Episode 293 · 16 April 2026 · 47:09
Only Two Job Titles: How to Flatten Your Entire Company (And Why It Works), with GentleForces Founder and CEO, Danni Mohammed
Featuring Danni Mohammed
Only Two Job Titles: How to Flatten Your Entire Company (And Why It Works), with GentleForces Founder and CEO, Danni Mohammed
0:000:00
Tip: click any timestamp below to jump there and keep playing.
Enjoying the show? Subscribe for free
Chapters & timestamps
Click any timestamp to jump the player to that moment.
Meet Danni Mohammed and her two job titles
How practice leads and practitioners actually work
Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable
Balancing chaos and order in the creative process
interview#creativity#chaos#order#process
Diverging and converging: how big ideas become deliverables
Interdisciplinary thinking vs. multidisciplinary collaboration
Why 'practice' beats 'agency'
interview#agency-vs-practice#naming#branding
'Night vision' and founding WPP Black Ops
interview#night-vision#innovation#black-ops
Building a culture of calm
interview#culture#calm#workplace-survey
Advice for leaders who want to flatten their structure and top 3 takeaways
interview#leadership#flat-structure#advice
Show notes
Only Two Job Titles: How to Flatten Your Entire Company (And Why It Works) — with Danni Mohammed
Guest: Danni Mohammed — founder and CEO of GentleForces, a global creative and innovation practice. Her career spans some of the world's most iconic agencies, including Saatchi & Saatchi and WPP, where she founded the creative accelerator WPP Black Ops.
What if the traditional job title structure isn't defining your people — it's limiting them?
Danni joins Al and Leanne to explain why she runs a global innovation firm with just two job titles: Practice Lead and Practitioner. No layers of creative directors, no corporate ladder, no ego-feeding hierarchy. Just the work.
They dig into how Danni balances the "chaos" of creativity with the "order" of delivery, why her team describes the culture as "calm" despite tackling some of the biggest brand challenges on the planet, and how her "night vision" — the ability to see possibilities where others see darkness — drove massive innovation for brands like SK-II and the Tokyo Olympics.
Top 3 Takeaways
Structure for output, not inheritance. Don't inherit your industry's habits. Ask whether your current titles are defining roles — or just defining limits. Danni's team has two titles because that's all the work actually requires.
A calm culture is a competitive advantage, and it's built, not stumbled into. Removing unnecessary politics and ego-feeding titles creates a safe, open environment where people are proud to build something different.
Most workplaces need both chaos and order. The skill is knowing when to switch. The teams that thrive are the ones that can diverge into wild, creative thinking — then converge into tangible, high-scale deliverables.
More From Danni Mohammed
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dannimohammed
- Website: gentleforces.com
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Al ElliottI want you to meet Danni Mohammed, founder of GentleForces, a creative and innovation practice that works with some of the biggest brands on the planet. And she does all this with just 2 job titles.
Danni MohammedWe have practice leads and practitioners. I, I hate job titles. I think they get in the way.
Leanne ElliottBut here's what's strange. You'd expect a company built on creative chaos, on deliberately making people feel uncomfortable, on riffing and rethinking and tearing ideas apart, to feel pretty intense to work in.
Danni MohammedThe team have talked about the space being really calm. Really easy to connect with, with coworkers, really open, really welcoming. We've got people that I'm proud of that have been here since the beginning, so nearly 5 years, and they're here and they're talking about the future. And I think they're really proud that they've been part of something that is, you know, that they're building that's different.
Al ElliottSo today we're asking, what if the traditional job title structure isn't defining your people?
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al and I'm a business owner, and we are here to help you simplify the science of work. Danni Mohammed has spent her career at some of the world's most recognised creative companies, such as Nike, Adidas, and Apple. Versace and Sachi, Beaden and Kennedy, Adidas, WPP. This is all before founding GentleForces, now 5 years old. Along the way, she's been described as having night vision, the ability to see possibilities in the dark that others simply can't.
Leanne ElliottAnd the structure she built at GentleForces is genuinely radical. There's no layers of creative directors and account managers and heads of this and that, just 2 titles and a culture so calm her own team keep using the word to describe it, even though the work itself is deliberately, productively chaotic.
