Huddle 002:
Should strategy Be optimistic?

Matthew Knight (00:00) Should strategy be more optimistic? I'm Matthew Knight from Outside Perspective and every month we bring together a number of independent strategic minds to discuss topics which we think deserve a wide range of inputs and perspectives and points of view. And this month I am joined by three brilliant members of the Outside Perspective community who I'll let introduce themselves in a moment. And we're going to be talking about whether strategy should be optimistic, whether we should be more pragmatic. The world is facing a huge number of challenges at the moment, which I think we all have a responsibility to actively participate in improving. And I want to understand whether strategy has a role to be a little bit less impartial, a little bit more optimistic, maybe the more pragmatic, I don't know. I am going to start by. Asking the group to introduce themselves and say good morning on this chilly day. Ellie, how are you? Ellie McCall (00:57) I'm good morning or yeah, very chilly. I'm actually up in Grimsby, so up in the North, so extra chilly here today. I'm Ellie. I am a freelance senior strategist. I'm kind of working at the intersection throughout my career of brand purpose, sustainability, social impact. I started my career in social enterprise, which I think is interesting for this conversation. So I've been used to the kind of profit for good space. I started there in my studies, built a couple of social enterprises, spoke at the House of Lords around social innovation, social entrepreneurship. Post-uni kind of went into the purpose consultancy space, creative agencies, working with a number of global brands across quite a variety of industries on how you really look at strategy for good. So really interesting conversation today. In recent times, I've kind of been on the communications end of things too. So I've got... both the operationalisation experience, but then also how you can communicate and engage others as well. So think it's a really great topic and looking forward to digging in. Nabila Ahmed (02:01) Good morning. I'm Nabila. I'm a freelance business design and innovation consultant who works sort of at the intersection of design and futures thinking, essentially helping clients widen their scope for exploration. I initially got my start in brand, which is what I went to school for at UCA Farnham. And I guess I let a relentless sense of curiosity push me to widen my scope further and further until I found myself pivoting all the way into innovation space. Kian Bakhtiari (02:28) My name is Kian and I'm the founder of The People and we're a Gen Z consultancy powered by a global community of young change makers from diverse backgrounds. So our mission is to amplify the voices of young people, but also to help future proof companies. recently written a book on marketing for social change so I can't promise to be unbiased but I'm gonna do my best to kind of think about the perspectives that are outside of my own as well. Ellie McCall (02:53) you Matthew Knight (03:00) I mean, that's a great place to start, Kian because strategy as a discipline has to have some level of impartiality. But should we be more biased? Should we be bringing in some of our own values and beliefs and what we think is important into our work? Kian Bakhtiari (03:16) Yeah, so just on that Matthew, it might sound controversial, but I don't actually believe that strategy is impartial. I think it's one of those things similar to like art or creativity where our own lived experience and our own lens shapes kind of how we approach strategy. And I'm sure you've seen it many a times. If let's say a strategist is more into fashion or they're more into football. they will bring that lens with them. So I think strategy a bit like politics, bit like economics is not neutral in its own sense. We bring with us our own lived experience. Then the question becomes, okay, whose voices are we hearing? And what's the dominant narrative? Because if people aren't included in that perspective or not able to be part of the strategic decision making or planning. It means we get a very narrow skew of perspectives, essentially. Matthew Knight (04:23) it's an interesting point because in many ways, it is our role to be bringing through the voice of our client. It's our role to be bringing through the voice of our customers, the audience, the people that we're speaking to and curating those things together. Do we need to have that lived experience or is that something that we have to source from interviews and conversations and research or is that a bit of a gap that actually we don't necessarily always have the time to bring those diverse perspectives in? Nabila Ahmed (04:53) I think there's a lot of value that our personal views and our personal experiences can bring to a discussion, which is why I wouldn't lean on the end of impartiality and strict objectivity. I'd say that from formal education and training, we all sort of start off at the same base, being taught the same process, same framework, the same program. the way those sort of get molded and refined over time is something that tends to be unique from consultant to consultant. And that's, I think, where you find that experience really comes into play when it comes to solving challenges because of how we've sort of learned to shape and reshape that base that we started with. So I definitely wouldn't discount the value that personal