Be an agency leader that people want to work for

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Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Small Agency Talk Show. I’m Chip Griffin, the founder of SAGA, the Small Agency Growth Alliance. And I am delighted to have with me today, a regular panelist, a good friend, Ken Jacobs from Jacobs Consulting and Executive Coaching. Did I get it right this time, Ken?

Ken Jacobs: You got it right.

Chip Griffin: I got it right. I didn’t stumble over it. I’m off to a good start this Friday.

Ken Jacobs: There we go, Friday’s good. I feel like I’m on To Tell The Truth or no, What’s My Line or something I’m a regular Dorothy Kilgallen or,

Chip Griffin: well, I hope you will tell the truth, Ken, I mean, that’s what is the idea of the show.

We tell people the truth, even when they don’t want to hear them. And, so with that, why don’t you just share a little bit about yourself for someone who may not have come across you on this show before.

Ken Jacobs: So, I guess this’ll be like, what’s my line. There you go. My line is, so I am the Jacobs in Jacobs Consulting and Executive Coaching. I’m also the executive coach. I work primarily with agencies, primarily in the PR communications, integrated marketing, advertising space, and we help them with a number of things. We help them grow business, manage for profitability, i coachingmprove client service, improve team performance and leadership and communication skills. We tend to do that through consulting and training and on the coaching side, we help leaders become more effective, more inspired and more inspiring. So that’s obviously leadership or executive coaching.

Chip Griffin: And if someone wants to find you online, where can they find you?

Ken Jacobs: www.jacobscomm.com.

Chip Griffin: Fantastic. And I encourage folks to go there and check out, learn more about you if they don’t know you already, but let’s, let’s use that as a jumping off point because you talked about leadership and leadership is really important, particularly today with everything that’s going on.

And I thought we would talk today about how you become or how you be the leader that people want to work for. We know that it’s hard to attract talent. We know that it’s hard to retain talent all the time, but particularly now. So how do you go about doing that? So that’s what we’re going to talk about over the next 28 minutes or so.

Ken Jacobs: Right, and just, you know, to comment on that, you know, we have to accept, we have to know. that the talent is in the driver’s seat. It’s very, you know, if you led through 2008 and 2009, it was a very, or 2010, even it was a very different environment. Leaders, agency, owners, CEOs, senior leaders just have to accept what a different world this is, and you’ve got sort of a perfect storm in a way, because you’ve got all this new business, all this business.

I mean, boy, the agency business is thriving right now. Isn’t it? And, and at a time when there’s, there’s no one, you know, in the seats and that, and that’s due to something very big, you know, from the pandemic, a lot of people looked at what should my life be about, what is the purpose? What’s the role of work in my life?

It’s, it’s very much changed. So I think it partly changed due to the pandemic. And then it partly changed because those kinds of questions, those kinds of valuesre particularly important to younger millennials and gen Z. And guess what? Young millennials and gen Z make up so much of a leader’s workforce today.

So when they’re in the driver’s seat, we, we have to be aware of that anyway, that that’s the big setup for today.

Chip Griffin: I would Iike to push back just a little bit on, on what maybe not push back, but maybe get a clarification. So when you say that, that the talent is in the driver’s seat, I, I would agree with that in the sense that they’re in the driver’s seat, as far as whether they stay in that seat or not.

But I think that the best leaders, the best managers have always recognized that the talent was in the driver’s seat because even 15, 20 years ago, you couldn’t get the best out of a team if you just had a command and control mindset.

Ken Jacobs: That’s a very evolved point of view, um, as an evolved leader…

Chip Griffin: It’s one that I had to learn the hard way to be honest with you, because when I first started out as a manager in the nineties, I was very much of a, of that, you know, you do what I tell you to that mentality.

Ken Jacobs: Yeah, yeah, no. So obviously, as a leadership coach, I’ve always believed that there is, I think it changed marketplace reality that if you don’t lead a certain way, It’s not just they’ll stay on and not do a great job and not be engaged and upload. They will go, they will go. They will go. They will go. And when people leave – a great article in the New York times, a couple of weeks ago, it’s contagious. It sets something off where people think, well, if they went, I could consider going. I could consider answering the phone calls from all those recruiters that I’m getting.

