NORTHERN PLANNER

Before I was old enough to do swim races, I was dragged along most weekends to watch my older sisters do it. Whole Saturdays sat by a pool, sometimes Sunday's too. 

I became professional at packing a bag to keep myself occupied. Books, Star Wars comics, pad and pencils for endless drawings. I was a quiet little boy, happy with his own company when forced. Sometimes I would just sit and daydream. 

Nevertheless, I still got bored. Not just on these endless weekends. 

The younger ones among you may not believe this, but once upon a time there was no internet, only 3 television channels, no mobile phones. 

Even with all the playing, the endless Star Wars role-plays, the books devoured, the cavalier risks taken on building sites on our BMX bikes, all the tennis, myself and my friends were bored.

I can remember impatiently waiting for the A-Team to come on every Friday. For the Sunday reveal of who was number one in the music charts.

Even in my twenties, we still got bored. Train journeys without mobiles or laptops meant lots of reading, it also entailed staring out the window. 

We don't get bored these days. We rarely have to deal with the discomfort of not being stimulated. 

When was the last time you were alone without your phone? 

I think this matters. Don't get me wrong, the past was not better. Shops closed on a Wednesday afternoon, popular culture was a bit racist and a lot sexist, the food was a lot worse, Margaret Thatcher ran the country. 

But being bored is a lost art, especially if you want to survive in an agency as a planning type. 

Because it's about confidence. 

Not the bollocks charisma and pretending to be someone you're not.

Having the foundations to withstand the knockbacks, the 'difficult characters', the stress, the uncertainty. 

Being able to put your best work in front of others and have it torn to shreds. 

It's also the secret to being good in meetings and presenting. 

Being yourself, not putting on a show, simply creating belief in others because you belief in yourself and what you're doing. 

The confidence to not be a dick, to be wrong sometimes, to listen to others. To not have to fucking win all the time.

Strategy people don't have to be right, they don't have to be the cleverest (don't forget, no one likes a smart-arse). 

They need to liberate the best in others. It takes self-confidence to sacrifice yourself to make others look good. 

The sure way to improve your confidence is to know who are and be happy with it. 

You need to be able to like yourself, your positives and your very real flaws. 

You need to spend time with yourself to get to this point. 

You have to get bored. 

So you can hear your mind, so you can truly know who you are. 

How you do it is up to you.

Running, gardening, knitting, baking or just sitting down for 20 minutes a day doing nothing. 

Spending time on your own, without distraction is the key.

I can also say that, in tough years like this (and mine has certainly be less than straightforward).

The more solid your foundations, the less likely the storm will blow you away. 

 

 

I may have mentioned I've had quite a year. 

If I knew you well enough and I were to tell you the full story, the focus would be three moments.

Ordinary moments or even objects that reveal far more because of their context. 

The moment myself and my two children, on our first holiday as a three, not four, ran into ocean, the cold cleansing our cares and worry away for a bit as it took our breathe away. The same as every year, but with a person missing. 

Doing repeat, steep, uphill repeats on my bike for an hour. Starting with mind broken and body intact. Gradually flipping this with every repeat until it was the body broken and the mind restored. The same as many days for me, but now the context was my mind and what it has been going through,  not the transient pain in my legs or burning lungs. . 

A Christmas tree bought alone.

These moments or images are, according to Bobette Buster, the Gleaming Detail. 

Moments and images of absolute clarity that reveal the absolute essence of a story. 

It's the bicycles in front of the moon in ET.

It's how the first thing women liberated from Belsen did was put lipstick on.

It's 'Luke I am Your Father'. 

It's Rocky running up the steps in Philadelphia. 

So what will be Gleaming Detail in your next presentation? Your next creative briefing? The ideas you're helping build?

 

Let remind you, if you're a strategy type, you're job is to liberate the skills of everyone else.

The worst thing anyone client say in feedback is 'we really like the strategy, but the work didn't live up to it'. 

Yet it happens a lot.

Of course, you are tempted to bask in the glory of 'your bit' having really gone well.

Or at least dodging blame for the failure.

When actually you have failed the most.

You've let everyone down.

Because either your team didn't understand your thinking or it wasn't possible to execute it.

Even worse, you decided to you wanted to make yourself look good in a meeting rather than let everyone else look good.

There are cases, I know, when the people you are briefing just won't work from your thinking.

Maybe they have a fixed idea of what will work, maybe they are prima donnas.

All of these things are not just possible, I'm afraid they are highly likely.

But the worst thing you can do is write up the original thinking rewardless

Clients do not buy strategy, the but the ideas it generates.

So either change your thinking, or change people's minds.

There is no point strategising in isolation.

 

Even when it's all groovy and folks are building off your thinking, it's easy to look like two teams, not one. 

Whatever kind agency you are in, there's a moment where you hand over some sort of one page brief to everyone. 

Many places, especially in the pitch process will  expect you to turn the strategy into slides straight away.

To get ahead, to save time.

Assuming the people that then actually turn the thinking into action won't move it on.

When of course, at least if your place is any good, that's exactly what happens.