experiences, personal insight, instinct could bring to the table. Matthew Knight (05:45) So question to the entire group, as I said in the opening. The world is facing no shortage of significant challenges at the moment. Globally and locally, there's a feeling of doom and gloom and anxiety, and rightfully so in many kind of cases. And we know that the best strategic work genuinely changes behaviors and attitudes and is a powerful force. But do we think as a group that strategic work should be pragmatic and kind of really look at the things that need to be resolved? Or do we think it has a role to be more optimistic and hopeful and paint a bright, happy future? Ellie, what's your view? I mean, a lot of your work is focused on systems change? Do we need to be focused on the things which are broken and how to fix them or do we want to paint an optimistic view to encourage people that everything's going to be okay? Ellie McCall (06:34) It's such a good question. And I definitely think you need both. think optimism is absolutely a kind of crucial ingredient to be able to envision a better future. In the first place, you know, it's what kind of fuels innovation, it fuels collaboration, the shared belief that things can become better. I think the issue is when you have unchecked optimism, and when brands or strategists can become too carried away with what that better future may look like rather than where they are today. And I think when you're looking at what's kind of beginning to happen today is brands have been able to make bold claims a few years ago around what they will achieve in 2025 and 2030. And there's a bit of a separation, I guess, at that point in time between where they think they might be able to get to. And I guess we're now beginning to see actually which brands. have been able to really kind of operationalize that optimism internally, and which have kind of potentially lost track of it a bit with the narrative rather than the action that needs to underpin that as well. And I think more so within marketing as well, you we've got the rise of greenwashing, we've got comms now, being a bit too over optimistic, I think, to the point that actually it's it's kind of infringing on true transparency with consumers. So I believe that optimism absolutely is crucial, but that needs to be underpinned by pragmatism. It needs to be underpinned by the roadmap to make that optimism a reality as well. Matthew Knight (08:04) Is that optimism or is that marketing? know, because we see no shortage of manifestos and pledges and commitments and promises, but the delivery on that afterwards is quite often falling flat. it, I mean, is that an optimistic view or is it they're just trying to paint a picture which ticks a box and actually that isn't really a commitment to what they're saying? Ellie McCall (08:30) I think it's so interesting when we're looking at whether it is just a marketing tool. mean, when you are looking at behavior change and when you were looking at kind of taking people along that journey, I believe that marketing is an absolutely kind of crucial tool within that. But I agree in a sense that is it just marketing? That's absolutely why we need strategists to be pushing the roadmaps, the strategy internally to really kind of fuse those two together. Nabila Ahmed (08:57) I think you said it quite well when you mentioned that a lot of brands are sort of coming forward with this bright idea for the future, but it doesn't quite reach the surface in terms of how far down it goes. you know, as strategists, want the work to be quite holistic in the sense that it should go into company culture. It should affect processes, it affect business model, it should affect... how the entire enterprise gets structured, but then it really tends to stay at the marketing level, I find. And yeah, in terms of the wider scope of futures, I think you do find the behaviors on both sides where you either lean a bit too heavily on the optimism and kind of imagine this sunshine and rainbows without really thinking of the work that it needs to get there. Or you find that people tend to rabbit hole down into doom scrolling and negativity and everything is. going straight to hell. So like Ellie said, I do think it does need to be underpinned by pragmatism, whether you're looking at preferred or undesired futures, how you get there or how you avoid certain pitfalls does need a realistic action plan underpinning those things and it needs to be supported by strategists and teams that understand the work that it needs to get from point A to point B. Matthew Knight (10:15) Yeah, the point around holistic strategy is a really interesting one, because I think we've all felt the frustration at times of just where our work stops and starts and not being able to lean into the rest of the organization. I guess strategy is, you know, not always the solution. It's about bringing a lot of people together to around us a single idea and jumping to make some kind of creative leaps there around ideas, which we haven't. thought about before. mean, Kian, you've you wrote a piece recently about your concerns that there are some deep failures in creative thinking and how we look to solutions that aren't necessarily immediately in front of us. Do you think creativity is is the answer to some of the world's largest challenges? Kian Bakhtiari (11:01) Yeah, I do. think creativity has the power to solve any problem. I know like we're a future facing company, but a few years