The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Given I started back in 1989, that means I’ve spent 20 years trying to work out what the hell I am supposed to be doing.

In all that time, I’ve been hugely fortunate to work with some brilliant, brilliant people.

Some were my bosses … some my colleagues and some – for want of a better word – were my staff … but regardless who they were, in every case I always ended up a better person for the experience.

Don’t worry, I’m not getting all Gwyneth Paltrow … I’ve also worked with a whole bunch of fucking idiots, but I give them about as much thought as I do having a big shit [nice image eh!] so getting back to the point … as I get older, one of the things I get great pleasure from of is seeing people who worked for/with me move on to bigger, better and more challenging things.

I’ve said it many times, but I believe the role of a boss is to help his/her team achieve more than they would otherwise of thought possible so that when they leave – as they will – they end up in a role/job that they previously thought was out of their league.

In essence, I want our people to leave because another company wants them and only them … not because there’s a role that needs to be filled … but because they rate who they are, what they think, what they do and how they do it.

In all honesty, if someone leaves me/us to go to another agency and do basically the same thing, I view that as a major disappointment … mainly because I see we’ve failed in developing their skills and ambitions.

Sure we’ve had the odd ‘exception’, but in the main … with the companies I’ve had a hand in starting … we’ve been hugely fortunate with the people we’ve ended up working with.

The reason I say this is because I’ve just looked at Media magazine [Asia’s Campaign] and saw this picture …

The guys are basically the new big wigs at IRIS Australia and the guy on the far right – Cass – once worked for me … so seeing him as Planning Director of the fastest growing agency network in the World, makes me very happy indeed.

Not because he’s a ginger Scouser who has a job [though that is quite impressive in itself] … it’s because he has always been one of the brightest talents I’ve ever worked with [despite the odd moment of madness like his “Mental Oriental” campaign for an Asian flavoured Pot Noodle clone] and seeing him develop to the position of Planning Director makes me very proud.

There’s a lot of people out there who have ‘planning director’ on their card … infact it seems in some agencies, you can go from dispatch boy to head of the department in the blink of an eye … but I was not brought up that way and I don’t subscribe to giving out titles willy-nilly so I know Cass really earnt the right to be called this and I know he will be brilliant and will move IRIS into areas that will get the snobby ATL agencies looking nervously over their shoulders.

However, like Baz – who went from junior planner to one of Steve Jobs personal advisors – I still feel a sense of responsibility towards my old guys, and whilst they could all eat me for lunch interms of brains, ideas and knowledge, I know there’s one thing I can do, and that’s keep their feet on the ground … so whilst I am sure Cass will hate me for this, I hope in time he will realise I’m not doing this to take the piss, I’m doing it for his own professional good.