Do you want to show up more creatively for your clients and your colleagues, your family, and your friends?
Do you want to default to thinking about opportunity versus focusing just on problems?
Discovering Hope is full of proactive steps you can take right now, to achieve a more positive mindset or to help maintain the positivity you already have
Getting Positive reveals that more optimism is close at hand
A Great Strategist Is…
As we approach March 2022, the marketplace for great strategists has never been better, if you’re a strategist!
Buyers Market – The shortage of great strategists, (due to a lack of agency investment in training over the last decade/agency models increasingly focused on project-based work/plus many strategists post-covid deciding to hold back from full-time roles) means this really is a buyers’ market
How to be in demand in a tough job market?
Part of the stress on demand in this jobs market is that not enough strategists have the core skills that are in demand. The key for being in demand at all times (not just this market) is to focus on core habits and skills that make for success, year in year out.
Effective Strategists? – What do those that have achieved long-term success believe makes a strategist effective? We’ve been asking your peers. Some suggested critical thinking, others persistence, a sense of humor, new business expertise. Also highlighted, ensuring that strategy was owned not by the strategist but by the team. Four key themes emerged.
Learning- a desire both to develop your skills and to have the curiosity/belief and love of fresh perspective deeply instilled. (B.Thomas/Meta)
Exciting the audience – However good the perspective, effective communication will always be key. (J.Daly/Droga)
Great EQ – Do you understand and manage your emotions in an optimal way when interacting with others? Real empathy is an elusive ability. (D.Giannantonio/Wunderman Thompson)
Empty your cup – Whatever your understanding or experience, knowing that there is always more to learn allows you to show up as one of your peers suggested, with a ‘radically open mind,’ or ‘Don’t let expert instincts overshadow creative instincts’Â (A.Raig/ Saatchi)
What do you think is key for career success as a strategist?
For now,
Stuart
Job Opportunities 02/22
If you know of anyone looking for full-time or part-time work, some of the below opportunities are full-time and some temp to perm.
- Director Strategy – SF-based creative agency, Salary >190K
- Director Strategy – SF-based BTOB agency, Salary >200K
- SVP Strategy – NY-based creative agency, 300K
- SVP Strategy – NY based healthcare agency, Salary, 250K
Past Newsletters
Finding an optimal place in 2022
Adaptability
Who is completely sure what’s going to happen in 2022 and, how whatever it is, it will impact you? This fact alone is a big reason why so many strategists are freelancing, waiting to see how things play out in the business. For reasons of potential mental or physical stress (they often go together) caused by work factors beyond your control, or perhaps because you realise you need a complete professional pivot, be prepared to learn anew, to re-tool both your skills and your mindset. One way to do this is to constantly test yourself/get out of your comfort zone so that you’re better able to cope and adapt when change comes. Another way to be able to more easily pivot. Plan ahead.
Envisioning (your ideal work scenario)
From my experience, what most of strategists routinely do for clients, they don’t do so well for themselves. ‘Ideal’ work scenarios might not be envisaged because of a lack of belief in attainability; Perhaps it takes too much time to go through a process? (SPARKIN has a simple methodology we can share) The challenge for you is that if you don’t have a clear outline of the optimal working/non working setup, you are very unlikely to achieve it, exception being if you have someone that knows you very well, that is constantly looking out for you.
Purposeful
“He did that on purpose!!” How often did you hear that as a kid. Point being, the accusation your brother or sister was making, you did what you did intentionally. Doing things with purpose is not only more satisfying in the moment, but you’re more likely to achieve what you set out to achieve. Obvious? So, be lucid with yourself (and so with others) about the impact you wish to have, be it focused on impacting people, business results, your growth, whatever. Clarity of purpose might make a poor working situation tolerable, but that’s because you are completely aware of what you need. Key, clarity of purpose is about ‘optimal use of your valuable time.’.
Finally, adapting, envisioning and purpose ought to be about ensuring as much as possible, that you have fun/gain pleasure from your work as well as an income. If any of the above is of interest, feel free to contact me. My promise is always to ensure you are heard.
Cheers, Stuart
Articles
- Adaptability: The must have skillset for Normal 2.0
- Adaptability: Your most essential workplace skill
- Creating a career vision for your life
- Why it’s important to have a career plan
- How a purpose-driven workplace impacts the employee experience
- Finding a job with purpose amid the COVID-19 crisis
Job Opportunities 08/16
If you know of anyone looking for full time or part time work, some of the below opportunities are full time and some temp to perm.
- SVP Research – NY based healthcare agency.
- EVP Strategy – NY based creative agency
- VP Strategy – NY based PR agency
Past Newsletters
The Great Agency Talent Crunch
The great agency talent crunch – It’s happening for two reasons:
1. Changed mindset of employees – As the attached article states, the events of the last 18 months have lead to ‘permanantly altered lifestyle changes.’ ie) In what I’ll call ‘the great awakening,’ many of us previously who had no time to contemplate our navels have had a chance to get life in to perspective and become clear about what we don’t want/what we can no longer tolerate, be it the commute or the lack of meritocracy, lack of diversity, or just the incessant meetings and pitching of new business.
