The view from the peer

Round and round it goes, what it'll say nobody knows.

There's a new trend in town, and its name is 360° Performance Review. Here's how it works: everyone walks around the chairs, and when the music stops whoever is standing...no, wait a minute, that's something else.

Ok, I got it now. You're volunteered by an email that shows up to sign up for a performance evaluation app. Then, you're asked to select between three and five of your teammates (post on the term "Team player" coming soon) to request feedback about your performance. The feedback comes in the form of pre-determined questions they receive once your supervisor has approved your choices.

So a few things can happen here.

First, I could give $20 each to the people I choose and say write something nice about me. $50 for something really nice. I could do a quid pro quo—if they write a nice review of me, I'll write a nice one for them. Or everyone can just let the evaluations fall where they may.

It's not exactly crowdsourcing my review, but it seems somewhat adjacent. And I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Time was when your supervisor would call you into an office (when there were offices—don't get me started) and tell you what they thought of the job you were doing. Where you needed to improve. What your strengths were. What they expected of you going forward. Now they get to aggregate the information about my performance from several people who

1) I may have pissed off intentionally or not (probably intentionally knowing me)

2) May or may not have any idea about what it is I actually do day to day

3) Did I mention people I might've pissed off?

Ask anyone who knows me, and they'll tell you I'm always first in line as a cheerleader for forward progress. I fully support indoor plumbing, color television, jet airplanes, rural electrification and the interwebs. Be that as it may, the idea of treating performance reviews—which are highly influential in determining raises, promotions and assignments—as some kind of Kickstarter or Indie Go-Go platform doesn't quite make sense to me.

But then I'm in advertising. Very little of it makes sense to me.

Where never is heard an encouraging word

Work in advertising long enough, and you realize despite all the books, effective management style classes and lists on the subject, there really are only two kinds of bosses in the agency world.

Command and control. And nurture and inspire.

Unfortunately, agencies are usually lousy with the first kind and scarce on the second.

There isn't a creative working that hasn't felt the clumsy, heavy-handed thumbprints of an overbearing creative director on their work.

For some reason (cough "ego" cough "insecurity" cough cough "douchecentric personality disorder" cough), they feel the need to "make the work their own," agency code for "Just put my name on the award show entry form." and "I think I'll stay at the International Carlton at Cannes this year."

Having been a creative director, I always made it a point never to forget what it's like to present work. And being a copywriter, I never forget what goes into coming up with those ideas. So I always went the nurture and inspire route.

Here's the dirty secret about being a creative director: it's a lot easier than some of them make it look. The trick is to hire great people, make sure they don't run off the rails, clear the path by running interference for them, then get out of their way and let them do what you hired them to do.

Their success is your success. Bask in the glow. Repeat.

I'd like to suggest not only creative directors, but everyone in agencies—and in life for that matter—try to be more encouraging, supportive and inspiring to their colleagues. It's not a lot to ask, and it is the golden rule after all—or at least golden rule adjacent. Be the kind of person people want to work for - it's how you'll get the best work out of them.

After all, you've already got the job.

The thrill of the chase

I've written here about how hard it is for agencies to let an account go, even when the hour is late and it's way past time for them to say goodnight.

The flip side of that, and no less sad and demoralizing, is when agencies somehow manage to get themselves an invitation to pitch an account they don't have a chance in hell of getting.

The advertising landscape is littered with storyboards from small, start-up agencies with one office, a purple bean bag chair, a five-year old laptop and a staff of three who all thought they had "just as good a chance as anyone" to land General Motors. Or American Airlines. Or Budweiser. Or Hilton.

It's only after these global accounts go through the review, and do what they were inevitably going to do in the first place - award their business to a global agency - that these agencies feel the cold water tossed in their face, and come to the grim and true-from-the-start realization they never had a chance.

Never. Had. A. Chance.

Despite the amazing creative they did. The unbelievably thorough presentation deck. And the supermodel receptionist, who's brother's cousin's nephew's best friend went to an improv class six years ago with one of the hundred and seventy brand managers, which is how they weaseled an invite to the dance in the first place.

Lot of good your principal involvement, unmatched agility, media agnostic positioning and social integration did you.

It's not hard to see why they take the shot. Every agency wants to play in the big leagues. They all want a showcase account they can hopefully do some killer work on, then use it as a calling card to get into pitches with other global clients they won't stand a chance with.

There's some lesson to be learned here about a sense of entitlement. And believing that just because you have some brilliant insights that's going to be enough get the job done.

Sometimes, many times, with clients that big, sad but true, great ads are the least of it. They're looking for infrastructure, global presence and some actual media leverage to support the effort. Or maybe they're just looking for an agency with some maturity, both figuratively and literally.

The point is, in every industry there's a hierarchy. Steps to climb. Dues to pay. Even if you've been in business a while, it still takes time to arrive.

Everyone wants to be the agency that has the insights the client is going to spark to. But even more valuable to them would be an agency who knows who they are. Knows what they can do and can't do.