The work should be much, much, better than the strategy and take it to new places.

However, in many cases, the brief will look a little 'first page' next to the work it generates.

That's sort of the point.

So insist on waiting for the first review, or even better, the moment you have work to move on.

Then you can write your bit of a cohesive, compelling story, rather than just writing your own.

One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given for the job was so simple.

No one needs you in the room.

So surrender your ego and be generous. 

This was in a time when 'the people in the room' were  account handlers and creatives, not much more.

They could get on quite happily without planning types.

Creatives thought they could do the strategy anyway, sometimes they were right.

Accounts handlers could advise the client, write briefs and evaluate creative perfectly well. 

Planners were at best an necessary evil. You had to make people want you there. 

Now, you have even more folks who can crack on quite happily without you.

Data folks, experience designers, UX specialists, SEO strategists…all these people in room or wanting to be there.

That's why planning types need to a radiator not a drain.

You can't be drain on everyone's energy, making everything more complex, with more barriers  and hoops to jump through.

You need to radiate energy, make everyone's life easier, be a joy to work with. 

In fact, I'll go further. Don't do anything to make yourself look good, make everyone else look good.

Seriously, make other people look good and you will do well. 

 

If you're starting out, trust me on the following realities.

You're not as good as you think you are yet. 

Most of what you've been taught, or read in books is at best a generalisation or at worst, plain wrong. 

Your attitude and approach will need a LOT of fine tuning. 

There's an easy to way to work on this, attach yourself to people who are already successful. 

As they move forward, so will you and you'll absorb all their knowledge and experience. 

It's not the route to quick glory but it is the route to long lasting success. 

While you put everything into serving them, you suck up all they can teach you. 

I'm not talking about brown nosing, I am talking about pouring all your energy into the success of others. 

This will be a lesson well learned no matter where you are in life as a strategy practitioner.

Because your job is to make everyone else look good.

Insight that can help clients discover new paths to growth.

Ways to unlock the creativity in your peers.

Helping the Clint team reinforce a good relationship. 

Forgive the football metaphor, but you're midfielder. You set up others to score.

Psychologists have long known that the best way to get someone to do what you want is to do them a favour first. 

So scratch their backs first. 

Think of it this way.

Who do you think others want around?

In an agency environment not without egos.

Someone who will compete for credit to attention?

Or someone they believe will help them get where THEY want to be.

 

I had a boss once who didn't do much of value. He read quoted whatever book he read. 

It was easier to feel good about being part of the latest fashionable (but unproven) may of thinking, than actually doing good stuff.

It was easier to feed the ego than craft good work. 

It was easy to recognise because I'd beeb there too in a much smaller way. 

Many, many years ago I had a bit of a wobble. I forgot myself.

It was back in the golden age of planner blogs.

There was a big community, I was part of it and amazingly one or two people liked what I wrote.

I got invited to the odd conference, even to speak.

I was offered jobs by people I'd never met. 

And for a little while it went to my head. The validation from BEING someone meant I focused less on DOING something. 

I became a little entitled. Not much mind, I'm not really that kind of person, I'm the kind who always fears getting found out.

Still.

It was seductively easy to be frustrated when my thinking was questioned, just because a few hundred people liked some post.

It was tempting to just copy a clever post from someone else, rather than putting the work into my own thinking. 

It was so easy to not bother with genuine insight because insights were out of fashion (they were trust me on this). 

Or feel validated by spending Friday morning in a cafe with loads of clever planners, rather than actually working. 

I nearly became a strategic smart arse. 

Thankfully I caught myself, but this was a lesson well learned. 

We all face this kind of choice at some point.

Do you want to be BE something or do you want to DO something.

Are you going to EARN or are you going to PRETEND.

There is so much bullshit in the industry, with so many talking heads ready to share un-earned wisdom, it's really easy to fake it.

Quote a few books, write a few opinion pieces, follow some proprietary process that looks good on paper.

Be the rock star singing songs someone else wrote. 

Let your ego deceive you. 

Of course, if you are more bothered about who you are in life than what you might accomplish, this is fine.

But once you give in a little to your ego, it begins to eat you alive. You begin to BELIEVE you are not pretending.

That's when you're fucked.

Because if you're not compelled to do the very best work and move things forward, you'll be replaced.

Either by someone who talks a better game or someone who can actually do the job. 

Perversely, if you forget about striving for recognition an do things worth recognising, you get the plaudits anyway.

You just know you earned them.

A little fear goes a very long way.

Ego is an eventual dead end. 

I get a sports massage sometimes. I cycle a lot, my legs end up in bits.

When someone gets their hands on my legs and makes it hurt, my legs feel so much better after.

Yet I have no idea why.

They used to think it helped blood flow. That's at best questionable based on what we now know.

They used to think it helped get rid of lactic acid. They now think lactic acid build up might be a good thing.

Probably, it's all psychological, but next year they'll change their mind.

In other words, it sort of works but no one really knows why. 

It's like looking at the rules of how marketing and brands work.

