With a bit of bluesky thinking, you can get your ducks in a row and have the bandwidth to deliver against a pipeline. Of course, you don't need to talk like a tosser to succeed in business.
A lot of copywriters work, almost exclusively, for agencies. However, I've spent the majority of my career working with agencies as a client for some pretty big FTSE brands. And just because it's client-side, doesn't mean your freelance wings are clipped. I work as a consultant and get paid a day-rate to sit in-house.
However, even as a non-permanent member of staff, you can still survive and thrive in these more cutthroat ecosystems.
1. Show humility
Now, I say cutthroat... That only applies to my level, middle to senior management. I've been the Head of Content and reported to Directors, so there's a lot more pressure. And a lot more politics, business and numbers. The latter being my weakest skill, in order to succeed at this level is to manage the expectations of your manager and peers by being honest and showing some humility.
I'm perhaps too honest, I tell our partners and agencies how it is, from top-level budget conversations, vicarious politics between internal stakeholders and skewed prioritisation. However, I think it's important everyone you're working with is informed.
Knowledge is power, but not in a corporate environment. Knowledge is a blocker and a single point of failure. Knowledge is accountability. Knowledge may be incorrect. As with any working environment, gossip and Chinese whispers, so don't take what you hear as gospel. It could well be fake news.
I've seen many people fail at corporates because of hubris. You're surrounded by people who charge around with their laptops attached to their forearm, pacing with earphones while talking to IT teams in India and daily stand-ups of people huddled around a kanban board, it's easy to bowl in pretending to be the Steve Jobs of your particular discipline.
You may think it gives you authority or gravitas, but you're surrounded by people who have been doing the same job at the same company for a lifetime. They will look at you with disdain. Appreciate people's tenure, experience and level, and learn from them.
2. Changing the status quo
With any regime change, comes a structure and/or process change. Everyone who starts at job wants to make their mark and prove their worth to the hiring manager. It's like buyer's affirmation that they made the right decision.
You might come in with pre-determined ideas of what's expected, but the person who wrote the job description isn't the person who's doing the job. It's how your manager sees the role, which may be very different from reality. Don't lose sight of what you want to achieve and the reason you took the job, but be prepared to not get stuck into that straight away.
It's critical to win people over. Do this by talking to the ones you're working with on a one-to-one basis; ask about how they get stuff done, what their roles and responsibilities are, find out about the pain-points, the breaks in the process and where they think needs attention. Then focus on fixing those things, asking for help and guidance. Of course, using your valuable experience. The main benefit of you being there is the lessons you're bringing from other roles and organisations, so don't be afraid to trial them. It'll look good on you and if they work, it's a big thumbs up for your career.
3. Everything is glacial
The bigger and older the organisation, the more stuck in its ways it is. If you want to role out a new initiative, you'll need to win people over who have an attitude of 'if it isn't broke, why fix it'. Basically, you need all your influencing and negotiation skills to make things work.
Then there's the cultural challenge of having to change the way people work or think about something, whether it's a process or business unit. This is particularly difficult to fix, especially if you have an established team.
And because it takes a long time to get budgets and projects approved, plus getting the brief approved and everyone across different business areas to know what they need to do and by when. Inevitably, this doesn't happen till the eleventh hour. Don't even get me started on the approvals process - when the world and its son wants to see it and then make changes on the bits that aren't within their jurisdiction or make change for change sake. Gaahhh!
This is where you need to be bullish and keep nagging people. In a nice way, of course. To instill a new process or way of working, you need to make people feel like they're part of it and they're accountable. Also, don't be afraid to mark your authority over it. Culture is mainly habitual.