Al ElliottSo after this quick break, we'll find out why Danni chose just 2 job titles, how she balances creative chaos with actual client delivery, and whether her model could work outside the creative industry. Don't go anywhere. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all. Every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Danni MohammedNice.
Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Danni MohammedI'm Danni Mohammed. I run and founded a practice of creativity and innovation called GentleForces, and we're nearly 5 years old.
Al ElliottThere's a lot of different things about this particular venture you're involved in compared to previous ones. One of the ones I noticed was that you don't seem to like job titles. Have I got it right? You've only got 2 in GentleForces?
Danni MohammedYes, 2 in the front end. We have practice leads and practitioners. I hate job titles. I think they get in the way and many of them can limit potential. And I think also on the flip side, or on the other side of it, it can feed ego. And actually what we're there for is to do some great work. And that's what we should be focusing on.
Al ElliottI believe the 2 job titles are practice leads and practitioners. Now, to the untrained ear, that sounds like the same thing to me. So, what are the differences?
Danni MohammedSo, we work in the creative and design industry and innovation industry, and we're coming up with ideas, we're problem solving. And so, really, it's about our craft. So, we have strategy, design, and creative are the sort of 3 main disciplines that we provide as a service to clients, whether that's brand strategy, brand transformation, that sort of brand building, creative concepts, campaigns, content, design identities, all that sort of stuff. And really, Anyone who's doing any of that is a practitioner and they're practicing their craft, right? And then practice leads are basically just more experienced and more senior and have more accountability. So, they are responsible for advancing that discipline.
Al ElliottSo, if you're a practitioner, then you just listed off about 11 different things that a practitioner could potentially do. So, do you ever have practitioners who go, I don't really know what it is I do because my job title is practitioner?
Danni MohammedNo, we have, so you'd be a strategy practitioner, a design practitioner, or a creative practitioner. So, they know what they're doing.
Al ElliottSo, it's more about the fact that you sort of, not necessarily hierarchy, but you go, okay, am I right in thinking that a practice lead would be mainly client-facing, whereas a practitioner would be sort of more mainly working on the work? Is that the division?
Danni MohammedNo, both are working on the work. Both have access to the client. It's the practice lead that is that is more responsible and accountable for the project and the discipline.
Al ElliottSo, we've all seen Mad Men, and that's what we imagine your industry's like. I'm sure it's very different than what it was 70 years ago. But with Mad Men, there was a direct progression upwards. So, you've always got another job you can potentially be going for in terms of promotion. Do you not find that it's a little restrictive if you've only got one place you can go? Once you're a practice lead, there's nowhere else to go. What have I misunderstood about that?
Danni MohammedYeah, no, it's a really good question. It's something I think about a lot because we have people coming into the company, people that have been with us since the beginning for 5 years, but really you're talking about progress. And I think progress, yes, promotions are important, but how often do they need to happen? And compensation, is progress. So that still happens, and they know that happens. And also, we're talking about bringing in, you know, we're in 2026. Oh my gosh. And we've heard loads about Gen Z need to be managed differently and all this sort of stuff. So status is less of a thing for the younger generations. Yes, it's still important. You know, we all have egos, but— It's more, what else can your job and your company, the company you work for, bring to your daily life, right? So, the flexibility, that's incredibly important. Not getting burnt out. A lot of younger people think about their mental health increasingly more so, which is a good thing. And not prepared to sort of do what it was that we did before. So, if things are changing, why are—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Danni MohammedWhy are then, you know, organizational structures still the same, I guess, is the question.
Al ElliottYou've worked for some major, major, major agencies. Like, you name it and you've probably worked there. But if someone comes in from one of these agencies, let's just pick one out, the IWPP or something like that, they come in and they're interviewing for a job, does it confuse them that they don't have this job title thing?
Danni MohammedMaybe, but then they're not right for GentleForces. So, we've had people that We're basically talking about tradition versus modernity. And there are people that, the industry is great in so many ways and the industry is not great in so many ways. And people are realizing that and changing that in the way that they think they can contribute to that. And those that come along that have perhaps only had a very traditional career ladder or experience, they perhaps might find it more challenging to sort of interview or join GentleForces if that happened. But really, it's about mindset.
