truth is simple: the world is uncertain, messy, and unpredictable — and marketing should stop pretending it isn’t.

Like she said at the end, quoting from a book on resilience: “If we cannot control the volatile tides of change, we can learn to build better boats.” Kathleen’s book? It’s a blueprint for building that better boat.