🍣 “Confidence is successful repetition of any endeavour.”

Notes on company culture and brands.

Hiya friends,

I’ve been an advocate for quite some time that planners need to get good at getting the politics of an account and an organisation. Both their own and their clients’. This doesn’t mean you need to pivot your whole contribution to playing the politics game, but you do need to understand the context you’re playing in. When people say culture eats strategy for breakfast, this is what they mean.

This creates an interesting paradox, which is that politics is no one’s job (not solely) but also kind of becomes everyone’s job in a way. The best creative directors i know can fight for the work while understanding the politics behind why clients are nervous. So do the best planners i’ve worked with. And of course, the best client services people know how to play politics while protecting the right thing to do.

Politics is no one’s full time job, but it’s everyone’s part time job, especially as you get more senior. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Anyway, all this has made me reflect on how we can understand organisational politics to get to better work. So, below are a few notes on company culture, how it influences confidence, the role of diversity in creating difference, and what all this all means for how we operate more effectively as we go go go.

Shall we do it? We shall.

🤖 Are you in a simulation?

I’m a huge fan of Kevin Kelly and although i’ve not read his last two books, every time i read anything of his i just take furious notes. The below, which fuck me if i remember where i got it from, was one of those moments: