Best Laid Plans

When the opportunity to bring the Emanate brand to this side of the pond was a mere twinkle in my eye, I sat quietly at the end of last year to put pen to paper and establish the plan for our new offer. But where to start?

As a business graduate the temptation to build models of perfection was strong. But then we know that textbooks and the real world are not always easy bedfellows. Even the super-smart faculty at Omnicom University will acknowledge that academic principles alone will not create a winning business.

Next I played a game of ‘think of a number, double it and work out how to get there.’ Not dissimilar to opening an atlas, pointing to a mountain and deciding there and then that you will be planting a flag on its summit within the year. Brave, but foolhardy at best and, as an Englishman, I’d spend far too much time worrying about the weather.

Then a moment of clarity: Models, structures, visions and strategies are actually only the casing for the main ingredient, which is people. Fill the building with the best talent the market has to offer and see what happens. So the pad went back in the drawer and, with the steely focus of a career hit man, I set about picking off my targets. A mixture of surprise, cunning, storytelling and downright begging landed me the dream team. One by one they have arrived at their new desks and started doing their thing. And how.

Now Emanate London is a living and breathing entity, moving and evolving under its own momentum and we’re all enjoying the ride immensely. And of course what I have now realised is that my first instinct was absolutely right, I just couldn’t see it at the time. An academic model was indeed the best tool for the job: The people: service: profit chain. Hire and retain the best people and your clients and their business will be well taken care of, in turn growing the agency.

Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?

Nick Propper