As someone who spent her late teens and twenties living in Wisconsin, California, Texas, South Carolina, Minnesota and New York, I’ve always been pretty able to adapt to change. Change excites me, in fact. Last week I started a new gig at a 42-year-old agency. Not surprisingly, not everyone is as welcoming of “the brave new world” of marketing as I may be, though there are definitely some major bright spots. I’m not alone in my passions, and that’s incredibly important.
Personally, in my sometimes idealistic little brain, I think an agency — any agency — should be filled with 100% individuals who have massive intellectual curiosity and embrace new ideas, new technologies, and new people. But that’s indeed idealistic and I try to brand myself as a realist. So, instead, I am – to use a friend’s terminology – cultivating a garden of patience. I am heeding my pre-gig horoscope which warned: “You will meet with resistance if you are too pushy and bold.” I don’t believe one can be too bold, per se, but one, especially this one, can be too pushy.
My new mantra: small victories. Someone fixing the broken link on the agency blog. New, more strategic content on the agency blog forthcoming. A few people agreeing to use Yammer to share news, articles, research between agency offices. While I might hope for more, being the change hog that I am, that’s not a bad first week. I’ll take it and I’ll happily come back for more.
It will be interesting to see if this degree of transparency – which I consider far from “radical” – raises any hackles. I should be clear, I am not representing that this agency is “broken” and I am the savior, by any stretch of the imagination. There were a lot of good things happening long before I came along. Before I was born, in fact, and I am no Spring chicken. But I will also transparently say that there is a need for people to breathe in new life from time to time, in any organization. And where is this more true than in an agency, where we are responsible for leading a wide variety of brands into said brave new world?
So from my first week, here are things I’ve become acutely aware that I will need to do to be an effective-and-not-annoying “new life breather”.
1. Cultivate patience. A bumper crop of it.
2. With patience comes persistence. Small victories every week over time will add up to big ones.
3. Have both “gentle” mode and “bold” mode. They each will have a time and a place.
4. Do your homework, always. The more “proof” you have for your positions, obviously, the more credibility you will establish for the next time you suggest a change.
5. Lead by example. This has always been a favorite and, in my opinion, is one of the most important strategies for any successful leader.
6. Identify and nurture your like-minded allies, the ones who can help you make things happen.
7. Be an energizer. This requires a “relentless focus on the positive”. In my new role, I am relentlessly working on this.
There, of course, are more. These are the ones that are top of mind for me right now. Tell me please, what are yours?
Photo credit: David King
