Yesterday I attended The Marketing Academy Annual Showcase. The premise behind the event is this: What if you could walk into a room and in 1 hour, absorb the combined wisdom of 100 people? How might you see your world, your career, your choices differently when you walk out of that room? The ‘100 people’ are legends from across the marketing, media and communications industry’s and the ‘room’ was the iconic BFI Southbank.
The Marketing Academy Scholarship is a highly selective programme giving 30 talented marketers from the Marketing, Advertising and Communications industries development in leadership capability through mentoring, coaching and experiential learning.
Over the course of an hour we heard from The Marketing Academy 2016 Scholars; 30 future leaders who’ve spent the last year on a brain-swirling journey of conversations, connections and crap coffee, discovering that the ingredients of extraordinary leadership were staring them in the face all along. The event gave the chance to hear what the class of 2016 have learnt, and celebrate their graduation whilst also meeting the new Class of 2017.
I am very pleased to say that I have been selected as one of the 30 scholars for 2017. As a way of recording what I learn over the coming year I will be sporadically vomiting my ideas here for anyone to read, learn from or ignore. Incredibly in the short hour I spent last night at the BFI I feel I have already come away with some brilliant insights to share, so here they are:
> “It’s about them not me” — being a leader is about who you lead not about you. The mark of a great leader is how many other leaders you develop.
> Give a vision. Back in the day the president visited NASA before the moon landings to meet everyone, and he asked a cleaner in the hall what he did at NASA. The cleaner said “Mr President, I’m putting a man on the moon”. The NASA team had such a strong vision that EVERYONE was bought into. Even the cleaner understood the important part he played in the team who were putting a man on the moon.
> Give feedback all the time. Feedback is a gift. It can be awkward to give, but if we can build a culture where everyone views feedback as a gift then it isn’t awkward, it’s great to receive. And we should give it all of the time, daily — that is how the best improve. Imagine if Andy Murray only got feedback from his coach every quarter on his technique — probably wouldn’t be a world class player! To be the best you have to iterate constantly on a daily basis, and so we should be giving everyone feedback to allow them to do this.
> Give 100% attention. If someone speaks to you put down your phone, turn off your screen, pay full attention. I know I’m super guilty of not doing this! Watch out — if you catch yourself saying “Go on, I’m listening” then you 100% are not listening, otherwise you wouldn’t feel the need to reassure the person that you are — if you are actually listening then they would have no doubt that you are.
> Be a player not a victim. It can be very tempting after a shit day, or something goes wrong, for your first instinct to want to complain to a friend (over a beer) about how shit your day was (I’m also guilty of this!). But you shouldn’t. This is being a victim. Being a player is taking these situations, and your first thought being “right how do I get round this shit” — as Hugh Thomas Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Ugly Drinks says — the obstacle is the way.
Mic drop.
