Look straight ahead and shout like hell.

OK. So here’s a deep, dark secret.

I failed my first black belt grading.

I was 20.

I’d been training for months and was incredibly fit.

I knew the syllabus inside out, and had even been helping take the class when my instructor wasn’t able to.

So I was ready.

The grading took place down in Cardiff and the dojo was packed.

It was four and a half hours long.

We went through every technique, every strike, kick and block. Every kata.

We did all the stamina excercises, the jumps, press ups, sit ups. And the fighting.

By the end I was exhausted.

But pleased it was over.

And pleased with my performance.

However, despite all the hard work, I still failed.

Coincidentally, so did the guy on my left.

And the guy on my right.

And the girl in front of me.

And the bloke behind me.

And the guy beside him.

In fact everyone in the whole dojo, about 30 students, all failed to get their shodan grade that day.

Grading us was Shihan Steve Arneil (since promoted to the title Hanshi), the president of the organisation. He was, and still is, the most senior person outside of Japan in my style of karate, Kyokushinkai.

As we stood there sweating and spent, he explained why we'd all failed.

“There was no spirit here.” he told us.

An important part of karate is something called the kiai. Shouting, basically. Shouting at the point of impact tenses every muscle in the body helping release an explosive amount of power. It also forces air out of the lungs in turn forcing you to breath correctly during intensive training.

Importantly, a deafening kiai in the room proves that the students really mean what they’re doing.

What happened in that grading all those years ago was simple.

One person stopped kiai-ing.

He influenced those around him, who felt unsure of whether they should be too.

And so on.

And as the sound disappeared, so did the energy.

Until the room was just going through the motions. Without really meaning it.

We all influenced each other. For the worse.

It was a crushing disappointment and took a while to get over.

But it was actually one of the best things that ever happened to me.

It taught me something that would profoundly affect everything I did from that moment on:

Don’t allow yourself to be influenced by those around you.

That doesn’t mean arrogantly ignore everyone presuming you know better than them. There’s loads of great things and people out there we need to be open to and learn from.

It means, once you’ve figured out what you yourself believe to be right, set yourself going and don’t waver. For anything.

Once you’ve explored and learned and worked out precisely what you need to do...

Do it.

Don’t check what everyone else is doing to fit in with the throng.

Plough your own furrow.

What I learned that day has helped me since then in my personal as well as my professional life.

In both, there are challenges and temptations thrown in one’s direction that a clear vision of where you want to get to can help you circumvent.

When I tried again for my black belt grading a few years later things were different.

I had tunnel vision.

I knew exactly what I needed to do.

And I did it.

All the while, shouting so loud I couldn’t speak the following day.

People around me may well have thought I was bonkers.

If they did, I certainly didn’t notice.

Or care.

Don’t you dare squander your talent.

The other day I went to the funeral and memorial of a friend who recently died of cancer.

His name was Adam Green.

He was 43 and one of the most talented people I’ve known.

As a young boy in our school assemblies he’d strum a guitar and sing like an angel.

As a teenager we’d jam together in my parents’ garage.

And as a man he led a true rock star life. Touring the world with Eric Clapton, Grace Jones and his own band, Saint Jude.

Unlike so many of us, Adam lived the dream.

He found something he was truly great at and was brave enough and stubborn enough to realise his potential.

Adam’s funeral was incredibly sad. He left behind a wife, two beautiful little girls and many friends whom he’d helped over the years.

But it was also incredibly inspiring.

How many of us really make the most of a god given talent?

What could we achieve if we took what we are really good at and ran with it, 100 miles an hour?

You can recognise the those who do.

They’re the flames that burn the brightest.

And light up the world for the rest of us.

Why January rocks!

I love January.

Not the weather of course. That’s revolting.

Especially if you run, or ride a motorbike, like I do.

And not the dark, dark mornings. They’re horrendous too.

No, the thing I love about January is the wonderful sense of fresh beginnings.

Of possibility.

January’s all ‘out with the old and in with the new’.

It un-boxes a brand new year.

Revealing 12 months of potential fabulousness that await us.

Things we might not have dreamed of.

Who knows what joys this year holds? 

The iPad 3? 

The iPhone 5? 

Yet more new technologies that will change the way the human race behaves?

