MH3 Blog

Team Goals

It must be a life changing moment to score a goal in the FIFA World Cup. Especially for those players who represent the nations who regard just making it to the tournament as the beginning and end of their accomplishments.

To suggest that goals in soccer are few and far between is patronizingly obvious. Reality is the concern about few-and-far-between scores is nothing more than an over trodden American media issue. If bountiful amounts of scoring made a sport more interesting, then the NFL would have been long overtaken by the Arena Football League. Clearly that’s not the case. Or if unfettered points really mattered so much to fans, why don’t millions of Americans play fantasy cricket? Question to those better informed than me: does fantasy cricket even exist???

Back to that goal scoring moment.

In the span of three days last weekend, I went from watching FIFA on my office television, to catching a game in Toronto’s Little Italy on College Street, to watching games in Soho and then Governor’s Island, in the East River (NY), on an outdoor screen. In every case, the moment of that goal happening was golden. The player celebration is punctuated by the look in the scorer’s eyes that fully realizes this may never happen again in their lifetime. Yet that lone goal becomes a part of their infinite identity. The bench erupting. In the stadium, both the native fans of the team and those ticket holders who adopted them, just for that single match, rejoicing in song. Fans back in the home country exploding like mistakenly mixed elements of happiness, relief, surprise, and expectation.

One thing my varied viewing situations reinforced was a truism I’ve always held about this sport: the sound a soccer crowd makes for a goal is unlike any other. The sound represents a collective feeling of the fans, viewers, and spectators of the moment. It’s a feeling that the credit for the goal belongs to more than just solely the foot, or head, of the man (or woman) whose name will be entered into the match agate line. It’s a belief that no matter how masterful the touch, the control, the move, the bend of the shot…..there was more to it. It’s a belief that no matter how timely, pretty, or precise the cross, the corner, the connection….there was more to it.

For if you study a goal in soccer, its creation is often many touches before the ball hits the twine. The unsuspecting ball has been played by both opponents in a mysterious sequence that even a chaos theorist could not predict. But at some magical point, the advantage was gained and as a result, the scoreboard was soon to be reset. Watching for this moment, you start to learn how to spot the moment the advantage is created. Fans of traditional soccer nations do more than watch for it. They will for it. They pray for it. Many of them take credit for it.

That’s the beauty of a soccer goal. The fans truly believe it was their goal. It was their prayers that were answered by the soccer gods who directed the ball homeward. It was their intense willing that travelled halfway around the world and energized the legs of their heroes. It was their karma-inducing rituals that released the chain of events.

In many ways they are right. Their role as part of the team can be as important as the midfielder who chipped the ball ahead or the half who first regained possession. Soccer at this level can only be competitive when the team plays as one. But to win requires more. It requires you, the fans, as well as the type of divine intervention only the most passionate can create.

I truly believe that. Enjoy the matches.

MH3 Blog

We’re Looking for Leaders

We’re Looking for Leaders!

It’s a phrase one of my assistant coaches often booms at our 11 & 12 year old Pee-Wee football players during warm-ups and drills. I love this phrase. Coach unleashes it when the the team isn’t organized in straight lines, trying hard enough in drills, or generally not paying attention. Yet instead of highlighting the negative, he has issued a positive challenge.

We’re Looking for Leaders!

Lately I have been reading some inspiring works about how to build great organizations, and sharing them with you. If you don’t have time to read them all, or my blogs for that matter, just commit to consuming Jim Collins’ Good to Great and you will be well equipped. But what I didn’t realize was that while I have been striving for professional improvement in leading my company, my volunteer football coaching (it’s my 11 year old son’s spring team), was also providing me with some valuable team building lessons. They resonate loudly through my coaching colleague’s words.

We’re Looking for Leaders!

Building a youth football team is much like building an organization. However, there are some critical differences between the two, besides not paying the Pee-Wee’s to play! First, I didn’t recruit the players and they didn’t apply. They just signed up. We don’t have enough bodies to cut anyone, so the interview is really our pre-season practices/training camp. The second is that, for the most part, at work I don’t have to manage the employee and their parents. But with youth sports, the volunteer boss (coach) has to be prepared to deal with the parent-agent. So far this season that has included a 6:00 AM call (true, but to be fair I texted the player’s Dad first to say I was free to talk!). Lengthy post-game emails from parents that made me suspicious that some were constructed pre-game. Practice field chats after the parent circles me like a crow discovering a corpse. Post-game tempers that violate the golden rule of wait 24 hours to deal with game issues. And everything else you can imagine. Yet I relish it. I truly do love working with the parents to help set expectations for my players and their children. So bring it on I say! Engaged parents are much better than disengaged. Besides I now have a simple message for them.