ago, I had the chance to interview George Lewis and he's this kind of, he was this advertising legend who created these amazing campaigns like the Muhammad Ali campaign for Esquire where people, this was at a time where no one wanted to speak to Muhammad Ali because he just decided not to go to the Vietnam War. And I always remember, Matthew, this quote he had, which was, creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. And I think, especially where we are today, like you mentioned, there is a lot of doom and gloom where people aren't sure where they're going to get hope from. And let's be honest, I think To Ellie's point and your point on toxic positivity, you can't ignore the realities, whether it's like planetary destruction, people dying from war, there's a reality which you can't escape, like Nabila said, with sunshine and rainbows. But I think the opposite of that, if we said, you know what, we can't do anything, then we're lost. So not having hope and optimism. Matthew Knight (12:22) Hmm. Kian Bakhtiari (12:26) Hope and optimism is the very foundations. It's the prerequisite to being able to be creative and solve some of the challenges we're facing. The problem I think with creativity is we have a very, at least within the industry, and I'd love to get other perspectives on this. It's my view that we have a very narrow lens on what creativity is, and we view it through the lens of creating a campaign or this Ellie McCall (12:55) and Matthew Knight (12:55) you Kian Bakhtiari (12:55) job role where this person is creative because they do copy or they do art whereas this person is not creative because they handle data or Strategy and I think because of that we're not harnessing the power of creativity Focused on those big problems like you mentioned Matthew Ellie McCall (13:12) I absolutely love that point, Keon. I guess going back to my kind of social innovation days, creativity was absolutely the kind of driving fuel to be able to innovate around these huge interconnected big ideas, whether it's kind of looking at taking plastics and imagining it as an eco brick, for example, whether it's looking at food waste as an input rather than the end output. into innovative materials. I really believe that if you look at creativity and you can then apply that to the biggest issues, it then also helps because as Nabila was saying, there's quite a doom and gloom, anxiety is on the rise. But instead of looking at that as the kind of consequence, if you look at all of these different issues as the opportunity, know, there's a startup in India, for example, that are taking pollution from cars. and they're being able to capture that soot and that carbon and then change it into ink, which is then going into watches. Creativity is incredible when applied to social innovation. And I guess if we can unlock a bit more resources to input into that, believe that's when we can really, really see some incredible leaps in where we are in the world. Nabila Ahmed (14:27) Yeah, I think like Keyin said, creativity tends to get sort of reneged to the areas of creative arts, whereas I like to think about it more as really effective rule breaking, essentially. When we think of the status quo, it's in the name. The status quo tends to want to stay the same, but progress historically in any discipline has been made by a particular set of a person or a particular set of persons deciding. what if we tried something a little bit different? What if we went the other way? What if we decided that the world wasn't flat? What might happen? So I think there is a need to sort of champion this idea of creativity being more than something that exists within the design department or within the marketing department and start to think of how we can be more creative at the sweet seat level when we talk about finance, we talk about data, when we talk about business planning. Matthew Knight (15:25) A strategy is often the justification for things, right? So a business will be looking to a strategist to say, is this the right thing to do? Where's the data? Where's the evidence? Like what justifies this being the right thing? And, you know, ideally the entire team should be pulling together to kind of put that, often it falls to the strategist in those, you know, status quo breaking situations where there isn't that evidence, there isn't, you know, there's never been done before, you know, classic innovation challenge of there's no case study to prove the effectiveness. No one's ever done this before. Does the strategist need to play the role of supporter and champion and get that creative thinking across the line, even if there isn't data and evidence and reams of insight decks and something behind it? What role do we play as a strategist to support that innovation and creativity? Nabila Ahmed (16:15) I'd say that as strategists, there is a responsibility as alongside set roles and responsibilities. It's important to have sort of an ear to the ground and sort of have this always on exploration going on within agencies or organizations, whether you're in-house, whether you're agency, whether you're agency side. and being able to pull things out from different areas. I'm a big proponent of asking why not? I think there's a tendency to constantly seek justification for doing things. But then when we sort of turn on ahead and say, why don't we try this? Why can't we figure out a lean way to run this particular experiment? It might work, it might not work. Either