Thought Bubble - Who is Working IN and ON the Business
VIDEO: 5:29 mins
AUTHOR: Robert Craven
In this thought bubble Robert talks about the matrix Logic/Creative vs Operations/Strategy and who in your agency is working in which areas... do you know who is working IN the business rather than ON it? And where do you fit in as an agency leader?
Transcription:
Robert Craven 00:07
Hello, I'm not a great fan of business schools, two by two matrices and three by three matrices because it says if you're in one box, you're not in the other box. This box has one set of characteristics as well as another set of characteristics. It's kind of mental how people use boxes to divide stuff up, when really they're quite similar. Anyhow, I do like one or two, I do like ANSOFF matrix, Eagle, and soft if you've not come across that. But today, I want to talk about a matrix which has no name. But I fell across it. So the up down matrix up down, axis goes from logic at the bottom to creative at the top. Okay, so from systems processes being organised at the bottom, and then at the top, it's about creativity, colour, thinking, dreaming, feeling. And then across, it goes from on this side, we have operations during the doing all the way through to strategy, which is all about, you know, where are we now? Where are we going? How are we going to get there? What are the plans? How are we going to arrange ourselves in a way that's we are more competitive than anywhere else? What do we need to do?
Robert Craven 01:24
Now the argument is, and I really like this, that when we look at our people, when we look at our managers, when we look at our ourselves as owner of the business, okay, so managers senior leadership team, and ourselves as CO MD, when the businesses young, we're all in this bottom corner over here, which is lots of logic and lots of operations, we're all doing the doing, and maybe the owner is slightly a little bit strategic. And then the senior leadership team is a little bit strategic, a bit less strategic, and then kind of the workforce. And the managers are slightly down here, but we're down here in the corner. In an ideal world, you should have the Managing Director, CEO, visionary, right up in the corner up here, high strategic, high creative, probably in the middle, where the two axes meet, you should have the senior leadership team doing a bit of strategy and looking after the doing of the doing. And then you have the managers or the management in the bottom corner down here, where it's logic and operations. Really interesting way of looking at how things are, we all know about you got to work on not in the business, we all understand that kind of quote, and that the necessity to be thinking strategically. We all understand, I hope that you know, that strategy is absolutely crucial, but also strategies for amateurs, whereas Logistics is for professionals. And we do need that strategy in that plan, but we actually got to deliver it. But what it points out really clearly is for us as the visionary leader on are you that visionary lead client kind of reference point, we need to be upright top corner here. Yeah. Which is right for me, which is all about being creative. Yeah. And being strategic, and the management and the running. And the business and the driving of the businesses is this bottom corner over here, which thought about operations. And it's all about logic, the senior leadership team kind of go either way.
Robert Craven 03:47
So use the term senior leadership team very loosely to be just the business brain. Use the idea of management meaning people who run the business and do the doing and the business. And you'll suddenly see very small, very young business, we're all down in this corner over here all doing the doing, occasionally looking up and doing a bit of strategy, maybe half day every so often. But as our business grows, and in order to make your agency grow, you need to have someone up here being creative thinking strategically more and more and more leadership team in the middle. And then management managers workers in that corner during the day. It's about having understand the difference between the visionary and the implementation, the instigation of work. They're really nice two by two matrix. And let's have a think about how your business lies. Where are you as the owner, MD, agency leader, where's your senior leadership team, no matter how crude is where your managers no matter how crude they are, and how can you get them up the curve. So you have the spread of you being creative or your strategy director, strategy visionary being both creative and also strategic. And then you've got this middle point of flipping between the two. Food for thought I thought and it's kind of got me thinking about how we run our business and how several of our clients on their businesses. Thank you for listening.