Human Powered: High-performing agency & consultancy teams

Fostering togetherness with a global remote team - with Ranzie Anthony

How do you create a strong culture and community with a global remote team?
Ranzie Anthony is co-founder and CEO of Athlon, a global design & technology company. He’s been running the business for 14 years, with a team of 100 people across 4 continents.
In this episode, Ranzie shares how he:
Overcame cultural, language, time zone, and process differences to build a high-performing global team
Brings the team together to build cultural bonds and create enduring memories
Rewards and recognises positive behaviour whenever someone does something great
Sets a one-team culture, treating everyone equally, regardless of location or role
Fosters a sense of community where people care for each other and go the extra mile 
Encourages team members to embrace change so they have maximum impact on the business over time
Ranzie believes strongly in a remote-first and global culture. It leads to better wellbeing for the team and a greater understanding of life in different parts of the world.

Overseeing Four Agencies as Group CEO - with Andrew Southcott

How do you motivate diverse leadership teams across an agency group?
Andrew Southcott is the CEO of Captivate Group, overseeing 4 independent agencies and a team of 120 people.
In this episode, Andrew shares how he:
Adapts his leadership style to get the best out of everyone and get out of their way so they can excel 
Pushes a DEI agenda because of the noticeable improvements to their work 
Takes what he's learnt from his stand-up comedy side hustle and applies this to leading the group
Encourages senior team members to look ahead and proactively work out how to apply their finite resources to solve problems
Focuses on operations as each agency scales to ensure consistency in delivery
Recruits different types of Managing Directors for start-up vs. scale-up phases for the group agencies 
Andrew is passionate about building a great place with great people, delivering great work for great clients. And in this episode, he breaks down exactly how he does it.

Building AI workforces - with Fergus Dyer-Smith

How do you continually embed AI to create a high-performing business?
Fergus Dyer-Smith is founder and CEO of Wooshi, an AI-enabled content business. He got early access to the original GPT from OpenAI back in late-2020.
In this episode, Fergus shares how he:
Realised the potential of AI early on and created automated solutions for most business processes
Built an AI-powered creative ideation product that ended up replacing their Creative Director 
Developed an AI tool that enables their sales team to generate client proposals without input from the creative team
Advocates for widespread AI adoption to save time, encouraging people to reinvest that time to find new ways to add value
Expects us to deliver up to 100 times the output compared to a pre-AI world
Proactively prepares for AI to potentially replace him, ensuring he's ready for whatever’s next
Fergus firmly believes that AI will lead to opportunity and abundance for all of us. While its adoption can feel scary, he feels great excitement about the possibilities.

Moving from a family culture to a performance-driven team culture - with Ian Finch

How do you create a performance culture whilst maintaining warmth and affection?
Ian Finch is founder and CEO of Mando Group, a digital consultancy that makes technology work for everyone. He’s been running the business for 27 years.
In this episode, Ian shares how he:
Moved away from decision-making led by informal watercooler moments to being highly metric-driven
Uses the VMOST framework to cascade business goals into team, department and individual goals
Profiled his superheroes internally and built out values and core competencies from their behaviour
Realised that his workaholic tendencies and high expectations meant that his team couldn’t thrive
Uses NLP coaching with his team so they come up with the answers themselves and get into a performance state
Moved away from having a ‘duty obligation’ by realising that just because he can do something, it doesn't mean he should do it
Ian candidly shares the story of his major burnout and having to step away from running the business for 3 months. He gradually reintegrated and transformed his leadership style to become an enabler to his team.

Using cognitive behavioural coaching so leaders and their businesses thrive - with Nikki Gatenby

How do you become truly self-aware as a business leader?
Nikki Gatenby is a Non-Exec Director, Cognitive Behavioural Coach and bestselling author of 2 books. She has 25 years of agency experience including 10 years running the agency, Propellernet.
In this episode, Nikki shares how she:
Articulates business visions in a novel way so they’re memorable and easy to understand 
Pushes for a culture where everyone can say when things aren’t working so they all develop and grow
Looks after people's wellbeing and avoids them burning out by regularly asking 4 simple questions
Brings in backward reflection and retrospectives so teams always learn from their experiences
Enables personal growth by getting everyone to be learn-it-alls (and not know-it-alls)
Uses working style analysis so teams understand how best to work with each other
Nikki talks openly about her 25-year career - including how she self-manages to prevent her two previous burnout events from ever happening again.