Al ElliottThey might have had a traditional background, but maybe they're showing that they've got more of a growth mindset or more of an attitude that suits Without naming names or throwing anyone under the bus, what is it you'd like to see changed in the industry, something which seems like you're doing at the moment?
Danni MohammedThere's still these invisible structures, and then we're pedestalling certain types of people, leaders, or disciplines. And I'm just not interested in that. I'm interested in how can everyone reach their potential? How can we collaborate? How can we get to great work, whoever you are? Because why, without sounding too abstract or sort of ethereal, but we're all human and we all have potential. That's basically, I think, even Nike talk a lot about that in their world, but it's true. So why are we placing restrictions or limits or walls Or barriers in the way of people's potential. And we're a people business, and it's human ingenuity, it's human creativity that is all of us. And then there are certain craft and skills, some that are perhaps more designers or more conceptual or more strategic, whatever it may be. But I don't think Anyone's really challenging that. I mean, I'm sure there are some out there, but we walk into this Mad Men setup perhaps, and they would've had all of the levels, the account man, the account director, the managing director, and so on, the ECD, the creative director, all. I mean, they would've had so many levels, including the secretary who would've been female. But You know, that was, what did you say, 70 years ago? So what are we doing? So I think I'm just seeing a better way and just doing it and seeing how that goes. And of course it suits some and of course it doesn't suit others, but it suited a lot of people that have stayed here and even new hires who probably, you know, you think they're going to go and get their next promotion to a creative director or something, but they come here and, or a head of creative and they come here and their creative practice lead. But what they value is the independence of the company, the culture, the team, the openness, all of that. So that's incredibly important as well as structure, but it's how you are wanting to be structured to serve your output and serve your—
Al ElliottYour approach probably makes some of the more traditional companies a little uncomfortable, but I've heard you say, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Is that what you say? Have I got that right?
Danni MohammedWe are problem solving. We are coming up with creative ideas, creative thinking, strategic, you know, flips or reimagining brands. That takes a sort of level of creativity a level of discomfort? Of course it does, because if everything is comfortable, if everything is fine, I mean, there's nothing fresh about that. There's— it's probably been done 20 times. So it's really important that we're interrogating, we're pushing ideas around, we're riffing, we're challenging each other respectfully. where and when it needs to. But when I think people hear challenge, I think it sounds like a fight. It's not at all. It's more just being able to feel that you can question a thought or build on it and have that dialogue. I think in some companies, people are too scared to say anything, too scared to sort of fail. We've heard that a lot. And so really, I'm just trying to create an environment where— It's more open and more direct, I guess. More, you know, there's more discussion around the thing. And that's what clients are paying for us is to get to the thing. And when I say the thing, I'm assuming you know what I'm talking about. The idea, the magic, the solution, the concept, whatever it might be.
Al ElliottYeah.
Danni MohammedBut they're paying for us to get to that. And that's the hard work that we've got to do.
Al ElliottSo this has segued perfectly into my next question. So if you're embracing the chaos of creativity, which sounds amazing, but you also need to get to a deliverable, to the thing, to the idea for the client, how do you stop it just becoming essentially like a kindergarten where everyone's got amazing ideas, but nothing actually gets done?
Danni MohammedThat's why you need to balance chaos and order. So I think one of my old bosses at Wieden and Kennedy actually used to say I was the queen of frameworks. And my current, my managing partner here, Nathan, he would say, yeah, you have the chaos and then suddenly it gets a bit too out of control and then you apply the order, the control. perhaps. And so, again, I sort of come back, maybe it's as we're talking, it's this intuition, it's being more human, right? So we have, there is always 2 sides to us, right? You and I are both masculine and feminine. I have a masculine side, I have a feminine side. You know, in life, there's chaos and order. You can't have one without the other. So it's just about You know, acknowledging that in your process. Otherwise, I think what you get to, and in some places I've worked at, or even in some places I haven't worked at, there's too much order and that's where you get the generic output. And then in some, there's too much chaos and then they can't deliver at a level of scale, right? When you're working with really big global brands, which we do. And so, it's allowing for that creativity to happen, allowing for that strategic thinking to happen. For me, I think about, you know, my background is strategy and I think about that as, it's actually quite creative, but the leaps that you can make strategically. So, strategy, you probably think of consultants like BCG or McKinsey or Bain, and it's all very logical, and that's great. But you also need to apply the illogical to make that jump. Otherwise, it's all sounding, you're working on a brand and a category.
