Great idea, especially if you've got a nice hiring budget. But
when you're a start-up, and let's be honest, we were a start-up for
well over a decade, you tend to try to do more with less (including
a smaller payroll). I distinctly remember the day Butler, Shine and
I were in a car and we blurted out the salaries we were each making
at the time we left Goodby. I then realized that we'd never hired
anyone at BSSP at a salary higher than that figure. (Were the
founders subconsciously unwilling to allow that someone might know
more or be better than we were? Armchair psychoanalysis
notwithstanding, what did we know? We hadn't done this before.) Not
long after, and, during an economic downturn, we bit the bullet and
made a big hire. Ironically, that individual didn't work out (a
topic worthy of its own "If I Knew Then" column), but we did learn
that experience does, in fact, matter. And different experience
matters more.
Another reason I should have known this intuitively is that I
had always attributed the good fortunes of BSSP to the fact that
the three founders had mutually interdependent skills and talent.
None of us did the same thing. We complemented each other. There
was little redundancy, and, in fact, we created a sum that was
greater than the individual parts.
That innate knowledge should have led to an early understanding
that such complementary skill sets, diversity of experience and
background should accelerate scaling the agency. We've since
learned that whether looking at different skill sets, including
technology, analytics or strategy, or different backgrounds and
life experience, variety will always lead to more creative and
effective solutions.
Of course, that's a fine ambition to hold. Today's
hyper-competitive talent and hiring environment (in which agencies
compete with technology firms, clients and just about everyone
else) makes that goal more challenging than ever. BSSP acquired SF
Interactive after the first dot-com bust, integrating the services
of a digital agency into our own. By the second major new business
win within six months of that acquisition, our suspicion that
diversity of thought, skills and experience make a meaningful
difference was confirmed.
Although the marketing and related industries seem to have
finally realized the importance of a diverse workplace as a
competitive advantage, and are now working in earnest to create a
robust pipeline of talent, change recruiting practices, and create
an inclusive work environment, that's one important part of the
hire different argument I'm making. Not only must diversity apply
to race, gender, and sexual orientation, what I do know now is that
for an agency (or any business) to succeed today it must hire
differently and diversely across seniority, experience, talent,
background, skill set, and way of thinking.
Greg Stern is CEO of BSSP, Sausilito, California