Not that you asked, but my suggestion would be to play to your strength. Build your story by going after accounts you can actually win.

If you're as smart as the presentation deck says, you'll know who they are.

Guilty pleasures Part 7: Edge Of Tomorrow

Yet another installment in the Guilty Pleasures series. If you haven’t been following it, I won't take it personally like so many other things - bad weather and heavy traffic to name a couple. Instead, I’ll just make it easy for you to catch up here, here, here, here, here and here.

But like a well written sequel (chuckles to himself for pretending to know the phrase “well written”), you don’t have to see the original to follow along with this latest installment.

Edge Of Tomorrow is part of the repeating-until-you-get-it-right genre of films. Also in the cannon are Groundhog’s Day, Looper, Source Code, Frequency, Run Lola Run and several others. It stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, who clearly work well and have fun together.

Cruise plays a smarmy military PR hack who winds up getting volunteered into being a soldier and winds up having to kill the alien brain, which then kills all the aliens.

Or something like that.

The problem is he dies each time. But because he’s been exposed to the alien’s blood, he keeps rebooting his days and learning more each time out.

It’s clearly not an original concept, but it’s dished up in an extremely fun way. It’s an action and humor filled two hours of pure entertainment, which is what a summer get-the-aliens-before-they-get-us movie should be.

I’ve always liked Cruise. I don’t pay attention to the Scientology craziness, or how his marriage du jour is doing. I think he’s an extraordinarily talented actor, and a brave one.

Interview With The Vampire. Born On The Fourth Of July. Tropic Thunder. Collateral. Magnolia. Not a safe choice in the bunch. But Cruise takes them on – putting his vanity aside - and commits to the performances with an intensity not often seen in actors at any stage of their career.

He also happens to have been in several of my favorite movies: Jerry Maguire. A Few Good Men. Rain Man (where I felt he had a much more difficult role than Dustin Hoffman, who won an Oscar for his performance).

From the minute he slid across the hardwood floor in his underwear in Risky Business, Tom Cruise has been willing to do what it takes to entertain his audience.

Just like he does in Edge Of Tomorrow.

Letting the account go

One thing you can say for ad agencies is they're not quitters. Especially when their largest account goes into review. If they're invited to pitch it - again – there’s no doubt they'll give it everything they've got.

Even when they shouldn't.

We've all been there. First come the rumors of trouble. Then the hushed closed door management meetings. Sometimes, an email goes out letting people who work on the business know. But as a rule, they find out on their own from somewhere else. Like Adweek. Or a friend at another agency pitching the business.

When a sizable account goes into review, agencies predictably knee-jerk into "we can't just let $200 million walk out the door mode."

But sometimes they should.

I understand the economics and the responsibility to try and keep everyone employed. But there comes a time when done is done. The fat lady is singing.

The problem is most agencies don't hear her.

The rank and file, people working on an account day in and day out, have a much finer honed ability to take the client's temperature than management. They know when the ground shifts and something doesn't feel right. They've seen it coming weeks if not months before management. Sometimes they've even sounded a warning.

But when it comes to management hearing about the possibility of losing business, denial ain't just a river.

From a new VP of Marketing to the client's wife not liking the work, there are a million reasons accounts go into review. Agencies always feel if they can just give it one more go, they can really understand the problem and come up with a solution.

And granted, on rare occasions, they can.

But sometimes what the client is looking for most from the agency is to be taken at their word.

Even if that word is goodbye.

Clients, like dogs, smell fear and desperation. And the scent is never stronger than an incumbent agency fighting for business, or begging for the chance to fight for business, at all costs - including its dignity, reputation and morale of its employees.

You know what's worse than losing a piece of business? Trying to rally the troops with false and tired arguments like "it's a level playing field", or "our client is working for us on the inside", then grinding everyone for weeks or months with them knowing full well it's gone regardless of what they do.

I suppose there's an argument to be made it's a few more weeks of work before the first round of layoffs. But like I said, the people bound to be most effected have already seen it coming. They're usually ahead of the curve on calls to headhunters and other agencies (especially ones pitching the business) .

Advertising is a business that rewards imaginative thinking, and punishes realistic thinking when it’s needed most. Pride before a fall.

What agencies should do, especially when business is good and clients are satisfied, is have an ongoing open and transparent new business directive everyone can take ownership in. After all, management isn't the only one in the agency capable of cultivating connections beyond the agency's doors. Leads can come from any department.

And if the lead pans out, you get coffee. Because coffee is for closers.

Wouldn't it be better to spend all the money they'll inevitably pour into a review on new business pursuits throughout the year, so when one account finally does decide to leave the agency isn't crippled by it. Better to have ten $2 million dollar accounts than one $20 million dollar one.

Of course, when an agency does have to fight for a piece of business, it usually brings in a ton of freelancers for a fresh perspective. It's always a good gig, and keeps their bank balance happy for quite a while.

On second thought, just disregard this post.