What I graciously stole from Jon Steel - Tips on Strategic Planning

In every creative venture you need to have a mentor or a muse. I am a fan of some of our profession’s most committed mentors such as the late Tim Broadbent and Jon Steel, author of Truth, Lies & Advertising (published by John Wiley, 1998). He is arguably one of the most influential strategic planning visionaries of our times. Industry peers and leaders have called him 'one of the great practitioners in advertising today' and "one of the top five account planners in the world". He has been a regular speaker at industry events and at Universities, including the Stanford University School of Business and the University of California at Berkeley.

Social media has made us social animals. We crave the ultimate profile – often mistaking that for gravitas or a quick fix to career ascendency. But there is something profound in being a planner – a leader, who need not be in the limelight but a leader who has influence because they pursue and cultivate depth. Choosing to lead from the background, never gaining the credit is a challenge we often face due to our human emotions and its fragrant insistence on affirmation and praise.

“Leadership is the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated by passion, generated by vision, produced by a conviction, ignited by a purpose.”     Dr. Myles Munroe

I learned that as strategic planners, we need to build our strength in being committed advocates – of brands, of consumers, of effectiveness in communications, of truth and integrity, of great work and of learning and scaling new frontiers. This requires a regular dose of humility and a constant refocus of our role in our industry.

We are the influential leaders that are hardly ever at center stage but are always inspiring and building advocacy.

If we are to lead, to influence we need to serve – serve the consumer better, serve the creative process better with robust thinking, serve the brand better by seeking to do right by the brand and serve our teams better by being useful, growing in depth, being curious and choosing to learn and listen often.

I desperately needed this reminder – so I took some time to re-learn from the musings of planning’s mentors, which I am sharing with other hopefully enthusiastic strategic planners.

In my opinion, strategic planning is about constantly renewing our think tank and broadening our world. And there is no better starting point than Jon Steel. I needed an inspirational refresher that I found useful – so I thought to share from his musings. The angst is mine but the advice is his.

Tip #1: Don’t be clever, be useful. Ouch!

Planners don't need to say that’s my idea but they set up great ideas with great insight.

Tip 2: Planners – make connections with broader cultural truths and a deeper human instinct and motivations of what really matters to people

Being incessantly curious is essential to planning. It is our bread and butter as well as the fuel that keeps us alive. We need a broader frame of reference to make interesting connections and tell better stories that inspire or build stronger arguments.

Tip 3: Planners need to be more interesting, yet authentic as well as more interested in the world they live in and will live in.

 Impact of DIGITAL

Everything has changed, advertising has changed and digital has changed. In the end in an analogue world or a digital world the key to success is understanding the basics of human communication, understanding that in order to effectively influence a group of people you don’t target but rather as Jeremy Bullmore says you engage them as willing accomplices, and it is the planners job to engage members of the target audiences in the process of developing advertising and its execution. Digital media in this instance gives us a lot more means to touch these people and create our relationships with them. The best work has always been interactive.

HOWARD GOSSAGE

“The very best advertising is like one end of a very interesting conversation starter, it was a stimulus for a two way dialogue. Between the brand and a person you are engaging with”

Steven Spielberg was asked many years what he thought was the key to the success of his movies…”I think it is because I make movies for the masses and talk to them one at a time.”

 It is a planner’s job not to think about audiences but to think about the individuals and how the greatest number of individuals can be addressed by a message, and engaged by a message and participate and become willing accomplices in that message.

To Summarise

In order to become the most successful planner you have to be useful, place the interest of the work above your own ego and cleverness

You have to be the one in the agency who makes the connections between the brand, the culture and the human context

To be inspired

" A thought well thought, a word well spoken and a meditation well taken."

However complex things become in the end it is about engaging with people as willing accomplices.

In closing

Strategic planning or account planning is about influence, or gravitas. Listening, learning and serving cultivate the skill of leading by influence. Leading from the back in not everyone’s cup of tea – but it can be learned. I was profoundly reminded and re-energized by the significance of the calling to strategic planning and the benefit of usefulness in our industry.