Filed under: Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, Colenso, Colleagues, Health, Meetings
So I was supposed to be back from my trip to Melbourne.
But I’m not.
Because this trip can best be described as a shit show.
It started on the flight over where we had some bad turbulence and then the people next to – and behind – me started vomiting like human fountains.
Then when I went through immigration, I was stopped as they said I didn’t have a visa to enter the country. This, despite the fact I own property here, pay tax here, my wife is Australian, my son has an Australian passport and – oh yes – I have been a permanent resident of Australia for 20+ years.
After they realised they’d made a mistake on their computer, I was allowed to go and met up with my colleagues who were wondering where the fuck I was.
Surely that was the end of the drama?
Well yes … until at 2am, where I woke up in utter agony.
The only way I can describe the level of pain I was in is that I chose to go to hospital.
No making excuses. Or popping some paracetamol and going back to sleep.
I got in a taxi and went straight to A&E.
And thank god I did as I had picked up a bad infection in my kidney’s and appendix.
Apparently it had been developing for weeks – and when I look back on some days over the previous fortnight, I realised I’d done the classic excuses and popping paracetamol – but the time had come for it to make its presence known, and boy did it do that.
To be honest, as bad as I felt, I felt even worse that I had just burdened my colleagues with my work. They already had enough to do and here I was, at the last minute, giving them more.
And they not only took it on and executed it better than I … they stayed concerned about me.
That’s proper colleagues.
Mates even.
And I’m so grateful to them, the clients – who also were worried about me – and the amazing Doctors and Nurses at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne who were compassionate, concerned and efficient.
I’m on the mend and allowed to fly home today, but till then, I’m going to chill and remind myself that your body wants you to be well, so when it hurts or gurgles or aches … it’s trying to make you deal with it before it ends up seeing you in a foreign hospital desperate for help.
So while this trip was a shitshow, it was a shitshow that shined a light on all the good.
Fight for your health service. It’s a gift.
See you Monday.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Equality, Honesty, Management, Meetings, Nike, Relevance, Resonance, Wieden+Kennedy
A while back I was interviewed by Bloomberg Business Week.
I know … what the fuck eh?
And more amazingly, it’s not the first time.
OK, so it has taken them 5 years to forget what a stupid mistake they made the first time, but they asked me what I felt was wrong with modern marketing.
I thought about it for a while.
Let’s be honest, there’s many things I could say … but after a while, I felt I had it worked out.
It’s the image at the top of this post.
Too many clients saying no to good ideas and too many agencies saying yes to bad ones.
There are many reasons for this but underpinning them all is a lack of trust and a blind belief in formats and processes.
Or said another way: Ego and confidence.
Either too much of it or not enough.
Of course, people will say adland have got what they deserved.
That they were indulgent and never cared about their clients business.
Which is – frankly – bullshit.
Not just because that abdicates any responsibility of the clients who hired the agency … gave the brief … and approved the work, but also because I’ve never known an agency who do not give a shit about their clients achieving success.
However somewhere along the line, things have changed 180 degrees and now we’re in this weird situation where everything is upside down … with the great irony being in this new world order of marketing, we’re making less work that is impacting cultures attitudes and behaviour and building fewer brands people give a shit about.
And yet despite this, both parties are carrying on, reframing the situation so they can both feel they’re doing the right thing.
It’s a bit like this scene in Spinal Tap where the bands manager attempts to reframe why they’re playing to 1500 seat theatres when on their previous tour, they were playing to 15,000 people in arenas.
Now please don’t mistake this as a ‘poor agency’ post.
Nor a ‘clients are evil’ bitchfest.
All I am saying is the best work and results always come from parties who trust each other, are open and honest with each other and want/value the same thing.
It’s truly that simple.
It’s why, for example, the Wieden and Nike relationship has not only stood the test of time, but has also consistently made great work.
That doesn’t mean there’s not debate, discussion and, at times, bloody arguments [for example the 3+ years I took the same idea into the same client every month to try and get them to say yes because I thought they were missing a massive opportunity] … but it does mean the conversations are about how to make the best work, not the easiest.
And while that is a rare relationship with a rare body of work, the principles of getting to that position are not that difficult.
However today, we seem to be seeing more and more clients choosing agencies on complicity rather than creativity. Dictating what they want and how they want it rather than identifying problems they want their agency to solve in interesting ways.
They may not realise they’re doing that, they may not want to do that … but they’re doing that, reinforced by countless ‘guru’ dot-to-dot strategies that seem designed to build the guru’s business than the clients who follow it.
What this has resulted in is an attitude where some clients think any agency who has a different – but informed – point of view is out to rip them off, which is hilarious given thinking differently is literally why you hire an agency.
The whole situation is horrible.
No one wins
No relationships gets built.
