Roger Mayne - Boys Against a Wall, Dublin 1957

‘Jump off the cliff and learn how to make wings on the way down.’
Ray Bradbury

Over the long hot summers of my childhood, my brother Martin and I would play cricket, collect grasshoppers and dig holes in the back garden.

Our house backed onto a school playing field, and sometimes Jeff Richards and the Chergwin boys would gather on the other side of the fence, so that we could throw mud bombs at each other.

Harmless fun. Though our elderly neighbour, flat-capped Mr Holland, a veteran of the First World War, would look up from his loganberry bushes to warn us of the danger of hidden stones.

‘You’ll take someone’s eye out with that!’

Often Martin and I would clamber up the lilac tree and over the back fence, to join Jeff and the Chergwins in the school playing fields. There, under a bright yellow sun, we would compete in our own Heath Park Road Olympics: racing around the running track, jumping in the sandpit, boxing without gloves.

Technically we were not allowed on the council fields, and when occasionally a light aeroplane flew overhead with its lights blinking, we all threw ourselves face down onto the grass, so as not to be identified in the photographs.

‘Dive! Dive! Quick! It’s the council!’

In retrospect, I guess those were not Havering Council spy planes. They were just regular flights making their approach to a nearby airfield. But the sense of danger, the fear of being identified as trespassers, made it all seem so thrilling.

‘Art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take risks.’
Mark Rothko

In the world of work, we may also find that we perform better when there is a certain amount of risk – of losing a campaign, of being fired from an account, of missing our numbers. The jeopardy stiffens the sinews, focuses the mind.

Similarly, a rivalry can get the juices flowing. I recall from ‘The Last Dance’ documentary that Michael Jordan would perceive, or even invent, slights, insults or disrespectful gestures from opposing players, so as to motivate himself and his teammates.

Without conflict, competition or peril, there is always the danger of complacency. The effort drops. The pace slackens. The focus drifts.

And so, whatever the task or endeavour, we would all do well to embrace urgency and intensity; to introduce opposition and jeopardy; to reflect on risks and rivalries - whether they be real or imagined.

‘If you practise poetry the way I think it needs to be done, you're going to put yourself in jeopardy.'
Amiri Baraka

'I'm all mixed up inside,
I want to run, but I can't hide.
And however much we try,
We can't escape the truth and the fact is...
Don't matter what I do,
It don't matter what I do,
Don't matter what I do,
Don't matter what I do,
Don't matter what I do,
Because I end up hurting you.
One more covered sigh,
And one more glance you know means goodbye.
Can't you see that's why
We're dashing ourselves against the rocks of a lifetime.
In my mind different voices call.
What once was pleasure now's pain for us all.
In my heart only shadows fall.
I once stood proud, now I feel so small.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
The long hot summer just passed me by.’
Style Council, ‘Long Hot Summer’ (P Weller)

No. 524

Henri Rousseau/ Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised)

I was raised in a pebble-dashed, semi-detached house on the outskirts of Romford. We were flanked on either side by keen gardeners. To the left Mr Holland grew fruit and veg, bottled his own magnificent loganberry jam and wore rubber knee-pads. To the right Mr Dodgson cultivated elegant flowers and shrubs, delighted in telling us their Latin names (‘Cotoneaster’) and burst our footballs when they trespassed onto his side of the wooden fence. Both these elderly gentlemen sported flat caps before they were cool.

Sadly the Carroll Garden was unruly and unkempt, a source of some shame. The grass grew long, the weeds grew high and the lilac tree wilted from over-use as a climbing frame. At the far end was a rockery that my mother had installed to give the impression that our wild, overgrown grassland was somehow intentional. But this fooled no one, least of all Messrs Holland and Dodgson.

With the arrival of Spring, mum would begin her pleas to my father to cut the lawn. He generally developed a throaty, fag-induced cough; a crippling, beer-induced hangover; a critical sporting event on the telly - anything in fact to excuse him from his duties. Dad was a man of inaction. Sometimes he would goad his children into taking on the task in his stead, but we had inherited his indolence.

So the rusty mower remained entangled in the chaotic clutter of the garden shed. And the grass grew, and the weeds flourished, and the lilac tree looked on in stoic silence.

Eventually, some weeks later, when the exasperation of mum and our neighbours had reached its limits, dad and the five kids would tramp disconsolately into the verdant jungle and apply ourselves to scything and mowing, clipping and collecting. It was a frenzy of resentful industry.

When I entered the world of work, I realised that procrastination is not unique to my family. In fact it is very much part of the human condition. We like to defer and delay, put off and postpone. We are innately inert. And for all our rhetoric about seizing the day, many of us are naturally given to letting the day slip through our fingers.

Sometimes we hide this procrastination behind process. There’s an established way of doing things. Everything needs to be done in good order, in due course. ‘We can’t do anything until you issue the Client Brief.’ ‘That was an excellent meeting. We’ll write it up in the next few days; and in another week or so we’ll send you a Creative Brief; and then a couple of weeks later we’ll possibly propose some ideas.’

I’m well aware that process protects quality: more haste, less speed and so forth. But there’s no denying that in the modern age velocity is a critical competitive advantage. We have all been obliged to accelerate. I recall some years ago a senior Client taking over a key account at the Agency. When I checked in to see how things were going, he said the team was impressive; the work was very good; but the overall ‘metabolism’ was sluggish. It seemed a fair criticism.

So how can we embrace speed without compromising quality? How can we accelerate our corporate metabolism?

I have one modest suggestion: solve it in the room.

When you have managed to get all the right people in one place; when you have the appropriate combination of talent and leadership staring at each other across a desk; when you’ve invested in coffee, croissants and an extensive selection of herbal teas - don’t walk away with just a loose understanding of the problem, a nodding assent about what needs to happen next. You should be in a position to solve the problem in the room. Of course, you can’t craft detail; you can’t write scripts and execution. But you can align around strategy and direction. You can illustrate and exemplify; sketch and draft.

It is often observed that the benefit of experience is wisdom. But experience of a wide variety of marketing and communication challenges also enables speed and agility of thought; it enables us to make connections, to reach conclusions at pace. These skills may be the veteran’s most valuable assets. The experienced practitioner is equipped to make decisions there and then, here and now. This is what we’re paid for.

So, a simple proposal perhaps: turn up to the critical meetings prepared to make decisions, and to make promises you can keep. ‘We’re going to solve it in the room, design it in a week, build it in a month.’ Make an active determination to replace lethargy with intensity; complacency with urgency. Don’t just learn about the problem; lean into the solution.

And whatever you do, don’t let the grass grow under your feet.

No 123

The Havering Council Spy Planes: Jeopardy (Whether Real or Imagined) Stiffens the Sinews and Focuses the Mind

Solve It In the Room: What I Learned from the Uncut Lawn