[Podcast] How Do You Grow As A Strategist?

Shann Biglione
Nov 4 · 18 min read

This week we discuss what it takes to grow into your career as a strategist, a question asked by one of our listeners, Meghan Sheperd. We cover the different stages of your career, the importance of thinking horizontally, and share some of our experiences growing up as strategists ourselves.

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Rachel 0:00
Hi, everyone, welcome back to the over thinkers. I’m Rachel. I’m Shann. And this week we’re addressing another listener question. This one comes from Megan Shepherd. I think she has two really good one around how do strategists grow? And she was asking, you know, what does it really look like? Is it those more interesting strategies? Is it cleaner decks? is it doing more energetic workshops? Is it more mentorship and management of junior teams? And I think she she highlighted something that’s, that’s really critical, which is that career success as a strategist can feel a little bit nebulous, so aimless sometimes. Yes, it’s quite aimless. So I think Shann from you, I’d love to really understand how do we how do we start to judge that growth, especially as team managers?

Shann 0:46
Well, first of all, I want to say all of the above, like you know, the things you should be able to do the question becomes more at what stage and when do you need to go into those and trying to put some thoughts and pretend that I have a structure for a second, because I do not Meghan it I’m sorry! But I would probably say that, you know, if I was to think of your stages as a strategist, as you grow into your career, your first stage when you’re a junior is to you’re here to understand things. It’s like, you know, trying to get to grasp, understanding the different theories about it, understand the process, working around being able to analyse the data and regurgitate like kind of produce it in a way that makes sense for others. Then, once you’ve, let’s say, master the understanding part, you’ll want to go into the perfecting section, which is like, well, you’re not just able to go and understand what’s happening, but you’re able to kind of make it right, make it look right, make it sound right. So to your point, you know, having a great looking deck having a well crafted workshop. So that idea that we can start passing things on to you and we know that’s going to come back and it’s going to be 95%. Right is something I’d like to see within I’d say a director level to be completed there and then we transition to the next stage is and you’ll have that A little earlier on but still, this is when you free able to lead, we know we can leave your problem and you’ll come back with, you’re going to be the one defining a direction, you’re not going to be relying too much on someone else anymore. Have you thought about this? Have you thought about this, and if still, that can happen every now and then there is going to be a sense of, we know that this person just can go and find the solution, give the team a direction and give fencing to the project, if you will. And then the final last stage, in my opinion, is the improved one where you know, able just to go and run those projects, but you understand things and how they work well enough so you can better the craft not just within your teams in the mentorship which is an important part of becoming head of Treasury, for instance, as we talked in, in a previous podcast, but even to the point of becoming quite a thoughtful actor within the strategic community try to explain how things should be or should not be done. And I think that aspect of improving and we crafting things is is is something that really you go to the later stages I’ve organised a fifth one, which is you’re gonna have to have to stay where you’ve had enough and you want to go do something else.

Rachel 3:07
That’s gonna be our final boss form. Just moving on in that. Yeah, I think it’s an interesting thing, because it’s going to be very different across every type of business. I want to say. And I think there have been times that this has been documented and done well, in the past to when undercurrent was still a business. They had their strategy skills matrix, which I think a lot of folks still reference. David J. Carr, who I believe was either at CBS or publicists there now one thing so maybe it doesn’t matter digitas maybe it’s digitas. He’s also done a strategy sort of skills mapping, which I David is useful reference he has, I’d like all of the things that he writes on medium I like wish I was quite as prolific as he has, I don’t know where they don’t know where they find the time but it’s one thing that I’ve done, especially in my last few teams, and really trying to copy If I can break this down for people, and I think to some of your lettering that you were mentioning Shann, it’s also being able to have a point of view on the business that can equally scale right. So at your most junior level, I expect to be to be able to bring a sort of very reasonable brand or business point of view, understanding those contexts to an individual task, as you get more senior your may be able to think about it as a at a campaign level. So a senior strategist could sort of effectively bring that to life for campaigns. And then directors should be able to, you know, be sort of those stewards for the brand across multiple different projects. And then I would expect at either my level or above that we’re really able to come up with some of those transformational business ideas and set futures for sort of the macro company at scale. And, and I think that, you know, that scaling can go across a number of different things right to so you can think about it as being things like client relationships, I’m sure certainly not expecting our more junior team members to be as tight as possible with their clients. But I would expect a strategy director or above to start to build really trusted client relationships and things like that as well. Something that we’ve also delineated, at least at RGA is people versus craft skills. So while there are craft skills that are specific to the Polish of the deck that you’re presenting, or the types of killer workshops, you’re able to design, I think the expectation as you get more senior as to what Shann you are saying around, being able to corral teams, bring them together, set them off in the right direction,

