Human Powered: High-performing agency & consultancy teams

Human Powered: High-performing agency & consultancy teams

By Trenton Moss: Exited agency founder & bestselling authorBusinessEntrepreneurshipManagement
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Human Powered: High-performing agency & consultancy teams episodes

  • Introverted CEO using a coaching culture to drive business success - with Zsuzsanna Recsey

    How do you create a business where both extroverts and introverts can thrive?

    Zsuzsanna Recsey is CEO at the community engagement agency, Standing on Giants. Previously an executive coach, she became CEO 4 years ago and has grown the business from 25 to 60 people.

    In this episode, Zsuzsanna shares how she:

    • Has embedded a culture of resilience, emotional intelligence and coaching through individual and team programmes
  • Builds trust by always assuming that her team, clients and stakeholders have the best of intentions 
  • Makes sure the leadership team consistently demonstrates their values in all day-to-day activities
  • Has a process to quickly identify and address behaviour that doesn't align with their values
  • Has created an inclusive environment so introverts can contribute as much as extroverts
  • Creates space for reflection so they can all always learn from what they’ve done

    • Zsuzsanna’s thoughtful and reflective approach continues to create a high-performing team and a high-performing business. She’s not the typical Jazz Hands agency CEO.

    34 min
  • Placing the idea that anything is possible at the heart of the business - with Sam Fenton-Elstone

    How do you set the ethos of your entire business just from its name?

    Sam Fenton-Elstone is CEO & Co-Founder at Anything is Possible. He’s grown his agency to 65 people in just 6 years, winning almost 40 awards along the way.

    In this episode, Sam shares how he:

    • Embeds the idea that ‘life is better when anything is possible’ across every aspect of the business 
  • Gets the right balance between having structure and boundaries, and granting autonomy
  • Sets the business up so autonomous team members can make good decisions as quickly as possible - and so the business benefits from collective intelligence
  • Constantly strives to build a better, more exciting, more inclusive agency compared to the norm
  • Runs the business like a university with a disproportionate spend on L&D and a strong Alumni network
  • Encourages everyone to push themselves forward in a way that’s right for them - enabling the team to collectively operate at their highest possible output 

    • Sam isn’t interested in Anything is Possible becoming a big agency. Instead, he wants them to be a great agency with everyone doing their best ever work whilst there.

    35 min
  • Focusing on culture & the journey to build a global agency - with Ian Millner

    How do you maintain an entrepreneurial spirit in a global marketing agency?

    Ian Millner is Co-Founder & Global Chair at Iris, a business he started 25 years ago and which he’s helped grow to 1000 people across 17 countries.

    In this episode, Ian shares how he:

    • Achieved the right balance between enjoying the journey and heading towards a shared destination
  • Brought together the right team with the right chemistry at the very start - which naturally attracted clients
  • Created a shared ownership structure to drive motivation and loyalty within the team (peaking at 50 shareholders)
  • Allowed people to follow their passions and dreams by backing their ideas for new ventures and opening in new locations
  • Created a sense of excitement and being together on a big caper within the business
  • Navigated taking outside investment and the impact this had on culture

    • Ian humbly talks about his incredible journey, how it unfolded, and what he did to get his team to be high-performing.

    39 min
  • Embedding values into every aspect of the business - with Jane Slimming

    How do you create and maintain a culture to enable happy and high-performing teams?

    Jane Slimming is Founder and CEO of Zeal. She’s been running the agency for 14 years. 

    In this episode, Jane shares how she:

    • Defined their values on day #1 and consistently embeds these into everything they do
  • Allows people to progress their careers based on their unique factors of success
  • Is very transparent about business performance, no matter how badly they’re doing
  • Gets people to disagree with her and then actively praises them when correct to do so
  • Launched the Zeal Bucket List to push people out of their comfort (and make their personal dreams come true)
  • Spearheaded Zeal to win the award for Best Agency Culture 

    • Jane was a great podcast guest with a lot of ‘zeal’. Her quote about what’s worse than having a hole in the team is truly memorable!

    36 min
  • Growing a 100-person high-performing team from nothing - with Danny Bluestone

    How do you maintain a high-performing team when growing from zero to 100 people

    Danny Bluestone is Founder and CEO of Cyber-Duck. He started the agency in 2005 and grew it to 100 people. Last year they were acquired by CACI. 

    In this episode, Danny shares how he:

    - Balanced the competing needs of financial performance and the all-important people aspects

    - Built a culture around adaptability, accountability, selflessness and having an entrepreneurial spirit

    - Embedded the right type of behaviours both when the business was small and then when it became larger

    - Implemented a recruitment process as rigorous as Google’s, based on their three pillars of exceptional talent

    - Created a mission for each individual in the team aligned to their business plan 

    - Recruited the wrong people in the early days and had to deal with a large-scale team rebellion 

    Danny talks candidly about what worked well and what didn’t, during his almost 20-year agency journey. 

    35 min
  • Getting everyone to learn, stretch & grow - with Vanella Jackson

    How do you get everyone in a large business to be high-performing? 

    Vanella Jackson was Global CEO of Hall & Partners for 13 years, leading a business with a total revenue of $130m.

     

    In this episode, Vanella shares how she:

    - Applied a ‘learn, stretch and grow’ ethos to underpin high performance across the business

    - Made sure people felt valued and supported across 100s of team members

    - Maintained an entrepreneurial spirit within a large, networked agency 

    - Identified her allies, the people who would always tell her the truth about what’s going on

    - Got everyone pointing in the same direction with a purpose and vision mapped back to their roles

    - Liberated herself from self-criticism and then worked to liberate others

     

    Vanella signs off our conversation with a challenge for all business leaders - listen to find out what this is!

    35 min
  • Welcome to the Human Powered podcast

    Welcome to Human Powered, the new podcast about creating a high-performing agency or consultancy business.

    In the first episode, our host, Trenton Moss, explains why he's launching the podcast in conjunction with his bestselling book, also called Human Powered.  

    4 min

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