Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Business, Clients, Collaboration, Colleagues, Comment, Content, Context, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Innovation, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Mediocrity, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect
Imagine you go to the doctor.
You tell them your problem.
They diagnose your issue and prescribe meds.
“No …”, you say, “… that’s not right, you need to give me this”.
The doctor listens patiently then explains why their diagnosis and prescription is right for you.
You – with no medical knowledge or expertise – disagrees, and threaten the doctor with a malpractice suit saying, “I know my body so I know what’s it needs”.
The doctor says their diagnosis is based on what you have told them and what their examination of your body has informed them.
You tell them they have to give you what you want, then – despite keeping the doctor busy with your issue – you refuse to pay the full fee because you say you did all the work and other doctors are offering their services for less fee.
After lots of intimidation from you, they agree to the lower fee and you walk out with your new prescription.
Except a week later you become more ill because the meds you were prescribed – that you demanded – were wrong.
So you go around telling everyone the doctor who treated you was terrible and everyone should take their business elsewhere.
Bullshit isn’t it.
And yet, everyday … many companies do exactly this.
Going to the doctor and prescribing their own medicine.
Using procurement to bully their way to get what they want without realizing what they need.
Don’t get me wrong, ad agencies have a lot of issues … there’s a lot they can do better at … but knowing how to use creativity to connect and engage humans is not one of them.
Which reminds me of the time I did a project for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and they – well, specifically Anthony Kiedis – tried to do the same thing to me.
Just over 5 years ago,. I was asked to do some work for them by their team.
I did the work and presented it and he hated it.
In fact, hate is not a big enough word to describe how much he loathed it.
And me.
Was it bad?
Nope … it was simply a truth that his ego refused to accept and one I stand by to this day.
Anyway,, I was told I could present a response to his ‘comments’ so a few days later, I simply presented this:
Yep … that’s all I presented back.
One slide.
.
To be honest, my memory of what I had written was slightly different so when I saw this on my Facebook memories – it was quite nice to see the original work again,
That said, I do remember showing it my wife prior to presenting to see what she thought … and she said, “Hmmmmn, are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
Now normally, I listen to what she says as she’s much smarter than me, but this time I was adamant I was going to present it as is because of how personal, arrogant and just plain fucking rude he had been to me.
And the result of that?
Bonkers basically. He threw some big insults at me then hung up the call.
The next day I was fired.
And while you can say that is not commercially astute, I still wear it as a badge of honour … because while the other guys in the band couldn’t have been nicer, Kiedis was – and remains – a dick. [Which he futher demonstrated to a Guardian journalist who also questioned him on some home truths he didn’t want to akcknowledge – hahaha]
I was signed to work with Muse a week later. I don’t think this was a coincidence.
So while I am not advocating being an asshole to clients. I would also encourage clients who think they know everything about industries they’ve never worked in, to not be an asshole to those who have studied, worked and achieved the very things they are being engaged for in the first place. It’s why it’s worth remembering, even the best in the world have producers, coaches and mentors … because while the spotlight tends to shine on individuals, it’s the people in the shadows who make it better than they imagined.
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As an aside, the reason I am using that photo at the top of this post is very deliberate.
A few months ago a person I’m very close to suddenly suggested I shared ‘resemblances’ to the old TV character, House. I laughed but found myself casually mentioning it to a few other people who know me well who – much to my surprise – all enthusiastically agreed.
“Sarcastic” and “a bit of a prick” were a couple of the things uttered quite a lot.
And then, in a twist of fate that would suit any Hollywood story, I found myself in the US working with the original writer/runner of the show – the brilliant David Shore. At the end of our time together, I sheepishly told him what certain friends and colleagues had said and asked if he saw any shared traits from our time together.
He paused as if to gather his thoughts and then said what you read below.
[The redaction relates to the person we’re both working for who brought us together]
For what it’s worth, I think he’s being overly generous … but his last sentence nailed me … which means I’m less TV character and more greenhouse. ‘Transparent’. Damnit, ha.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Collaboration, Colleagues, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Linkedin, Loyalty, Management, Process, Professionalism, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect
It seems that as an industry, we care more about frameworks than what they are supposed to help create.
Actually, it’s worse than that …
It seems we aspire to be known for the creation of a framework rather than the work.
