My Biggest Lesson: Stephen Firth
Stephen Firth grew up in network and indie agencies before running his own agency, Gravity Thinking, for a decade which was acquired by a NYC-based brand consulting firm. Stephen’s background was in client services and then senior leadership roles where his focus was to create the best platform possible for teams to do the best work of their careers.
Early in our careers we tend to want to prove ourselves and demonstrate our capabilities to those around us. We lean into tasks with energy and enthusiasm but often overstretch ourselves and on occasion come unstuck. Later in our careers, we tend to overestimate our capabilities and underestimate the capabilities of others.
We like to use our experience and wisdom to make decisions even though the speed of change in our category is rapid and we might not be best placed to do so. Either way we can often take on too much responsibility thinking that it’s in everyone’s best interests when often it’s not. Our ambition and role even with good intention can get in the way of the best outcomes for everyone.
Being clear and honest with yourself about your capabilities is a superpower. You need to know where your strengths lie and what your limits are. Over stretching often ends in tears and generally they’re your own. Therefore, my biggest lesson was to realise that you are only as good as the people you surround yourself with.
With a background in client services and growing up in great comms agencies I’d like to think that the people who I’ve worked with would describe me as strategic, creative and organised. However, we’re all very clear that it’s not my expertise, role or superpower. I’m happy to provide an informed and (usually) well respected opinion to guide the work however I’m not the expert in the room. And that’s what all great client service people know. They know that their role is to assemble talented teams to create great work that clients love so that they continue to want to pay us to do more of what we love.
In my early years as an ambitious account handler in an agency I quickly realised that surrounding myself with the best talent in the room resulted in the best outcomes for everyone. It wasn’t about me, it was about how I could connect and get the best out of the talented and skilled strategists, creatives and producers who surrounded me.
I was lucky that I worked in great agencies in high growth phases with amazing talent working on leading brands. However, the bigger the agency gets the more fragmented it becomes with fiefdoms being established and politics emerging. Getting the right people onto your projects became tough. To break down these barriers and connect with the best I created more informal get togethers with key talent from different teams. A planner, a creative, a developer and / or a producer. Often incentivised with food and / or drink it meant I could get the best minds in the agency to work with me on my briefs more informally.
When moving into management and leadership roles I found that surrounding myself with reliable and dependable lieutenants was crucial. You can’t do it all yourself and nor should you. Finding talent who could be your rock and had your back is a priority.
I tended to seek people who had complementary but different skills and who I thought were or could be better or more talented than I was. In essence people who are going to push you to be better and scare you a little.
When running Gravity Thinking we had a purple patch with an amazingly talented team, producing the best work of my career to date for brands such as Glenfiddich, Hyundai, Hendricks, Vitality and Disney. The secret was to have talented people who knew their roles and had the autonomy to make it happen. Building trust and getting out of their way was a large part of the success that we experienced.
In more recent years it’s been about connecting regularly to my network and surrounding myself with people I liked, respected and wouldn’t mind sharing a beer with. The imposter in you will fear rejection however that’s never the case. I genuinely wish I started networking much earlier in my career as it provides a lot of inspiration and joy for me now.
The more diversity within that network the better. You’ll only challenge your thinking and develop better ideas if you meet with people from different backgrounds. In my experience never underestimate the wisdom of younger professionals and seek people from different types of businesses and roles.
Remember to listen more than you speak. This is a superpower. Yes, you want to have a conversation and provide value however you’ll also only learn when you listen, really listen.
Make the effort to keep up. It’s easy to put it off however allocate part of every week every week to doing this. Not enough time is not an excuse. Meet for an early coffee, grab some lunch with someone or end the day with a beer. But remember to plan in advance as much as possible as people are often busy at short notice.
Wherever you are in your career and whatever role you are in make the effort to surround yourself with as many people as you can who inspire, push and build you up. I saw this quote just the other day ‘You can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you’ from Joshua Fields Millburn and it resonated in the context of my biggest lesson learned. There are always ways to ensure that you surround yourself with great people who can help you to be the best you can be.
