Episode 46 · 5 July 2023 · 1:05:05
Why Women in Leadership Matters: A Case Study, Featuring MKG
Why Women in Leadership Matters: A Case Study, Featuring MKG
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Intro & the stats on women in leadership
News Roundup: Grandternity leave
news roundup#news roundup#grandternity leave#workplace benefits
News Roundup: Elon Musk's latest
news roundup#news roundup#elon musk#tech news
Meet MKG — Christine Capone & Lauren
panel interview#mkg#christine capone#lauren#agency leadership
Weathering the pandemic — the tough calls that saved the business
panel interview#pandemic#business resilience#tough decisions
Resetting culture — values that actually stick
panel interview#company culture#values#culture change
Millennials vs Gen Z — what's really different
panel interview#millennials#gen z#workplace differences
Pay transparency — the positives and the drawbacks
panel interview#pay transparency#equity#compensation
Attracting & retaining talent — Work From Wherever
panel interview#talent retention#remote work#work from anywhere
"Never met an unpleasant person at MKG" — culture adds vs culture fits
panel interview#culture add#culture fit#hiring
Rethinking recruiting practices for diversity
panel interview#recruiting#diversity#inclusive hiring
Christine's journey — from the Jersey Shore to leading a top agency
panel interview#career journey#leadership#agency founder
Leanne's key takeaways & wrap-up
panel interview#key takeaways#wrap-up#lessons learned
Show notes
Why Women in Leadership Matters: A Case Study — Inside MKG
This week on Truth, Lies & Work — Al and Leanne dive into a fascinating case study of MKG, a fully women-led experiential marketing agency with offices in New York and LA. From navigating the brutal realities of pandemic redundancies to building a culture around authenticity, continuous learning, and pay transparency, this episode is packed with hard-won leadership lessons.
The Case Study: MKG
MKG is an experiential marketing agency with offices in New York and LA, led entirely by women — a team of 54 people. But as Leanne points out early on, this isn't a story of smooth sailing. It's a story of resilience.
When the pandemic hit, an agency built on live events faced an existential threat. Clients stopped spending overnight, and the leadership team had to make brutal decisions about redundancies to keep the business alive. As Christine puts it, it was "probably to date one of the worst experiences, quite frankly and honestly."
But out of that crisis came a reset. The team rebuilt their culture around five core values:
- Bringing your authentic self to work
- Continuous learning
- Open and honest conversations
- Being a force for good
- Celebrating diversity
And it's not just poster values — they've embedded them into how they hire, how they pay, and how they treat each other.
Key Themes
Generational differences. MKG's team skews millennial and Gen Z, and Christine sees real differences. Millennials had the "broken" experience of entering the workforce during the 2008 recession; Gen Z grew up with different expectations around purpose, equity, and flexibility. The lesson? Don't dismiss these differences — design for them.
Pay transparency. MKG is incredibly transparent with their finances, including pay. The positives are clear — it builds trust and helps with talent acquisition. But there are drawbacks too, like the challenge of rewarding super-performers when pay bands are visible. It's a genuinely nuanced conversation about whether transparency is always the answer.
Work From Wherever. One of their most popular benefits is the ability to work from anywhere in the world. It's a trust signal — "when we give people flexibility, people tend to wanna stay." But it requires clear collaboration hours and a mature, adult-to-adult relationship.
Culture adds, not culture fits. MKG hires for "culture adds" — people who bring new skill sets, experiences, and diversity. As Christine says, there have been unpleasant people at MKG, but they didn't stay very long. The bar is high, and it's intentional.
Top 3 Takeaways
Crisis can be a catalyst for culture. The pandemic forced MKG to make brutal calls, but it also gave them permission to rebuild their culture from the ground up. Sometimes the hardest moments are the ones that clarify what you actually stand for.
Pay transparency is a trade-off, not a silver bullet. It builds trust and attracts talent, but it can create friction when you want to reward exceptional performers. Be clear about what you're gaining — and what you're giving up.
Flexibility is a trust signal. Allowing people to work from anywhere isn't just a perk — it communicates that you trust your people. And when people feel trusted, they stay.
More From Truth, Lies & Work
If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like:
- The Truth Behind the Twitter Layoffs
- The Secret to Leading Gen-Z and Millennials
- Oliver Yonchev of Flight Story
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 ElliottThe 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.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Nice.
Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
LaurenIt was really tough. It was, uh, probably to date one of the worst experiences, quite frankly and honestly and openly, that I think this agency and anyone in this industry will have to go through. We had to lay off 50% of our workforce, and that really, really, really stung. It was very hard.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to the Truth, Lies, and Workplace Culture podcast, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a business psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottWe are here to help you simplify the science of people and create amazing workplace cultures. What are we talking about this week, Al?
Al ElliottSo, this week we are talking about women in leadership. It's a case study featuring MKG, which is a fairly sizable agency based out of New York and Los Angeles, fully female-led. Really interesting people. We're going to meet those guys in a second. However, you might remember back from our news roundup last week where there was a survey by Barron's, I think it was, Leah. Does that sound right?
Leanne ElliottYeah, that's right.
Al ElliottUm, and they released the top CEOs of 2023. Of the 25 leaders, 16% were women, which on first glance sounds a bit like, oh, that's not very good. But actually, when we think about it, if only 6% of CEOs are actually female, then that's a pretty good result, isn't it? Because we're saying approximately 1 in 20 CEOs are women and 1 in 6 are the best. CEOs in the world. So, to a certain extent, they're kind of smashing it, aren't they, Leah?
Leanne ElliottThey are. They really, really are. And I mean, I have to admit, I do have a slight beef with the term women in leadership or female leaders, because why do we have to be gendered? Like, you don't hear, like, male leaders, men in leadership. I guess it's the same when in, like, other industries, when you hear people say, like, oh, female comedian, it's like, they're just a comedian. Um, so yeah, I have a bit of a beef with it. I don't see the need to, to talk about women in leadership in that way. At the same time, I think it's useful to continue the conversation, point out the inequity for the fact we even still have to talk about women in leadership as a thing. Um, and I guess celebrate women in a really positive way and in a way that will continue to drive change. So yes, for today I'm embracing women in leadership, female leaders. And I am very excited to explore this case study, uh, with the incredible women from MKG.
Al ElliottSo before we meet them, it's our favourite time of the week. It's the News Roundup.
Leanne ElliottCue the jingle.
Al ElliottIf you've never heard this before, then the News Roundup is basically where Leanne just tells us 2 or 3 stories that have caught her eye this week, including usually a word of the week.
Leanne ElliottI do have a word of the week.
Al ElliottWord of the week alert.
Leanne ElliottGrandternity.
Al ElliottGranternity.