Nothing summed this up more to me than an article I read on Linkedin …
I must admit, I read it a few times to try and comprehend what I was looking at …
Trying to work out why my initial response was shock and – to be honest – disgust.
After all, they’d received a lot of positive comments from a lot of smart people, so surely I had got the wrong end of the stick?
But then, after a lot of consideration, I realized I hadn’t read it incorrectly … this person really had put forward a framework on how to interact with colleagues having a tough time.
Which is why I responded with this …
If truth be told, their write up on why this mattered to them, made sense.
Too many ‘managers’ DO jump to solving problems rather than listening to them.
But the great irony to their proposed solution is that they had inadvertently just put forward a methodology that is part of the reason we have these problems in the first place.
Because business has equated professionalism with optimised efficiency rather than human emotion.
Conveniently – or deliberately – forgetting that while frameworks may help create the consistency, it’s humanity who creates the value.
Or said another way:
It doesn’t matter what business you’re in.
It doesn’t matter who you conduct your business with.
It doesn’t even matter how you make your business operate.
At the end of the day, whatever line of work you’re in – business is always personal.
Filed under: Advertising, Agency Culture, Ambition, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Cars, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Consultants, Context, Corporate Evil, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Experience, Focus Groups, Grifting, Logic, Love, Luck, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Perspective, Planning, Point Of View, Process, Relevance, Research, Resonance, Respect, Standards, Status, Stupid
We’re surrounded by processes and systems.
Each and everyone proclaiming to be ‘the right way’ to do something.
A way that claims effectiveness … efficiency … accuracy and performance are all but guaranteed.
And while it is true that in many cases, they increase the odds of good things happening … that’s all they do.
Sure, many have a ton amount of data accompanying them to back things what they say … but as we all know about data, when used right [or wrong] you can make it say or prove anything you want it to.
The reality is our industry, pretty much all these systems are less a shortcut to wealth and prosperity, and more an insurance policy against failure and destruction.
Nothing wrong with that other that it does the opposite of what many claim and instead, champions conformity more than liberation. But then what do you expect when many of the people doing the spouting of systems and processes have a vested interest in everyone using those very systems and processes.
Again, I’m not suggesting you ignore all these things. As I said, many play an important role in developing products and brands … however when someone suggests they’re ‘the secret to success’ and must be embraced to the letter – then you need to think about whose success are they really talking about.
It’s why I bloody loved this interview with Marc Andreessen – the businessman, venture capitalist, and [former] software engineer. Specifically the bit about ‘why hyperlinks are blue’.
OK, so he tries to rationalize it at the end, but fundamentally what he says is: “blue is my favorite colour”.
That’s right … the colour of our hyperlinks were chosen.
By a human.
Because he liked that colour.
Kind of reminds me of the ‘wings’ on a Cadillac.
There was absolutely no functional reason for them to exist other than the fact the designers just thought it looked better with them.
That’s it.
And with that, they turned a car into an icon. And here lies a key lesson …
Sometimes, the things we like are simply because we like them.
There may be many alternatives.
There may be other possibilities.
But at the end of the day, some choose things for no other reason than it works for them.
And at a time where everything needs to be justified … rationalised … reviewed and tested … I think those people deserve credit for backing their belief, judgement, vision and preference.
It’s easy to do what a system tells you to do.
It’s easy to follow what others tell you is right.
But it takes confidence to embrace what you believe is the right thing to do. And while I acknowledge some will suggest this approach is an act of ego and arrogance … when you consider how many of these ‘dot-to-dot logic™ systems and ‘researched-to-within-an-inch-of-their-life’ campaigns/brands/products fail to perform [often because the impact or output they create is deemed secondary in importance to the adherence of every step of whatever system or logic process you have committed to using] you could argue the person who backs their judgement is no less an idiot than the person who outsources all their responsibility to someone else?
Whether we like it or not, sometimes the best things are a product of someone doing something they preferred.
They will justify it.
They will rationalize it.