So in that sense, it’s a different environment. You will not have the talented people to handle all this work that you’re getting and you’re gonna, you know, so I think that’s, that’s where I see it as, as a marketplace change.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, but I mean, it blatantly exposes the problems that may have always been there, but you know, now you can’t just throw a bandaid on it and, and assume that someone’s going to stick around anyway.

Ken Jacobs: Yeah. And I think, you know, I’m going to make around six, seven points today and you could say on one hand, well, Ken, that’s just always defined effective and inspiring leadership and I would agree and say, but now it’s all on steroids. It’s so important that you’re able to do these kinds of things. And it is more important than ever.

Chip Griffin: Because of that, because now it becomes existential, right? I mean, 15 or 20 years ago, it was degrees of performance. Now it’s existential.

Ken Jacobs: Yeah, yeah. It’s huge, it’s huge. So shall we dig in? Absolutely. So number one now is the time to look at your culture and align your culture with employee values, employee passion, employee purpose, the notion of values, the notion of vision, they were always important.

But now for your employees, the people who are going to do all the work you’ve brought in, they’re so focused on purpose and their passion. And look, it’s not like it’s critical that every value point in every sense of purpose aligns a hundred percent between the organization and which is generally the purpose and the values and the passions of the leader.

But they’ve got a sense of enough alignment that they feel the connection. They want to do that. And more and more as you interview these folks, they will be asking you, what’s the purpose of the agency. What are the passions here and they’re going to be looking at not just great salary, not just great benefits, but the, you know, an alignment there and they are going to be looking at that.

So if you haven’t looked at your mission statement, if you have one, of your value statement of your purpose of the agency now is the time to. Really really important.

That’s why. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: And it’s, it’s more than what you’ve put down on paper. It’s how you actually act and behave and do things.

Ken Jacobs: Oh, we’ve talked about this a lot. You’ve got to live it. Whatever you put in that statement, you’ve got to live. Am I allowed to swear a little bit?

Chip Griffin: A little bit.

Ken Jacobs: Okay. So it’s not, it’s not a bad one now, now that we’ve got everyone’s

attention, right?

Chip Griffin: You’re going to say darn or something, aren’t you, Ken?

Ken Jacobs: Oh, well people’s BS meter… oh, is that okay?

Chip Griffin: You’ve offended my ears now by saying BS.

Ken Jacobs: He’s clutching his pearls folks. He’s clutching his pearls, but. ..People’s BS meters when your statements don’t reflect the reality, that dissonance that you literally feel it. And it’s off-putting, and what’s the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, one of your fellow New Englanders.

“What you do speaks so loudly. I cannot hear what you say.” So what you do as a leader and what your organization does always trumps what you say. So yes, it’s got an absolutely be in sync. Great. Great.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I think the other thing, when you’re talking about, you know, sharing values, it’s, you know, we have to be a little bit careful because I think there’s some people now immediately go to the mindset that you have to agree on, you know, political or social issues or those kinds of things. That’s not really – I mean, values are really more how you’re behaving in the workplace. It may carry over and there may be some elements of that, but I think we need to be careful that we’re not assigning that because it’s very hard to get a completely unified team on anything.

Ken Jacobs: Yeah. And I think, you know, you bring more to the picture with diversity of people and background and thinking, but what we’re talking to, what are our values around clients and how we serve them?

What are our values around the work? What does five-star work really look like for us? Uh, what, especially our values around how we treat one another, you know, Yeah. So you look at those things as well as what is the purpose of our communications organization, whether we’re a department in an agency, a corporate department, or an agency, why are we here?

And I think every PR organization should be thinking about that because your employees are, your employees are, so you want to have that.

Number two: dial up your empathy. This is the era of the empathetic leader. If you’ve never read, um, Emotional Intelligence version two, which 2.0 Which I have no affiliate relationship.

Let me make clear. But if you haven’t purchased it and taken that empathy assessment, your emotional intelligence assessment, now is the time. Now is the time to be a highly skilled, highly empathetic leader. You must understand what your people are going through, especially after the last two years, you must literally be able to feel it, to be the kind of leader that people want to follow.