2. Meaningful work/Positive use of time – Many of those that have left the agency world have left the business altogether but more have decided to freelance, they are waiting to see if the business will change/keeping their options open. They are waiting to see whether the agency world can become more sensitive to the needs of staff and their desire for personal growth and to have a positive daily experience versus being treated as expendible automatons in entities fixated on short term profit; They are hoping there will be more flexibility in working arrangements, more inclusive working environments, and hoping to find places that walk the talk of new business pitches, where the oft talked words, ‘our employees are our culture, are our business,’ are words that are lived and breathed. Time will tell.
bit.ly/3wsTZRj
#Talentcrunch #Awakening #Greaplacestowork
The number one reason strategists are leaving agencies
One key reason why employees are resigning in numbers is poor management, but what a difficult time to manage! And what truly exacerbates great managament is two agency dynamics that are putting strain on even the best leaders:
https://lnkd.in/d4tNMCKK
Agencies are financially too short term focused – Not just public owned agencies but many private ones too, that copy the public approach – there has not been enough reinvestment into the business. The employee experience has become way too transactional.
Agencies are pitching too much new business – Incessant new business pitching at agencies is a key reason why agencies lose so much business, which in turn needs to be replaced, versus focus on consistently bringing the best ideas to existing clients. This is bad for clients and overworked employees, whose jobs then become vulnerable. Constant uncertainty does not make for a great place to work and it makes it very difficult to make the investments that would help to
create an amazing place that individuals want to work in.
Many strategists, in the ‘great resignation,’ have through COVID 19, simply woken up with a clearer sense of what they will tolerate. And because of this, agencies have been hemorrhaging people.
Strategists deciding whether to work full time. Focus on two key things and you can have a decent experience:
Go to work for an agency that truly values what you do – Strategy
Go to an agency that has five quality people including a great: client, creative team, account lead and manager. If you have
those (whichever the agency) you can still have a good experience.
#strategyplanning #Careersuccess #Manager
Shepley Parkin Award / Kings College London
Congratulations to Nikki Kerderagi Small, the inaugural winner of the Shepley Parkin Award,
for second year medical students at Kings College Hospital London.
For the last several years we at SPARKIN have focused on promoting empathetic ability
in the media business but understanding the perspective of others is key for all areas of society,
one key example, medicine. To that end, we’re excited to announce a ten year commitment of
a thousand pounds per annum to promote the importance of empathy, by rewarding a medical
student that has proven themselves not simply to be bright but truly effective when it comes to
hearing/understanding others, so crucial for effective patient care. Read about the award and
recipient Nikki here.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/kings-student-wins-shepley-parkin-empathy-award
Your Dream Job – How To Find It
Dream job? With all the change happening who has a chance of finding it? Or, because of all the change, my view is, most of us have had time to think and recognize what it looks like. Meanwhile, the agency and client world recognize the virtual and flexible working has arrived to stay.
YOUR Dream Job – What you need to consider
‘What do you want to experience? In which environment do you best thrive? And, what impact do you wish to have. All underpinned by, how do you see your continued growth?
YOUR Dream Job – Organisational considerations
Avoid short termism – Where culture struggles to develop, investment in training and development is less likely, new business pitching is over the top, job security is tenuous because the focus is on short term profit.
Pursue a people focus – People are not simply talked about in cred’s as the most important part of the business, they are! There’s a flexible approach to working, diversity, mat/paternity leave, training, and a focus on building clients versus massive new business pitching.
YOUR Dream Job – Go off-piste
Don’t look simply to shiny oft talked about names but broaden your chances of finding the dream by understanding the following:
– Focus on agencies where there are established/great client relationships;These are where trust is established and where great work is/has/or is ready to happen.
– Most if not all businesses, if they’ve been around for a while, have one if not more great client relationships. Identify them, not necessarily the agencies. chances of finding your dream job.
– Your success requires a handful of people – Focus your search on knowing you need possibly 4 or 5 great people around you to excel. Many agencies/brands that you’ve never heard of have these 4 or 5 people. Have this mindset and you’ll broaden your dream job.
Finally, we have plenty of other ideas but most important, we pomise to be good listeners for you.
Cheers, SPARKIN
Articles
- What do you want in your career?
- 11 indications of a good company culture
- Are you strategic with planning your career?
- How do you want to grow?
- 9 great jobs for people wanting to save the planet
- What do employees want when returing to the office?
Job Opportunities 08/16
If you know of anyone looking for full time or part time work, some of the below opportunities are full time and some temp to perm.
- Â Chicago – Director Strategy/BtoB – virtual – creative
- Â San Francisco – Director Strategy/BtoB – >180 – creative
- Â London – Joint Head Strategy – <160k(stg) – creative
- Â U.S/Virtual – VP Strategy – <200k – research
- Â U.S/Virtual – VP Strategy – <200k – consulting
Past Newsletters