Leanne ElliottTell you what the emphasis goes. Granternity, granternity.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottYou're losing the will to live, aren't you?
Al ElliottThese Word of the Weeks, they're just— I swear to God, I was gonna say they're made up, but of course they're made up because all words are made up. Words are just arbitrarily rearranging letters or shapes into a certain word, but they just seem to get more and more weird. Can I have a guess at what it is?
Leanne ElliottPlease do.
Al ElliottIs it when it's not maternity for mothers or paternity for fathers, it's grandternity for grandmasters of chess? No, for grandparents.
Leanne ElliottIt absolutely is, yeah. So this was reported in the Wall Street Journal this week. Grandternity, special paid time off for new grandparents, hoping that to keep older workers engaged, stop them from retiring, stop them from moving to other jobs, as we've talked about before. We're working much longer now, so these things are having to become a thing. So apparently this was first championed by Roisin McKenzie, who is the Chief People Officer at Saga, an organisation that Al cannot wait to be, to be old enough for.
Al ElliottThis might sound a bit strange, but Saga have got some great European car insurance. There's only 2 companies in the UK that do great and cheap European car insurance. You can stay all year round. And that is a company called Stuart Collins and Saga. So I'm 4 years away from being 50 and therefore joining Saga and enjoying paying a little bit less for my car insurance. Feels like this should be an advert for Saga.
Leanne ElliottIt does. But you know what? This is also— I haven't thought about it before— this is also a really good example of external consumer brand aligning with internal employer brand. It is valuing the older person as a consumer, as an employee. So yeah, Saga have rolled out 5 days of paid Granternity. What does it take to take your teeth out? Granternity leave.
Al ElliottWell, if you're a grandparent, you probably don't have teeth.
Leanne ElliottWell, maybe not. Maybe in these times, getting younger. Anyway, granternity leave. 2,500 employees have been offered it and 32 have so far taken it up. Um, so yeah, it may well become a thing to engage our older workers, and other companies are starting to roll it out also. Uh, they include tech company Cisco, consulting firm Mercer, and hiring platform HireVue. So there you go, Granturn.
Al ElliottInteresting. So what else we got, Leah?
Leanne ElliottI have a little something that caught my eye this week that I thought might make for an interesting discussion. Um, you haven't seen A Bug's Life, have you?
Al ElliottI've seen about 4 films, and 3 of those are Bourne Identity ones.
Leanne ElliottOr is it just one film you've watched 3 times?
Al ElliottWell, I have watched them all 3 times, but yes, that's not the point. Anyway, what film, what film do you want to talk about today that I've not seen?
Leanne ElliottSo, A Bug's Life. You know that, you know, this scene with the flies? I've talked about this before. Like, a fly is with his mate. One of the flies is like flying towards the light and he's like, don't go, don't do it. And he's like, I can't help it, it's so beautiful. Well, that's basically how I feel about Elon Musk. Like, I don't, I don't want to look, I don't want to engage in the shite that he spouts, but I just can't help it. I just can't help it.
Al ElliottHe's, he's a very unique, interesting person. He— I don't know whether he just doesn't care what people think or whether he's clever enough to know and he cares very much what people think and then just says stuff just to get a little bit of engagement.
Leanne ElliottMaybe, maybe.
Al ElliottLet's see what this time.
Leanne ElliottSee what you think. So this week Elon contributed to the comments under an Islamophobic nonprofit's video— not so cool— where commentators insinuated that single white women were turning France into a majority Muslim country. Mr. Musk claimed the childless have little stake in the future, at which point another commented— another user commented that democracy is probably unworkable long term without limiting suffrage to parents, which basically means that only people who have children should have the right to vote. To which Elon Musk responded, yup.
Al ElliottHe's such a— he just, he just, he just runs into conversations, drops a hand grenade, and runs away, doesn't he? He really is an idiot.
Christine CaponeIt's—
Al Elliottdo you know what? I can see his point that we are childless, very happily childless and childfree. Um, I don't know, one of those terms is, is like good and one's bad. I can't remember if you're supposed to say childfree or childless. I can't remember. Um, but, um, we— to be fair, you know, in 50 years' time, our lineage has stopped. So I can see where he's going with it. I still think it's stupid, but I can see where he's going with it.
Leanne ElliottStupid. Sound like, um, what's his name?
Al ElliottJeremy Clarkson.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Stupid.
Al ElliottStupid. Stupid idea.
Leanne ElliottYeah, you can. This is why I think it'll be an interesting discussion point on LinkedIn. You can, you can see the, the logic in that, that if you don't have a legacy to leave, then, you know, where's your place in defining the future? But similarly, you know, the decisions that are made in politics today will still very much influence our present and our immediate future. Um, and also as well, just because you have a child, I don't think that makes you qualified to decide what the best future for the world is. You know, there's plenty of parents out there that are doing a pretty shitty job as it goes. So actually, do we then bring in a complicated points-based system as to how good a parent you are to then justify getting the vote? I don't know, it seems an unnecessary argument to me.
Al ElliottMy solution is that if at the point you die you don't have children, you're not allowed to vote from that point forward.
Leanne ElliottOh, see, now I think that's fair.
Al ElliottSo if you're dead and you don't have children, you can't vote. Okay, fair enough.
Leanne ElliottFair enough. But yeah, I think— do you know what? I think the problem is because Elon has a very, very large and public platform, and a lot of people listen to these very conservative right-wing views that he has. And I— and that's fine, you know, freedom of speech. But there's also lots of fake news in there. He talks about, you know, the decreasing population being one of the biggest threats to humanity. What he's talking about is a decreasing white population. In the US. Population as a whole globally is going up and is expected to continue to grow for the next 70, 80 years, which I think then puts it down to a case of it just being racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and all in all, just, I think, fueling these very divisive opinions that can have a very scary and have had a very scary impact on on our society, particularly, you know, minority groups such as women, such as people from the queer community. How many rights have we already seen rolled back in the last few years, which is, you know, the legacy of Donald Trump being president for, for that time? So, um, so yeah, this is worrying to me that this type of narrative is even becoming a thing. You know, Handmaid's Tale is starting to feel a bit more like possible future rather than dystopian fiction. But maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive. So should we put it on LinkedIn, Al? Do you think?