Shann 5:46
you will be frustrated as a strategist if you don’t develop those skills. Because the reality is there is going to be a small percentage of the things you work on where the thinking is going to be so damn amazing. The choir is none of that for it to happen, you know, I always like to say, transformation not is not a technical problem, it’s a human problem. And we come to strategies, the same thing, you know, you can come up with this thoughts and insights and so on. But there is a human aspect to making them come to life and relationships are going to be at play. And having that image to build trust and connections with people around you that are going to be carrying forward. And you’re going to be passing the flame to is going to be essential, whether that’s people within your teams, but also the clients. So that human aspect is critical, critical to develop.

Rachel 6:33
Yeah, cuz, like, ultimately, and I think we’ve said this in a couple of episodes before where strategy is very much in service of the work. And so it’s one thing if you can write a brilliant brief, it’s another if you can really sit with the creative teams and make sure that they’re bringing that to life, help them answer all the questions they might need be giving them fodder to really sort of guide the work in that direction. I think we have used this metaphor before around how strategists are the ones in curling, who, like the curling stone is the idea and we’re just alongside of it with the broom, just brushing it along to make sure it hits the target. That’s very much our responsibility.

Shann 7:16
Making me really feel great about my job here, Rachel!

Rachel 7:19
You’re just a sweeper at the end of the day. So Shann how are there when you made your big jumps from like, strategist to senior strategist or strategy director? What were the things that you felt like you learned? Or did to really make some of those, some of those leaps?

Shann 7:39
To be able to make the leap human or two as being in the new position that I’ve learned?

Rachel 7:45
I think to be able to make the leap

Shann 7:46
To be able to make the leap? Well, I would say it’s, it’s a bit like the rule, you know, you should always dress for the job you want to go to next. I think there’s a little bit of for the strategist, you should think things that you know, will be the territory of things above you. And I, you know, at the end of the day is just people will look back and just go, okay, clearly you’re able to entertain those thoughts and kind of push it further, you’re ready for that next stage and you will not be given that stage until you’ve demonstrated this in my experience, it’s a go getter type mindset as far as I’m concerned. And I don’t say that in terms of like, you know, force yourself, do not force yourself, it’s just there’s going to be moments where you want to do it. So be vocal about it. Like you know, one thing that I struggle with is the silent strategists who just they go into sessions and they listen and they disagree and they say nothing and they go away and they just like and once the projects in motion, like you know, “I could have told you this it clearly was obvious” like just no, your job is you should be a dissenting voice if you want to, if you want to talk to people in private do it but like that aspect of throwing you out and and, and basically answering questions people might not be asking you is the best way to get about it in my experience, and it’s the same thing with clients by the way. Clients will respect you more when you go into questions that we’re not thinking of, or things that they will not actually think you have you to go and ask those questions. So I really encourage you to basically make that leap yourself and try because at the end of the day, you know, what it’s, it’s something you can learn it is an acquired skill as well, that confidence is built over experience and time and so on. And I always like to think, you know, most of my close friends are artists, and when they started in their fields, they were pretty average at it because they kept doing it it just became better. So for you as a strategist, you know, do this before you begin, then the right two would be my advice.

Rachel 9:36
Yeah, I think some of my biggest

Shann 9:38
And by the way, sorry, Rachel, but I know that as a white male, I probably have a greater right to say this and that, you know, you I know you’ve had slightly different experiences there. So I’m probably in a slightly that’s also how I was raised, but that’s something I’m looking for in that that assertiveness, I think is an interesting part of a growing.

Rachel 9:57
No, I think this is the thing that I I’ve been coming to terms with especially recently as that I, the thing I critically need from all of my strategists is that they bring a strong point of view on the brand. And and bring that to everything I think where to bring it to where I felt like I was making leaps between either like a mid level strategist or a senior strategist was sort of understanding the limits of my understanding if that makes sense. So when I first did a launch campaign, I think I thought about all of the things that campaign needed to do but wasn’t taking into consideration things like production budgets, and what the realities were for that and then after I did more campaigns, I then realised I was only thinking about them in isolation, and not as part of like a larger brand narrative or larger brand sequence. And so I think some of the leaps or realisations I’ve been making there, I don’t know if I would have been able to make without having done the work like an example from When I did was we created a tool for insurance that helped you predict to the price of gas, which was a great, great little tool, great thing. But once we launched it, then I then I realised that we didn’t have anything beyond the launch strategy to help sustain it. And I was like, I don’t understand how I didn’t think about this before. And I was very frustrated about myself, but but I think some of those leaps were were helpful for me now to get to where I am now.