So if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to get Emotional Intelligence version 2.0. Take the assessment. You’ll, you’ll learn as long as you answer it, honestly, which I trust you would. You’ll learn your social, your emotional, uh, areas, your EI, emotional intelligence areas that you really need to work on.

We all need to work on some. It starts with awareness. But what I love about the assessment is their recommendations are so practical and I’ve used it and it absolutely works. So that’s number two.

Chip Griffin: And empathy gets driven in large part by one of the core pieces of management advice I always give to managers, which is shut up and listen, right. We spend way too much time talking, directing, and we ought to be doing more listening and that you can’t be empathetic if you’re not.

Ken Jacobs: Well, that’s my number seven. So now I don’t have to say that. And, and let me say, as, as someone who was born in the Bronx spent two days there and then moved to Yonkers and our parents were from the Bronx. I always say, if you want to be a more effective leader, shut up and listen. Like that’s how we that’s how we’d say at Yonkas. Y O N K I Z probably also Brooklyn before Brooklyn got fancy, probably. Number three is flexibility. Now is the time to be flexible, be open to and think about compensation and benefits and what kind of back to work policy you might have or what kind of hybrid approach you might have or are you all remote?

You know, you know, how many hours are we looking at? Does it really have to be a 45 hour work week? Does it have to be 40? Should we let the employee play some role, you know, is now the time to say you are a professional. Here are your goals. If you get it done, I don’t care if it takes you 50 hours or 32, I just don’t care.

Get the work done. Excellent work, excellent output, excellent results. And delighted clients.

Chip Griffin: And I think, I think this is one of the toughest ones to get, right? Because, because there’s a fine line between flexibility and chaos and as a leader, you still have to define some guard rails for that flexibility.

And so really trying to listen to your team and figure out. What you can be flexible about and still get the performance that everybody needs and create the environment that one person’s flexibility doesn’t then impact negatively a coworker because that can easily happen, too.

Ken Jacobs: And you know, and that, to me, it’s assumed flexibility to get the job done, flexibility, to have delighted clients, flexibility, to take care of one another.

And I here’s the thing, you know, for two years, many of us, many leaders have said to their team. Wow. You did a great job from home. Wow. Beautiful work. You know, so they are armed with that view. So when you look at back to work and how that will work out again, be flexible because they’re going to remember, you know, how you told them how great the job was that that they did.

But I think what’s important. If you focus on the, what, what needs to be achieved here, what does success look like? What does excellence look like. To me, a leader, paints that picture and lets the people under them determine how. Flexibility will get us there then that I think that’s worth, I would lean more towards flexibility than rigidity.

Chip Griffin: Absolutely. I think it’s much better to lean into flexibility. I think it is important though, to, to keep a close eye on what those policies of flexibility are causing in particular. For many, many years, I was an advocate for unlimited PTO because that gave flexibility to employees to take time off. And I, I still, I chafe at the idea of, you know, telling people, you know, this is how much time you have, and with absolute clear, uh, clarity.

But there’s a lot of research now that suggests that unlimited PTO may actually be a negative because employees are actually taking less time off because they feel more guilty about it. So a policy that on its face may appear to be flexible, may have some negative side effects that you just need to be aware of.

So, At, at least keeping an eye on it to see how you need to manage differently.

Ken Jacobs: But I like the idea that we’re monitoring are they taking enough as opposed to Ooh, they’re taking too much. Sure. Yeah. I think that’s that really important. And here’s the thing, you know, I I’ve heard over these last few years, well, it’ll really be better when we’re back in the office because this one will work better and this one will meet, needs my supervision and needs me there.

The reality is if you hire grownups and then treat them as grownups and you don’t have to worry that much. And if you’re worried about them working from home, you, they’re probably not doing – they’re probably doing the same kind of thing at the office. Right. If, if you really don’t trust them and they don’t live up to that standard and they don’t embrace it.

Yes. They’re back in the office, but maybe they’re buying things on Amazon or they’re watching Tiktok, you know? So the notion is how do I build an environment of trusted professionals?

Right.