Al ElliottYeah.
Danni MohammedAnd you're doing that logical process and then you're working on another brand in the same category next month. I mean, it's the same, isn't it? So you need to apply some tension, some friction. You know, you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable to be able to take those different trajectories in your mind or with the team that you're working with.
Al ElliottCould you talk us through what it would look like If we were sat at the table with your guys and you were putting together a project and it's chaotic and then you pull it towards order, is there an example of a project you can think of?
Danni MohammedI would say every project, right? Because this is our process. So really, we, you know, you'll get a brief and we're interdisciplinary. So you'll have the core team across strategy, creative design, and client partnerships sitting around the table. And we're basically just having a conversation. And it's very, you know, some people might have brainstorms or, you know, some people might, you know, just give it to the first person in the part of the process, in which case that would be strategy. And they go and sit in a room for, back in the day it was 5 weeks, now maybe it's 5 hours, but still they would be isolated to think about that on their own. And so you're not, you're not being able to sort of hear different perspectives and sort of make those connections. So we're basically having a conversation in this room, for example, and hopefully laughing. That's really important. And there's no end goal at that point. We're just instinctively trying to find what this thing is understanding what world it plays in, how it can show up differently in that world, or how it can have a distinct point of view in that space. And we're just throwing a lot of things around. And then probably client partnerships will get involved and say, right, okay, or we'll have another meeting and it will be another session. And then we'll start to sort of divide and conquer and do what we need to do. So yeah, the project plan and the deliverables and all of that.
Al ElliottYeah.
Danni MohammedThat's the order that comes in. But yeah, it's quite— I feel it's almost— yeah, I feel very comfortable playing between the 2 poles in one session. And I'm trying to— my role really now is a facilitator of that, or a conductor of that, and how I can help the the practice leads to do that as we go forward. But to be honest, I think anyone can really do it, and it's really building muscle and experience in the, in the room.
Al ElliottSo, we've got this idea that I've put in my head is like democratized chaos. So, there's like a huge table, everyone's got amazing ideas, this is cool. My instinct would be there needs to be one person who's got the final say on creativity and the final say. Does that happen, or is it against or democratized?
Danni MohammedYeah, no, absolutely. I think the easiest way to sort of explain it is diverging converging. So, we need to open up and expand our minds, our thinking, expand the brief, right? I would say 9 times out of 10, a brief comes from a client, and sometimes briefs don't come, but the— and you try and understand it together, but an ask or a brief will come, and the actual solution is not what they've asked for in the brief, is the one that gets signed off. It's a bit like when you buy You're looking for a house and you're like, I need the house to be this, this, and this. Let's say Victorian with a back garden, and you end up buying a new build penthouse apartment instead. You think you want those things. And then, so that is the reality. And so we're expanding the brief. We're understanding the parameters or the tentpoles of it. And then we're sort of trying to solve the bigger thing. And we do it a lot in collaboration with our clients. We have to.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Danni MohammedIt's their brand and their business. They know it best. But then, the first couple of sessions, we don't need to make decisions, right? We're still diverging. But when we need to make decisions, it's the practice lead of that discipline. So, if it's a strategic project, the strategic practice lead will make that decision. If it's a creative outcome, the creative practice lead will make that decision.
Al ElliottSo, with all this chaos, it sounds like a cool place. I would love to work there, but it also feels like somewhere that if you're not careful, you could get burnt out because you've not got that order. I mean, have you ever seen that? Do you deal— how do you deal with that?
Danni MohammedYeah, that's really important. I mean, we're seeing that across industry, aren't we? And, you know, before I talk about it as a potential reaction to this, We are seeing it out there and we're seeing, you know, do everything more for less. We're seeing, you know, the geopolitical situation that's obviously having, you know, having a burden on us, the post-pandemic. This is really, really important. And it's a bit, I liken it, we work a lot with sports brands. We actually founded with building H&M Move from scratch. So building a sports brand for H&M globally, really incredible project. And in sport, you work really hard and then you recover. There's this mindset of, I'm not saying we work really hard in that sense, but you're figuring something out. You're in that chaos, but then you can't do that. You're not doing that sort of every hour. You know, there is the balance of chaos and order, and then there's quiet time for the order, and then, you know, someone needs to work on the deliverables. So, it's, as I said, it's a balance. It's not just chaos, it's chaos and order, and diverging and converging, and just knowing where in the project that needs to happen to get to the solution.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast, that's us, by the way, and the UK's number Marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network.