Shann 11:29
So that’s another part because we’ve talked about the vertical idea of how you’re going to be growing, but it’s also horizontally to it for me, and is that I, I have a big beef with specialised strategists. I don’t like to think of someone as a social media strategist or a TV strategists, and I have big, big fights about this. For me a strategy is integrated, and I’m going to go as far as I don’t like the concept of a digital strategist and I was one for a long time, but I fought really hard to try to just say, You know what? There is strategy or not, and strategy should be integrated. So that whole mentality of I think as you grow into your career and I say that with an absolute love for tactics, I think we really undervalue tactics. I mean, my most popular tweet so far is me complaining about the fact we try to think that strategy means smart and tactics means dumb, and I don’t think it’s true at all. I think tactical abilities are great, but when we talk about those channels, and those specialisms for me to become much more tactical as you grow into them, then they become strategic in nature. And I don’t see that again, as a demeaning thing, it’s just we have to differentiate those two. But that energy to integrate strategy is key. And I fought really hard at some point in my career to stop being a digital strategist. And I know that it was probably a mistake from a salary or career growth perspective, because people still think of the “D word” as a as a magical term that makes you more more advanced than anybody else. But I don’t like this idea that strategy should be confined to those things. And I think, to your point, kind of expanding the universe and thinking broader is what’s going to make you a great strategist as you grow into your career.

Rachel 13:07
Yeah, and I think like to the point where thinking about strategy, being in service, understanding that it’s also not necessarily just creatives or just your client partners, but really being able to bring on sides the full complement of team members that you possibly can. So whether it’s going to be media and understanding how it’s going to come to life in media, or working with the account, team and production teams to understand how your work is scoped, like understanding, not just sort of the client relationship, but also how we structure and scope the work was a thing that also really I think, helped me progress in my career. And that was something that I was only able to get because I worked at very small sort of consulting agencies where I had to be like, Okay, what is the client problem? And then how do we structure teams and the work to sort of deliver them the solutions. It’s not just me being like I can run off and come up with a solution. But really having to build some of those structures around that too.

Shann 14:07
To some extent, that’s probably what I think would define people who are really, really good strategists, and are going to be shining the career higher up, I think is this is this ability of thinking in very expansive ways and curious ways. And I think strategist play a strong role in the process, because they’re able to — they’re here to go and be curious and digest lots of different things and try to identify what the problems really, really are. And you can’t get there just through process or I have to produce a brief or like, for me, that is not strategy. It’s just like it’s it’s, it’s a relay race, but it’s not really what strategy really is going to be about as you grow into this. So that ability to think about the wider implications that wider problems across so many things, defines what people who can be very good at it from those who might not and there are people that have mentored as a head of strategy was like, you’re excellent a this thing over there, but strategy is not going to be for you. Because you what you really enjoy doing and what you’re going to be really good at, it’s going to define maybe more as an account person or like a tactician over there, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Because I I don’t think the strategy is the be all and end all. It’s just that things that make you tick, you have to have that insatiable curiosity for all those aspects to try to go and define what really is the challenge? And where are we going to decide where we go and what we focus on? What are we going to be sacrificing? If you look at this and you start the process of strategy, and you grow your career in terms of like, you’ve already defined the realms of where you should play, you’re going to struggle to make the right sacrifices, because sacrifices have already been made. You kind of define, hey, this thing here, I don’t touch these things I don’t look at because it’s not my things. Like that’s the wrong mindset for it. And I think this is important for us strategists to kind of think extensively about all of them.

Rachel 15:12
And in terms of speaking, not speaking, expansively thinking expansively are there things that you have digested or learned or consumed that do you feel like has helped to make you become a better strategist? Are there things that you studied?

Shann 16:09
Well there’s one thing that I know I need to spend more time on is everything has got to with the finances of the businesses. And I know that I have reached a point where I feel I know one of the things I fed me so far communications related, understanding how marketing works and so on and and so like, you know, reading as much as possible about it, so they’ve helped me for sure. And, and becoming better at reading research of consumer like even marketing research is something that’s definitely helped me for but you know, I love listening to people, like you know, Scott Galloway, for instance, because they were good at explaining simply some bigger concepts, and I think this vulgarisation I think, I don’t know if that’s the term you would use in English to say like making things accessible to someone who’s not a specialist is interesting, but I feel like I don’t know enough about how to speak to the CFO just yet. I don’t I’ve not, man, I’ve not mastered the world of EBITDAs and stuff and this is something that I know is a problem. And so that’s one area where I’d say I’m lacking.