Al ElliottYeah, stick it on LinkedIn, see what people say. So if you don't follow us on LinkedIn, just type Truth, Lies and Work onto LinkedIn and you'll find us. We're fucking everywhere on there. So shall we go to our guests? Okay, so quick story about MKG. I was— we were doing— Leanne and I were doing an episode around about, I think it was women-led companies. This is probably going back to about January this year. This is currently being recorded in July. Um, and so I wanted to try and find some people who'd be great guests for this. And I found this company and it was in New York and LA called MKG, um, fully women, women-led. Um, and also the more you dig into the cooler, like the company looks. And so I was like, brilliant. So I tried emailing, nothing. I tried, uh, connecting to the, the, the people on LinkedIn, totally ignored, blanked. Um, I tried to find them on Twitter, couldn't find them. So do you know what I did? I did what I did, what the old school used to do. And I picked my phone up and I called them and I left a message at their office. Bit weird.
Leanne ElliottI love it. It also, I mean, it is a beautiful Gen X stroke boomer move, Al, and one that I applaud you for. But it also reminds me, we've seen those videos on, I'd say TikTok, but you're not on TikTok, like YouTube Shorts. The TikTok, you know, the YouTube Shorts where it's like someone will do like a skit on how different generations answer the phone. Like, the boomer's like, hello! Gen X is like, hi! Um, millennial's like, who's calling me? Why would anyone call me? And then Gen Z are like, what, what, why, what, what is that? Why is it ringing? What's happening? How times change.
Al ElliottAnyway, I feel like we've digressed a little bit.
Leanne ElliottSo you old schooled MKG and did they come back to you?
Al ElliottYes, we did. They put us onto a publicist, I think, who arranged the interview, got to meet the ladies. Oh my God, they are so cool. I've got such a business crush on them. They are just the coolest people in the world. Let me tell you a little bit about MKG, right? So MKG mainly do live events. So they do virtual events, live events. Um, anything with social impact, anything which is around what they call experiential marketing. So it's an experience, the marketing. If you've ever been to like a festival, um, and you've walked into like something that's been made out to be like, I don't know, a dystopian future in a room or something, that's the sort of thing they do. They've got 54 people. What's interesting is if you look at their About Us page, you will see that every single person who has a title with the word director in it presents as a woman, which I thought was pretty cool.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Very cool.
Al ElliottVery mixed, a very mixed bag of people there, uh, but they have their values. So this is what I quite liked. Number 1, bring your funky self. Number 2, always keep learning. One of ours, Leanne. Um, number 3, have open, honest, and brave conversations. Number 4, be a force for good. And number 5, embrace our differences and celebrate diversity, which is definitely what they do with clients such as Motorola, Meta, uh, who else have they got? They've got Target, HBO Max. They've got huge companies who are definitely on board. Um, they're just a really, really cool company who are growing massively and probably going to be the titans of the future.
Leanne ElliottA really interesting case study because it's not all, as you'll see, plain sailing. This isn't a story of success from, from day one or indeed overnight success. So a really interesting example, I think, of, of how to navigate these challenging times. So let's go and meet our first guest, Lauren Austin, who is the Chief Creative Officer at MKG.
Christine CaponeI joined MKG in 2007, uh, like literally off Craigslist ad. Um, I was not happy in my job and was at that point in life where you're just like, I'll take anything, and joined, um, this little company that I had never heard of that really had no place in the market yet. It was tiny. I grew a team there. Um, and then eventually hired our first really creative team, uh, and grew that and, uh, eventually wound up where I am, which is overseeing all of the creative team and all of the production team and working in partnership with Christine, who really, uh, runs the business.
Leanne ElliottAnd our second guest is Christine Capone, the president of MKG.
LaurenI joined about 8 years ago. And came here with no agency experience. So I think when I say that, it's very shocking to people and shocking to myself at this point. But I really worked in brand partnerships the, for the majority of my career. I worked at the USTA for the US Open Tennis Championships and really managed, um, new business client relationships, partnership marketing. Uh, worked at a retail company and oversaw all of our sponsorship negotiations, executions, and licensing. And I got a phone call one day and she was the former managing director here and she had said, hey, your resume came across my desk and I am looking for someone that can add to this business and not just kind of fit into the business.
Leanne ElliottSo yes, 2 incredible guests, 2 incredible women, and 2 of the most influential leaders in the creative industry today. I'm looking forward to this one.
Al ElliottWe'll start at the beginning, not at the very beginning, because we're going to hear a little bit later on about how Christine and Lauren sort of got into into, into MKG. But Christine took over as the president around about December 2020. I don't know if you remember, but there were some significant events that were going on around about 2020, 2021. Obviously, the pandemic was in full swing. Now, can you imagine being an events, a marketing agency that just does live events in a time when we're locked down for 2 years?
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Hmm.
Al ElliottSo I wanted to ask Christine, what was it like running this marketing agency and taking over what probably is one of the most difficult points in history?
LaurenIt was really tough. It was, uh, probably to date one of the worst experiences, quite frankly and honestly and openly, that I think, uh, this agency and anyone in this industry will have to go through. Um, we had to lay off 50% of our workforce and that really, really, really stung. Um, it was very hard. What we sort of haven't talked about yet is MKG's a really special place and the people here are really special and having to do that really hit in a, in a big way. Um, but it was something that we needed to do to sustain the business and honestly to get to where we are now. And we knew that, um, clients stopped spending money and we had to say, okay, in order for us to keep a place that people are going to be able to come back to when we know we can get to the other side of this, we have to make some really difficult business choices. I would say that the people that were a part of that from management down were, um, Incredibly empathetic to the situation, supportive of all the decisions being made, and did everything they could to help anyone that did not make it to the other side of this with us, um, land on their feet. And the good news is a lot of those people are back. It did allow us the opportunity to bring on new amazing talent that we probably never would've met if something like that Didn't happen.
Leanne ElliottAnd as Lauren discovered, it was also a great time to reset the company culture.
Christine CaponeBut also there were some really positive things that came out of it for us, for the business as a whole. It forced us to not only rebuild, but really like do some soul searching and examine our culture and our core values and Really with a shrunk, shrunken team and a core team, we really did a lot of like hard conversations with the people that did stay about what they loved about this place and what we had an opportunity to change. And so a lot of the work that we did, maybe because we weren't busy with client work, was internal work. Um, and, you know, thinking about how we were positioning ourselves, how we were marketing ourselves, what we wanted to do, the vision and the direction of the company, um, and a lot with our culture.