way, we learn something. There's no... If we're talking about optimism, if we can constantly be looking forward to... learning that is we can get teams to a point where we don't see positive or negative feedback on the new data that we can continuously leverage to continue to innovate and continue to try new things and encourage experimentation within organizations. Ellie McCall (17:20) there's such value in kind of finding synergies in parallel worlds because whilst a brand may not have seen someone else do exactly that, we can definitely take inspiration from elsewhere. If we look at, for example, blockchain as a technology, it's mostly associated with cryptocurrency today, but actually you can see how the technology fundamentally. is also extremely helpful for tracking and tracing within supply chains and then how that can be used, for example, to prove sustainable ethical supply chains in a way that we haven't seen before. might be that a small startup has tried something out in a completely different industry, but it's had a bit of an impact operationally. I think it's strategists job, as Nabila was saying, to kind of propagate, to say, not? We've seen that this could create this and what would that mean for us? And I think brands that have the resources and the R &D budgets to be able to test and rip and develop absolutely should do this. And again, I think it's connecting those bigger brands, those bigger organizations with the small insurgent creative thinkers that might have had those breakthroughs, but might not necessarily have the resources. And I think that marriage of the two is often where we can find some really beautiful things strategically. Kian Bakhtiari (18:33) Yeah, I just thinking, think going back to what Nabila said, the progress is made when people challenge the status quo and also do things in innovative ways. So I love that example of turning suit into like ink, for example. I think the question you asked, Matthew, of often my challenge is strategy and understandably can be quite retrospective where it's kind of looking backwards. to be like, this is how things have been done. This is the data. And therefore the future is going to follow that accordingly. What I would say is that's great when things are working, but we're at a point in society where the system's broken and things aren't working. So when that's the case, it's kind of like a car. If your car's no longer working, Matthew Knight (19:15) Hmm. Kian Bakhtiari (19:27) You don't keep doing the same thing. You have to go and get it fixed. Or if it's completely broken down, you have to get a new car. And I think sometimes there isn't that creative leap to be, to go, okay, what does the future look like? And how can we build that in a way that's not like the past? Because that's how progress has happened. And often that happens on the edges. So there's this opportunity, I think, for strategists, not only to look backwards, which is important. There's a lot of great lessons in history and there's a lot we can learn that we don't repeat the same mistakes. But sometimes you have to kind of stop and be like, okay, this isn't working. What can the future look like? Matthew Knight (20:12) I guess it's a bit of a gap between what a client wants and what a client needs, or indeed what society needs, right? I mean, have any of you been in situations where, you know, a client's objectives and, you know, what is right have been at real conflict and how have you dealt with those situations? Ellie, you're nodding deeply there. Ellie McCall (20:33) I'm Yeah, absolutely. I've had my fair share of that. I believe that we'll always have that to an extent whenever we're working with organizations that are operating in business models that are kind of inherently unsustainable. So one of my earliest projects was with a kind of global fashion brand and they were looking at how to become more sustainable. And we did a huge kind of global research piece on the attitude behavior gap in sustainable fashion. Matthew Knight (20:47) Mm. Ellie McCall (21:02) And it was looking at consumers responsibility and the industry's responsibility. And I think that was super interesting because we did ethnographic research, we were with consumers, we were really digging into why people have that optimism to tie it into a further point. They want to shop sustainably, but they're not doing it at the moment. And it became a point where we had the outcomes. But we also said, guys, inherently, your business model is the reason as well. in which consumers are making these decisions. And it was an incredibly collaborative piece of research, piece of project. It went on to change UX design on their website to do more sustainable nudges. There was call to actions for the wider fashion industry around kind of legislating repair rules. So really being able to actually put responsibility on the fashion brands that might not be having higher quality garments anymore. But it was a real experience in the kind of dance between what the brand wanted to do, of course, but then also pushing and dancing towards these aims in a way that isn't just fundamentally completely switching their entire global business model and supply chains overnight, which also would be irresponsible and potentially detrimental as well. So, yeah, I've definitely had experience and I guess it's the strategist's role, I think, to... intuitively push where they believe that real breakthroughs can happen, but also not