We’re Looking for Leaders!

The hardest part about coaching pre-tweens in rep sports is managing their expectations. Most conversations with my young charges and their loving guardians is around playing time, position assignments, and roles on the team. It’s a subject I am particularly sensitive to; both of my own children have endured some ill-managed experiences with other coaches in the last two years. The impossible balancing act is managing the player’s/parents’ assessment of their skills with the coaching staff’s. Like any situation where opinion is involved, there are bound to be immense differences. Youth sports teams often mirror our workplaces, with the player playing the role of the employee who often feels unappreciated by the coach, or boss figure. The reality in the parallel arenas is both sides are probably correct. The mandate for me as coach is to objectively identify the gap and positively communicate this message for my both my young players and young employees. I now have some powerful words to do so!

We’re Looking for Leaders!

The players on my team who aren’t being placed in the role they want isn’t due to lack of skill. It’s Effort. Commitment. Focus. My role as the coach is to build my players up to their maximum potential to create the best team possible. I can provide motivation, clear instructions, and a well-structured environment. But only the individual can provide the heart. That’s what will earn them the coveted position on the field. It’s the same at my office. The interns who stampede out at 5:00 PM don’t realize they are in the midst of a four month job interview. The account manager who emails a client about a sticky issue, versus calling them, doesn’t realize I am writing their annual performance review 365 days a year. The exec from one of our suppliers who is disrespectful to my team needs to know I am my own best headhunter prowling for talent that will help us grow as an organization. They should always pay heed to these words.

We’re Looking for Leaders!

MH3 Blog, Business

Building Winning Teams

Need some practical, yet not superficial advice about Building Winning Teams? Try the pages of High Output Management by Andy Grove.

I don’t tell you that because this book is a hot new read. In fact, although only published in 1995, the twenty years since have brought such radical innovation that in some way the book feels oddly dated. Especially given its author is a Silicon Valley pioneer and one of the most important human contributors to the high-tech tsunami.

The sole reason I read the book was due to the sheer number of times that Ben Horowitz referred to Grove and his managerial lessons in his CEO “guidebook”, The Hard Thing About Hard Things. Horowitz’s book is a must read in my mind for business leaders. Grove’s book, while old in business years, is not a dusty diary but an absolute managerial clinic.

What I found invaluable, and probably timeless, are his lessons regarding recruiting, building, and managing teams for peak performance. This is both an art and a science.

Some things that stood out for me include:

  1. He recognizes how hard it is in an hour or two of interviewing to really size up a candidate’s potential to succeed. Grove stresses interview questions that probe deeply to understand the candidate’s approach to business challenges. It is the approach to the problem, not the knowledge base of the problem, that he feels is most critical.
  2. Grove has created his own index for assessing the level of mastery a report has over their tasks. He stresses this approach to allow for an evolving management style even with the same individual. Over time, Grover believes the management of an individual should vary based on development in their ability to accomplish tasks. In short, it’s okay to micro manage someone who is new to an assignment or has taken on a special assignment that is out of their usual accountability. It is actually helpful.
  3. Train. Train. Train. Grove feels strongly that training should be done by managers and there is no better ROI of a manager’s time than training. He mathematically validates this hypothesis, as you would expect a PhD to do. But in short he believes that the time taken to prepare and deliver training material by a manager has an exponential impact on the productivity of the trainees. He firmly believes managers, not outsiders, own training. Plus a robust training assignment also helps the trainer sharpen their skills.
  4. Hold regular one-on-ones with your reports. Let them set the agenda; it’s their time to seek your assistance with problems and issues. They need to happen regularly. They need to happen without fear. The 1:1 provides the best quality development time for a report and keeps the manager in touch with key issues.
  5. Hold on to the good ones. If a keeper employee wants to quit, drop everything immediately and work to find a solution to keep them. It needs to become your priority and that of your organization’s. Don’t buy their concern of having made a commitment to their new place of employment for having signed a contract, because at that point their signature is on two contracts. The one with you and the one with their new boss. One is going to be broken anyway.
  6. Conduct employee reviews that focus on how they’re contributing to future success of the business, not on the current results of the business. This is essential to ensure that employees don’t get rewarded or punished for circumstances beyond their control. This viewpoint will contribute to employees’ focus on contributing to the strategic plan issued by the business unit and not on short-term results.

In an era when too many fluff books about management are written, both Horowitz and Grove break through with realistic lessons that resonate, at least in my little world.

 

MH3 Blog, Business, Sponsorship

Mirren Mashup

Attending a New Business conference isn’t something you usually tell your loyal clients about.

