{"id":2600,"date":"2021-09-10T16:26:05","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T16:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shiny.agency\/blog\/?p=2600"},"modified":"2021-09-10T16:26:06","modified_gmt":"2021-09-10T16:26:06","slug":"my-biggest-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shiny.agency\/blog\/my-biggest-lesson\/","title":{"rendered":"My biggest lesson."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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There I was, working in my window-less office in the middle of a high rise in Philadelphia, when my boss\u2019s boss stopped by my office. This was circa 1993 and at the time I was an account manager on The Wall, a new line of record stores owned by WH Smith that we had launched in the US. I had been with The Weightman Group for about three years and had worked on a variety of accounts though this one was where I had the most responsibility and accountability. Paul Burger,<\/a> who ran client services for the agency and ultimately became the COO, sat down in my office and we started to chat. Paul had interviewed me when I joined the agency right out of college and had always been a supporter of mine. He is a smart, warm, but kind of gruff man, who I deeply respected at that time (and still do) and always appreciated the opportunity to speak with him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, it wasn\u2019t typical for him to find his way to my rather out-of-the-way office to chat. I can\u2019t remember how the conversation started or whether there was something that precipitated it, but I have always remembered what he told me that evening: \u201cKeep taking things on until someone tells you to stop.\u201d He followed that up with saying not to worry\u2026once I got into someone else\u2019s territory or stepped on their toes they\u2019d let me know. But until then if I saw something that needed to be done to just do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conversation probably lasted a total of ten minutes. But here, almost thirty years later, it still sticks with me, and I can literally feel myself back in that airless office sitting across my desk from Paul. And, thankfully, I took his advice to heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the reasons I did is that, while I was always a good soldier and did whatever was asked of me, I wasn\u2019t confident in my abilities or thought I could have a larger impact. I don’t know why Paul felt compelled to give me that advice, but I suspect he saw that in me and wanted to give me license to step out of that comfort zone and do more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From then on, I really embraced the idea of taking accountability to get things done, tackle problems, or explore opportunities that I saw, rather than worrying about it \u201cnot being my job.\u201d As my career progressed and I left Weightman for other agencies, I held onto that advice and put it to good use. When I started at i-FRONTIER (which eventually became part of Razorfish) in 1999 I was hired to lead and grow the client services department. What I quickly realized is that a fast-growing digital agency, in the time when that was still a relatively novel and unknown thing, offered a host of opportunities to take things on that needed getting done. So while I built out Client Services, I also started turning my attention to other areas of the business that needed tending and oversight. That led me into more of an operations role, eventually taking on a Managing Director position, and ultimately to starting my own agency, Shiny, with two Razorfish colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul\u2019s words of advice didn\u2019t end with me. I have found myself repeating them numerous times throughout my career, in individual conversations like he had with me, when speaking to university students or new graduates\u2026anytime I believe there is someone who needs to hear it to give themselves greater latitude to contribute to the maximum of their abilities. I hope it has been as helpful to them as it has been for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was originally published on Little Black Book<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There I was, working in my window-less office in the middle of a high rise in Philadelphia, when my boss\u2019s boss stopped by my office. This was circa 1993 and at the time I was an account manager on The Wall, a new line of record stores owned by WH Smith that we had launched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2602,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[78,55,148,14],"class_list":["post-2600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ad-agency","tag-advertising","tag-biggest-lesson","tag-marketing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy biggest lesson. - Shinyverse<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/shiny.agency\/blog\/my-biggest-lesson\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My biggest lesson. - Shinyverse\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There I was, working in my window-less office in the middle of a high rise in Philadelphia, when my boss\u2019s boss stopped by my office. 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