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking. And you're not gonna say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number 1 marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s— the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Leanne ElliottThe audio destination.
Danni MohammedBusiness professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless. Seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such It's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Leanne ElliottSo come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in. From a personal point of view, if you're embracing this beautiful chaos at work, which is controlled chaos, but still chaos, then in your personal life, do you prefer things to be ordered outside of work?
Danni MohammedVery good question, Al. My husband will probably be listening to this. It's funny. I'm definitely more chaos than he is, but overall, we actually, yeah, we're very quiet at home. And yeah, I think it's just a different expression of yourself. So, you've got the concept obviously of extroverts and introverts, and again, it's binary, right?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Danni MohammedWhen we talk about boxing people in things. And then there's, I think back in the day it was ambivert, and now it's, is it ultravert or something? But I am both. I can be very, it's about, as we all know, introversion is when you need to recover on your own and you get energy from being alone. And extroversion is you get energy from others and other stimulus. I need both. That's me personally. Some people in the team, very introverted, some very extroverted. At our AGM end of last year, I did a, how shall I say it, a sort of movement exercise around chaos and order. And we all, I mean, this is where I'm probably a bit mad, but it was like, okay, everyone now, behave like chaos, right? And people were just in their body doing whatever they were doing, right? Okay, now order. And we had 2 groups and one was chaos and one was order. And then we switched it around. And then we had, then we just discussed what, what did that feel like? And a lot of the people who are typically orderly was like, oh, I felt like there was a freedom of thinking and I did, you know, and, and expression and ideas. And then the people that were typically chaos were like, yeah, it's quite exhausting. So again, you sort of need to, there's pros and cons to these things and you need to just find that balance. It's always about the tension and the balance. And, you know, it's my responsibility and also the practice leads here and the leadership team to make sure that as a company and as, um, and all the, you know, the people that work here, we're managing that.
Al ElliottI wanna work at your place. This sounds amazing. You mentioned the word interdisciplinary, I think, before, when you were describing that table full of people. I wanna know, first of all, in a creative agency or creative practice, what does that mean? And secondly, let's dive a bit more deep into how you get all these different people and teams working together as one.
Danni MohammedInterdisciplinary. You've probably heard of multidisciplinary, where basically you are working on your specific discipline and you're collaborating. Interdisciplinary is you're working on your specific discipline, but you're working together to create something new. And so, I think typically in organizations, we might have a lot of— I've seen a lot of silos and the objective is to collaborate, right? But I really see the benefit of when You're, again, it takes a lot. I'm sure we're going to get onto how hard this is. And change is hard, right? And I'm willing to do it, and I'm willing to see what comes out of it for people individually and for the company and for the people we work with. But yeah, interdisciplinary is working together to create something new, And that's what we're here to do. So if I can enable that process, if I can enable those conditions, and if I can enable that structure, then we're only going to make better work.
Al ElliottSo let's imagine that you were crazy enough to employ me.
Danni MohammedOh, I'd love to, Al. I'm not sure you'd leave your podcast though.
Al ElliottGot that on tape. Um, so, so I came up like as a copywriter, self-taught, you know, read all the stuff. Um, I do, I'm quite proud of the copy I create. However, if I was sitting at a table and I've got someone who is from a different, from a slightly different area, and I give them my copywriting and they start criticizing it, pulling it apart in a nice way, pulling it apart, my ego's gonna be bruised. I'm gonna be a little bit like, hang on a minute, I'm the copywriter, you're the creative I don't know any other job titles, but you are the person who does this. How are you resolving that conflict? I'm guessing you don't employ me in the first place, but imagine you do have that conflict. How are you resolving it?
