GOOD CEOs: Issue 15

How many people
do you have working
for you these days?
 

Headcount used to be a measure of momentum.

The most profitable, influential and transformative creative companies would be massive operations. Loads of employees, across loads of departments, multiple HQs, dozens of layers, capabilities, markets and disciplines.

More = Better.

But that model is starting to feel archaic, isn’t it?

AI is allowing us to do more with less (or fewer). Some of the best people are getting that fractional feeling. And clients are getting choosier over who they work with – rather than going with one big network for everything, they’re assembling smaller groups of niche operators.

 
That model is
starting to feel
archaic, isn’t it?
 

The new economics of agency businesses means that adding more people isn’t a sure-fire signifier – or driver – of growth.

This is creating a new conundrum for creative leadership. Because although smaller teams mean fewer managers, and less bloat, it also means more pressure on the judgement and decisions of the c-suite. And the people in charge are facing new questions.

Like,

• Who is in the core team?

• Who is on the bench?

• How do we create predictability?

• Where do we allow autonomy?

Meanwhile, the question of ‘How do we get bigger?’, has been replaced with ‘How do we stay lean?’

Bulking is out. 🙅‍♂️
Cutting is in. 👍

Strange new analogy down below.

And some of my monthly learnings too ☺️

I hope you enjoy it!
 

Grow in Vector (not JPEG)

Rob Pierre was co-founder of digital marketing business Jellyfish, which sprang to life in 2005, and grew into a huge 2200-employee outfit. Thirty-eight global offices, and clients including Nike, Google and Netflix. It was acquired by The Brandtech Group in 2023. Years ago, Pierre explained a metaphor for growth to me: and it feels especially apt now.

He asked: “Are you growing your company in JPEG, or in vector?”

Designers know that when you enlarge a JPEG, it deteriorates. The edges become jagged, you can see the pixels, and the image looks low-resolution. What looked perfectly fine at one size looks dire when you blow it up in size. A vector behaves differently. However large you make it, the quality doesn’t drop. It scales without losing its integrity.

Companies can work the same way.

 
The fastest way
to get to a bigger business,
is to spend more time designing
it when it’s smaller.
 

When we first built UNKNOWN, there was pressure to move quickly. The business needed clients. It needed consultants. It needed revenue. There was a vision for what we might eventually become, but neither time nor money allowed that vision to be realised immediately.

So, like most young businesses, we made compromises. Opportunities appeared and the temptation was to say yes. Problems emerged and structures were created to solve them. That’s building in JPEG: designing the company you need right now, then hoping it will survive being enlarged.

With UNKNOWN 2.0 (which we launched in late 2025) we took an evolved approach. By taking 18 months pre-launch to think about the company we wanted to be running five, ten or even fifteen years into the future.

That means asking bigger questions earlier.

• Where will recurring revenue come from?

• Which clients will enhance your reputation?

• Which will provide financial stability?

• What foundations need to exist before we make the next strategic bet?

Entrepreneurship always feels like a race against the clock. But the fastest way to get to a bigger business, is to spend more time designing it when it’s smaller.

That way, scale doesn’t expose the weakness in your structure. Instead, it reveals the strength of the thing you’ve designed.
 

Culture is behaviour
(not statements)

Most companies take some time to figure out the intellectual underpinnings of what they are. They have a mission, a vision, and a set of value statements. Sometimes they call these things a philosophy, a credo, or a North Star. But all these things are to instigate a culture. That is, a set of beliefs that drive the kind of behaviour that moves the business in the right direction.

But writing down the statements that govern your brand is the easy part. Culture is the thing that happens after you’ve pasted them into a Keynote, or painted them on your studio walls.

It’s the email somebody sends when they’re under pressure. The uncomfortable question that gets asked – or avoided – in a meeting. The promise somebody makes to a client. The way a colleague reacts when their work is criticised.

Culture is a compound mix of a million tiny decisions taken throughout the year.

 
Culture is a compound
mix of a million tiny decisions
taken throughout the year.
 

We agonised over the statements we’d use to instigate the right culture at UNKNOWN. And even then, I was worried that we’d write them down, then just go on as before. So we decided to turn them into agreements instead. That way, there’s a sort of pact that we’d all enter into.
 

The Four Agreements

Be impeccable with your word. Do what you say you’re going to do.

Don’t make assumptions. Ask the awkward question instead.

Always do your best. Not perfection, necessarily, but the knowledge that you genuinely applied yourself.

And finally: Don’t take it personally.

That last agreement might be the hardest, and most valuable.

 
Feedback has a habit
of travelling further
than intended.
 

Feedback has a habit of travelling further than intended. A criticism of a presentation becomes a criticism of your ability. A problem with your behaviour becomes a problem with your character. “I did something badly” quietly turns into “I am bad”.

But interrupting that process is a professional superpower.

The work version of you is only one version of you. So when difficult feedback arrives, try separating the person from the action. Examine what was said. Look for the kernel of truth. Decide whether you agree. Then determine what, if anything, needs to change.