For example, in tracking, we seize on data showing that people who have seen a campaign also bought.  

Without checking if people already buy so naturally notice the brand's marketing. 

The received wisdom that 'trust' is the new barometer for brand health.

When Amazon is doing better than ever.

The shrill for TV as still the most effective medium (probably is).

Because so many companies that make up the data put all their effort into TV.

Then there's the endearing arguments over how brands should work.

Publicity, Disruption, the fake war between emotion and function. 

People are complex, markets are complex, life is complex.

So there really are not many rules that work.

Just as a football team that doesn't adapt their tactics for playing against different teams won't win as often. 

Apart from (in my opinion) make sure people remember and recognise you, remove reasons not to buy you, biggest barriers first.

So strategy isn't a science, it really isn't.

The same methodology used over and again will create different results. 

For the same client, let alone different ones.

Don't believe me? Look at any agency client list and case studies.

Rarely will you see case studies for all clients for every year.

Because they only show the stuff that worked. Not the huge proportion that did not. 

So, what iron law can you apply?

You can't.

There isn't the silver bullet to everything being perfect and working.

Your job is to make things less likely to go wrong. 

 

 

There are only two questions. Is it on brief? Is it any good?

So make sure there actually was a bloody brief and everyone knows what it was

The first job of a planner type is to feedback if its on brief, how and why

The second is to help discuss how it can be pulled back onto brief – or if the work shows the way to a better strategy

So start with a mindset of what could be, not what is, especially with regards to a brief that's only the start, not the final word

If its any good or not is everyone else's problem

Always try and speak last, because your first response will be wrong, we all resist new stuff, give yourself time to think

Don't be taken in by sparkling Mac work or a great line. Is there as idea that can be expressed in a sentence?

Be kind, 99% if creative work ends up in the bin

But don't accept creative types acting like children

Don't accept suits saying 'it will never work' to the 'the client won't buy it'. Get the best work then work out how to sell it

In fact don't work our how to sell it, if it's really doing to fulfil client objectives it should sell itself

Don't give false hope. If a route needs to die, kill it

If route needs to be saved, save it

Keep it fun, these should be the most fun meetings you have, otherwise why are you in this business?

Never ever give feedback before you're ready, once you speak, you're ego will demand you stick to your guns

Which also means, change your mind, during the meeting or after. It's not weak, it takes courage to admit you were wrong

Don't have them too late when the work it too far down the line, or too early when nothing is formed. Reviews are like Goldilocks

Try and have informal chats before, try and build the kind relationship where this is possible (making coffee helps)

Review as often as you can- think marginal gains not of massive leaps forward. If Pixar benefits from daily crit sessions so will you

Did I say speak last? People can't wait to speak, let them deliver bad news instead of you

Did I say make sure everyone knows the brief? Without a shared criteria to evaluate the work, it all becomes opinion

Listen more than speak, listen fucking hard. It's hard to listen while you preach

This isn't about you winning, its about the best work coming out, then everyone wins

 

 

 

 

Life really come's down to a few moments. 

We really don't remember most of it.

if you drove somewhere and didn't remember the journey, you'll know what I mean.

We remember the Start, the Good, the Bad and the End. 

It's a good way to think about any meeting or any piece of communication. 

Start brilliantly. 

Throw in flagship moments along the way.

End amazingly.

You don't have to be amazing all the time, just some of the time. 

Arguably, we remember the end the most, so in a presentation, don't just fade out.

End with a thunderclap.

You can finish with a great call to action. We can do this if…

You can end with a choice. Do you want the quarter to be like this or this?

Lessons learned. The moral of this story is…

The answer. Start the presentation with a big question. You end with the big answer. 

Rhetorical question. So do you want to stay as you are?

Whatever you do, make it memorable. 

Make it the thing everything is built around.

In other words, start with the end. 

 

It's the name of a Smiths track but it's also a way to persuade others about strategy. 

If what you've done is any good, it will resolve a simple tension.

Between where you are and where you could be. 

Much of the the work is defining those two things.

Then how to narrow the gap.

Which means how you present your work could well focus on these two things and only these things. 

To get from here to there, we need to do this..

We want to get here, what is getting in way is….

It's the basis of Luther King's I have a Dream.

Or Obama's Yes We Can.

Or even Vote Leave endlessly repeating take back from control.

I have a dream that one day these things will happen, rather than a world where these things happen.

We want these things which don't happen now, can we do them? Yes we can.

If you want to stop these things in your life happening you need to take back control.

It works for brands and stuff.

Imagine a world where everyone feels able to participate in sport no matter who they are.

Imagine a world where washing powder harms the environment.

Imagine a world where the label doesn't have to say 'may contain nuts'.

Imagine a world where computers are a joy to use.

What if by the end of the year people thought of our biscuits as an everyday treat rather than an occasional luxury?

The trick is then not set up the problem then talk about the solution.

Keep oscillating between them.

The contrast keeps it interesting.

It keeps is consistent.

Because you're only talking about one thing.

Pure strategy.

How to get from where you are to where you want to be.

The magic is how.