get carried away and have an eye on the wider picture and the long-term strategic plays as well. Matthew Knight (22:34) Nabila, there examples of work where you've had those similar tensions between what an organization is, how they're behaving and what they're asking you to do? Nabila Ahmed (22:42) I wouldn't say I haven't had as specific experience as Ellie had, definitely experienced tugs of war between what should be done and what the client wants to be done. yeah, it honestly like Ellie and her team had done, it really just comes down to research and being able to put that data in front of them because they can always argue to your face, but they can't argue with numbers. So being able to put that data in front of them and saying... X is happening, this is why and this is how we diagnose it and this is how we move forward and do things better in the future. It's difficult to cut through biases, especially with very established organizations who have been successful for quite a number of years and have unfortunately fallen into a bit of market blindness. like Eddie said, doing some really in-depth R &D, being able to bring out some really useful data, being able to show them that this is the problem, but these are also your options for solving and diagnosing these issues is usually the first and best step for approaching these walls that tend to be hit, especially on the stakeholder level. Matthew Knight (23:53) Keir, and I know that a lot of your work in the past has been aligned with UN sustainability goals, for instance. Are there frameworks which we can all work more consistently towards and aligned with that we are all working together as a bit of a community of strategists to say, this is something that we should almost be signing up to, a threshold for good with a capital G there, that our work isn't causing damage or... undue unexpected harm. Kian Bakhtiari (24:23) Yeah, I think we often do work which is focused on how, especially for companies, how does the work they do feed into the UN sustainable development goals. think where it becomes interesting, back to that question of like, for example, what the client wants and what they actually need, I think. Because of the work we do, we've been, from a positioning perspective, Matthew, we've been lucky enough to work with clients and businesses that really care about this stuff. But I'm also aware that's a privilege in some ways. And also as independents, we've had the chance to say yes or no to projects, but the reality is not everyone can do that. So I think back to... Matthew Knight (24:56) Hmm. Kian Bakhtiari (25:08) Ellie's point, there is that piece around how do you kind of reduce harm? So I would say the first framework beyond going back to our conversation around comms, beyond the extent before the external comms viewing internally, whether it's from as an employer, as a business as a supplier chain, are you causing more harm than you are doing good? So that's the first piece and often That's not always within the remit of a marketing or advertising agency. And increasingly as we've done work, that's the part I've become more interested in. It's almost viewed as the boring part, but if you don't get those foundational fundamentals, right. Then the rest is quite hard because you're kind of working backwards to communicate something that's not working. The other thing I know it's not a framework, but I think the brief is quite important in this stuff. Kian Bakhtiari (26:10) it's almost like, I almost feel like as strategists, we've got the overall brief, which is like the business brief, the company, what the company wants to do. But I think what we're all three of us are talking about as strategists, there's a role for us to play in the other brief, which is almost the silent brief, which is arguably most more important of how do you bring the client and the business on the journey? So if they're scared of it, if they're unsure, this is the right. thing to do, how can we use the same tools we do on an audience lens internally to kind of help them make those decisions? Because the easy thing to do is kind of blame them are they're scared, they never want to do something innovative, why they not buying into this. But I think we should also look internally of how can we use our skills to help them? So I would say that's almost the framework. we're increasingly using which is an internal framework rather than an external one. Matthew Knight (27:12) I think that's so interesting because I don't know if this is true for all strategists. Nothing is true for everyone, right? But I think we're inherent. We love problems, right? And we can spot problems a mile off. And immediately, I think the majority of us kind of go, how can we like, what's the solve here? What's the fix? How can we help people do that? I know that I've gone into many organizations and they've asked me to, let's say, you need me to write a common strategy, but then you kind of go, yeah, but the problem is the product is wrong or the, you know, there's no brand set or whatever it is, or your organization is completely broken or, and you always like, that's actually the problem I want to tap into. but oftentimes we don't have the scope to play in those spaces and we don't have the influence. As you say, you know, if you've got a marketing client there, but you can see that their supply chain is fundamentally the damaging piece here. How do we, as a, individuals on this conversation. How do