The "Kids" Have Finally Left For University.
Today was my first real day of working from my new home office in Boston. By noon, I was already more productive than I had been in a long time - by my standards, anyway.
Working within a large agency, you get weighted down by all the conversations and spread thin by all the objectives flying around with the different teams. It meant constantly having to change mindsets and focus at the drop of the hat... Assuring that whoever I was talking to that whatever it is my team was working on for them was the most important thing.
My focus in my old role was to manage a business. I needed to make sure I had the right staffing allocated to a piece of business, and make sure we were on target for meeting the goals set up for the engagement. This in itself was by no means difficult. It's what I had been doing, up until that point, in my career. But what I wanted was to do something new. I wanted to grow something different and specialized. And lucky for me, my company was on board with the idea.
Eureka!
I was actually shocked that they were, to be honest. I work within a very large company. Those aren't typically known for being quick to innovate. In my past experience working for these types of companies, it's the start-ups you see innovating. Then the big companies follow suit. In this case, we're doing things ahead of the game. So "ahead of the game" in fact that most people I have talked to do a double-take and say, "Wait... What? Really? How on Earth are you doing that?"
I won't bore you with the details. But back to my original point: By my own definition, I am more productive in this new role. I can actually see what I am producing. And it's really only my first day. And I think a lot of that is due to my day-to-day focus changing from "relationship-building" and "offer-building" to "innovate and create."
The best part of this new role is that I can actually commit to going home to Toronto more often. I don't have to worry that I will need to dedicate a weekend to working on a deck or putting together an offering that I should have been able to do during the week but couldn't. When you work directly in the agency fold, again, your job is to focus on relationship-building. And that takes more energy than you might realize.
And then, on top of that, you still have to (unquestionably) meet all your other objectives.
It's what I imagine being a working parent is like. You have to meet the needs of your child first (for me, "managing the relationship")... And get your professional work done. (Everything else needed to run the business.)
For me, though, I feel like the kids have finally left for university.
Working within a large agency, you get weighted down by all the conversations and spread thin by all the objectives flying around with the different teams. It meant constantly having to change mindsets and focus at the drop of the hat... Assuring that whoever I was talking to that whatever it is my team was working on for them was the most important thing.
My focus in my old role was to manage a business. I needed to make sure I had the right staffing allocated to a piece of business, and make sure we were on target for meeting the goals set up for the engagement. This in itself was by no means difficult. It's what I had been doing, up until that point, in my career. But what I wanted was to do something new. I wanted to grow something different and specialized. And lucky for me, my company was on board with the idea.
Eureka!
I was actually shocked that they were, to be honest. I work within a very large company. Those aren't typically known for being quick to innovate. In my past experience working for these types of companies, it's the start-ups you see innovating. Then the big companies follow suit. In this case, we're doing things ahead of the game. So "ahead of the game" in fact that most people I have talked to do a double-take and say, "Wait... What? Really? How on Earth are you doing that?"
I won't bore you with the details. But back to my original point: By my own definition, I am more productive in this new role. I can actually see what I am producing. And it's really only my first day. And I think a lot of that is due to my day-to-day focus changing from "relationship-building" and "offer-building" to "innovate and create."
The best part of this new role is that I can actually commit to going home to Toronto more often. I don't have to worry that I will need to dedicate a weekend to working on a deck or putting together an offering that I should have been able to do during the week but couldn't. When you work directly in the agency fold, again, your job is to focus on relationship-building. And that takes more energy than you might realize.
And then, on top of that, you still have to (unquestionably) meet all your other objectives.
It's what I imagine being a working parent is like. You have to meet the needs of your child first (for me, "managing the relationship")... And get your professional work done. (Everything else needed to run the business.)
For me, though, I feel like the kids have finally left for university.
Comments
I LOVE what you are initiating, and I think I have the perfect flagship project to kick off the initiative and elevate the profile immediately - great video story-telling, powerful drivers, already-established 500 million + audience worldwide. Please call @ 661.342.4032 - John Purcell