In my work, I often compare biological systems with organisational ones. Industries are like ecosystems, organisms are my analogues for organisations and capabilities are the equivalent of proteins, because they are the things that do the work. That last parallel is significant because, just as proteins interact in networks, so do organisational capabilities.

Protein networks are what Barabási and Albert called scale free. That means a small number of proteins act as hubs. Hub proteins are highly connected, highly influential and, importantly, they shape behaviour of many other proteins. Most proteins, by contrast, are peripheral: important in their own way, but with far fewer connections and far less systemic impact. This hub-and-spoke pattern is universal in biology and, I suggested to my marketing friend, it is universal in organisations too.

In my work, when I map organisational capabilities the way a biologist maps protein interactions, something striking emerges. Some capabilities have disproportionate influence because they shape the behaviour of many others. They are the hubs of the organisational network.

In biopharma companies, strategic marketing capabilities, such as those for understanding the market, segmenting it, choosing targets and positioning the offer, are hubs. They determine where the organisation competes, which customers matter, what value means and, therefore, what R&D should prioritise, what medical affairs should emphasise, what access teams should negotiate for and what commercial teams should deliver. Strategic marketing is a capability that shapes the entire phenotype of the organisation.

But – and this is the crucial point – marketing communications capabilities are not hubs. Decisions about messaging, media and creative executions matter, but they have far fewer connections to the rest of the organisational network. They have relatively little influence over R&D, medical affairs, manufacturing or market access. They are spokes, not hubs.

The root of my friend’s problem was that her colleagues were dismissing marketing communications, not marketing strategy, because that is what they think marketing is.  And if that was all marketing consisted of, they would be right to treat it as peripheral.  The tragedy and the opportunity is that they are conflating the spokes with the hub. It is a category error. Many senior leaders’ exposure to ‘marketing’ has been brand plans, campaigns and creative reviews. They have never been taught to see strategic marketing as the capability that defines the organisation’s evolutionary niche. So they undervalue marketing, not because they are wrong, but because they are looking at the wrong thing.

Nothing will make my friend’s colleagues, or yours, treat marketing communications as a hub capability, because it isn’t. Insisting otherwise only reinforces their scepticism. But you, and she, can do something far more powerful. She can teach them – carefully, patiently and with evidence – that strategic marketing is a hub capability. She can show how segmentation shapes clinical development choices, how positioning influences evidence generation, how target selection determines access strategy and how market understanding guides investment decisions. In other words, she can help them see the network. Once they see that, their mental model of the organisation will change and their behaviour will change with it.

Examples like cystic fibrosis, a problem with hub protein CFTR, teach us that organisms thrive when their hub proteins function well and vice versa. Organisations are no different. When strategic marketing works, the organisation aligns and when it doesn’t, the organisation becomes uncoordinated and inefficient. So I hope my friend, and you, got something more useful than the comfort she asked for: a way to understand her colleagues’ behaviour and a way to influence it. Understanding hub-and-spoke capabilities is an evolutionary advantage for you, your colleagues and your firm.