Chip Griffin: And I think that’s absolutely critical that you need to trust them. If you don’t have trust. It doesn’t matter where they are. At the same time, I think that, you know, there are certainly employees who do work better in an office versus at home. And it, it may be their choice. I mean, going to flexibility, you know, if you have a, an office still, you need to have some degree of flexibility over how the team uses that facility versus working from home.

But again, there may be, need to be some guardrails so that you have the opportunity to get together in person from time to time that, you know, you’re not, I mean, there’s some research that suggests that if you have a hybrid workforce, there is some discrimination against those who are not in your physical presence on a regular basis.

And so you need to just take steps to guard against those kinds of things.

Ken Jacobs: And I think adding onto that, just make sure you’re using the time at the office for collaboration for meetings. You know, be intentional about that if everyone’s in, but they’re just sort of in their cubicle, that’s not really what we want.

Chip Griffin: That’s stupid.

Ken Jacobs: We want them in for specific reasons. Related to all this and related to your point about people maybe not taking vacation time is to focus on their wellbeing, mental, emotional, physical, money, sense of satisfaction, fulfillment.

Be very aware of. And to the degree that you can give benefits that relate to that – their wellbeing, because I think more and more employees want that today. What are you doing to support me in my wellbeing? So I think if you’re aligned with that, making sure they’re taking their time, uh, is a very smart thing to do.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I, and I think a lot of that comes from that listening that we talked about, and that I know now is one of your points that you’ll get to a little bit, but because you have to be tuned into, to that individual. Because while we talk about our teams, it’s a collection of individuals. And certainly the way that they interact creates value, but also each individual has certain characteristics that may be different.

There are some who may not need, or even want as much time off for whatever reason. And so if you have a one size fits all, you must take four weeks or whatever, but you may actually be causing more problems than you’re solving. Um, same thing about work from home. You know, I found out when I started having employees work from home many years ago that not all of them were comfortable doing it for one reason or other, some of them like the bright line separation of, of home and work, some of them particularly, and this is something that, that was hard for me to wrap my head around.

But, a lot of younger workers, they obviously don’t have a home-work type. Right. And when I was in my early twenties, nobody worked from home because none of us had anything that we could use to. I mean, you know, you couldn’t just connect to the office from home. But nowadays we assume that folks are like us, but if you’re in your forties or fifties and, and you know, you’ve got a house with a home office and something like that, you’re in a very different place than a 20 something living in the city with roommates. And, you know, you might be working on the couch.

Ken Jacobs: Or if they move back to their parents.

Chip Griffin: Exactly. So, the point is simply that, that on all of these things, we need to understand that the individual needs may be different. And so we need to be thoughtful about those as we’re thinking about their wellbeing and not think just about the team’s wellbeing, but the individual components.

Ken Jacobs: Which I think goes back to the notion of flexibility and it goes back to empathy. What do all these team members need? And appreciating that, that individuality and the more you’re willing to change up your leadership style to customize it to everyone you lead. And then the ones below you should be doing the same that that’s going to create, I think a greater will result in a greater sense of loyalty and engagement, which of course is what we want. Um, so related to focusing on their wellbeing, focus on your own wellbeing. It is more, I think, more challenging than ever to be a lead a leader because of what’s happened in the last few years. And so taking care of self and I dunno, I feel like we might’ve talked about this once.

The notion of, you know, when you travel by air, you put the oxygen mask on yourself first and then your traveling companion. I believe you can’t serve them. You can’t lead them. You can’t help contribute to their wellbeing if you’re ignoring your own. Its just, you know, your cup only ,holds so much. And the more I believe, and I think the research shows, the more you take care of yourself, the better able you are to take care of others. So if you were someone who discovered, or, you know, whether it’s Peloton, whether it’s yoga, whether it’s mindfulness. Whatever it may be, a meditation. If you’ve discovered it, make it part of your leadership preparation, make it part of what you do as a leader, because if you’re in that sort of physically feeling better connected zone, you are able to be more empathetic.

I think you’re able to be more attentive and you are able to be a better leader. So take care of yourself. I hope all the leaders watching would do this for themselves, but if you’re not there yet, do it for your teams.