But without the aid of an alias I crossed the border last week and attended Mirren Live in New York. Clearly I haven’t learned any lessons on discretion in this area, because I am now going to share my key learnings in this blog, which by my last check is read by many of our clients.

While there wasn’t a client in sight among the 300+ attendees, there were insights and inspirations that resonated so loudly with me I think they are worth sharing with all participants in my marketing ecosystem: staff, interns, suppliers, competitors, industry colleagues, clients, ex-clients, and maybe even a few future clients. While intended by the presenters as advice for agency leaders, their applicability to all marketing constituents will hopefully be apparent.

I debated long and hard whether I should attribute these ideas to their contributors and decided I would. However given certain legal trouble I am facing (just kidding), I do offer the following caveats.
1. If I misquoted you as a contributor, please forgive me, advise me, and correct me. In that order.
2. If you didn’t want your comments publicly broadcast – it’s too late for that.
3. If you wish to add to your comments, then please fill your boots and comment away.

I was mentioning to a friend the other day how I get so many comments on my blog directly by email, text, etc. Selfishly, nothing gets me more excited when I receive a WordPress notice of a comment to moderate. Yes I love having comments. Check back to my Donald Sterling blog. I even approve comments when people take a swipe at me.

Excuse the mindless segue about comments. Just don’t ignore it.

Okay here goes my version of the Mirren Mashup. Remember speakers, these aren’t direct quotes….just me paraphrasing and in some cases not so loosely interpreting.

Hiring Tip from David C. Baker of ReCourses:
If you couldn’t imagine yourself surviving a nine-hour car ride with the candidate, don’t hire them.

Hiring Tip from Alex Bogusky, FearLess Cottage:
Obnoxious people need not apply.

Client Loyalty Regret from Bogusky:
Dumping Mini for VW (while at Crispin Porter + Bogusky)…will haunt me for a lifetime.

Tim Sullivan of Sales Performance International on Agency Pitches:
The majority of agency pitches do not provide a value proposition to the prospect. What is the transactional value? What is the collaboration value? What is the financial value?

Lead Generation Advice from Peter Caputa of HubSpot:
Utilize multiple landing pages to generate more leads for your inbound programs.

WONGDOODY’s Ben Wiener various tips for Agencies:
Don’t wait for the client to ask before you bring them ideas… Have the balls to say no… Don’t forget who you are… My worst day in Advertising is a better day at the office than my wife’s best (who is a lawyer)… Killed doesn’t mean dead… Pitch less.

Mark Harrison on Mirren:
Pitch less was a big theme of the conference. I wonder how clients feel about that?

Sullivan on 2nd Place Finishers in Pitches:
Finishing second is finishing last. The true second place finisher is the first agency to withdraw from the pitch. It’s a poker analogy. When you fold, you cut your losses.

Future of Advertising Comment from Pete Stein, Razorfish:
Less Campaigns and more Real Time Marketing.

Sarah Hofstetter, 360i on Social Strategy:
Develop a database/relationship with the top 10,000 (yes 10,000) online influencers.

Hofstetter on consumers:
They are human beings.

Hoftstetter on the Oreo Super Bowl Moment:
That wasn’t a fluke. It was a case of a brand understanding its DNA and jumping on a moment.

DDB Worldwide’s Mark O’Brien on client-agency fit:
We are a great agency for a client that has tons of ongoing work that needs to be outputted with efficiency. If you’re doing one spot a year, we may not be the right shop for you.

O’Brien on small agencies:
You have advantages over big agencies. Use them.

Mark Harrison on speaking at Mirren:
I would love to speak next year. (Think this will work?!)

Hofstetter on clients assigning agencies based on marketing channels:
You are better off assigning different parts of the marketing ecosystem and having an agency attack that in an integrated manner.

Laura Maness of Havas on Brainstorming:
You need to transition people into the room. They need to be able to switch from their current distractions to the task at hand. Interview them 2-3 days prior to get the juices flowing. Do Projective Exercises when they are in the room to create moments of reflection. Most of all ensure discipline in the brainstorming process.

Values Redefined by Bogusky:
Your values don’t have to be nice values, just have some.

Client Admiration Comment by Edward Cotton of Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners:
Ugly clients can be great for an agency…. You don’t have to have a BEER client on your roster.

Cotton on Being Persistent:
Just because a client turns you down, doesn’t mean you should stop pursuing them. The Saatchi brothers built an empire on not taking NO for an answer.

Anonymous:
We had a private investigator on retainer to get us scoops on prospective clients for pitches.