Danni MohammedAs I said before, like, the culture is open. And so, one of the other things that I think is really important, and we're, you know, we're just like any other company like this, but we're trying to get better at is, well, we're probably not like just any other company, where it's feedback. And I talk about feedback as a gift. And we need to be able to discuss. I mean, this is not about picking, unpicking what you've written, Al, if we're here having a chat about this. But we're not, no, we're not about unpicking what you've written. It's more higher level than that. It's the idea that you're getting across, and then you'll go away and refine it.
Al ElliottYeah.
Danni MohammedSo, it's less about the craft that is required and only a copywriter can do. No, an art director's not necessarily gonna be able to do that. But what we're discussing is you've written, let's say you've written a brand manifesto for a new luxury brand or a new skincare brand or something, but it's not just your words, it's the strategic You know, positioning of it. It's the creative transformation of where we're going to take the skincare brand, and you've written the words. So really, you're working side by side with a strategist and the creative practice lead, let's say, who's conceptually trying to, you know, see the potential of it. So yeah, it's not the micro—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Danni Mohammedpart of it. It's more the bigger, the bigger thinking.
Al ElliottIf I did a word count for the word practice in my notes I've got here, it would come up far more often than any other podcast brief I've ever done. You seem to really like the word practice. I've got down here, we've got practice leads, practitioners, practice weeks. You call yourself a practice, not an agency. What's this obsession with the word practice?
Danni MohammedAgain, coming back to what we do, but it's not, it's not Fait accompli, right? It's not done. And so practice, you're practicing, you know, you're keeping developing, learning, growing, adapting, evolving, expanding. You have to. There's no ceiling, right? Or there's no— and that's, you know, again, links back to structures of, okay, the ECD knows everything, or the creative chairman knows everything. No, they're still learning. And I'm sure if some people who had those titles were here, they'd probably agree. So it's really about expanding, opening, deepening our practice, and how can we do that in our day-to-day jobs. And practice weeks being something we do every quarter to step outside of the business as usual. And very much inspired by architect practices. I think that was, I love, I almost wish I'd done an art— I mean, there's various degrees I'm sure we wish we'd done when we were doing the degrees, but I really love, that feels to me pretty interdisciplinary, which is, I mean, of course architects have their own discipline and craft, but my cousin is a phenomenal architect and You know, you've got to be very good at maths. You've got to be, you know, so you've got to be mathematical. You've got to be, you know, visionary to come up with the idea. And, you know, you've got to have the skill of drawing and putting the thing together. So, they're very, what would typically be quite competing skill sets. And I just love the idea of bringing that together.
Al ElliottSo, it never occurred to me before that it's a nuance of English, I suppose, but an architect practice, you wouldn't say an architect agency, you would say an architect practice. So, it sounds like I'm really flogging this horse, but I just want to understand what is the semantics between practice and agency?
Danni MohammedYeah, great question. You know, for me, agency, has been around since whenever, but you are really, as an agency, the work has been outsourced to you and you are supplying something, right? That could be one definition. Another one could be, you know, has connotations around it in our industry. And I think there's, for me, there's been so many connotations.
Al ElliottYeah.
Danni Mohammedapplied to things that just don't feel right. They don't feel inclusive. They don't feel progressive. And so, and they feel quite fixed. And so I feel like we've all got an idea of agency, whereas it was really important for me when setting up GentleForces and as we go about things day to day, that It's an expansive space, that it's somewhere where people are going to grow in many ways and going to learn, and they're going to develop their craft, they're going to hone their craft. And, you know, I'm just like anyone else. I've got to turn up to work every day and I want to enjoy what I do and I want to keep learning. You know, there's— yeah, I'm in my early 40s. I want to keep learning, and I think everyone else does as well.
Al ElliottI suppose the irony is that agency implies free will, but actually the traditional agency model is that you just go in, you deliver work, and you don't have free will.
Danni MohammedFree will. I love that idea. And, you know, we're hybrid working here. No one's checking on anyone on, you know, whatever they're doing. It's really, you know, they're accountable for their project, for what they're doing in their projects, in their discipline, and with the team. And that is cultivated in culture. And it's, It's not easy, but it's done, or it's being done. And now the culture holds up. So obviously, as a founder, you establish a culture and you lead by example. And the company is really a reflection of you, I guess. I guess that's what founders are, right? Whichever company you founded. But at some point, for that to become scalable, it needs to work without you, right? Or it needs to be imparted. And so I'm very proud of that, which is the culture holds itself and it evolves and so on.
