Do you want the good news or the bad news? The fact is that whichever you choose, it’s the bad news that you are most likely to remember and act on. That’s because we’ve evolved to respond far more strongly to negative experiences than positive ones. Our primitive selves needed to react to danger, or…
5 ways founders need to change as leaders when their agency starts to grow. When you start a business with someone else you all tend to adopt roles. I don’t mean the tasks we pick up, I mean behavioural roles. We take on the role of “the optimistic one” or “the cautious one” or “the…
You didn’t know we had a Generation Z now? Keep up at the back. We’re on our way back around the alphabet – that’s how far we’ve come in our desire to categorise broad cohorts of the population. So what? Who cares? Well, seemingly almost everyone I talk to: agency leaders bemoaning the entitled attitudes…
Years ago, when I was still a planner, I worked with a brilliant Creative Director called Sedge… He consistently nailed the brief and produced exciting work that made my job easy. I’d share his ideas with my clients and take as much reflected glory as I could. He was also the only creative in the…
I’ve noticed a bit of a pattern in my last few meetings. Agency leaders don’t talk to each other. They chat, they discuss business, they make plans… …they hire & fire, they have meetings, they win & lose pitches, they drink together. Frankly, most of them seem to get on. But very few of them seem…
I recently came across an article about a lovely response a seven-year-old had received from Norwich City Football Club. The young fan had written a letter to apologise for not being able to attend her first match and to ask for a refund. A member of the Customer Service team, Emma, had handwritten a reply…
A healthy agency culture is critical – so why do you neglect it? What came first, the culture or the foosball table? Was it the attitude of the founder that created an approach that spawned a business or once the business got going, did an agency culture evolve? The answer is probably yes. Founders have…