This blog post serves two purposes: first I wanted to put pen to paper (or at least commit to a few key strokes and an extra half an hour’s screen time in a busy day) to thank the team at Unlocking Potential for giving me access to a Knowledge Placement via their Future Focus programme. And secondly, it’s a pre-emptive strike to order my thoughts before I create a more formal training session for my team based on my recent Knowledge Exchange experience.
So what’s a Knowledge Placement ? Essentially, it’s one of those things that, as a business leader, you’d probably never get a round to without a shove. I signed up to the Future Focus programme with Unlocking Potential several months ago, and as part of this process I’ve worked with some brilliant businesses, networking, sharing ideas, thinking and having conversations with peers and mentors. In addition to the aforementioned collaborative learning, the Future Focus support also offered me a Knowledge Placement opportunity. Now I’m guessing that depending on your circumstances, this opportunity could take a variety of formats. For me it was really simple: having worked as a self-taught creative for the past twenty years, I was keen to see how it was done elsewhere.
So – my Knowledge Placement involved taking some time out to meet with a select handful of London agencies to learn a little about how they do things, and the team at Unlocking Potential gave me the shove that got me there.
Now, anyone who knows me through work will know I’m a big advocate of original thought, of paddling your own canoe, and of not overly concerning yourself with what your competitors are doing. I’ve come to this way of thinking for a couple of reasons: first and foremost, I’ve seen a number of businesses lose their way because they’re looking over their shoulder at their competition more than looking forward to where they’re going. But the second reason I fix my eyes on the prize rather than on those I’m competing with is because I genuinely don’t think we have any true competitors on our doorstep – nobody that really does what we do, so nobody to get distracted by.
So the Knowledge Exchange was intended to let me to strike out, think different, and break my own rules for a few days. In practical terms, what this meant was I gave Unlocking Potential a brief about what I wanted to achieve, and they came back to me with a proposed placement. They pointed me toward London and spending some time with Media Monks who are widely understood to be one of the hottest tickets in creative production in the world. Not one to miss an opportunity, I also built some meetings in with other agencies whilst I was in London, including a producer in the very talented team responsible for the John Lewis Christmas campaigns.
However, things didn’t exactly start smoothly. The day my colleague and I flew up to London, my car blew up – not in the melodramatic sense. It actually exploded into flames while I was driving it, and it took three fire extinguishers and eventually a fire engine to put it completely out (I was fine. No-one was hurt thankfully). But on top of that, when we arrived at our Soho hotel that evening, it turned out that in my haste I’d booked the wrong dates for our stay. So it’s fair to say that from the outset, the Knowledge Exchange was at risk of being overshadowed by stress. All I was thinking was ‘Do I really need to be here? Is this good use of my time? We’re too busy to mess around with meetings in London. This is not mission critical. This Knowledge Placement is a mistake.’
Now thanks to some previous Unlocking Potential training I leant into, I quickly managed to get over myself, de-stress, get my head into the job, and focus on the opportunity of meeting world class creatives in London town. And unless you’re in the creative business, I’m not sure the learnings I picked up whilst away would be of great interest – and in truth, even if they were, I’m not going to give you the detail. But here’s what I can tell you!
We ended up with four very different meetings over the two days: a cutting edge creative house, a leading SEO outfit, a producer responsible for some of the biggest campaigns on the planet, and a creative broker who lines big brands up with boutique creative houses, rationalising and trouble-shooting budgets. Each meeting was fascinating, each business stellar, and all the people we met were genuine characters: insightful, larger than life, and likely to be lifelong contacts.
So here are two big learnings I can share. First: strike out, break your routine, dare to think different. Whether something’s mission critical isn’t the only factor on which to plan your week – and if your attitude’s holding back from succeeding? Get over yourself.
Secondly, I learnt that our thinking at Idenna actually is very closely aligned with that of some of our industry heroes. I’ve heard this straight from the horse’s mouth; and standing toe to toe with some of the best in the business, and learning first-hand that our creative approach is lined up with businesses widely credited with having the zeitgeist is an enormous shot in the arm. Keeping our eyes firmly on the horizon and not being distracted by our peers can sometimes be a little unnerving – and even lonely. But this visit reminded me to have faith in our strengths, work on our weaknesses, and always keep striving to tell stories creatively.
As I wrap writing this blog post up, I’m mentally structuring a significant scheme of work which has been inspired as a direct result of my Knowledge Exchange – and implied within it are a number of things that I know will improve our position, our brand, our culture and our output, all as a direct result of stepping out of my comfort zone. This Knowledge Placement has inspired great encouragement and resolve for us to develop our team further and become more ferociously ourselves. Coco Chanel famously said that “In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different” – and that’s something we will now endeavour to take to the next level for ourselves and our customers as a result of our London adventure. Really exciting stuff.
And as an aside – I was also wowed at the extent at which London agencies seem to be looking over their shoulder at their peers in the arena of company perks and office culture. During our meetings I heard exchanges similar to “Our agency has a prosecco fountain” was countered with “Oh really? We have a gin bar” .. and while I couldn’t really compete in that arena – except perhaps to suggest that the Idenna team benefits from office dogs, fresh air, fresh thinking and a short commute to some of the most beautiful beaches on the planet. While London’s amazing, there are some things it just can’t provide!
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Strike Out, Think Different! | Idenna Creative