Rachel 17:17
I mean, that’s totally fair I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to take Advanced Accounting courses just to like, get familiar with it. And I think I felt like I understand the fundamentals of the business and I know what it is, but I don’t think

Shann 17:32
I studied Business Administration and not just marketing, so I had finance classes and I had accounting classes and I cannot tell you how bad I have failed at accounting. It was the same when I when I studied physics and university. I was in science before I went into business. And probabilities is something I could never grasp. And for me, accounting is the same thing. Like I could literally spend an entire exam with the accounting books on my on my lap, and I think still get the answer wrong. So yeah, extra effort is required in this area for me.

Rachel 18:04
Well, I think as we’re going back, though, to, I think how different strategies can grow and even for us, I think the critical question to always go back to is just always being able to ask the why of something. And I think, and I think remembering to do that in as many contexts as possible to even go back to some of Megan’s questions around like, Is it more interesting strategies? Or is it more engaging workshops? Like I think it’s important to remember like, Why are you holding the workshop? What is the specific outcome of it, remembering that a workshop itself is meant to bring people together to come to a solution that is not just a presentation? And I think for us, it’s the same when we’re talking about, you know, why is the agency structured in a certain way? Why does our clients business operate in a certain way? I think being able to just remind ourselves have that question and come back to it is really going to be the critical underpinning How anyone is growing?

Shann 19:01
If there’s one question strategists should obsess about. And I don’t mean this in assignments the neck bullshit way. Yeah, is the why. So that’s, you know, there, you know the expression, ELI5. He explained it to me like I’m five. I think this strategist’s question is ask it like you’re five basically.

Rachel 19:24
No, I would absolutely love it. I think I’m trying to think if there’s anything else that we’ve talked about and within the walls of R/GA, I think we talked about making sure that, you know, all strategists are responsible for clarifying things and not muddying things. And really being able to do that concisely. I think there’s that quote, and I don’t remember who it’s attributed to, but like I would, I would write something shorter. If only I had the time.

Shann 19:50
I think Churchill was often attributed to this one. Is it Churchill of quoting someone else?

Rachel 19:54
He probably did it in the bathroom short, but I think as you advance in your career, Being able to take it to that clarity, a very different or specific speed. I think Rob Campbell’s, like personal and quite amazing at this. I think it’s also the idea of being able to drive the work forward and not necessarily dump information. Really, again, not to go back to the sweeping metaphor, but really playing that role with any of the ideas or the business. And then yeah, I think being finally being accountable for the work and not necessarily piecing out after the brief, but really bringing some of that partnership together.

Shann 20:33
Totally. And one other thing is, I think Mark Pollard is the biggest advocate of this, but your words matter, I think will turn us then how to play with your words and how you explain things simply. But also memorably, I think, is very important. And I like to challenge my teams to think not just about writing the right strategies, but one that people will listen twice and remember six months down the line. So try to think of how to craft your words is a big big part. So maybe buy Mark Pollard’s book when it comes out!

Rachel 21:02
which is going to be really soon. I have to admit, this is the place where I struggle. I personally struggle the most because I’m a visual thinker. So I can diagram things. And I like my diagrams tend to be quite helpful.

Shann 21:13
But that’s a way to be memorable. Like, I mean, I don’t Yeah, you’re right. I’ve said just words. Might have too much. I’m sorry. But yeah, that that memorability is very important. So diagrams.

Rachel 21:24
Yeah, diagrams. This is the secret to everything. That’s also Mark Pollard’s also secret strength as well. Going to admit it, but I think Yeah, I’ve got the expansive thinking down, I can think about all of the different aspects.

Shann 21:38
I think the vision is critical. Very, very critical. And as you said, pull remember images much more than then then then text. Just use every tool in your toolbox. Don’t listen to me.

Rachel 21:50
Yeah, so. Well, I think that we hope that was helpful if you guys have more specific questions. Thank you, Meghan, for the question. Yeah. Thank you, Meghan for the question. And don’t hesitate to reach out to us at any point in time but thank you guys for tuning in.

Shann 22:04
And remember, please review us and Apple podcast the more reviews we get the better end subscribe. Thank you very much guys.

Rachel 22:10
Bye!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The Overthinkers

Ramblings from marketing strategists in the trenches. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Soundcloud!

Shann Biglione

Written by

Head of Strategy at a media agency by day, marketing pain in the ass by night. Co-host of The Overthinkers. Opinions feistily changed.

The Overthinkers

Ramblings from marketing strategists in the trenches. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Soundcloud!

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