The Joy of Being a Strategist in a Multi Agency, Multi Discipline Group
Article by Anna Simpkin, Planning Director at Eleven Miles.
"No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team." – Reid Hoffman
So I’ve been working in this agency game for quite some time now (longer than I’d care to admit really) and over that time I’ve learnt a lot, I’ve developed skills and competencies, and I’d even go so far as to say that I’ve built expertise in certain areas. But, if I had to pick the one, most important thing I’ve learnt, it’s that there’s still and always will be a whole lot that I don’t know.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that occurs when a person’s lack of knowledge and experience in a certain area causes them to overestimate their own competence. I’m sure everyone has experienced this in some way, shape or form, possibly from the early days of your careers. You’ve been in the job for a little while, you’re in the swing of things and feel like you have it nailed, you know what you need to know…but then you realise that you are still learning, so maybe there’s more to it than you thought and you start to recognise your lack of knowledge and experience. So you keep learning, and gain more knowledge and experience in that specific area, and as you do your confidence starts to grow again, and with it comes a new found wisdom that although you excel at some things, you’re well aware of your lack of expertise in other areas.
Here’s a nice little graph to demonstrate, because who doesn’t love a graph?
Thankfully I now reside at the end of the curve where I’m well aware of my limitations, there’s never been a piece of work I’ve done that hasn’t benefited from chatting it through with a colleague and gaining another perspective. Here at Eleven Miles, one of our values is stronger together... because it’s so true…We look out for each other. We offer support when it’s needed. We may disagree, but we do it openly and respectfully. And we recognise that we’re stronger still when we engage those who have expertise where we don’t.
So for years I’ve worked collaboratively with other specialist agencies appointed by my clients, to deliver integrated work, and that’s great, I’ve met a lot of highly skilled people who I’ve been confident will help us deliver ‘brilliant’ together. But what’s even better is having those people in agencies that are part of the same group. Eleven Miles are part of The Sideshow Group, a collection of like minded specialist agencies who together make up a group that’s a global challenger in digital experience and marketing services. We have an open door to the services of other agencies within the group, their skills and expertise, be that media planning at TRGT, research at Bunnyfoot or data science at more2 and the list goes on. It gives us the ability to collaborate on larger, more complex projects, bringing together experts from within the group to work together, to bridge the gaps in our knowledge and expertise, to deliver the best possible integrated and cohesive strategies for the brands we work with.
Another bonus is that we can get them involved with the speculative ‘what if?’ questions and the new business pitch responses, which is so much harder to do with companies outside of the group. There’s no concern about scope creep and land grab (lets face it, we’ve all been there…) we’re all in it together, for the greater good of the brands we work with.
And they are a source of inspiration and motivation. We have regular lunch and learn skill share sessions, where guests from across the group up-skill the rest of us, keeping us up-to-date on the latest trends and best practices in their areas, sparking new ideas and helping us see opportunities for our clients, enabling us to create more effective and innovative strategies.
So in essence, the joy of being a strategist in a multi-agency group is simply that we have ready access to experts in other fields of marketing to help and to learn from so we can offer our clients the best possible service. It means we always know just who to pick up the phone to, and that, to quote the 1997 Mastercard campaign, is priceless.
References:
https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/dunning-kruger-effect
https://www.verywellmind.com/an-overview-of-the-dunning-kruger-effect-4160740