52 Weeks, 52 Words: Week 48 - Calm

If you’ve been in this business long enough, and certainly I have, you will encounter or endure your fair share of bad news…a loss in a pitch, a client who decides to go in another direction with their agency, a client regime change that, despite good agency performance, leads to a change of agency, a client whose budget is so severely slashed that the agency staffing has to be re-vamped, the decision of a colleague to move to a new agency in the midst of a project plan, or an action from the FDA that catches everyone gearing up for a launch by surprise.

Any one of these realities can send you into a tailspin or raise the agencies collective blood pressure to the point of a serious cardiovascular event. These situations befall us all and some may travel in pairs compounding the calamity.

However, taking that long view of history can afford us some calm and at least a modicum of perspective.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t take any of these seriously, nor that I am advocating for a soulless or passionless existence. Staying calm in the face of these scenarios is not to suggest we choose to be numb and not reflective in our action.

Hardly.

But just as you have likely endured some, many or all of these in the past you should be prepared to encounter all, many or some in the future (near or distant). I spent time a few weeks back in consideration of the virtues of responding vs. reacting in business.

So, in continuation on that theme to some extent, I am going to use this space here to consider the underpinning of that reflex: Choosing calm instead of panic.

Calm can and should provide the foundation for our responses because it is girded by experience in addressing the series of unfortunate events as well as the cool, level-headed perspective that this present situation is not the end but rather finds our story simply in media res. Taking the wisdom of Solomon perhaps that, regardless of our present circumstances – good or bad, flush or impoverished, there is a certainty that this too shall pass.

Calmness speaks to an ability to remain at an even keel and, while joy or despair my reign at any given moment, each of those will subside and a new circumstance will take its place. Through that lens and with clarity of thought and action we should seek to not let our highs get too high or our lows get too low.

In any situation we should harness our power, talents and strategic acumen to prepare ourselves and our teams for the alternative to whatever our present reality is. That’s easier said than done but I would challenge each of you to adopt that mentality and use the crucible of our interactions with one another and with clients to forge a stronger mindset bent on shaping the future in anticipation of the converse to the present (anchored in the knowledge of the past). That may be quite a feat of acrobatics and flexibility but consider each of my previous scenarios and a specific action based on the choice of calm:

1. Loss in a pitch – shrug it off but take inventory of the reasons you might not have been as successful as you had hoped. Was there something you could have done differently? When the next pitch comes, use that muscle memory and flex into pitch prep with the certainty of augmentation to your approach based on that insight. Each time we get an RFP I recollect to the questions we ask in the clarifying phase that will lead me asking better questions and tweaking our plans.
2. Client who decides to go in another direction with their agency – this is going to happen more than once, and it should sting each time it happens. There were undoubtedly moments within the relationship where adjustments could have been made based on warning signs that were there. Bitterness, though, won’t change the outcome. Calm will force you to take a long look in the mirror and challenge the status quo that may have led to complacency. Clients who make a change are often doing so because they are re-calibrating their expectations and unconvinced, we’re on the same page. The jolt of the sudden move from a client likely shouldn’t have been such a jolt if we were actively focused on the relationship. However, panic won’t change their decision and will only drive you to make rash ones yourself. With calm, sober consideration we can better assess the best changes that need to be implemented.
3. Client regime change that, despite good agency performance, leads to a change of agency – in similar fashion to the propensity for rash decisions, a client in transition makes us feel we need to be in transition too. While we do have to understand diverse personalities and should be attuned to each client’s personality or idiosyncrasies, the calm approach has a steely confidence at its core instead. In fairness, whenever I have a client that moves onto another company or therapeutic area, I am optimistic if not hopeful that we can dazzle the new team and retain the relationship with the team that is moving on. It would be na?ve to think the agency’s trailing the new party to a brand aren’t wishing for the same. Thus, we have to act with pleasure when that opportunity emerges to expand our circles and not stomp our feet when the converse happens too.
4. Client whose budget is so severely slashed that the agency staffing has to be re-vamped – this one is tough but a chance for us to pivot toward strategic thinking and better planning of our resources in tandem to the service to our client’s account and business. We have an obligation to ourselves to ensure that we aren’t greedy and taking on business for the sake of business. I am continually reminded we have to make good business decisions and those rarely come on impulse. Instead, a regular part of our business needs to be evaluating the health of our client’s business and making tactical moves to ensure we have a pipeline of adjacent opportunities in the therapeutic areas in which we thrive and to calmly and shrewdly question if we are jockeying the right horse.
5. Decision of a colleague to move to a new agency in the midst of a project plan – this is another tough one and a situation where emotion can color our evaluation of the circumstances. For many of us, myself included, we feel invested and “all in” with our clients; the reality is that many of the people we work with each day simply do not. The regard the work as a means to an end. I cannot wrap my brain around that mentality, but disappointment cannot be a replacement for acting with calm. We have an obligation, despite the choice of a former colleague, to those on our team that are still with us and to our clients to deliver on the outlined scope of work. While there may be anxiety associated with a depleted team, acting with anything but quiet confidence will only serve to diffuse that angst to others who are looking to us for leadership.
6. An action from the FDA that catches everyone - client and agency - gearing up for a launch by surprise – calm has to be our watchword, whether or not the circumstances or outcome of other’s action are in our control or not. The reflex with a client experiencing bad news is to share in their misery. But, like a scenario where a client makes a move to replace their agency, we have to act with calm and be assured because we have also acted to keep a pipeline of opportunities well stocked. The broader and more diverse our business is the greater the chance we can sustain ourselves when faced with an unexpected adversity.

Calm is not a given and we are all human. But at the core of our humanity, we must take action and plan, so we are not unprepared. It takes practice and we will continue to fail. Afterall, we are flawed and imperfect. Only robots with artificial intelligence can act with emotionless precision.

But, we should strive for that serenity that a sense of calm will produce regardless of what happens next.

I suppose I am an eternal optimist and lean into calm rather than doom and gloom because, in the end, I hitch my wagon to a star that puts me in control of my own destiny. And, as the master of my own domain, I trust in my ability to deliver even if I am convinced the end is near.

In the Christian tradition, this is the season of advent. A season of preparation for what is to come. A season marked by silence and quiet even if punctuated by the cymbals and symbols of frenetic pace and excess. Perhaps nothing is more fitting as a counterpoint.

Calm is the antidote to that cacophony, and it comes from preparation.  

And in all of those circumstances I cited above, the defining nature of calm also comes from preparation.

Rather than adopt an attitude of indifference or carelessness, I am suggesting though that choosing calm is the most appropriate preparation for the future of all!

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