Chip Griffin: Well, yeah, I think you absolutely have to do it for yourself first. And I think I’m sure you see this when you’re talking to agency owners.

I know I do. Most of them, not most of them. A lot of them do not have a clear idea of what they want from their own business. They’re in a position where inertia is carrying them forward. They talk in vague terms about wanting more success, grow revenue, more clients, bigger team, maybe sell one day.

All of these vague things. You really need to think very clearly about what it is that you want to get out of your business, because there’s no reason to take on all the risk and stress of owning your own business if you’re not getting what you want from it. And it’s, it’s one of the reasons why in the AIM-GET framework that I use with my clients, ambition is the A, the very first thing I want to know what it is that you want to get.

What kind of work do you want to do? How much of it do you want to do? How much money do you need to make? How much do you want to make? What do you see as your exit? What’s your timeline? All of those kinds of things go into making business decisions that make for a better business and a better business is a better place to work, right. If you’re miserable, your team is going to be miserable.

Ken Jacobs: So here’s the thing I would say. I’m not expert in gen X. I know the younger boomers out there. I mean, we didn’t really always think about that stuff. That wasn’t part of our pattern or DNA. I don’t know how strong that is within gen X? I would say that whole thing you just discussed the, the focus on that from younger millennial, millennials and younger millennials. And I think our generations can really learn and benefit from them. From, you know, the examined life, so to speak and the examined work. And, and what do you want out of it and being intentional? I think we can learn from them because I think you will have a more fulfilling business and you will have a more satisfying life.

And you know, this notion of I’ll start to enjoy myself when I retire, I’ll start to enjoy myself when I sell, you know, that is complete insanity. You know, you’re living this life now. You have the right to enjoy it. No matter what part of that journey you’re on in your own life or the life cycle of your agency. Why not go for fulfillment and satisfaction? Why, why delay?

Chip Griffin: Yeah, well, and it’s particularly insane because as we both know, most agencies don’t sell for retirement type money, right. It can contribute to retirement as part of other things. But when you sell an agency, this is not like selling a software company or something like that, where all of a sudden you get this giant check and you go live in Tahiti for the rest of your life.

Ken Jacobs: It’s not?

Chip Griffin: It’s not, it can be a piece of your puzzle, but if you’re relying, as too many agency owners do, relying on the sale of that business at the end of the rainbow, they’re going to be real disappointed with what they find in that pot.

Ken Jacobs: Yeah. And it’s going to be terribly unfulfilling. So, you know, I think the notion of balancing all of this is, again, something we can learn well from millennials and gen Z.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and I think, you know, I don’t want to leave folks with the impression here that this is, you know, as a leader, you need to be all kumbaya and just let the, you know, the team figure out how to do things and all that.

I mean, as a leader, you do have to make some tough decisions. You have to make some decisions that may be unpopular with the team at times. And, and ultimately they will end up respecting you as long as you’re thoughtful and explaining why you’re coming to those decisions. Some may still choose not to follow you, but at least you’ve given some direction.

So you’re likely to be successful. You’re more likely to make your team successful and, and hopefully everybody more satisfied with what they’re doing for a huge portion of their week.

Ken Jacobs: Yeah. I think if you’ve explained why that, to your point, that is so much more important than just what’s popular. And I think even people who don’t initially agree with your decision.

If you you’re treating them like grownups and you’re explaining, and, and you can say, I know this, isn’t what you recommended. I need you in the boat with me. Right. But I’ll wheel this thing. I’m envisioning this vision. We will be more successful if you are with me and you play a role with it. And here’s what I see as your role in it. Um, that can be very compelling.

Chip Griffin: Right. And it’s, it’s a learning process. I mean, I, you know, when I was early on in owning one of my businesses, I had some business partners. We had a meeting with, with some team members. One of the team members said, you know, why do I need to do this? And I said, because I said to, and so my business partner…

Ken Jacobs: That may not play today.

Chip Griffin: It didn’t play then either, I’ll be honest with you. And so one of my business partners gently took me aside after the, the meeting was over and said, you know, That’s not really the way that you want to do this. And so he was very helpful in pointing out the error of my ways and, um, and that certainly has stuck with me. And it’s, I think we all need to, first of all, be willing to take that kind of constructive criticism, whether that’s from a business partner, a board member, an employee, a client, whomever.