Instead we have clients using processes and procurement to dictate and control what they want and we get agencies fighting for the chance to do it, because they’ve sold the value of creativity so far down the river, that the only thing they can offer is speed.
What a waste of opportunity, potential and talent on all sides.
Thank god not everyone is like this.
Thank god there’s people, companies and agency relationships who demonstrate what you can achieve together when you trust each other. When you want the best for each other. When you are transparent and honest with each other.
Enough to say yes when it’s easier to say no.
And no, when it’s easier to say yes.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Communication Strategy, Culture, Environment, Management, Meetings
Meetings.
They seem to be happening more and more.
Meetings for meetings.
Meetings to discuss meetings.
Meetings to plan if there is a meeting.
And what is amazing is that anyone can call one of these.
Anyone.
And given most companies place a limit on the amount an employee can spend without prior approval – I find it hilarious anyone can commandeer thousands of dollars/pounds of employee time on a whim.
What makes it even more laughable is often these meetings are no more than a simple question that could have been handled by just going up to a colleagues desk.
But it’s not entirely the fault of the person who calls meetings …
We now live in times where looking busy is a key requisite – more than even being productive – and nothing makes you look busy than calling and attending a meeting.
Of at least an hour, of which 47 minutes is made up of waiting for everyone to turn up, small talk and then going off on tangents at least 7 times.
What I find funny is companies continue to say they want to help employees with their work life balance …
They talk about reducing emails while pushing things like slack … that are far more demanding for immediacy of response.
They talk about wanting everyone to take their holidays … and then dictate when they can/can’t be taken.
Ans they talk about wanting to aid productivity then allow so many meetings to happen that you end up starting your real work towards the end of the day.
With that in mind, here are the 4 questions to ask when you are asked to attend a meeting that you are not sure should be a meeting. Or at least a meeting you’re not sure you should be attending.
1. What is this meeting trying to change?
2. Will the people who can make decisions be there?
3. Will they have all the information they need to make a decision there and then?
4. Why do you think I am one of these people?
Yes it’s a pain.
Yes, they will think you’re a pain.
But I guarantee you, it won’t be as painful as another day of sitting in a vast majority of inane meetings that are designed to make the organiser feel important – or able to share the blame of the situation they are in/caused – while also ensuring you end up having to work late.
Again.
You’re welcome.
Filed under: Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Culture, Management, Meetings, Perspective, Relationships, Respect, Taboo Categories
As you know, I love the band Queen.
Yes, spare me the insults, I’ve heard them all before.
Anyway, I was recently reading an interview with Roger Taylor about his 50 years in the band and there was a response to one question that caught my eye. It was this:
The bit that specifically stood out was when he says:
“But when you’re young, you’d better be arrogant and have big dreams, because it’s not going to happen by accident”.
I found that sentence interesting for a number of reasons.
One is that Queen were always criticised by the music press as being ‘too ambitious’.
As if they had a a masterplan for World domination that they were executing bit by bit.
Now they definitely wanted to be huge – Roger says that in the interview – but apart from the fact, pretty much every band wants to be successful to a degree, these accusations neatly side step some key things.
First is, there isn’t a masterplan.
A guarantee of success.
Yes, there’s some elements that increase the odds of it, but nothing certain.
Second, if you were aiming for World domination, writing songs like Bohemian Rhapsody would literally not be part of the plan.
Of course, ironically this helped them get there, but even their record company didn’t want to release that song because it was so against the approach the music industry tended to follow.
If you want to talk about a band that was designed for World domination, you can throw that far more at melodic mainstream masters, Abba, more than Queen.
But even if Queen did have some fictional blueprint to guarantee the future success, all the barbs thrown at them ignore some of the critical elements they would have needed to stand any chance of achieving it.
Talent.
Songs.
Luck.
Whether you like Queen or not, you’d be hard pressed to say they didn’t have that.
You might not like the songs. You may not like their musicianship. You might not like their performances.
But you have to admit they had that.
Which leads to the point of this post.
Underpinning those critical attributes the band hand …
Underpinning the ambition to be a hugely successful rock band …
Underpinning the “when you’d better have big dreams” attitude. …
… is something we don’t seem to want to talk about any more.
Graft.
Putting in the effort. The commitment. Trying and learning.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting people should put themselves in a position where their mental health is impacted.
And I absolutely accept companies have exploited people’s ambition to serve their own purposes.
But treating ‘graft’ as if it is the enemy is wrong.
A quick look at Corporate Gaslighting tells you that where mental health is concerned, it’s not simply about the volume of work you are expected to do, but what the work is and how the people around you, treat you and it.
Yet that contextual part is rarely talked about …
Many companies talk about mental health through the singular lens of volume … and while a more cynical person could suggest that is so they can remove all other elements of the job – like training etc – to ensure every second available is spent on paid work, I would never suggest such a thing.
Which is why I’m bothered the word ‘graft’ has been seemingly removed from our lexicon.
