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

Apart from the fact the weather is stunning – as is the view [both landscape and eye candy] – one of the things I’m enjoying most, is sitting in a room with a bunch of my colleagues and trying to contribute to the conversation.

I know … I know … a bunch of planners in a room sounds like most peoples idea of hell, but we’re not going on endlessly about the optimum powerpoint template for a planning presentation, we’re being quite focused and disciplined on some key issues we want to get a better grip on, which are much more about what we don’t want planning to become rather than the other way round.

Anyway the reason I am enjoying the challenge of trying to contribute to the conversation is because my colleagues are good – like proper good – and the way they think/talk/act naturally makes me lift my game … both in terms of questioning what I believe and thinking about things I might otherwise not have considered.

To be honest, constantly questioning myself is one of my most common – and annoying – traits, however the challenges I’m facing aren’t because of a bunch of my self confidence issues, they’re because a bunch of clever folk have raised interesting thoughts and opinions that have resulted in me having to consider – and re-consider – a bunch of stuff I may otherwise have not thought of.

It’s for this reason I always believe you should work with people who are better than you.

Now lots of people say that because it’s the right thing to say, but the fact is, it’s true.

People who are better than you make you think and do in new, fresh and interesting ways … ways that more often than not, you’d of not even come up with, let alone consider … and that’s why collaboration is so bloody important, because someone who has to judge their own ideas will never be able to be truly objective.

And this leads back to a post I wrote recently about letting your fears drive you, rather than your ego.

Adlands ‘Ocean 11’ … except there’s only 6 of them [Dave Terry is off to the side, scaring locals] and only 2 are gorgeous.

Because as much as ‘better’ is open to interpretation [except in my case obviously] the thing is, I don’t believe anyone really wants to feel they’re adding nothing to the debate and so what they tend to do is try really hard to raise their game if only so they can feel they have earnt some respect from the people they respect so highly.

Of course this can be a dangerous game if it becomes about diminishing another persons ideas for your own personal gain, but as I wrote here, if done properly, fear can create creative tension that lets your brain/actions go to places you never thought they could go … and as a byproduct of that … the baseline of ideas gets raised and raised again and suddenly everyone starts getting to better places than they ever dreamed of achiving.

All of this is fairly obvious – and the theory fucks up because I doubt my colleagues would say my contributions have raised their game – however this is a pivotal reason why I believe planners should never work in isolation because at the end of the day, it is almost impossible to be truly objective and challenged when you are judging your own actions which is why regardless of whether you work in a big agency or on your own, you must find someone or someway to bounce things off because working with people better than yourself will improve you more than writing 10,000 briefs.