Growing a global neurodiverse agency to 40 people in just 4 years - with Hannah Springett

How do you achieve rapid growth with a diverse team across 3 continents?
Hannah Springett is Founder & CEO of HLabs. She started her no-code creative agency just 4 years ago and has rapidly scaled to a global team of 40 people. 
In this episode, Hannah shares how she:
Instills a growth mindset within the team so they believe anything is possible
Places authenticity at the heart of everything she does - including being open about her endeavours going wrong
Has learnt to supercharge her empathy skills - especially to get the best out of introverts
Values diversity and intentionally recruits globally to increase this even more
Spends quality time with team members to properly understand their ambitions and motivations 
Maps out her 10-year vision for each pillar of the business, aligning everyone around a set of big lofty goals
Hannah is deeply committed to changing the lives of each of her employees. She shares how she does this in our open and authentic conversation.

Focusing on culture and diversity to grow to 300 people - with Tamara Littleton

How do you grow to 300 people globally with a laser focus on people and culture?
Tamara Littleton is Executive Chair & Founder at Social Element. She started the agency as a remote-first business 22 years ago. 
In this episode, Tamara shares how she:
Puts attracting and retaining brilliant talent at the top of their flywheel and as their key business objective
Used her corporate background to apply strategic thinking from day one and grow into a large business 
Leads from the back to keep out of people’s way and allow them to take the business forward 
Appointed external auditors to measure how well they’re doing for diversity and help them continuously improve 
Rolled out DISC training across the business so everyone better understands each other, is more respectful and challenges ideas 
Takes it as her personal responsibility to retain the culture so the team keeps turning up every day and doing a great job
Tamara openly shares her 22-year journey from sole founder to handing over the running of the business and appointing two co-CEOs.

Leading an agency group so everyone loves what they do - with Becky Simms

How do you set the weather in your business and get everyone to love what they do?
Becky Simms is Founder and CEO of the agency group, Human First Collective. 14 years ago she founded her agency, Reflect Digital, which she integrated into the group last year.
In this episode, Becky shares how she:
Is driven by the mantra, “Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”
Has a robust, clearly defined recruitment and onboarding process, ensuring every hire is a great cultural fit
Uses a ‘Vivid Vision’ and working groups so everyone deeply buys into the company direction
Brings their values to life with external speakers, including a Gold-winning Olympian
Invested heavily in tech to make team meetings fully inclusive and engaging for remote participants
Transitioned the agency to a flexible 4-day workweek - and has never looked back
Becky firmly believes that the leadership team sets the weather for the agency. This philosophy guides all her communications.

Making a lasting difference to the way people live, work and grow - with Steven Writer-Maguire

How do you grow while continuously strengthening your culture and developing antibodies to incompatible working styles?
Steven Writer-Maguire is Director at the consultancy Clarasys. He joined the firm 8 years ago and has overseen growth from 40 to over 200 people in London and Boston.
In this episode, Steven shares how he:
Rapidly transitioned away from a traditional hierarchical consultancy mindset to one of trust and enablement
Set up a Team of Teams model where multi-disciplinary teams make decisions and collectively solve client problems by themselves
Uses their monthly F**k Up Challenge so everyone can safely share mistakes and learnings
Encourages people to act as business owners and make their own decisions about what’s best for the company
Puts everyone through their internal course, Clarasys Code, so they all learn about emotional intelligence and neuroscience 
Created the Clarasys Triangle (featuring People, Business and Clients) to guide their decision-making
Steven passionately shares his ‘why’: To build the best firm their people will ever work for. As a result, their culture gets stronger the larger they grow.

Growing an agency for 12 consecutive years powered by happiness - with Jaye Cowle

How do you set happiness as your North Star to drive year-on-year growth for 12 years? 
Jaye Cowle is Founder at Launch. She started her performance marketing agency 12 years ago. She’s overseen continued growth with a focus on people-powered performance.
In this episode, Jaye shares how she:
Placed the concept of ‘powered by happiness’ at the core of what they do internally and with clients
Uses the 3 pillars of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose to underpin team motivation
Accepts that their happiness proposition can be off-putting... but it’s worth it so they don’t have a vanilla agency proposition
Created a feedback culture where people can communicate how happy they are, share ideas and celebrate each other weekly
Uses their values as a common shared language in recruitment, onboarding, personal development and celebrating successes
Is shaping their client offerings around their values and happiness mantra, elevating them beyond their current service offering 
Jaye also talks about the impact of her near-death brush with cancer 5 years ago. She leans in far more on the things she’s passionate about and lives a more amplified life.