Big Hairy Ambition

Posted In: Hidden by Dan Howard,
October 14, 2015

I read a great article on LinkedIn this morning by Miles Welch. Miles is a Board Advisor for agencies looking at rapid growth, strategic development, merger, sale or acquisition. I hope that’s about right Miles?

He talked about ensuring your corporate vision was big enough and motivating enough for the organisation to buy into and believe in.

It got me thinking….

We have a very clear corporate vision and one that everyone in the business could state. It is that we aim to be the most famous independent agency outside of London. It’s big, it’s hairy, it’s bold, it’s motivating and it creates focus. Ours is a business people want to be involved in and we think that ambition is a powerful tool for growth, not just internally but also externally to potential recruits and potential clients.

I agree wholeheartedly with Miles that businesses should have very lofty corporate visions. Who doesn’t want to work with and for the best, most recognisable, most famous, most service-focused, most empathetic….or whatever your business aim might be.

However, when looking at that goal it’s important to always do two things….

1 – Celebrate small steps

Wanting to move from £10m to £100m or from 10^th place to 1^st is a long journey. We all know the story of the overnight success who took 20 years to get there. No business achieves their goals in the short term. If they did, their goals were too low. With that in mind it’s important that the business celebrates every successful step up that ladder. Celebrate moving from 10^th to 9^th to 8^th and so on. Those landmarks are important, they are motivating, it creates an opportunity to take stock and is a health check that you’re on the right path. Whatever is at the top of your ladder, ensure you know what is on each rung of the ladder also.

2 – Be mindful of now

We’re a growth business achieving 62% growth in our last financial year and we’ll do something similar this year. Heady growth. I’m proud, we’re moving in the right direction but we’re not there yet. Actually, we are. We here. We’re now. Right now we’re 17 strong, turning over more than £10m, we’ve invested significantly in the business, tools, resources and people. RIGHT NOW we’re in good shape. Too many growth businesses fail to acknowledge, however momentarily, what they have right now and that can lead to demotivation, a lack of understanding how you’ll get to the goal and a lack of appreciation for the people who have got the business to where it is.

A culture that is focused on growth can often lose sight of today.

So if you are on a steep curve and your team are fully bought into a long term objective it’s important to acknowledge the baby steps and every now and then stop, realise where you are and celebrate that too. With that in mind we have a business away day next week. It’s about where we are, where we’re going and how we’ll get there. The ‘where we are’ is pretty cool. There’ll be a drink to celebrate so don’t try getting hold of us on Tuesday…or Wednesday before 10am!