Al ElliottI just want to ask you about this night vision that I believe people have described you as having this night vision. What the hell are they talking about?
Danni MohammedThis is when I was working at WPP actually, and we founded a creative accelerator, right? So for those who don't know WPP, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners do, it's a huge holding company, a huge communications and creative and technology holding company. And it's like a big, what do you call them, like aircraft carrier or a big tanker. And so, we set up WPP Black Ops and it was basically looking at— so one of their biggest clients, Procter Gamble, sponsors the Olympics. And it was for SK-II, which is a huge Japanese skincare brand, big in Japan and China and even the US. And It was sponsoring Tokyo 2020, which then became 2021. And the typical way wasn't getting the types of creativity and ideas, and I would say chaos, that the CEO of SK-II wanted. He actually loves chaos, this guy who now works somewhere else. So we basically ignored that setup and then created something else. And this was thinking about how can we bring people in from outside WPP to create something and how can we, and from within WPP, and just set up something new. And it was incredible. We launched with 6 female athletes, including Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time, and Japanese athletes and Chinese athletes, which are huge in their respective countries. And it was a huge animated anthology that was launched around Tokyo Olympics.
Al ElliottSo, I'm not sure that would've happened And was that the seed of GentleForces practice?
Danni MohammedYes and no. I would say there's been seeds. It's almost what we've been chatting about in this podcast, which is my experience over the years and what's felt restrictive and what's felt enabling my own approach to life, I guess, all of that. But yes, it happened probably 2, it was 2 jobs before I set up GentleForces. After that, I was at Adidas headquarters. But yeah, I think they all connect to each other, don't they?
Al ElliottYou are groundbreaking in a lot of ways. You've been described as having night vision, described— in fact, I've got so many soundbites from you, I haven't got time to put them all in. This is all different. This is all breaking it and rebuilding it. So what went wrong when you did that?
Danni MohammedA lot. I mean, for any startup founder, you always get everything wrong at the beginning. You know, a lot of time was wasted, I think, because you're sort of setting up to do something new. So we're talking a lot about whatever it is we're talking about, and that wastes time, and time is money. And so, but I think, you know, but then the Some brilliance comes out of that. So, I would say, regardless if it's a practice or not, I think for any startup founder, you always look back and go, gosh, that was a big thing there, wasn't it, that could have been done differently? And a lot of it will be to do with, there's no processes at all. And so that's not efficient, but the whole point that there's no processes is because you've been able to set something up. You know, it comes in both ways. But I would just say, you know, we're really coming into our own the last couple of years. The first 3 years were very challenging. We were founded in the pandemic. We, you know, had one huge global client. It was a bit of an anomaly. I imagine founders set up just eating baked beans out of their bedroom, you know what I mean? Whereas we had huge trust in— yeah, I had an ex-client from Adidas, Simon, who set up, who had the task of setting up this new sports brand at H&M, and he called me. And he called me, I think I was the second person after he called his mum. And so that meant Well, I didn't know this at the time, but, you know, that was huge. And the trust to build something, you know, for me to build something to solve that need.
Al ElliottJeff Bezos is kind of renowned for, it's maybe oversimplification, but Jeff Bezos is renowned for saying brand is what, how people describe you when you're not in the room. How do you think your team would describe working at GentleForces if you weren't in the room?
Danni MohammedI think we did a survey actually last week, the other week. And what I was seeing coming up was sort of calm. It's a lot of calm. I think we were talking about what's it like to work in this space. And just coming back to your question about being comfortable with the uncomfortable, it was really important that this didn't feel corporate and uncomfortable, but that the space felt comfortable.
Al ElliottYeah.
Danni MohammedAnd, you know, no harsh lighting and, you know, more natural materials and different spaces. So, the team have talked about the space being really calm, really easy to connect with coworkers, really open, really welcoming. I heard all of those words. But then, in terms of working at Gentleforces, I think they're proud. I think, you know, we've got people that I'm proud of that have been here since the beginning, so nearly 5 years, and they're here and they're talking about the future. And I think they're really proud that they've been part of something that is, you know, that they're building that's different. And I think they can also see that, you know, a lot of people want to come and work with us. And so, you know, that That makes them, yeah, feel good as well.
