Some say success in our business has a lot to do with luck. Or hard work. Or both ("Success is when luck meets hard work and preparation"). You've heard all the aphorisms explaining why one guy wears $200 designer jeans while washing his Porsche and the next still buys his best dress shirts from Sears.
Well let me try my hand at it, based on years of seeing ad agencies run by many well-meaning and ambitious types. I don't have a catchy cliché to toss out but I think you'll find this easy to remember: You get what you focus on.
The agencies we'd call successful - with steady growth, an ever-enlarging list of first-class clients, a talented and respected staff, moving into better quarters every few years - tend to get that way because they concentrate on where they want to go.
They have an unruffled new business push, consistent, strong, and frequent. They believe in ongoing searches for exceptional talent and have a prescient staffing plan to discover stars long before they're needed; they pour money into training because they understand hiring without a plan to improve performance is an unconscious commitment to the status quo; the senior team leads and doesn't merely press for self-serving departmental agendas; and successful agencies recognize that a lofty vision is hollow without ruthless attention to improving things.
So they focus on where they want to go, not just on today's client requests. Agency owners who think effective leadership is merely managing a punch list of exigencies so the crisis du jour can be resolved by 6 pm are doomed to run at the rear of the pack. These principals - and believe me, this happens; I've counseled many of these guys - often become melancholic in their later years and suffer badly from the shouldas.
On the other hand, focusing on the significant stuff yields multiple results. Concentrate your management corps on just a handful of essential annual strategies (handful is dead-on; five is exactly the right number of major initiatives to commit to accomplishing in a year) and you'll arrive on time at your vision destination. If, that is, you accept no excuses for lack of execution.
Remember that if you're the CEO, your chief job is to lead the process of improvement. The first step, coming up with a "vision," isn't really tough although some avoid even this because it might require facing down the devil of change. But it's the getting-it-done part that takes persistence and guts. Over the years many agency owners have bent my ear complaining about how inept or intractable their key lieutenants were at accomplishing the important things...and yet they're unwilling to hold their highly paid subordinates' feet to the fire.
Purpose - your vision and goals - demands fulfillment with a water-tight operating process driven from the top. You'll get the behavior in your company that you exhibit and tolerate.
By the way, saying "I'm too busy" is just an excuse for perpetuating mediocrity. That's for people unwilling to decide on and, more importantly, commit to what they want. Sorry, but this always trips me up - isn't a good part of life about pursuing happiness, dreaming your dreams then making them happen? These folks always give themselves away by saying, "If I just had more time." No, it's if you had more focus. Decide what's important then go after it!
Exceptional people running exceptional agencies achieve their goals because, like an annoying puppy chewing on a bone, they persist in getting what they want. With tenacity, resolve, and focus.
Yes, it all sounds so simple. And that's exactly the point - it is simple: You get what you focus on.
What could be easier?