Leanne ElliottYou know, I think often the reason that leaders are reluctant to, to make a change to their, their team or their culture is because they know that performance will more than likely suffer. I mean, there's a really simple and often cited model, um, for team performance by Bruce Tuckman, who talks about forming, storming, norming, performing. It's a catchy name. I think that's what it's called. But basically, it does what it says on the tin. So, when a team is formed, there is a sense of excitement, perhaps some anxiety, you know, to get started in. And typically, this team doesn't have a clear mission. That's the forming stage when the team gets together. As a team gets to know each other, know their ways of working, then they start to potentially push against those established boundaries, and true characters will start to surface. I'm sure we've all been there. We've been in a company for, you know, a few weeks. That's the— that's called the storming phase. Then we get the norming phase. People start to figure out, figure out how, you know, to work together, resolve differences, appreciate each other's strengths, um, and then start to really, you know, respect each other and their leaders as well. And then after that comes performing, because that's when everyone's in flow, everyone's performing, everyone's cool, everyone's happy. Everyone's reaching their potential. And no leader is going to want to rock the boat in the norming or the performing stage because it's just going to make things even harder, even if it does mean that rocking that boat might be better for the financial viability or sustainability of the business. So I understand it. And I think so when you're, when you're faced with an external change like the pandemic, like the financial crisis, like an acquisition or a takeover, It kind of gives you that, because everything's changed anyway, and everything's disrupted, it kind of gives you that opportunity to rethink things, rethink your values, reevaluate what your mission is. And I think really embracing the opportunity that comes with teams being in that forming and storming stage. And I think, you know, in terms of redundancy, in the case of MKG as well, it really helps those people that remain. to overcome that survivor's guilt that often people feel, because you're basically saying, you know, what's, what's done is done. We are now a different company with a different mission and a different future. And I think that can be really empowering and engaging for any team members that are left behind.
Al ElliottThat's a really good summary. And I, I, I have, I've heard you talk about these 4 before, and this is the first time I've really kind of like been able to put it into, it's like, okay, this is, that's what the context is. I get it. Um, so that's really, really cool. Before we dive into the rest of it, I want to learn a bit more about the culture at MKG. Around the same time that Christine became president, um, Lauren took a, took the lead in the culture. And so I was like, what was it at the time that you wanted? What was your vision for the culture for MKG?
Christine CaponeCulture had always been a really important piece of MKG previously, and I had been there and I knew the magic of that culture. But I also knew the weaknesses or like the opportunities to improve that culture. So I wanted to really work to take what we loved and what worked well, but also grow in new directions, both with staff input and with leadership sort of intuition. We worked a lot with our team through surveying, through conversation to really discover What they cared about, um, what aspects of our culture were working, what aspects of our culture were not. Um, and we always try to take staff feedback, but we don't follow staff feedback blindly. We take staff feedback and then we apply what we know both about building a healthy business, longevity, um, maturity. We, We add things to it to make final decisions, but we always try to put staff input and staff feedback at the center of decisions that we make, especially around culture.
Leanne ElliottSo the team are clearly really keen on social purpose, but how do we balance that with the commercial side of our business? Can we be both? Can we be purpose-led and commercially viable?
Christine CaponeIn the context of where the world was in 2020, A lot of the conversations that we were having centered around purpose and social purpose. And a lot of our team really felt passionately that they wanted the company to go in a direction where we were doing positive, making positive impact in the world. And I think as leaders, we had to reconcile Yes, absolutely. That sounds great. That sounds great to both of us too. But the reality of our business is we do brand action and we do experiential market for some marketing for some of the biggest brands in the world. And we wanna push our creative team and our strategists to create work or pitch work that is, you know, creates positive change in the world and is socially good. But we also do work that is Just great design work. So I think a lot of our job was trying to work with the team to understand, you know, how do we pay your salaries? How do we, you know, keep the company going without moving in a direction of like basically nonprofit, which I think at one point in 2020, our team would have gone all in on that.
Al ElliottWhat is really clear about these women is that they are balancing perfectly Leadership, culture, team, but also profitability, commerciality. That's what's so impressive. I think there's so many companies out there who have, who have done their like, you know, oh, we're doing a culture piece and we're gonna do this. And it's just, what, what do they talk about? Not pillow talk. What's the word when you just pay lip service? That's the one. So it's just lip service where, and then the kind of the other end where they're just like, oh yeah, we just let everyone do what they want and they can come in for an hour a week if they want. You know, it's like, well, where's the profitability? That's fine for a company. It was very, very high profitability. But for most of us, we're like, we need people to do the work. So I thought that was really, really interesting. I asked Christine about nonprofit, and of course she's going to say, no, we couldn't be nonprofit. But she seemed to think that you can get your sort of purpose from actually helping brands to be better.
LaurenAnd if there's a place for us to come in and try to make a brand better, We should action that and we should try to do so. And that is sort of the positive in the work that we're doing here. Um, I think it was a, you know, a time where people really started to question who they're aligned with and brand values. And that was really tough because we all question that often, but we also need to, one, keep people employed, two, put great work out there, and three, that's sort of our What we need to do as marketers is make a difference. So backing away from those brands and backing away from those moments, we're, we're not helping anything.
Leanne ElliottSo the team at MKG skews towards millennials and Gen Z, which is actually really common for a creative agency. So we asked Lauren and Christine, what are the challenges with having a younger team? What are the differences?
Christine CaponeWe do see differences between our millennial staff and our Gen Z staff. Because our millennial staff had the beginning of their career be somewhat, you know, what's normal, but normal, a shared experience for the 3 of us. Millennials had that experience. Our younger team, this is their experience. They don't know anything other than this. And so I think there is going to be, especially going forward, a bigger generational divide as We're depending on what happens with the future of work, the future of company culture, uh, the future of work from home. Like all of these things are still so up in the air right now. Um, not just for us, I would say globally.
LaurenYeah.
Christine CaponeAnd I think it will determine a major generational divide. Uh, but yeah, I think purpose is something that you see in all the studies about Gen Z. It's not just purpose in work, it's purpose across the board. Um, and social engagement is such a big part of their generation and they're so engaged politically and engaged socially and they've just grown up in such a different way than, uh, we have. I think if we didn't work here, we would probably have limited exposure, um, to Gen Z and it's, uh, it's great. And especially in what we do, it's, it's invaluable to us. You know, I, I lead the creative team, but I'm always like, I'm the old person in the room. You guys, you guys tell me like, what, what do you think we should do here? Well, you, this is you. We're talking to you. You are the audience. So let's talk about it.
Leanne ElliottI think what's really cool about Gen Z is that actually championing things that are going to make work better for all of us that we can all benefit from. I mean, having purpose as a definition is a, it is a psychology phenomenon. Um, it means that we're doing meaningful work that typically is aligned with our values and gives us a feeling of fulfillment, a feeling that our life is, is, you know, has purpose. That's exactly what the definition is. And when we experience purpose most powerfully, it's when it comes from various different aspects of our life. So some of our purpose is gonna come from work, some is gonna come from our community, some is gonna come from our relationships. It rarely will come from one source if we are truly, truly fulfilled. And what's really interesting from a research perspective is that we know purpose is really good for our physical and mental health. So typically people who experience purpose have less instances of cardiovascular disease and lower mortality. Research has also found that leaders that demonstrate clear purpose have happier, more productive employees. And from a commercial perspective, purpose-driven companies typically benefit from faster growth, more product launches, quicker speed to market, more successful change. It sounds really cheesy, but purpose is really good for the heart, the soul, and for business.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Yeah.