we deal with that when we can see, there's a problem I really want to fix, but it's not within my sphere of influence? Do you just kind of go, yeah, I can't this time? Or do you try and broaden that conversation? Ellie, when you've been in those situations where you can see there's a bigger problem that needs to be addressed, how have you approached that? Ellie McCall (28:27) Absolutely, and I think... Fundamentally you always have to answer the job in hand for the client in that moment in time, but it's how can you connect that to the wider conversation about what they can achieve and almost position the project and the brief that they have at the moment as this might be your shield for now, but actually there's real opportunity for it to become your sword and your business opportunity in the future. And I think that's where it's always really beautifully creatively as well because it's taking a day. if there's the brief in hand and the kind of campaign objective or something. Matthew Knight (28:37) Hmm. Ellie McCall (28:58) something there that's needed actually to really strengthen that you probably need to change a few things internally and that then unlocks not just a campaign but an overarching brand purpose for the future and I think that's really where I enjoy kind of tapping into and it might just be a couple of slides at the end. of your deck that's like, about this? But I think it's also about seeding those provocations and pushing the client. And when you're talking to different teams as well, often you'll be with the marketing team, for example, and then you might speak to the UX team or the sustainability team. And it's how can you make these connections within organizations as well to really help them view the future kind of holistically to bring back to Nabila's point earlier on. Matthew Knight (29:40) We talked a little bit about elephants in the room. We have seen in recent years, know, backlash to agencies, perhaps having clients which are actively damaging, you know, our futures, know, have asked working with Shell, for instance, organizations losing B Corp status. And can you talk about privilege, right? The ability to say no is not always something which we as independents have because that could be our mortgage payment, could be our rent, could be our food for that week. But do we need to be refusing working on briefs when a client is pushing us to ignore a significant issue or actively refusing to work on certain clients where they're part of the problem? How do we as independents manage that really difficult piece of saying no when it could be affecting our own wellbeing and income? Kian Bakhtiari (30:28) Yeah, it's a big challenge. And I think in that tension between purpose and profit, it's almost like a micro reflection of the global world, where there's this challenge between I want to do the right thing. But also, like you said, Matthew, I need to make sure I've got a roof over my head. And I can kind of look after my family. So that's the reality, I think, for a lot of people, especially in the global south, like people get blamed for their contributions to climate change, but the reality is people are just trying to survive. think focusing more on the agency lens, it's a really tough one. was thinking about it again, putting myself in someone else's shoes. If you're a CEO of, I don't know, a big agency. How do you balance that? Because that's the difference of you take on this pitch, you know, that's not the right client or the right brief, or you have to let go of some people and that's people's livelihood. So I think almost I'll start by saying the system and the market is rigged where it's quite hard to do the right thing and be rewarded. And I know that's not a helpful statement, but I think that's just the current state of affairs. I think Matthew Knight (31:26) Hmm Kian Bakhtiari (31:45) I'm more interested in, I'm, this is controversial, but I'm not one of those people, even though we don't work with certain clients. I know that's a privilege, but I'm not one of those people that says you have to have this outright ban on certain companies. I'm actually, this is super controversial, but I actually think you cannot get to that green transition if the world's biggest companies aren't on that journey. So I, Matthew Knight (32:12) and not part of it. Kian Bakhtiari (32:13) And I think that's people, there's almost camps of we're not working with this company. They're still going to do what they're going to do. So who's going to bring them to the, on the journey. So I think a bigger challenge where I think agencies have the responsibility and they don't often take it is what you were alluding to Matthew of they often share with clients what they want rather than what they need. think the relationship isn't one where they push them, they challenge them. They help them see the world through the lens of society, through the lens of people and through the lens often of the destruction they're causing. So I think that part is for me missing where it's all about how do we make the client happy rather than how do we make the planet happy. Matthew Knight (32:50) Hmm. Bye. Ellie McCall (33:03) can kind of speak about this personally as well from earlier in my career and it's so hard to navigate when you don't want to work with certain clients. when I was starting out my career, a project came in with Shell and it was all around how we can take their retail, their petrol stations essentially