Hopefully my clients feel I wasn’t in the Big Apple trying to cheat on them, but rather working hard to make my agency a better contributor to their business.

This is where I make a kissy face.

MH3 Blog

Twenty-Something

“This would be a great business if it weren’t for clients and staff.”

This is a bizarre old quote from the marketing agency world. I don’t know who first said it. I don’t know who most recently said it. Both the creator and subsequent relayers have it wrong. The agency business is great for those very reasons: clients and staff. This is a people business beyond question. We work with talented people trying to solve the challenge of motivating other people to buy, endorse, consume, recommend, and eternally love the products and services of a third group of people whose careers are tied to the success of our work.

What could be more interesting than that?

It’s what gets me out of bed every day at 5-something o’clock. Yes in the AM. It’s what keeps me reading emails, industry blogs and case study videos at midnight.

Feel free to heckle. But I love what I do. I love my industry. I can’t tell you how lucky I am.

This Friday marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of my agency TrojanOne. For twenty years I have been challenged with introducing my clients to more consumers. For twenty years I have enjoyed learning how an unimaginable range of industries work. For twenty years I have been surrounded by highly motivated and hard working individuals who have amazed me with their passion, dedication, and inspiration.

Thank you, people. My clients, staff, colleagues, and consumers of the past, the present and the future.

It’s fun becoming a twenty-something.

MH3 Blog

Offseason Optimism

Mere minutes after the Raptors bandwagon came up one point short against the Nets, a friend mentioned how much they are going to miss the city-wide atmosphere around the playoff run.

You know you live in Toronto when an opening round series, albeit a seven game series, is considered a playoff “run.” But in the 416, even Drake’s 416, seven games of playoff action is a europhic lifetime.

Soon my fellow citizens of Ford Nation will emerge from a different kind of stupor and realize we are right back where we always were: Drinking heavily from a cracked pipe full of offseason optimism. Who really needs abuse therapy? Toronto sports fans.

What do we have to look forward to? A remade TFC squad that still has loads of potential but will be without its best player during the World Cup? A last place Blue Jays team that seems to be more stable than its overhyped 2013 model, but in a division of titans that requires much more consistency? Or perhaps the gridiron Argos, who should have been in back to back Grey Cups last year save for the antics of some Steely rivals?

For basketball and hockey fans it’s now time for the offseason. The months where everyone is a champion and no one is a chump. It’s a season of fiction, fantasy, and forgetfulness. Of reality that is.

If you want to drift into true sports offseason fiction, check out the movie Draft Day. It stars a Kevin Costner decades removed from his Bull Durham glory, and the expansion of the Cleveland Browns who have to look even further back to the original franchise for true glory.

Draft Day is ninety minutes of cliches and Jennifer Garner modeling maternity wear. Then it erupts into thirty minutes of drama, tension, frustration, emotion, and elation. In fact it closes so fast, so unexpectedly, and so uniquely I actually cried during one scene.

So like any good Toronto sports fan who has proven they can weather the storm of defeat, Draft Day offers some highs after a bout of lows. It’s worth watching. It will stoke your offseason optimism.

Plus it will free you from my relentless campaign of Rob Ford puns.

MH3 Blog

Magic vs Sterling

Last week the Neanderthal known as Donald Sterling, born as Donald Tokowitz, decided to take on Magic Johnson in an ill advised game of 1:1.

Tokowitz, who under his current name owns the Los Angeles Clippers, has decided that his current alleged mistress should not be hanging out with Magic Johnson.

Johnson, also known as Earvin, is a humanitarian, NCAA Champion, HIV survivor, NBA Champion, entrepreneur, Olympic Champion, philanthropist, and African-American.

Sterling is an alleged racist, alleged adulterer, alleged bigot, alleged feudal landlord, alleged NBA role model, and according to him, a Superior-American.

Sterling has been fined for evicting tenants from his apartment buildings based on race.

Sterling has been accused of refusing medical coverage to a key employee with cancer.

Sterling has been accused of calling his players “poor black boys from the South.”

With a resume like this, you can see why he is so confident of taking on a slouch like Magic – the same Magic who actually thought he was a friend of Sterling’s!

This morning I heard on the radio that the NBA is considering an “indefinite” suspension for Sterling. That doesn’t sit well with me at all. I think the only course of action is for the NBA to DEFINITELY and DEFIANTLY suspend Sterling.

His type of racism isn’t acceptable at a pickup game, let alone an NBA game, let alone by an NBA owner! I wonder how he would feel if Magic told people to not hang around Sterling because he is Jewish?

Actually, that’s a question I don’t need to ponder.