Al ElliottAnd it's quite interesting when you think about the generational, the way that the generations work, like Gen X were kind of almost like innovation with money, with finance. You think about like the '80s of the, you know, the The Gordon Gekkos and all that kind of stuff. And then you hit the millennials where they're sort of like, they were innovative with digital. Um, and so you've got the Mark Zuckerbergs in the, who built social networks, et cetera, et cetera. So we get now to the Gen Zs and they've got 2 generations, probably 3 generations ahead of them where people haven't really talked much about purpose. They've just talked about either making money or making cool things. There's no real, like, there's no sort of heroes for people about purpose. So I can see why they're doing this. I can see why it's important. to Gen Z, even though I'm, what, 30 years older than the average Gen Zer. I can— sorry, maybe 20 years older. Um, I can definitely see that. And I think it's really, really cool. One of the other things which was really interesting was that MKG have this pay transparency. Now they're big on equity. And so part of that is to ensure that basically they're very transparent on pay. They're very transparent about all the finances. So I had to ask Christine a little bit more about this.
LaurenI think equity is also something else this generation talks a lot about. And we've learned that, you know, the, we didn't grow up having salary transparency and, um, all of this is really new and sometimes very frightening, honestly, as employers, I think, to have those conversations. But this generation is an advocate for equity. And, um, that's also, I think, really positive, honestly. It's scary in certain settings and conversations, but I think it's a really good thing in the end, and it's really testing us and pushing us to our limits and, uh, sort of exposing whenever there's inequity and, and causing a ripple effect in a, in a way that hopefully will help things for generations to come. So I think the equity piece is, is a really positive thing of that generation. What we wanted to do is make sure that we were, one, being equitable, two, we were being competitive. Um, so we did an audit and we'll continue to do them at least twice a year to better understand what the market is paying, um, at the, you know, present time, uh, looking at our competitors, looking at the industry, looking at the size of our business, looking at locations and making sure that if there is, um, any gaps that we need to close, we're, we're closing those gaps. And in the future, every job here has salary bands attached to them and We're working towards really positive conversations with people when they're saying, hey, I'm at X and I wanna be at Y. Okay, well, here's the band and this is in line with what the market is paying. Here are our resources. Here's where we pulled this information. In order for you to get to that point, here's what you need to do. You know, in some cases that might just be being at the top of the top level for that job, and in some cases it might mean Moving on to the next level and getting a promotion, et cetera.
Leanne ElliottYeah, there are many upsides to pay transparency. Certainly in terms of a talent acquisition strategy, we know that candidates like to see that pay transparency in job adverts, but, you know, in terms of the organisation, it builds trust with leadership. And it's really fundamental if you want people to go the extra mile, because how decisions are made, how pay is determined, having that transparency enables employees to feel a sense of organisational justice. That's a feeling that decisions are made fairly and transparently within the organisation. So what that means when we're in an organisation that we believe does have positive organisational justice, it has a direct impact on our attitudes and behaviours. We feel more job satisfaction. We go the extra mile. We're more committed to the organisation. We feel a sense of belonging. Our wellbeing is better. It really is such an interesting aspect of engagement, organisational justice. So having this transparency around pay is one of the key tenets of that that are going to help businesses like MKG reap the benefits of these positive attitudes and behaviours. Of course, given the financial pressures today, the ongoing cost of living crisis, rising student debt, you know, rising house prices, the fact that many younger workers, you know, our Gen Zs have seen their parents be burnt significantly during the global financial crisis and the mass redundancies that came then. It's not a massive surprise that for our younger generations, there is an element of Show Me the Money. Have you seen that film, Al?
Al ElliottAs we find out from the previous week, no, I haven't. I've just seen that scene. But I, I promise you, we will sit down, we'll watch all the films. I've not seen Rocky. Um, I've not seen—
Leanne ElliottActually, I've not seen Rocky actually.
Al ElliottSo we will, we'll, we'll take care of that this weekend. Okay. So back to MKG. I had a question around this because if everyone gets paid within the same bands, then what happens when you have a Don Draper star? And I'm sorry for the cheesy analogy, but imagine you've got the absolute superstar who comes in and you're like, yeah, you know, they, they're gonna get, then they won't get outta bed for the amount of money that everyone else is getting paid because they believe they are better. And in some cases, they might be. So I had to ask Lauren, what, how do you deal with that? Does, does the pay transparency, does that risk not getting these kinds of people?
Christine CaponePay equity has been overall, I would say, very positive for the team. Um, but there are some negatives too. On the employer side, it's challenging because Sometimes we lose people because we can't, they want more than the band allows for. And to be equitable, we have to say no, like this is the cap of the band. And either when we're hiring, we'll lose somebody amazing because we literally, they, they're asking for something that's way outside of our salary band and it would be unfair to our current employees. Um, or we'll lose super performers. You know, 10 years ago you had a super performer at an agency and you were able to Give them bonuses or increases or, you know, get them to a place because you wanted to keep them and keep competitive. Um, you can't do that anymore. You have to, you, you sometimes lose amazing employees because, uh, there is not a promotion available. So as an employer, it's, you know, I think it's, it feels better for us because we wanna be equitable to our employees and we wanna be transparent to our employees.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Christine CaponeWe're incredibly transparent with our finances to our employees. Um, but there are some drawbacks for us too, which is that sometimes you miss out on or you lose great talent, uh, in this scenario that you didn't before.
Leanne ElliottI think Lauren's right. You know, there will be instances where they will miss out on talent, but that's going to be talent that probably wants something else, wants a different career path, or wants more corporate organization with that accelerated trajectory in terms of development and pay scales. But, you know, remember we talked about a few episodes ago, the toxic superstar. We don't always want those Don Drapers in our organization. They can be disruptive. They can be, you know, counterproductive. We think they're going to elevate performance, but what the psychology shows us is it actually brings performance down as a team. So often I think whilst there may be times where, you know, Lauren and Christine might think, oh, that person would have been great, I would question whether they'd actually have the unity in their culture that they have now if they had brought people like that into the business, and particularly on a different pay scale.
Al ElliottMakes perfect sense. Um, we'll link to the episode about toxic superstars. Really, really interesting. I think we get Ryan Sherman on it, do we?
Leanne ElliottWe do. Ryan Sherman and the founders of Audax, which is an experiential team building. They— this is a match made in heaven.
Al ElliottYep. So we'll link to that in the show notes.