Tainted when the reality is, it’s important.
Because graft is about learning, exploring, growing.
It’s personal. An act designed to help you improve rather than just make you do more.
That’s very different to the term agencies and companies seem perfectly OK with …
Hustle.
Hustle is far more damaging in my mind.
Hustle is about speed. Additional workloads. Never stopping.
Hustle is the opposite of graft.
An activity designed to fulfil the needs of others [read: managers], not yours.
I think in our quest to deal with mental health, companies have got everything the wrong way around.
Mental health is not about relinquishing ambition.
Mental health is not about abdicating hunger.
Mental health is about feeling you are growing, encouraged, supported and heard rather than just continually giving your energy, taking orders, listening to demands, being offered zero flexibility and being expected to do whatever is asked in increasingly shorter timeframes.
I passionately believe people don’t mind grafting.
I passionately believe people don’t mind working hard for something they care about.
I passionately believe people don’t even mind if their graft doesn’t always result in the perfect outcome. Disappointment maybe but not devastation … at least not if it’s something they still found fulfilling.
What they are sick of is having their progress defined by how much they hustle.
What they are sick of is having their career measured in energy rather than value.
What they are sick of is having their development dictated by workload not training.
What they are sick of is having their needs ignored in favour endless client demands.
If we want our industry to offers dynamic careers rather than repetitive jobs, we better understand people need to feel they can progress and grow through other means than mindless mental, physical and emotional exhaustion.
Roger Taylor is right things don’t happen by accident.
You rarely get to great without pushing yourself.
Athletes don’t just wake up and can run personal bests.
Chefs don’t just wake up and can cook the finest cuisine.
Drummers don’t just wake up and write a number one song.
But by the same token …
Athletes don’t run personal bests writing endless presentations no one reads. Chefs don’t cook the finest cuisine just because they work 12 hour shifts everyday and weekend. And drummers don’t just wake up and write a number one songs because they wait for hours on end for their boss to come out the office ‘just in case’ they need them to do something before they go home.
Yes, progress takes hard fucking work, but when you’re doing it in ways – and with people – who share your goal, rather than just want to exploit it, it has a very different impact on you and your wellbeing.
I believe this is possible to do in this industry. I believe we have people who want to work fucking hard to grow and develop. I even believe progress does not have to come with the devastating cost it has in the past.
Some sacrifices, maybe. But not mental destruction.
However, as long as we continue signing contracts that allow our people to be at the whim of clients regardless of what they need … and then promote people based on volume of work rather than quality of it, then all we’re doing is fucking everybody over.
[There’s going to be a post in a few weeks about career plans and how companies make a big deal of them but few actually live up to them. In other words, they sell the illusion of structure but it’s generally made of sand. And then they wonder why employees are disillusioned]
So while I believe one thing we should do is place mental health protection guideline in all contracts – as clients rightfully do with diversity demands – I think another major step is having adland kill the hustle and start valuing the graft.
_________________________________________________________________________
* Unless you’re from a rich family and can have whatever you want without effort.
Or you’re white …
Where you still have to work but you have a bunch of immediate advantages.
And if you’re a white male, you have hit the jackpot in terms of getting a leg-up.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, Loyalty, Management, Marketing, Meetings, Planners, Point Of View, Positioning, Presenting, Professionalism, Relevance, Resonance
One of the questions I’ve been asked more than any other is how do I tell clients what is wrong with their brand.
The first time this happened, I kept asking for clarification because I couldn’t work out what they were asking.
But over the years, it has become apparent that to some, offering clients honesty and transparency is seen as potential threat to the business rather than creating the foundation to answer what is needed.
For me, giving clients honesty and transparency is a demonstration of how much you want them to win.
How much you want them to win, better.
That doesn’t mean you have to be a dick about it, but it does mean you have to be open about how you see it … and in my experience, if you do it in a way where they understand your reasoning and your ambition for them, then more times than not, it’s welcomed.
That doesn’t mean they will agree with you, but it’s amazing how much respect they’ll have for you … because frankly, they’re surrounded by people who tell them what they want to hear and so someone coming in and saying, “actually, we have a different view on this situation to you” is a breath of fresh air.
Hell, even if they hate what you say, you’d be amazed how many times they’ll remember you. I can’t tell you the amount of times people I once pitched for and lost have come back to me/us at a later date.
But I get it can be daunting, even more so if your bosses are saying. “just do what they want”, which is why the next time you’re in this situation, I encourage you to look at the photo at the top of this post.
That photo is Pablo Escobar.
Columbian drug-king Pablo Escobar.
And yes, that photo is him with his son outside the White House, taken when he was the US Government’s most wanted criminal.
So if you think telling a client how to be more successful requires confidence, imagine what it takes to have a photo with your son outside the building where the President of an entire country wants you dead?
Not so hard now is it?
Have fun …