On The Leaders' Lounge with Paul Swann
Adopt the mantra that ‘every day you learn something new is a good day’ and you won’t go too far wrong.
Paul Swann is the Managing Partner for Creative and Strategy at communications agency, The Works. Paul has won a large number of industry awards for outstanding creative work throughout his career so we asked him a few questions to find out how to make it as a ‘creative’ in the industry.
What type of services does The Works provide, and what is it known for?
The Works was founded with the ambition to offer clients ‘the works’, which essentially means a truly end-to-end creative product. Over the years we’ve remained faithful to that mission, expanding the offering as the market has changed, most recently launching a messaging agency (On Message), content and social agency (Daresay) and a dedicated Human Centred Design practice. But if you wanted to encapsulate The Works in a sentence I’d say it’s: an integrated communications and CX agency with the belief that brand experience should match brand expression.
As a Managing Partner overseeing Creative and Strategy streams and teams, what is a normal day like?
As the duality of my title would suggest, the average working day is quite varied. I’m still very hands-on with the work that the agency delivers, so I might be helping to develop a brief or the ideas that responds to it. Equally, I might be working on a training or people development program, a thought leadership initiative or a new business pitch. Personal development and learning is also something I’ve tried to bake-in to my work life, this could mean reading articles in the trade media, content shared by colleagues or just seeking out opportunities for cultural stimulation.
You’ve won a heap of awards for outstanding creative work. What’s your secret to success?
There are two fundamentals. The first is the desire to do something different, to be prepared to wade through familiarity into uncharted waters. The other is persistence. There’s a high attrition rate on ideas and this increases as the ideas get more unexpected, so you need to be prepared to keep going with them even when all hope might seem lost. There’s actually a third factor to winning awards which is to understand the type of work that wins awards, but that’s a whole different conversation.
To what degree was your career planned? Was becoming an Executive Creative Director and Managing Partner always part of the plan?
On one hand it’s been completely unplanned, in that I’ve never consciously sat down and written out a career plan or had a serious conversation with a mentor or advisor about my next job. But, on the other hand, it’s probably constantly ticking away in my subconscious. I always wanted to go as far as I could up the creative hierarchy because I associated that with increased opportunities to work on exciting briefs and bigger budget projects. Reflecting on it now, the only strategy I’ve really employed is to just say ‘yes’ when opportunities have presented themselves.
Ideas generation and business management appear to use opposite sides of the brain. In reality, how similar or different are tasks that you’re required to perform?
They are more similar than you might imagine and I believe they’re increasingly converging as the business environment becomes more dynamic and unpredictable. The ability to think laterally, to problem solve and convince a group of people in your vision are consistent across both disciplines.
Define ‘media’:
I suppose the broadest definition that’s relevant to my profession is that media is our opportunity to reach an audience with a message.
In your opinion, what makes a communications idea good?
You must notice it, you must understand it; it must tell you something meaningful and do so in a way that is motivating.
Do you believe anyone can work in a creative role? How does one pursue becoming a creative for a communications agency?
That’s a hard no. I don’t think anyone can work in a creative role, and that’s not because creativity is some god-given gift that only a select few people possess. It’s because you’ve got to love ideas, you’ve got to be passionate about creativity and its power to change attitudes and behaviour; if you’re not then you’ll find it hard going.
In terms of how you get into a creative role within an agency, there are established routes via programs like Award School and various degree courses; alternatively I suggest you do something creative: write a blog, make a short film or an app, design a t-shirt range, basically have an idea and make it happen. The ‘make it happen’ bit is really important as it shows that you’ve got what it takes to see an idea through to completion. It goes back to the point I made earlier about persistence.
Is creative work becoming easier or harder to do? What challenges will the next generation face doing creative work and what steps can they take now to ensure they remain ahead of the game?
You can argue it both ways but I’d rather focus on a positive perspective.
The myriad channel options now available means you don’t need a big budget to get a great idea into the world. A brilliant idea can be as simple as a three word tweet as was demonstrated by Burger King’s response to an earlier one by Kanye West. You can read more about that here.
The industry has changed significantly since I stumbled into it in the early noughties; people and accounts move around more frequently, client in-housing creative is more common and technology has spawned a new breed of specialist agencies, so to be match fit for this world you need to be comfortable with change and constantly learning. Adopt the mantra that ‘every day you learn something new is a good day’ and you won’t go too far wrong.
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