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
Job Security and Career Opportunity – One Key Step
One word I hear much of when talking to clients and candidates today is ‘uncertainty.’ Budgets are being trimmed and with them, jobs.
Whether you have full-time employment or freelance work, fundamental for your career security and success is ‘personal agency,’ defined as
‘Thoughts and actions taken by people that express their individual power.’
Key is having a clear understanding of what you know you want to learn, to achieve, to impact, so that you can proactively work toward achieving these things.
To use the language of creative agencies, write your own ‘brief,’ not for use with creatives, but for anyone that can help you manifest your ambition, your goals.
The best strategists have a clear sense of agency and so do things ‘on purpose!’ Those that struggle, are often either passive, reactive or their efforts to bolster their job prospects are intermittent.
Relying on your boss, your work, even your reputation to secure your existing role or a new one, ignores the champion of success, proactivity, on and off the job. Reputation/quality work alone should be enough, alas reality tells a different story.
Some steps we can all take to enhance our own security and opportunity are outlined below. Think about these in the context of your own agency, passive or proactive or perhaps, haphazard.
Enhancing your chances of Job/Work security:
1. Stay close to the money/cashflow –
2.Be easy to work with
3.A all times, be proactive, known to be the bearer of solutions if not, fresh ideas.
4. Value add beyond your own work – Enhance team effectiveness or the culture of the place you work
5. Ensure that those that make decisions know the value you create.
6. Have a strong relationship with clients.
7. Work on the most profitable accounts.
8. Work on accounts where work sees the light of day.
9. Work on accounts where the best creative is delivered.
10. Work on products/services that are more recession-proof.
11. Have an open line of communication to your boss/people that make financial decisions.
12. Focus on your current role but find time to build connections elsewhere.
13. Extrovert/Introvert – Whatever you are, be known for being a positive/’can-do’ person everyone wants around when the going gets tough.
Remember, at the end of the day, it’s not your health (although health insurance is a worry in the U.S.) it’s a job.
Any others, you’d add?
Positive thoughts and hear for you all any time,
S
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’ (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
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
Parkin Empathy Award Winner – Trevor Kroon
$64,000 dollar question ‘You Need’ to be able to answer
Your daily sanity depends on it. Your reputation will be maintained and enhanced by it. And without it, you will surely fall behind your peers. What am I referring to? Your continued GROWTH.
Your growth/your progression, can take you in many different directions. It can be a different type of strategic approach. It can be more quantitative understanding or more focused on engagement versus big picture brand development. It can be to experience more of a business environment, to scale what you’ve already been doing or simply but critically, to work with a great manager/mentor or team. Whatever growth is for you, knowing what it looks like for you reveals a few things:
– An understanding of where you are and where you want to be in your career as well as having a sense of what is needed to get you there.
– A conscious focused desire to develop your ability versus being fatalistic/simply open to anything without focus?’
– An appreciation of which environments and career opportunities might deliver for you. This will allow anyone tryng to help you to better identify a great career move, tailored to your growth.
Looking forward to talking.
Cheers, Stuart
Articles
- Managing yourself
- Do you have a career growth strategy?
- Taking charge of your career growth
- Career development 101
- Career growth v career development
Job Opportunities 05/21
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.
1. NY/Associate Director Strategy – >130k – creative
2. San Francisco – Head Strategy – >250k – creative
3. London – Head Strategy – >170k(stg) – creative
4. NY EVP Strategy – >250-300k – pr
Past Newsletters