globally and see if we can enforce more circular practices within the products that they sell. And internally within our agency, it was a huge moment of Do we work with them? What's going on? People had really, really strong views, including myself. And I guess there is a moment where you have to separate your personal views and actually look at the project at hand and think, can there be positive outcomes based off of this? Because they're just going to go to another agency that will do it anyway. So can the team of people that are specialists in circular practices, that have the passion and will kind of stand up to the people within the organization? Matthew Knight (33:49) Mm-hmm. Ellie McCall (33:59) can we take this on? So we took the project on and I was actually shocked working with the internal teams at that company because I was talking to people and it was like preaching to the choir. It was almost like within their own teams and their sustainability teams. Strategists had taken on a kind of Trojan horse strategy and people had actually joined that company to try change it from the inside. We then went on to kind of not work with certain organizations in the future and I think Matthew Knight (34:12) Right. Mmm. Nabila Ahmed (34:20) Bye. Ellie McCall (34:27) You have climate disclosure reports from agencies and I guess what I would say is as long as you're working with companies that for the majority of the time aren't in that tricky space that are, if we're looking at a macro level, degrading the planet, there's still room in there absolutely should be a part of your job as good strategist to, as Keean was saying, take them along that journey because where do you stop really if you look at fashion? That business model is absolutely questionable. arguably to the same degree as oil and gas. So I think it's really interesting and it's really hard to navigate. And I think you can think as a strategist that you can do well and do good and then equally still be like, why am I working with them? And I think those two things can exist at the same time. It's not a kind of zero sum equation. Kian Bakhtiari (35:03) Hmm. Matthew Knight (35:13) I think there's a really interesting point around the way that we work as independent. We aren't necessarily selling anything other than our thinking and observations and recommendations. We're not trying to sell a TV ad. We're not selling a website. We're not selling a product. So does that free us up a little bit from the point you make in around agency work where you actually, I'm having to serve two people here. What the client's looking for. and what my agency needs to sell in to make the cash. Do you think independent strategy actually frees us up a little bit to say what needs to be said? Because we're not looking for a promotion, we're not looking for the next thing, we're just trying to do what's right. Or is that overly optimistic in its own right and too purist? Kian Bakhtiari (35:58) Yeah. I think to some extent, it goes back to what we said at the very start of it frees us up because we've in two ways actually one it's almost we're outsiders. So as an outsider, you can kind of come in and with fresh eyes and be like, okay, I'm almost agnostic to everything and I want to do the best job. Nabila Ahmed (36:03) health. What's happening? Matthew Knight (36:12) Mm-hmm. Nabila Ahmed (36:13) you Kian Bakhtiari (36:23) In other ways, I think the dynamic still exists even more so because if you work in, let's say an agency, you, I know it's much harder than it sounds, but you can get another job. But the pressures of kind of being independent and kind of your livelihood, depending on it, creates a really, it brings it home, basically, it personalizes it. And I know I might not be allowed to ask questions about you. Matthew Knight (36:45) Yeah. Kian Bakhtiari (36:49) But I have a provocation of the interested in all your perspectives of when you take almost money from the client, because there is a transaction there, can you still be impartial? Because that's the thing I'm kind of from this conversation I'm thinking about as well. Matthew Knight (36:50) Ask away, ask away. Yeah. Yeah. Ellie, what's your view on that? we, the minute we take cash, do we, it moves from art to commission, right? Ellie McCall (37:14) Yeah, it's very hard to navigate. I believe that we should try to as impartial as possible in terms of the client desires. And I guess it connects back to that wider conversation. How can we take and guide the client on that journey where you are able to, in some ways, answer what they want or in some ways, I guess, just acknowledge the hardships that they're kind of going through from their perspective as well, right? And I think as long as you can do that and... Matthew Knight (37:39) Hmm. Kian Bakhtiari (37:40) Mmm. Ellie McCall (37:44) make the client understand that you see their perspective as well, I think you can push. But equally, there's going to be some some feathers ruffled and depending on the situation, personally, the market, what's going on globally, the position of the client, sometimes people will not want to hear it. And even if your client can hear it and then that gets taken up, often I've found you get to C-suite level. and people have their own perspective, they want to make their own mark on their role and their time in the organization. And things that have taken months to kind of elevate and elevate through an organization can be kind of pushed back