Prove
Undivided.
Right now it’s a promise. In two years it should be something we can show any client, with the evidence behind it.
How much of our income comes from clients who buy three or more things from us. If most of our work is one discipline at a time, we haven’t proved anything.
Five goals
that prove it.
Read down
Collective
Creativity
The best ideas come from unexpected places. Find out what makes that happen, then do more of it.
- Every discipline in the room before the first idea.
- Whether anyone changed their mind.
- Whether the job ended up somewhere the first thought didn’t point.
Imagination,
Unlimited
Make things we couldn’t have made. Move the limit, then go and find it again.
- Jobs that put out something we couldn’t have made a year ago.
- How often “we can’t make that” turned out to be wrong.
- How much of what we learn reaches real client work.
Results, Not
Decoration
Every job has a number attached before we start. If we never said what winning looked like, we can’t say we won.
- Jobs with a number agreed with the client before we start.
- How many of those we went back and checked.
- How many moved — and were still working a year later.
Concept, Brand,
Identity
Nothing goes out unfiltered. Anyone can make content. Making it recognisably theirs is the job.
- How much of what we send out got checked first.
- How many cues each client has. Seven and people know.
- How many clients we made stronger on purpose.
Culture
Six out of seven on every value.
Everyone says how well they think we live up to each value, one to seven. Not whether they like the words. Whether we’re doing it. Anonymous, same questions, every six months.
The two years,
read across.
Count everything. Baselines, first culture survey, numbers agreed on new jobs. Nothing to hit yet.
First session on what’s newly possible. Has any of it reached a client?
First comparison. Find the pattern in the jobs that went well. Set the first targets.
Are we hitting them? Trend or one good quarter? Does the work look like everyone else’s?
The awkward ones. The jobs where nothing moved. The weeks nobody was watching.
Can we show it to a client — including the one who doesn’t believe us?
Read it downwards: the one goal at the top is what we’re trying to prove. The four working principles below are how we prove it — one goal each, so no principle gets to be a poster. Culture sits under all four because none of them happen in a room that doesn’t work. Read it across the bottom and you get the calendar: early dates go to the goals that would otherwise wait.