Leanne ElliottSo when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, we had to ask Christine and Lauren How are they currently doing it? And from their experience, what are recruits looking for in a company in 2023?
LaurenWhat everyone wants right now is to be thanked, to be encouraged, to learn every day, and to feel like they're getting paid what they're worth. And that is how we're trying to lead and everything else in the background, snacks in the office, you know, uh, happy hours, et cetera, are really important. And we're gonna focus on them and concentrate on them. But we've taken a big step back and, you know, we, we wanna focus dollars, money, attention there.
Christine CaponeWhat we think is, you know, part of the selling proposition of coming to work here is our culture, um, and the work that we do and the, you know, learning opportunity that to build a career or start a career often, cuz we're we are talking to younger people. Um, but I think, you know, we come, again, generationally, we come from a place, we've worked at many places. We, you know, we've been around the block, so we know that there's, salary is incredibly important. There's no denying that. But there's more to a happy career than salary. Um, and we, you know, try to create a place and create an agency that is a great place to work. I think we both agreed that having in-office time and in-office experience was key to building a company that we wanted to work at. We didn't want 100 satellites floating around Zoom. We wanted the community and the friendships and the work relationships that we had grown up with and that Made not only MKG a great place to work, but previous places that we had been at as well. So that was really important. Um, but we also knew that flexibility was really, really important to our employees. So, um, we chose to do, uh, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in the office, which is not unique. And that seems to be the, the sort of standard thing in New York and LA, and I think many other cities. Um, but what we also did was, uh, try something that, to be honest, we're still experimenting with, uh, called core collaboration hours. So our team is, for the most part, split between New York and LA. There's a 3-hour time difference between those 2 offices, and it's always been problematic because when you're collaborating cross-coast, uh, you know, there's mornings where LA people are expected to be on the phone at 6:00 AM and there's evenings where New York people find themselves on a client call at 9:00 PM, 10:00 PM. Um, so what we wanted to do was kind of sandwich or, uh, smush our day, um, into a more overlapping and reasonable chunk of time where people were expected to actually collaborate. So core collaboration hours are different in New York and LA. Intentionally so that they overlap more. So in New York, we're 11 to 5, and in LA, we're 9 to 3. And we set those hours as saying, these are the hours where you can set meetings, have brainstorms, um, do calls, because those are the times when like it is okay to lean on and collaborate with your cohorts. Outside of those hours, You do you. Get your job done. We expect you to get the job done. But if you're a morning person, um, and you like to wake up at 6:00 AM, work out, then be at the office by 8:30, do that. If you are not a morning person, you're 25 and you were out late the night before and 11:00 AM sounds like a better time for you to just clock in, do that. It works better for people who have kids. I had 2 young kids during COVID and My whole schedule is totally different than it was when I was 26, 27. Um, so we tried to create a schedule and a work expectation that was flexible for lots of different people at lots of different life stages.
Leanne ElliottSo one idea that Chrissy and Lauren had was to allow their employees to work from anywhere in the world.
Christine CaponeAnd then on top of that, we added some other benefits in. So we have something called Work From Wherever. Uh, where depending on tenure, um, every employee is allowed a certain amount of weeks of the year where they can work from wherever. So if you wanna take a month and go to Bali, as long as you're, you're able to keep working, you can work from there. Um, if you wanna get a house share in the Jersey Shore, um, for a month in the summer and work from there, you can do that. So we tried to add that flexibility. Um, and then we also on Fridays added something, um, where it's essentially no meetings are supposed to be set on Fridays. So it's called Focus Friday and it's just time that's set for you to like catch up on your week or do the work that requires real focus for you.
Al ElliottI mean, that is pretty cool that you can, like, we work from anywhere in the world, but then we work for ourselves. I can't think of many jobs where, or companies where you could just go in and say, okay, right, I'm off to Bali for a month. Mind you, don't go to Bali, go to Lombok. Bali is horrible. Sorry, Balinese, but, um, Bali is not a great place to go, but Lombok is great. Top tip there. Um, but, um, anyway, where was I before I ranted about Bali?
Leanne ElliottYou're not sure of any organ— many organizations would, would allow that.
Al ElliottWould just allow you to go, right, I'm off, I'm off. And in fact, if, um, if you go back and read the uh, The 4-Hour Workweek, that he has an entire— I forget the guy's name. I always forget his name. I can't remember. But, um, he has an entire like way in which you can exit from the workplace and then go and live on a tropical island. But don't need to do that anymore if you work for MKG. So these are all brilliant perks, but I wanted to ask Christine, the president, I wanted to say, are these actually translating into better engagement and better retention?
LaurenWhen we give people flexibility, people tend to wanna stay. Um, it shows that we have trust in them, and I think that we're treating them like the adults we expect them to be. So it takes a little bit of layer of, of that out of things. Um, and as long as people are, which they are, respectful of client needs, their coworkers' needs, and are willing to sort of work around when they need to work around. What those core collaboration hours are, or if they're traveling. Clients seem to really find this to be very future forward. You know, they're excited about it. They think it's cool. They talk about it. Um, so it's, it's actually a pretty marketable part of our business besides just being an employee perk. The, I wouldn't say downside by any means, cuz I don't think there's much downside, but the constant question is. You know, are we always employing a true workforce that is, that understands that while we have these amazing perks and we have these amazing, um, office, technically in-office hours, the expectation is to get your job done and to get your job done well. So again, we put a lot of trust in our people. We have a lot of honest conversations, but That is sort of the one piece that Lauren, myself, and the full leadership team under us has to keep an eye on, and we expect them to keep an eye on. Uh, what we need to do is make sure that it's not being abused, because if it's being abused, there's no gain for us.
Al ElliottI did a bit of research on MKG, as you'd imagine I would, and someone's told me that they'd never met an unpleasant person at MKG. Which I thought was such a cool thing for, for someone to describe your team as. So I told Lauren and Christine that this is what I'd heard and said to them, what do you think the secret is to building a happy team?
Christine CaponeFor the record, there have been unpleasant people at MKBHD, but they didn't stay very long. Um, and I think that's the testament to our culture. Um, we've, we've always had core values and they've changed over the years and But I think one major, major tenet that's kind of like an unspoken piece of our culture is we are a culture of kindness.
LaurenWe— No asshole rule. That's the nice way of saying it. That's our rule. We do.
Christine CaponeIt's work is hard enough. You spend so much of your time, whether it's actually in the office or on your computer working and with your coworkers. That to work with jerks or to work with people who are unkind to one another is absolutely a deal breaker for both of us. Um, so it's an unspoken part of our hiring and recruiting process. Um, and, you know, we are, we are not looking to hire people that we want to be friends with. You know, we are constantly looking for additive, culture adds, um, people that add new skill sets, new experiences, diversity of many kinds. Um, you know, we're trying to grow our business. We are looking for people who come from outside of our industry. There's lots of ways we wanna add to our existing business and our culture, but you have to be kind. You have to be respectful and kind and empathetic and pleasant to work with.