Al ElliottImagine I have an accountancy firm, right? And we're not, well, actually you do call them accountancy practices, but imagine I have an accountancy firm. We're going to be working on very different things and ideas than you. We don't want chaos. We want very much want order. But do you still think the 2 job title idea would work in a business like that?
Danni MohammedI would say it's possible. And I just want to sort of take a step back to sort of ask ourselves, You know, when everything is changing around us, right? It's like that film, Everything Everywhere All at Once, or whatever it's called, but I think it won an Oscar or something. But everything is changing, like everything. So, I would say, why are we not open to changing first or embracing that change? And so, you know, let's take an example of a manufacturing firm. I don't actually know what the titles are, But why couldn't you have plant leads and plant workers? I mean, another term probably, I'm not au fait with all of that, but really, we're just talking about doing the work that we're doing versus, and you've got younger people coming through, right? Younger people coming through, it's a different world, it's a different generation. And so, You know, we're not adapting at all. So arguably, is it more risk that there's a company approach that's 2 titles, or is it more risk to carry on with the status quo?
Al ElliottSo imagine someone's listening to this and goes, yes, the 2 job titles, I love this, but they've currently got 30 job titles. How would you coach them into starting to reduce that down to 2?
Danni MohammedI don't think it's about 2. I think the number 2, I think it's about what is their main output? What is their main focus? What kind of culture do they want? And, you know, for me, I want a culture of everyone learning, evolving, adapting, and being open and practicing, you know, and making great work. Whereas—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Danni MohammedIf there's 30 job titles, the funny thing is, sorry, just coming back to that thing that I just said about the risk, where's more risk? The funny thing is we are seeing world over, regardless of industry, industry agnostic, we are seeing streamlining, consolidation, efficiencies, which, what does that then result in? Redundancies. And so, do we need the 30 levels? Probably not. So, that's what I'm saying about, you know, how can we optimize, refine, build for the work that we're doing and build a structure around that? And you've kind of got to be quite bold to do it in a very established organisation, but it is totally possible. And it may be that you go from 30 to 15, but without, you know, this is a whole other thing in terms of redundancies and all of the rest of it. But it's, I'm not saying make redundancies. I'm just saying, you know, how can you transition into something that works better for the company? We've just seen Kimberly-Clark, you know, acquire Kenvue, who used to be Johnson Johnson. We're seeing—
Leanne ElliottPfizer.
Danni MohammedYou know, we're seeing various acquisitions to streamline because there's not enough work, there's not enough anything. So, what I'm saying is, with everything dynamically changing and with a new workforce coming through, I think the question is more, how can you evolve your organizational structure to meet the needs of today?
Leanne ElliottThat was Danni Mohammed from GentleForces. forces, and I bet there aren't many leaders who thought about an org chart quite like that. 3 really important takeaways for leaders managing creative teams. Number 1, design your structure around your output, not your industry's habits. Danni didn't flatten the hierarchy to be trendy. She asked what structure would best serve the work. Job titles might be the most expensive thing in your org chart, not in salary terms, but in the potential they quietly cap. So ask yourself, are your titles defining roles or defining limits? Yeah.
Al ElliottAnd lesson 2, a calm culture is a competitive advantage, and it's built, not just stumbled into. Danni's team keeps using the word calm to describe working at GentleForces. That doesn't happen by accident. It happens when founders are deliberate about removing the things that drain energy, like ego-feeding titles, invisible hierarchies, and unnecessary politics before they take root.
Leanne ElliottAnd lesson 3, most workplaces need both chaos and order. And the skill is knowing when to switch. The teams that consistently produce brilliant work aren't always the most orderly, and they're not the most chaotic. They're the ones where leaders know when to open the room up and when to bring it back in. It turns out that calm teams who are able to embrace chaos do bolder work. You can find Danni and Gentle Forces at gentleforces.com. We'll put the link in the show notes.
Al ElliottThat's all for today. Go count your titles. This is Truth, Lies and Work.
Danni MohammedWe'll see you next week.