But underpinning it all, is their acknowledgment that before they can think about satisfying others, they need to satisfy themselves … and frankly I find that a pretty honourable act.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Apathy, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Career, Collaboration, Colleagues, Community, Context, Contribution, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Equality, Experience, Eye, Health, Jaques, Jorge, Linkedin, Loyalty, Management, Martin Weigel, Maya, Mr Ji, Paula, Pride, Purpose, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect
Many years ago, I sent letters to anyone I felt had had an outsized impact or influence on my career, as it was then.
Some had been in my life a short time, some for many years … but all of them had made a significant difference to where I was and where I wanted to be.
And not one of them responded.
Nada.
Zilch.
Zero.
Eventually I reached out to one person to see if they had received it – fearing something terrible had gone on with the post.
“Robert, how are you?” … they said, as soon as they heard my voice … “are you OK?”
I remember how weird I thought their response was but reassured them I was fine and asked if they’d got my letter.
They confirmed they had and then – after a pause – asked if I was suffering ill health.
When I asked why, they told me they thought my letter was my way of saying goodbye to them before I died or something.
The irony was within months, I would get very ill, but I had no idea that was going to happen which is why my immediate response to their fears, was to piss myself laughing.
Fortunately, so did they.
And over the following weeks, I slowly heard from a number of the other people I’d written to who all had heard through the grapevine that rather than saying my farewells, I was simply expressing my gratitude.
The reason I say this is that recently, I started writing about another set of people who I felt I owed great thanks to.
There was no agenda other than to publicly acknowledge their importance in my life and my thanks for their talent and friendship.
At the time of writing this post, I’d written about Paula Bloodworth, Martin Weigel, Maya Thompson, Chris Jaques, Jorge Calleja, Clare Pickens and Jason White.
[There will be a ton more, but that’s all I’ve done so far … mainly because I have a job I have to pretend I’m doing diligently – ha]
Now, maybe it’s because people know this time I am suffering from ill health – specifically my eye – but the response to these celebrations, while different to the previous occasion I did it, are also quite similar.
In essence, they can all be summed up in 2 words: Gratitude and concern.
Gratitude for my words.
Concern for why I wrote them.
Now I appreciate my eye situation is getting very alarming, but this has been going on for almost a year so while I recently received less than favorable news …. this and my ‘Campbell Gratitude’ series are purely a coincidence rather than some sort of correlation.
But what IS concerning is how this reveals the true state of professionalism these days … in so much that the idea of someone saying nice things about someone else with absolutely no agenda, can only be explained away by them dealing with a major health issue.
Maybe this is what’s wrong with where we’re all at …
That no one should ever show generosity without having self-interest motivations.
Platforms like Linkedin haven’t helped …
For all their claims of being a place for the professional community, it has nurtured an environment where anyone who comments/likes or accepts a request entitles them to bombard you with unsolicited, irrelevant sales pitches or non-stop declarations of ego and bravado.
Mind you, let’s be honest it’s not just Linkedin is it.
From what I know, every dating site out there is doing exactly the same thing.
Claiming love. Championing self-interest gratification.
Look, I get it’s tough out there.
I also appreciate I am privileged as fuck.
But if we can’t say thanks to the people who mean a lot to us – simply because we want to celebrate to others WHY they mean a lot to us – then it’s no surprise we are promoting a culture of transactional interactions. The irony of which is that this literally undermines the chance of what all these people aspire to achieve.
Because as I wrote here, the most important and powerful relationships are based on your commitment to who they are, not what you want or can get out of them.
Like many words advocated by my industry, the meaning of loyalty has been completely fucked-with.
Changed beyond all recognition to justify self-serving actions and behaviors.
It’s why I love something I heard recently about how one person defined loyalty …
Someone whose entire business is based on appreciating what someone has done for them in the past, rather than simply evaluating them on what they can get out of them tomorrow.
“Always leave the dance with the person you came with”.
I love it.
I love what it means and how they expressed it.
There’s a lot of companies who could do with following that advice.
There’s a lot of professionals too.
Filed under: 2025, A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Apathy, Aspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Audacious, Authenticity, Comment, Context, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Effectiveness, Emotion, Empathy, Imagination, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Planning, Play, Point Of View, Process, Provocative, Relationships, Relevance, Reputation, Resonance, Respect, Stupid, Success, Work
So I have good news.
This is the last post for a week.
Yep, I’m away. Again.
