TJ Bitter’s Leadership Ethos Built Around Transparency and Authenticity

TJ Bitter is co-founder and executive director of OddBeast, an award-winning motion design and production studio transforming concepts into moving visual reality for some of the world’s most iconic brands in advertising and entertainment. OddBeast’s client roster includes Procter & Gamble, Visa, John Frieda, Sazerac, Imagine Dragons and more.

Before joining OddBeast (then known as Polymath Motion) in 2020, TJ had previously been a successful video producer with a passion for shooting long-form, story-driven editorials. Among his credits is ‘Like Harvey Like Son’, a three-time festival-winning documentary about ultra-runner Harvey Lewis attempting the fastest known completion time of the Appalachian Trail, while being crewed by his 80-year-old father.

But TJ was initially drawn to this industry by way of music, of all things. As a college student, he was part of a regionally touring band and longed to open up his own recording studio. The school’s audio production program also happened to be loaded with video production courses, which is where he got his first shot behind the camera and subsequently fell in love with the art form.

After college, Bitter honed his craft working for different production companies and freelancing as he began growing his own small studio (Tandem Productions). During this experience, he learned how to provide value to clients while simultaneously cutting his teeth as a filmmaker. One such client was Polymath, and when founder Ronny Young asked him to come help build a multifaceted studio, TJ initially said no but only held out for five months. The rest, as they say, is history.

When TJ’s not on set with clients (who love him!), he may be found chasing two active toddlers, terribly playing pickleball, hiking, traveling and baking massive quantities of sourdough bread.

TJ recently sat down with LBB to discuss being raised by entrepreneurial minds, leadership lessons learnt from coaching T-Ball and what he believes is the biggest culture killer…

LBB> What was your first experience of leadership?

TJ> My family has always been a bit entrepreneurial. When I was a kid, both of my parents experimented off and on with their own businesses and side hustles.

But all of that dabbling manifested into full entrepreneurial immersion when I was 15 and they bought a restaurant without ever having worked in kitchens before. It was our greatest headache but also brought a lot of joy working together.

Our family dynamic changed pretty rapidly, from eating dinner at the table every night to covering shifts, managing the rush and helping open or close. And, as I grew up working there, I took more of a leadership role, making schedules, hiring employees, even running our second location for a brief stint after college. It was my first toe-dipping into leadership, albeit from the privilege of being the owners’ kid.

From there, I went on to explore my own entrepreneurship starting with an event videography business that lasted 10 years and involved multiple teams.

Later, I was the director of media for a local, semi-pro baseball team for which I oversaw gameday video board operations. From baseball back to video production, I went on to be a fractional creative director for a friend's up-and-coming media production company, Harris Media Co., which saw huge growth in those early years.

All of that has brought me to co-found OddBeast, where I get to lead a team of insanely talented individuals.

LBB> How did you figure out what kind of leader you wanted to be – or what kind of leader you didn’t want to be?

TJ> For me, leadership (at least my brand of it) has always felt pretty collaborative across the teams I’ve managed. The best leaders/bosses in my working career always approached their roles this way as well. They built up their teams, defended them without compromising client relations, all while getting their absolute best by just (and this is ground-breaking news, I know) not being assholes to them.

I coach my kid’s T-ball team, a group of 10 to 15 pre-schoolers that have no attention span and would love nothing more than to plop down in the infield dirt and play. This experience has taught me so much about leadership that I already somehow knew intuitively. Every one of those kids comes in with a different floor and ceiling on their abilities. My job as a T-ball coach isn't to get them to the big leagues. It's to allow them to have fun, encourage them in the things they do well and be there for them when their efforts fall a bit short of their expectation. Put simply, I make the whole thing more enjoyable to play so they can find their own ceilings and raise their own floors.

This last part is both vital to coaching T-ball and running a creative company. If I micromanage my team, make things the way I see fit, I stand to lose a lot of perspective and creativity that make a project great. If I treat everyone as having the same floor and ceiling, I'll miss the monumental wins and need for encouragement during losses on a person-to-person level. Everyone is on a different journey and ability level and needs different things as support. I believe a great leader notices this.

LBB> Did you know you always wanted to take on a leadership role? If so how did you work towards it and if not, when did you start realising that you had it in you?

TJ> I don’t know that I always envisioned myself as a leader, but I have gravitated to that role in nearly every aspect of my career, as it felt natural to speak with conviction, listen to the rest of the team and be the first to fall on the sword when needed. I have seen plenty of examples of others in leadership positions that feel the inherent need to be right and constantly use the hierarchy angle to make subordinates feel small. I know I never do my best work in these situations, so it’s definitely a huge goal in my leadership style to avoid the ego trap of the title.

LBB> When it comes to 'leadership' as a skill, how much do you think is a natural part of personality, how much can be taught and learned?

TJ> I think a lot of being a leader (especially one that people enjoy working with) is a natural part of one’s personality. Ego is a culture killer; this is doubly true if the biggest ego in the office is the leader. I have never met a great leader with a dedicated team that has a huge ego.

As with anything, I DO think great leadership skills can be taught and learned. You just might find it harder or easier to grasp based on your natural personality.

LBB> What are the aspects of leadership that you find most personally challenging? And how do you work through them?

