My Biggest Lesson: Jody Allison

I have to be honest, I was slow to learn this one. I started my career just before I was 22. I joined a small agency that grew very very quickly. I started as the only PA to the only producer in the TV department in the August (the year will remain nameless) and by January I was producing and by April I was on an overseas shoot in Barbados. I was also doing my IPA TV producers training course alongside this swift trajectory.

With such a swift and steep climb, I thought I had to hide my lack of experience and so often would blag my way through, lucky to narrowly avoid any expensive mistakes.

It was only when I got to about 28, and in my third agency that I realised it doesn’t matter if you don’t know it all, in fact the beauty of this industry is things change constantly and so we never know it all as we are all constantly learning; every project is different with different challenges, different teams, and different ways of working. I also learnt that if you hold your hand up, be honest and ask for help from the relevant experts, people are so much more forgiving and supportive.

The chain of events that led me to learning this insight came partly from me maturing and also the agency I found myself in at the time

At 26, I joined St Lukes. It was an incredible agency to be part of and at an incredible time in its history. It was full of young, fun and naïve people, all being experimental at how we approached things. Being in an environment like this, I wasn’t surrounded by people that I thought knew much more than me so I didn’t feel like I had to pretend. We were encouraged to be open and fresh with our thinking and it was also a hugely supportive environment.

I grew up in advertising with my father being a prolific director in the 70's & 80's. When he had the sweet spot in his career it really was a new industry where they really were finding their way. He always told me that was how you get the best work, by experimenting, not locking stuff down.

I really learnt a huge amount from him observing his approach to projects. The industry really was much more straightforward in those days, and so remembering those fundamentals has often allowed me to see the wood through the trees

My biggest lesson struck such a cord because I think advertising has always attracted interesting people who are less inclined to follow more formulaic careers like medicine or law or finance. If we think we know it all, or are expected to know it all then where does the originality come from.

Quite simply it changed my career and me as a person because I stopped being such a pain in the arse! I embraced the ability to constantly learn, I wasn’t afraid to hold my hand up and ask for support and help and continue to learn every single day and that is why I still love my job many many years later.

In the environment I now work in, the knowledge in the office is enormous but despite that level of collective experience we all ask questions, listen to each other’s learnings and points of view. We’re constantly going to seminars and panels, and talks.

We listen to our clients and dissect their challenges discussing openly the multiple ways projects can be approached. This is often the best way to get to the most appropriate answer. Arriving with the answer ahead of hearing all of the questions doesn’t give space for the best opportunities.

Whenever I have been mentoring or training team members, I have always encouraged them to ask for help, telling them that no one expects you to know it all, and the day you think you do is the day to move on to something else…..