Not to mention, perhaps, the odd exciting new start-up business. Ahem…

January gives us the opportunity to dream of perfection.

Of stuff the way it should be.

Sure, by December we’ll be hanging in rags drenched in the reality the past 365 days has dumped on us. 

Hindsight is not always a wonderful thing.

But dreaming is.

(That’s the reason I’d never consult a fortune-teller. That and the fact they’re total charlatans.)

In January the future is unwritten. 

Anything’s possible.

Except, possibly, skiing through a revolving door...

Remembering Ron.

Last night my three brothers Joel, Elliott, Daniel and myself held a memorial event for our father Ron, who died earlier this year.

We decided to hold it at the Royal College of Art because the place meant a lot to him. He’d studied there from 1959 to 1961 alongside, amongst others, David Hockney and Ridley Scott. It’s also where he met his first wife; my mother.

It was an emotional day.

It had taken five months to organise.

We’d invited a load of people and had a load of acceptances.

But despite that, aware of Ron’s brutal reputation, I truly was expecting many of those who’d said they’d attend to end up ‘busy’ on the night.

I was honestly astounded at who did turn up.

Alongside many friends and family were his ex boss from both DDB and French Gold Abbott, David Abbott. His ex boss from CDP Sir Frank Lowe. His ex copywriters Tony Brignull and Gray Jolliffe. All three of his ex WCRS business partners Robin Wight, Andrew Rutherford and Peter Scott. Cathy Heng, who without doubt enjoyed the longest and most fruitful working relationship anyone ever had with Ron. Not to mention the likes of luminaries such as Mike Everett, Paul Smith, Brian Watson, Peter Harold, Jerry Hibbert, Dave Trott, Alfredo Marcantonio, John O’Driscoll, John O’Donell, Nigel Rose, Ken Hoggins, Mark Roalfe, Barry Lategan, Paul Weiland and Sir Alan Parker.

These were people who, though pride may have prevented him admitting it while he was alive, really meant a lot to Ron.

A few of the crowd gave speeches, sharing memories, good and bad.

There were a lot of laughs. Many, quite rightly, at Ron’s expense.

And there were a few tears. Us boys managed to keep our composure. But only just. I myself was a hair’s breadth from ending up a blubbing wreck in the corner.

What stopped that was the amazing outpouring of love in the room.

That so many people were there who actually felt so much for the man despite his many and varied faults made our hearts soar.

Ron was a troubled soul.

He’d had a tough childhood. One that left him with heavy baggage that he carried round with him to the day he died.

He desperately needed to be loved.

So I’m convinced he would have really enjoyed last night.

And I’m sure he would have been delighted, if not a little surprised by the turnout too. 

10 sure-fire ways to get your creative department to loathe you.

Running a creative department involves a certain degree of power.

And, as Spiderman’s uncle, not to mention some bloke called Voltaire, warned: ‘with great power comes great responsibility’.

Well every now and then we creative directors have been known not to live up to that responsibility 100%.

And that doesn't exactly endear us to our staff.

I’ve spent some time asking the creative community what behaviours leave them less than enamoured of the guy in the corner office.

These are my findings:

Want to de-motivate, upset and annoy your teams? Read on...

1. On starting a new job fire half your department then restock with your own cronies. 

No one would argue hacking away dead wood is wrong. However there are invariably talented people in every creative department who simply haven’t been given the inspired leadership and encouragement they need to flourish.

Existing staff need at least to be given a chance to show what they’re capable of under someone who might actually make them shine.

There’s another behaviour related to this which is equally offensive:

Hire a new 'star team', telling your existing staff it was something you had to do because they 'just aren’t producing the goods'.

2. Form cliques.

Giving the good briefs to your mates will direct your department’s ire not only on you, but on your, soon to be unpopular chums too.

3. Don’t pay what people are worth.

Good creatives will always be able to get a job elsewhere. The reason they’re with you is because they choose to be. 

They’ll be understanding to an extent regarding things like the economic climate and account losses. But in the long term, if they don’t feel satisfied where they are they won’t stick around.

4. Allow late night and weekend work to go un-thanked.

Showing gratitude is not showing weakness.

A little recognition is the least people deserve for working above and beyond the call of duty.