LaurenI think that's the Other unspoken thing that's sort of the in-between with our people being kind and why our flexibility works. If you don't care about the work we're doing, about, you know, meeting expectations and deliverables for your coworker, if you're not adding to what we're doing, if you're detracting from it, um, Lauren and I tend to have those conversations pretty quickly. We want not only people to be kind, but we want them to have fun here. and be as committed as they should be to a job. You know, this isn't life, but it's an important piece of life. Um, so I would add, you know, they need to care and they do, which is great.
Leanne ElliottIt really does sound like an adult-to-adult relationship, and that's something that we've championed for a long time, and trust is really fundamental. And I won't go into this again, but if you don't trust your employees, why did you hire them in the first place? You know? And I think another thing is that being nice is really underestimated. I've had clients say to me, you know, oh, I think they might be okay at management, but I think they're just a bit too nice. And I think that's a, I think it's an abused word. And I think it's a, it's, it's totally underestimated how being nice is important. You know, as a leader, transformational leadership, the main pillar of that, which is still the dominant theory of leadership today. Is being likable, and nice people are likable. And when it comes to civility in the workplace, it's not a case of, of working with your best mates and having really, really, you know, close personal relationships. It's being civil. It's being respectful of each other. And we know that those behaviours, those civil behaviours, directly impact employee job satisfaction, wellbeing, organisational commitment, the quality of products and services that come out of the organisation, employee retention. Among loads of other things. So I think being nice, being civil, is probably one of the easiest things that you could try and do within your business that will have the most impact. So one of MKG's core values is being diverse, and they're certainly changing the status quo by having an all-women leadership team. But how do they achieve this, particularly in an industry that often doesn't have many people from underrepresented groups within it? So we asked them. How do you do this? How do you make a diverse culture? And is there a danger here of positive discrimination? We'll hear from Christine first and then Lauren. Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)And 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking.
Al ElliottAnd you're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number 1 marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)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 behavioural 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?
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)It can.
Leanne ElliottAnd are we all just status-seeking monkeys?
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)I am.
Al ElliottGo and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Keep that in.
LaurenOne of the things that we did, I would say in maybe early 2021, is take a look at our recruiting practices. And I would say that has been an unspoken and spoken focus of Lauren and mine since that day is let's add, let's bring additive talent here and additive talent in all different ways, um, in background, you know, in race and, um, sexuality and actual skillset. You know, there's so many different things and, uh, we tried to really focus on, okay, if we're gonna be representative of the world through the work we do, this organization needs to be representative of that too. Um, we took a look at all of our job postings and went through them to make sure that they were, you know, they were not biased in any way. One thing we're actually starting to do now, we haven't done it yet, is behavioral style interviewing for all of our people to make sure that there's no biases in, um, how we're conducting our recruitment conversations. Um, and then we really took a look at the places we were going. to, for talent, job boards, et cetera, and made sure that they were casting a wider net, um, to allow us to really attract that, that talent. So it's really about doing the right things and taking the right steps, and a really amazing workforce will pleasantly just be on your website one day.
Christine CaponeThis is not an, uh, this was not a unique problem that we had. This is like an industry-wide problem. Uh, there, was especially with the Black community. There's just not a lot of Black representation within advertising and marketing, and especially on the creative side. So working with BLAC in particular has been amazing, not only because it's helped form a new pipeline for us where we have committed and are one of their partners. We're about to do our second year of a BLAC internship class with the hope and intention of you know, hiring full-time from that internship group. Uh, but it also is, you know, we're trying to mentor and foster talent for the future of the industry as well.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Mm-hmm.
Christine CaponeUm, which there's been a lot of amazing programs that have popped up since 2020, uh, in similar ways, trying to get more diverse creative voices into the advertising community. For us, for many years, a lot of the talent looked exactly the same. It was a lot of like young white females and it was very easy for us to hire them because they had the right resume. But we had to say, we have to stop just looking at like the right resume. We have to look at potential. We have to look at other kind of experience. And, um, for us, that wasn't just about diversity. It was about growing our business strategically. It wasn't about just— diversity of our talent, like by the numbers. It was, if we're gonna grow, if we wanna go from being an event experience agency to a creative agency, we need people who come from other aspects of advertising and marketing. So it was kind of a lot of things that worked out really well in our favor and have contributed to us really being a stronger agency in a myriad of ways.
Leanne ElliottI think this ties in so much with what we were talking about last week in our EDI 101 for Leaders episode with the incredible Sonia Thompson. She talked about this a lot, and it really comes to diversifying your candidate pool. And what, what'd she say? Fish where the fish are, which is a really simple way of putting it. We gave lots of examples of how you can do that, the various ways that you can diversify your talent pool without resorting to positive discrimination. So go back. To last week's episode and check that out.
Al ElliottSo at this point, you're probably in agreement with us that they're pretty incredible women. I wanted to know what they thought their superpower was. So here's Christine.
LaurenI grew up at the Jersey Shore and my dad owned a, a slice shop, like a pizzeria. You come in, you get a slice. My mom worked. I'm one of 3 kids. I am very much a fixer middle child. Welcome to my fixer life in this role today. Um, and honestly, uh, it's really interesting because I never would've taken my background and looked at it and said, you're gonna be running a marketing agency one day. But it makes a lot of sense. And I say that because this role has me not just trying to fix, but trying to make things better, bring things together, bring people together. My parents didn't go to college, you know, it's like a, Very deeply emotional subject for me cuz my parents were beyond proud. But what I would sort of say to anyone, and if there's like, and I'm not sure if anyone young listens to this, is if I could do one thing earlier in my life, it's recognize what I was good at and lean into it. I sort of fell into this place and then one day said, oh, I, I get why I'm here and I get how my upbringing and my Big Italian, full of love childhood got me here, but it took me a really long time to realize that it wasn't luck. You know, it wasn't luck. It's life experience. It's understanding how to navigate people. Um, and now when I'm coaching someone that's out of college or a younger person here, I say to them, recognize what What you're good at, recognize what makes you, you, and lean into it. And then also be fully aware of what your strengths are not, and then lean into someone else for those. But don't hide it. You know, it's who you are. You are, and it's a great thing. And I, um, I wish everyone recognizes that. I wish myself would recognize it more in every moment. But hey, you just got emotional. Emotional Christine.