Update: NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced on Tuesday, April 29 that Donald Sterling has been banned for life by the NBA and has been fined $2.5 million. The fine will be donated to organizations dedicated to anti-discrimination and tolerance efforts. Click here for more information.

MH3 Blog

It’s Hard to Write a Great Book

Sometimes I don’t like talking about books I’ve read for fear of you recognizing their influence on me.

I should be so lucky this effect takes place after inhaling Ben Horowitz’s masterpiece – “The Hard Thing About Hard Things”.

Horowitz, one half of the Silicon Valley powerhouse VC Andreessen Horowitz, launched his career at Netscape, then became co-founder and CEO of LoudCloud, which he sold for $ 1.6 billion after nearly going bankrupt several times. Today, he has a weekly blog with ten million followers. His book makes it clear why his fandom is so immense.

“The Hard Thing About Hard Things” has one specific purpose: to coach CEO’s on how to be CEO’s. It’s what Horowitz dishes out professionally as a revered Silicon Valley mentor. Through his day job and his own coming of age experience as a young CEO, he realized there is no owner’s manual for being a business owner.

Running a company or an enterprise isn’t easy. Who do you confide in? Tell your employees too much and they may get spooked. Unleash your challenges with your board and soon you’ll be unemployed and unemployable. Let your clients in on your secret fears and your competitor will be happily exceeding their monthly sales targets.

What Horowitz produced is not so much a book, but a friend. Less of a business classic and more of a daily game plan. There is no preaching, though I’m now a convert.

I’m not going to share any of the amazing content with you. It’s up to you if you want to put the effort in by reading this energizing dish or perhaps choosing a less inspirational snack, like observing the impact on someone who has, such as yours truly.

MH3 Blog

Return to Boston

It was a year ago this week that terror struck the Boston Marathon.

Few of us could imagine that a running event would become a target for terrorism. Especially terrorists whose motives and hatred seem less about America and more about Eastern Europe.

I was in Chicago, at a conference on sponsorship and events of all things, when the tragic word reached us. The horror of the situation touched a pragmatic nerve in all of us. What if that had been my event?

There is no doubt the starting line of the 2014 Boston Marathon will be more emotional than we can imagine. The tribute to the victims and the celebration of the return of the race will only be trumped by the feelings expended at the finish line. For all of those who complete the home stretch down Boylston Street, the nightmare of 2013 will be impossible to ignore. But I am sure the supporters and spectators who crowd the street will do their best to help them turn the page.

Over the next week, tributes, stories, and memories will be shared through every media and digital outlet imaginable. I want to share two that I read and watched that left me teary, emotional, and still angry.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/11/portraits-boston-marathon-survivors_n_5127871.html
 
http://www.ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_the_new_bionics_that_let_us_run_climb_and_dance

MH3 Blog

NCAA Athlete Madness

March Madness has been replaced by Athlete Madness during this year’s NCAA Basketball Championships.

While Connecticut’s upstart Huskies left the hardwood tonight crowned as the 2014 Men’s Champions, the issues dogging American university sports are just reaching a tipping point.

You’ve heard them all by now I am sure. Northwestern’s football players earning the court approved right to formalize a union. Kentucky’s one-and-done recruiting strategy that essentially offers a quick path to millions. Concussions. Academic fraud. Rogue boosters. Even more rogue agents. Coaches abandoning recruits. Video games featuring athlete likenesses with no compensation. The issues are swirling around like a full court press.

For me the issue could be ironed out if a sense of equity was installed. Why can Duke’s basketball coach earn $ 9 million annually, yet a player can’t eat a booster bought burger? Why can coaches jump to their next job with no repercussions, yet a player must lose a season in their prime for doing the same?

I don’t believe the players should be paid. They in effect already are. I don’t think players should get a cut of TV or sponsorship deals. But I do believe they should be able to sell their autographs, secure personal sponsors, or get a job based on their fame. Their institution is benefitting immensely from the brand they are building. Why shouldn’t they?

Yes, I know I have opened a can of worms that might be impossible to police. But imagine telling a student on a music scholarship they can’t earn a few bucks in a weekend band. Or a computer science student that they can’t write code for a local startup. Or an academic standout to forget about that well paid summer job.

The NCAA is long past being an “amateur” pursuit, much as the Olympics have. Brazenly, why shouldn’t a player’s father get $ 100,000 to steer his daughter to a certain lacrosse school? What’s immoral about leveraging your skills for financial gain? Why shouldn’t a family who invested in their prodigy for over a decade see some potential return? Isn’t that the American Way?

College athletics is an amazing cultural institution, yet fraught with controversy. But like any organization, they need to realize their people are their best asset.