Having posted Think less, do more: 5 days to a focused you earlier today, I thought I’d share with you some thoughts I had coming into 2009. They may prove useful for you to mull over how you approach your own 2009.
So, I introduce you to the three N’s that are lighting my way through the year…
1. Knowledge
2. Known-ness
3. Network
1. Knowledge
Simple to state, hard to measure (maybe?). The 3 things I want to get smarter at this year are: my craft, leadership and business acumen.
My craft: even though my job title has ‘strategy’ in it, I believe my craft – and what’s been common to everything I’ve been interested in since I was a kid – is ideas (in the generic, not industry-specific sense – eg in advertising ‘idea’ usually relates to a brand idea or campaign idea). Ideas that drive constructive change. Something like that. In my day job, the effectiveness of my craft can be measured by the results of our thinking and campaigns for clients (business results, brand impact, etc). With this website, KPIs may be around interaction (eg comments) and visits. To be honest, if I was to create a scorecard using the structure on this page, I’d need to think more about this one. Any thoughts?
Leadership: this sounds fluffy and Harvard Business School-like but I really want to get better at leading people. I’ve seen different styles of leadership – from the pitbull to the emotionally intelligent Alpha male (contradictory? maybe.). I believe leadership starts with a compelling purpose that attaches to clear, engaging steps and objectives, and then starts with the question: ‘How can I help you?’ (shout outs to Rene Leger for this one – he lives it). I’ve put this under Knowledge because this is a learning thing for me so my goals would be around learning rather than actual leadership impact. That can come later.
Business acumen: I want to get better at agency business. Strategists in communications agencies are usually kept arms-length from ‘the numbers’ but these times will require more and more interesting remuneration models, agencies getting involved in joint ventures, sharing IP and so on. Strategists need to understand the impact and possibilities of their thinking on their own businesses so they can help shape them.
OK, so I haven’t really set goals or specific actions for these thoughts yet but am really just keeping them top of mind so I keep feeding myself information.
2. Known-ness
Yes, reputation. I believe that people buy into you before you step in the room. I believe that most pitches are won outside of the pitch – unless you muck it up on the day. So, this is why it is important to be known, to be spoken about. Professionally speaking, I’ve kept really quite and Stealth-like the past few years. I’m not big on industry stuff for the sake of it – plus doing my old media stuff, I felt like I’d put enough verbal distraction into the world so gave it a break. But, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the past couple of years it’s that people buy into ideas of other people and that reputation is the best way make sure you’re bought into.
Again, I’m still playing around with my 2009 goals but they include:
- speak at 6 events
- 50,000 unique visitors to this website
- 2 published articles in serious publications
3. Network
This is another thing I’ve neglected professionally over the past few years. I was a bit burnt out from my magazine, got married, had kids, was working long hours. The turning point was hosting a Marketing 2.0 conference in 2008 where I met Julian Cole, Sean Smith, Tamir and many others. I got stimulated by the conversation, learnt a lot and felt energised. I decided I needed to do it more – for my own sanity. I guess my only ‘goal’ here is to try to attend 4 things a month. My goals could be a lot more detailed – eg ‘have lunch with 3 people, speak to X people by phone, email X people per week’ but that would take too much effort and be utterly corny!
Questions for you
I’m really throwing out some incomplete thoughts here but keen to hear suggestions around ‘goals’ (I know many of you hate applying goals to this sort of stuff) or the frameworks you use to give yourself clarity of purpose.
The reason I think all this stuff through? I’m scared.
Photos by Leo Reynolds.
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