If your attitude to your people is: “You’re lucky to be here. If you don’t like the way we treat people here you can sod off.” Hey, guess what? At the first opportunity, they will.

Treat them like you’re the lucky one and you’ve got a better chance of them staying.

5. Don’t fight their corner.

Creative directors have to be advocates for their teams. We have to go into battle for them, whether it’s forcing through their ads or forcing through their pay rise.

Having someone’s best interests at heart goes both ways. Don’t expect it from your creatives if they can’t expect it from you.

6. Give feedback via a third party.

Astonishingly, some creative directors apparently review work by getting a traffic man to collate work from teams allowing them to select work from the comfort of their own office.

This is lazy.

And cowardly.

And worse, doesn’t allow the teams to learn from their mistakes. 

Explaining why something isn’t right may not be easy. But it’s a massive part of the job.

7. Only expend your energy on ‘potentially award winning’ briefs.

A guaranteed way to disenfranchise a wide cross-section of your agency’s staff.

Bad for the agency. Worse for its clients.

And the truth is, you never actually know where the next award winner is coming from.

If you give each brief the same attention, you give yourself more chances of producing great work.

8. Ask more of them than you are prepared to give yourself.

If you’re not prepared to work late nights, through lunch, or over weekends or holidays don’t expect your staff to.

9. Take the best briefs for yourself.

This would appear to be the most heinous of crimes. And the worst possible reason for wanting the top job. If you haven’t got making your own ads out of your system it's better not to take it.

And the excuse that you're the only one in the agency who could possibly crack a particular brief is no excuse. If you can’t get award winning work out of your department it’s your fault, not theirs.

10. Leave.

(NB: This behaviour was mentioned well before news of my impending departure from RKCR had broken, so I’m presuming it wasn’t a personal swipe at me...)

There are a various reasons a creative director might up and leave their department: To go to another agency, because they were fired, to leave the business altogether (to retire or become a director), or to start their own business.

Of these, the first could leave a department feeling resentment toward their boss: “You chose them over me?!” 

The second could leave them feeling anger toward the agency.

The last two might elicit sadness, but hopefully not full-on loathing. It’s hard to be angry when someone wants to make a life-choice. That’s just, well, life.

And, that a creative department feels upset when their boss leaves them has to be a good sign.

If they’re all out celebrating your departure you may need to ask yourself a few serious questions.

So, that's 10 less-than-lovely behaviours.

I'd like to think that's the lot. But I suspect there may be many more.

The Swedish art of Reflection

A few weeks ago an excited clutch of RKCR-ers attended a three-day course run by Hyperisland, the Swedish digital university.

It’d taken me six months to organise the thing.

And it didn’t disappoint.

They opened our eyes to a load of cool stuff.

Around social media, data, analytics, APIs, hacking, crowd sourcing, Swedish schnapps…

But there was something else they exposed us to that was nothing to do with new technologies.

Or, indeed, digital.

It was something far more profound.

Hyperisland practice an exercise they call ‘reflection’.

And they’re pretty dogmatic about it.

Each morning, before we flung ourselves into the day’s learning, we were asked, or rather forced, to sit and think about the previous day.

About what we found most interesting and useful.

It was a simple, but strictly followed process.

We’d each be given 15 minutes to go over our notes individually.

Then we’d be split into groups of five and we’d be given another 15 minutes to each discuss our learnings amongst ourselves.

Finally the whole room would share their thoughts one by one.

(At this point anyone who’d been anywhere near group therapy found themselves squirming just a little bit.)

The result was astonishing.

We’d start the process each believing that our perspective on what we’d experienced was the only truth.

Believing that, surely, everyone would have taken what we had out of the day.

We’d end the session with 30 different interpretations of the same thing.

Each just as valid as ours.

Group reflection is a type of crowd sourcing.

A fantastic way of generating thoughts, perspectives and insights. 

Quickly.


It's something we could all utilise in many ways. 


If we carved out the time to do so!

The experience also powerfully confirmed something we all know already:

Never ever presume someone else’s perspective is the same as yours.

We so often assume that everyone can see our ideas for the brilliant things we believe them to be.

And we get frustrated when people - agency, client, or punter - can’t see what we see.

Truth is in the eye of the beholder.

And if we want others to understand ours we need to do more than simply presume they already do.