TJ> Personally, ‘spread thinness’ and needing to be the buck stopper are the hardest parts. Being the leader of a small business means you’re doing a lot of things and there are a ton of different hats to wear. How I combat this is to use my team and delegate tasks or create procedures in our business where it may be a better fit for someone else to take on. This frees me up to keep steering and being that top-level decision maker for other important tasks.

LBB> Have you ever felt like you've failed whilst in charge? How did you address the issue and what did you learn from it?

TJ> I've had many failures along the way. One that rings the loudest happened while I was creative directing a quick-turnaround project for a good, long-standing client. I had chatted up the artist about the needs for the project and how I envisioned things playing out. What I didn't do is provide a brief and a very clear understanding of what I wanted to see with the animation. This led to the animator feeling lost and a bunch of time being wasted as they tried to figure technical issues along with solving creative problems. Of course, when it came time to provide a v1, they had missed the mark and were frustrated with how I had led that project.

I've seen this same situation happen before when I was the creative missing the mark and a director fell short, believing they had communicated what they needed to get the desired results. That director doubled down on what he had verbally communicated, and I left the situation feeling small and scolded in front of others on the team.

Remembering that feeling allowed me to assure my artist that I would clean up our process and provide a detailed brief so they wouldn’t feel so lost along the way. I literally watched their frustration melt away as they admitted they probably should've communicated the disconnect earlier to avoid the situation we were in. What started as looking for a scapegoat turned into finding solutions and refining our processes. We came out of that better and more efficient. While this is pretty small in the scale of failures, the ethos is the same. If you're going to lead, you shed the accolades to the team and own the failures - you clear the way for the artists to do their best work, not leave them guessing.

LBB> In terms of leadership and openness, what’s your approach there? Do you think it’s important to be as transparent as possible in the service of being authentic? Or is there a value in being careful and considered?

TJ> I see no other way than authenticity and transparency in a leadership role in most things. The smaller your business is, the more important these two qualities are. It’s hard to lead a willing and motivated team behind a leader they don’t really feel like they know or can relate to.

But a lot of what informs my leadership style is an elephant-like memory of being on the other end of bad leadership. Having empathy and a willingness to make situations better vs. an attitude of ‘that's how it was when I was coming up’ is an important cornerstone of my approach.

LBB> As you developed your leadership skills did you have a mentor, if so who were/are they and what have you learned? And on the flip side, do you mentor any aspiring leaders and how do you approach that relationship?

TJ> The first person that comes to mind is my mom. She was a full-time project manager for AT&T, a part-time realtor and owned a restaurant where she worked five of the seven nights we were open. She always showed up for her employees (even those of us who weren't her kids - lol!) when they needed her, took care of customers and made the whole thing work seamlessly while also making it look easy. Her selflessness and determination to succeed in the things she did will always inspire me to be a better leader, no matter how hard the current path is.

As far as passing pearls from other business owners, I'll never forget Austin Dunbar of Durham Design telling me that success to him was getting home to put his kids to bed at night… or Jay Becker of BLGD telling me that he believes there's always a way for both vendor and client to get to a place of good business, meaning no one has to ‘lose’ for the other to win, but the relationship should be mutually beneficial. These things feel extremely simple but they're so easily lost on some leaders that I've had in my past.

LBB> In continually changing market circumstances, how do you cope with the responsibility of leading a team through difficult waters?

TJ> Market aside, challenges will always come and go; no business is immune to that. When we experience rough patches here, whether it is a drop in leads, cashflow pinches, personal decisions or issues, my partners and I always try to shoulder those pains and not let them affect the team unless it is absolutely necessary.

Your team won’t perform their best and enjoy being in an atmosphere where there’s uncertainty. You, as a business owner, know that’s the case and can do your best to weather the storm and find solutions to improve the situation. Demeanor is one thing, but the age-old saying, “action is the antidote to anxiety,” also rings true. It’s hard to fear a solution won’t come if you’re out there looking for it or planting seeds to harvest when times are better.

LBB> As a leader, what are some of the ways in which you’ve prioritised diversity and inclusion within your workforce?

TJ> When we began this company, we scaled from our own network at first. That felt great until we noticed we were starting to look like an office with less and less diversity. Once we became aware of this, we started to make conscious efforts in our hiring decisions to be more inclusive. We want our business to reflect our entire community and bring different points of perspective to the problems we face. It's hard to do that if everyone has the same background.

LBB> How important is your company culture to the success of your business? And how have you managed to keep it alive with increases in remote and hybrid working patterns?

TJ> Our culture is everything. The lifeblood of our brand is fun – a badassery of one’s skills and lighthearted nature in how we work. We want those same vibes in the office or else they’ll never spill out into the OddBeast brand. While we have a very flexible work environment, we do prefer our team to be in the office together. We have a creative bunch of oddballs that collectively throw down on a lot of projects and problems for our clients, so having everyone in the office allows us to grow skills, foster culture and problem solve faster than anyone working remotely.

LBB> What are the most useful resources you’ve found to help you along your leadership journey?

TJ> The most useful resources I have as a leader is feedback from my team and being around others in my position. That last part is so crucial as you get to see and hear what works for their teams and maybe approach some situations with solutions you’ve not thought of yourself before. It’s like carefully consuming a buffet of leadership skills this way that really informs my mantra about small business, ‘We get to make the rules and do this our way.’