on within one sentence. So it's very, very hard to navigate. I would love to think that I would always push for the right thing. Matthew Knight (38:26) Yeah. Kian Bakhtiari (38:28) Hmm. Ellie McCall (38:32) But actually I found in some situations sometimes you have to pick your battles as well and you have to go, okay, maybe I'll give leeway here because this will allow us to unlock a bigger conversation with other people in the room where we might be able to make strides forward as well. Nabila Ahmed (38:46) I always sort of try to position myself more as a partner when it comes to working with clients, seeing it sort of as a mutually beneficial relationship where the success of a client then translates into my success as a consultant going forward for future projects. And I do try to make that evident in those early initial calls. Matthew Knight (38:48) No problem. Nabila Ahmed (39:11) Like, yes, you are paying me money as being an exchange, but I am coming in as someone that is supposed to help you get from point A to point B. That does not always go over well as the project life cycle continues that power dynamics tend to eventually show themselves. there is always that point during the project where it's like, this still worth working on or have I had enough? I think it definitely depends on trying to take almost an objective. Matthew Knight (39:22) Hmm. Nabila Ahmed (39:43) lens, which sounds almost counterintuitive to the situation, but trying to take almost an objective lens to the project as well and seeing is this something, client aside, is this something that excites me? Is this something that sort of falls into the realms and the areas that I want to continue working on? Do I feel like I'm doing a good job? Am I getting something, am I getting more than payment for this? Am I getting? an experience that I can then take forward to future projects that really excite me and will this help me get those projects in the future. So I think it is about the balance of what you are getting out of the relationship outside of the financial aspect of it. Matthew Knight (40:22) Yeah, I love that idea of being able to take different forms of value from our work. And it's not always about the money. It's about kind of impact, I think, for a lot of the time, isn't it? I'd love to ask you one final question. If there was one challenge which you would love to work on as a strategist, what would that be right now? What is the thing that you would love to get the brief for in the next 12 months? Kian, maybe I'll come to you first. Kian Bakhtiari (40:52) Yeah, it's gonna sound a bit out there, but I know part of this session has been about optimism and creativity. I think often the things that need the most strategic support and investment are the things that don't have budget. So I'd love it if there was a commercial organization or institution that put budget towards the world's biggest problems. So that would be one. I know you said one, but... The other would be category problems. So instances where the entire category needs to come together to tackle a collective challenge. Matthew Knight (41:31) Is there a collective or category problem which particular piques your interest at the moment? Kian Bakhtiari (41:36) Not necessarily a specific one, I think, as I don't mean to bring down the optimism, but as things go by, there'll be more and more category problems. So one great example, I know you, you're a big kind of connoisseur of coffee, Matthew, but for example, that's one that's going to impact the whole of the coffee industry. it's, then it becomes less about competition and more about collaboratively, how do we tackle a collective problem? Matthew Knight (41:52) Huge, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hmm. Absolutely. Nabila, how about you? What's the brief you would love to land on your desk tomorrow? Nabila Ahmed (42:10) I think, yeah, same thing being a bit out there. But yeah, essentially, like Kian said, cash-free problem, so maybe we might find ourselves on the same team at some point. Just being able to collectively solve problems together with each stage of a particular vertical, what industry that is, I'm not sure, but I just like the idea of the challenge of being able to rebuild a system from the bottom all the way to the top. Matthew Knight (42:38) Fantastic. And Ellie, what's the brief you want to see in your inbox tomorrow? Ellie McCall (42:42) I'm really interested in fashion as a global system because I think it roots identity. think when we're looking at sustainable fashion, has a real kind of, there's a potential for it to become super elitist in which people can't afford to buy it. So I think it wraps so much up. If you look at global supply chains, it impacts the global north, the global south. It's just one of those issues for me when you're looking at it from a holistic way in which Matthew Knight (42:46) Hmm. Ellie McCall (43:10) if I could find a way in which I could crack it and it's, think it'll be my life's work to be honest. But yeah, I think for me fashion really is at that intersection of attitude, behaviour, supply chain, impact. And yeah, I really want to keep kind of chipping away at it throughout my time because I think it's in parallel to a lot of how we kind of live our lives as well. Matthew Knight (43:28) Kian, Ellie, Nabila, thank you so much for your time. Some fascinating outside perspectives and as always, wonderful talking to you. Have a great rest of the day.