A strong culture starts with phrases or promises on a wall. But it ends with how people behave when things get tough.
 

Treat clients like prospects –
and prospects like clients

Marc Nohr was founder and CEO of Kitcatt Nohr (which later became Kitcatt Nohr Digitas). It was a powerhouse creative company that won five Agency of the Year titles in its 13-year history. Today he’s chairman of creative agency Fold7, board advisor to its parent company Miroma Group. He’s also NED to a catalogue of high-growth companies. Years ago he gave me a piece of advice that neatly captures what goes wrong with many client relationships.

“Treat your clients like prospects – and your prospects like clients.”

Think about the effort you put into winning a new client.

You’re attentive. Curious. Responsive. You ask good questions. You think hard about their business. You look for opportunities to be useful. You turn up to meetings prepared and enthusiastic. You bring your best self to every interaction until you win the account.

Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, something changes. The prospect becomes a client. The courtship ends. Attention moves towards the next opportunity.

But the best agencies know that it shouldn’t.

Treating clients like prospects means continuing to earn the relationship long after the contract has been signed. The curiosity, energy and desire to impress shouldn’t disappear simply because the revenue has become familiar.

The other half of Nohr’s advice is just as useful.

Prospects are often treated as though they hold all the power. We want something from them, so the conversation becomes a performance: pitching, persuading, promising.

Instead, what if you treated a prospect like someone you’d already been working with for two years?

I call this the “park bench relationship.” Rather than sitting opposite one another, buyer versus seller, imagine sitting side-by-side, looking towards the same horizon. The question is no longer ’How do I persuade you to buy this?’ It becomes ’Where are you trying to get to, and how might we get there together?’

The best client relationships all feel like this.

Two people trying to solve the same problem – or unlock the same opportunity.
 

Bad outcomes usually have innocent origins

Here’s a helpful thing to remember. Nobody – nobody – sets out to create a massive, reputation-killing, revenue-murdering f*ck up. Projects that run late were designed to run on time. Bad hires were once expected to be brilliant. Strategies that fail tend to begin with a room full of intelligent people convinced they were going to succeed.

Somewhere between intention and outcome, something changes.

We use an acronym to identify where this happens:

CIAO.

Clarity. Incentivisation. Autonomy. Objectives.

 
If everything is
a strategic priority,
nothing is.
 

Clarity means making sure everyone understands what is happening, who owns what, and when things need to happen.

Incentivisation means understanding what actually motivates the people involved. It might be money. But it could equally be status, career progression, interesting work or greater independence.

(Assuming everybody wants what you want is an easy way to create misalignment.)

Then there’s Autonomy. This is the love language of talented senior people. If you hire someone to lead, give them room to lead. And if that autonomy has limits – missing two quarters, for example – make those limits explicit from the beginning.

Finally, Objectives.

Businesses have a habit for declaring that everything’s important – NOW. International expansion, new services, investment, technology, restructuring, hiring.

But if everything is a strategic priority, nothing really is.

For UNKNOWN, US expansion was a major ambition. But before the company could afford that bet, we needed to solve another problem: recurring revenue. Unpredictable project income simply couldn't support the investment required.

There’s a nuance to be aware of. Rather than reducing objectives, just focus on getting them in the right order.
 

The agency of the future:
Navy SEALs and a beautiful brass band

This is the greatest revelation I’ve had in the last month. It’s wired into how the agency of the future might look. Check it out…

Not so long ago, winning a big account meant building a big department.

Back in the agency world of 2015 and 2016, large retained accounts could support sprawling creative hierarchies: CCOs, ECDs, CDs, ACDs, senior creatives and junior teams.

There was enough money around to make speculative hires, too.

Around that time, one agency came to me with an unusual brief. They already had all the conventional creative talent they needed. What they wanted now was a department of creative misfits: graffiti artists, sneaker designers – they even wanted a tapestry designer.

We found them all, obvs.

 
Winning a big account meant
building a big department.
 

The problem was that nobody had really worked out what they were supposed to do.

The graffiti artist eventually called me, bewildered because he had been asked to make a deck. He'd joined to spray walls. The experiment didn't last. The story captures an era of agency economics that is disappearing to reveal a new one.

“Navy SEALs and a beautiful brass band.”

Think of it like this. NAVY SEALs represent your permanent core. A tiny group of exceptional, senior practitioners who combine deep specialist ability with commercial intelligence. They're capable of sitting directly with a client, understanding a problem and pursuing the right solution without being constrained by a particular medium. They’re versatile, consummate, talismanic.

Around them is the brass band: an expandable network of exceptional specialists who can be brought together according to what the problem demands.

Instead of maintaining expensive departments and hoping enough work arrives to keep everyone occupied, the organisation expands and contracts around the opportunity.

A smaller core. A bigger network. And brilliant people spending more of their time actually being brilliant. 
 

See you in a fortnight!

Ollie