Not because of whatever happened with the result I wrote about yesterday – but something else. Though if the result wasn’t good yesterday, the week away for me is going to be very bitter sweet because something that should be full of crazy wonderfulness is going to be infected by sheer fucking panic. But let’s stay positive shall we and ignore the fact I started a company called cynic – hahaha.
[I also, let’s not forget, started a company called Sunshine, which proves I am the living embodiment of a ‘gemini’, haha]
Anyway, I say you have ‘a week’ rest from this blog but I have written a post for next Friday because it’s Halloween and I couldn’t resist posting something truly horrific.
A blast from the past that no one needs seeing again but still makes me laugh.
So apart from that, you’re free from me for one whole week.
What a way to see in the weekend …
So with that, I’m going to leave you with this …
I saw the above recently and it reminded me of a meeting I was in once, where an HR person talked about ‘cultural fit’.
Now I get what they meant – from a theoretical place – but it was what they were trying not to say that bugged me.
Because in essence, they were saying they valued the complicit and consistent over the interesting and challenging.
They didn’t care that people who questioned or pushed were actually doing it because they wanted to help the company be even better … to them, they saw them as ‘problems’ who they could discount or disregard under the guise of being a ‘wrong cultural fit’.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate good companies have strong cultures … a set of principals, values and behaviours that the people within shapes who they are and how they act. But too many organisations mistake this for control and complicity when in reality, it’s about expression, standards and possibility.
And it’s why I loved that piece But here’s the thing, these people make great shit a possibility.
Sure, I get they often need to be surrounded by those with the skills and abilities to both interpret what they say and action it … but without them, you are forever lost in the middle.
Yes I get for some that is exactly where they want to be … but for those with hunger, ambition, a desire for originality, craft and possibility, that’s literally the worst place you can find yourself positioned.
And yet too often, it’s these ‘big talking companies’ who have embraced protocols and processes that filter these people out immediately … replacing them with an endless stream of plastic and beige puppets. It’s why as much as these sorts of individuals can cause all manner of headaches and mayhem – and I say this both as someone who fits this description as well as someone who seeks out people of this description – they remain the individuals who I love to work with and hire the most.
And there’s a reason for that …
Because not only do you never know what they’ll come up with – and often they don’t know wither – you can be sure it will be smart and impossible to forget.
Or to be more poetic …
They are like comets flying across a night sky. They might not stay around for long, but boy … do they always shine bright.
Which leads to something else.
Recently London School of Economics [LSE] asked me to write a piece for their business management and strategy curriculum.
I don’t know if was because they thought my perspective would educate their students or serve as a warning of what NOT to do, but it was lovely to be asked.
The one thing they wanted me to specifically talk about was how I have been able to build and lead successful teams wherever I’ve worked.
And without blowing my own trumpet, I have.
Whether it’s been at different agencies or different countries, I’m proud I’ve been able to help nurture strategically intriguing, creatively interesting teams. Where every place I’ve been, has enjoyed a period that has come to define the department, the agency, the client, the category, the work we create or – most importantly – the people who are there.
The reason that’s so important to me is that where strategy is concerned, you can never be sure if you’re making a difference or you’re just riding on the coat-tails of the talent that was – and is – already there.
Or said another way, are you good or are you lucky?
And while I’m definitely lucky – both in terms of where I’ve worked and who I’ve got to work with – I do believe I’m pretty good at developing people and gangs – and I choose the word ‘gang’ very deliberate.
You see the word ‘gang’ means you have a motley crew of different people with different talents and outlooks who are united by a common philosophy, enemy and planning identity … whereas a department tends to be a production line of similar people, doing similar things with similar backgrounds and expectations.
Or as Lee Hill, my mentor and friend once said, “you can choose to partner with people who find interesting ways to open possibilities or people who are only focused on keeping things the same”.
And while there is nothing wrong with being boringly expected, it’s not what I value or what drives the greatest commercial growth … which is why – as part of the piece I was asked to write – I wrote this:
[Click on the image above to read it properly]
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It’s why I always say you should beware of those who offer convenient answers.
Or solutions that are more complicated than the actual problem.
Because you may find they end up costing you far more than the people who challenge or push you in terms of who you are pr who you want – or could – become.
See you properly a week on Monday – via something stupid on Friday.