Christine CaponeI'm like the fuck-up of my family. Um, so my family all, you know, went to very prestigious, uh, grad schools and, you know, Columbia Business School, Columbia Law School. And, um, I sort of accidentally fell into this business. I, I went to college, I moved back to New York. thinking I wanted to be a writer. I was always very good at writing, and so I think I knew immediately, oh, lean into what you're good at. I was a great writer. I'd always like been really easy for me. I went to, I wanna say it was Condé Nast, it might not have been, but I had an interview with like an HR person at Condé Nast for an editorial assistant, or not even assistant, editorial internship. And In the interview, she was like looking at my resume. She was like, I see here that you studied, uh, religion and sociology in college. Were you gonna go into the cloth? And I was like, whoa, bitch, I think I'm in the wrong place. Um, so I very quickly realized that I needed, I was not like well-suited for a big corporate place. So my next jump was to a marketing company and it just kind of like happened from there. Um, but I would say opposite of Christine, for me, my advice was, or what worked for me was not necessarily leaning into what I was good at, but leaning into what I actually enjoyed. There were, there are things that I'm good at that I don't like doing. And I've built a career where I don't have to do a lot of them. Um, or ask Christine, I just procrastinate and don't do them. Um, but so for me it was like, I, you know, I tried production, I tried accounts. There were aspects of those things that I was good at. There were aspects of those things that I was very bad at. Um, but I knew that what I actually enjoyed doing was creative and thinking and, um, you know, working with clients in that way, working with them to like bounce creative ideas and come up with something cool and come up with something new. Um, so I just carved a path where I was like, this is what I like doing. So I'm gonna figure out, I'm gonna build a team. I'm gonna hire really great smart people, um, to make me look good and teach me. And I just, that was sort of my path.
Leanne ElliottSome really great lessons there, I think, from Christine and Lauren. And as I said, you know, it wasn't an overnight success. It wasn't a journey without its challenges and bumps in the road. And I think that, one, makes it a more interesting story. Two, makes them more authentic as leaders because, you know, they've demonstrated who they are in the good times and the bad times. And I think there's some really practical things that we can, you know, leaders can also apply within their business.
Al ElliottYeah, I totally agree. So, I mean, as a psychologist, what, what do you think your main takeaways are?
Leanne ElliottI think my first takeaway would be that the creative industry could be a really interesting place for more case studies when it comes to generational differences, because they do have this higher saturation of, of Gen Z, um, and they're, you know, at the forefront of managing these challenges and these differences and how we approach work and what work means to to our younger generations, I think it could be a really interesting breeding ground for research, for psychologists to really dig into that and see what's working, what's not, what impacts that's having, both on the individual, on the organisation. Yeah, I think I'd be really intrigued to see if there are any universities currently partnering with creative agencies to kind of kick off this type of work.
Al ElliottInteresting. And I suppose by their very nature, they are innovative and creative. So, we're going to see some Some interesting things coming out of there, I think. I was really impressed that there was pay transparency. I was really impressed that there was the hybrid working and also work from anywhere. But at the same time, and I'm not taking anything away from MKG, but at the same time, this isn't rocket science. This is just, this is just basic marketing. They just said to their workforce, what do you want? Workforce probably gave them a list of 20 things. They said, we can give you 6 of these. Happy with those? Yeah, find out what people want and give it to them. It's as really, it's as simple as that. So if you're overcomplicating workplace culture, stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Just find a work policy that's flexible enough that works for them, but also allows for collaboration, that kind of thing. It's not rocket science.
Leanne ElliottIt's really not. We've said that all along, haven't we? It's adult-to-adult conversations, adult-to-adult relationships, gaining the employee insights to try and give people what is going to be of value to them and what they need. It's not that difficult, really. And I think the other thing that I would say that, from what I can gather, MKG are doing particularly well is having this intention behind it. I know I keep saying intention, but I think what that means is it's not a scattergun approach of what benefits can we throw out? Let's add granternity because that's a cool trend, yet all of their employees are under 30, which it could be possible. It's unlikely, but it could be possible. But I think that intention is really looking at everything that you have, all the benefits that you have, all the policies that you have, the ways of working, the behaviour you expect. How do they fit into your values? Gathering everything up so you have this comprehensive view of what you're doing. And I think that in itself is a great place to start, just to realise what you have, realise what you can enrich potentially based on your employee insights, and how you can make sure that anything that you're doing, any decision you're making is intentional. It's feeding into the, the culture of your organization.
Al ElliottLove it. Love it. Anything else you took from that?
Leanne ElliottI think the other interesting thing for me was, um, leaders from bringing in leaders from other industries. I think that's always a really interesting thing to do, 'cause I think this kind of cross-pollination between industries often brings in very different perspectives. I've heard of that quite a lot before in the other aspect of my life, which is executive branding and coaching. But I think what's really cool about that is that leadership is a completely different skill set. Industry is context. Skill set is the leadership.
Al ElliottInteresting. Interesting. Okay. Anything else to add or shall we say goodbye?
Leanne ElliottI think, I think I'm done. That was a lot, Al.
Al ElliottNow you're taking the piss out of me, aren't you? Um, okay. So if you liked this, then there's a good chance you're going to like everything else. There's about 42 other episodes, unfortunately not Um, on YouTube, although we put them on YouTube, but they're just gonna be audio only, um, that you can work your way through. If you've got an idea for an episode, come and find us on LinkedIn or go to the website, Truth, Lies, and Work. Nearly got that wrong. truthliesandwork.com. And you'll find a way to suggest guests, to suggest ideas, and to get in touch with us. Also on that website will be all the show notes as well, because Spotify, iTunes don't really allow us to put too long a show note. And we like, we like a show note here, don't we, Leah?
Leanne ElliottWe do enjoy a show note.
Al ElliottAnd what have we got next week, Leigh?
Leanne ElliottA really exciting episode. So next week's episode, it's all about corporate lessons on workplace culture, and we have some big hitters in here. We have some senior leaders from— are you ready for the name drops?
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Go.
Leanne ElliottMicrosoft, Jaguar Land Rover, Ocado Group, and Lango Rock.
Al ElliottNice, nice.
Leanne ElliottYeah, yeah, it's nice, it's nice. And I also, I'll just mention that 3 of them, um, are also women.
Al ElliottCool.
Leanne ElliottSo if you liked our new video podcast, maybe, maybe subscribe. We'd love to have you on board and part of our Truth and Lies community. And I think as well, there's some kind of bell you can ring.
Al ElliottAnd we don't want to be those, those YouTubers who go, oh, please ring the bell and subscribe and all that. But I tell you what, if you'll notice, we've got no subscribers because it's a brand new channel. So if you subscribe and you email us, and you'll find the email on the website, truthliespodcast.com, and work if you subscribe, and we'll give you something special. How about that?