Um, but we also need to be thoughtful about how we’re having these interactions, because it really does make a difference particularly today to come back to the point we made at the top of the show.

Ken Jacobs: And for the record, I dissuade my clients from calling it “constructive criticism” because too frequently we forget the constructive, we go to the criticism and I haven’t figured out, is that a Western world thing? Is it north America? Is that US, or is it agency? Because it’s our DNAs to fix stuff and make it better. I encouraged them to think in terms of constructive feedback, right? Because not only are you going to help them make a better work product or a better result, or even more of the desired behavior, but every one of those interactions is a chance to construct, to construct trust, which builds the relationship full of respect, which actually then opens the person up to want to get more of that from you. Whereas if we think in terms like most people, of constructive criticism and we just go to the criticism, people shut down, like people shut down, even if they’ve given inferior work or they’ve demonstrated some just crazy, you know, dysfunctional behavior because of the role of the ego, they will defend it no matter what.

Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And I think it’s key to understand how each individual team member responds. Right? Because there are some who are like, you know, don’t sugar coat it, just tell me what I need to do. There are others who, even if you’re being completely constructive and it is just feedback, they immediately see it as criticism and, and, you know, turtle up and get defensive and all that kind of stuff. So, so you really need to understand how you interact with each team member so that you get the most out of them.

Ken Jacobs: Well, that goes to the notion of customizing your leadership style for everyone that you’re leading.

Because a lot of people who say don’t sugarcoat it, that, you know, that may not really be the truth. There may be something else going on there. And I think with the ones who get defensive and hear it is criticism, critique. Then you, as a leader, have to figure out how do I get them out of this? How do I get them not only non-defensive, but open to my thinking, open to this feedback and you know, like any, you know, it takes a while. People have been so used to, I think this constructive critique that when they get truly constructive feedback, they, you know, it, it can be an adjustment, but I know with times. If a leader can switch into it, they will have better results. I’ve seen it.

Chip Griffin: And if you’re a leader, trying to figure out how to have these conversations with team members, I’ll refer you back to last week’s show with Brad Farris and Patrick Rogan, because we talked about having those performance related conversations with team members where you are providing feedback, and we offered some specific suggestions on how you can provide that feedback without getting them to be defensive, and putting them in a position where, you know, they’re not part of the solution anymore.

Ken Jacobs: And how will I get them to want to have the next meeting like this? Because in the world of PR you’re leading, you know, you’re leading people who may not be as experienced as you are, they’re working on their skills. So having them open and want to have these sessions and, and knowing that you, as a leader that you believe in them, they may not be where you need them to be yet, but you believe they can get there.

There’s very little as empowering to someone as a leader who believes in them and communicates that. And if that’s the foundation along with trust and respect and some other important things, that is where you have, that’s where you’re really teaching and mentoring. And I think that’s really important.

Chip Griffin: And I think that’s a great way to wrap up the conversation.

It sort of encapsulates a lot of the points into one overarching philosophy and hopefully is, as listeners have gone through the last half hour, they’ve gotten some good ideas about how they can make some adjustments to their leadership style, to be the kind of leader that people want to work for to help with both recruiting and retention in a very difficult talent environment.

And one that doesn’t look like it’s going to get better anytime soon. So, um, that will bring to an end today’s episode of the Small Agency Talk Show. Ken Jacobs. I’ve been very happy to have you with me today. You’ve offered fantastic insight. If you remind folks once again, where they can find you online, if folks want to follow up with you after this.

Ken Jacobs: Yes. Uh, on the website, www.jacobscomm.com or Ken@jacobscomm.com Or as we’d like to say. Mm.

Chip Griffin: Excellent. And if you want to see previous episodes of this show or any of the other videos that SAGA produces, just go to small agency.tv. And if you want to subscribe to the podcast, go to small agency growth.com.

And with that, we’ll draw this show to a close. I wish you all a happy weekend. And I look forward to having you all back here again very soon. Thank you.