Episode 62 of "What is Innovation?" is here! In this episode, Jared talks with Ralf Specht, visionary business leader and highly sought-after speaker. Ralf is the creator of the Soul System™, a framework that aligns value-creating employee action with broader corporate strategy through shared understanding & shared purpose. Amongst other things, they discuss how advertising has evolved throughout the years and how systems can be improved through shared purposes. Does your definition of innovation include a shared purpose for you and the company? Do your campaigns have room for failure and future development? Ralf's experience and expertise will help you become a soulful leader and give life to your systems and organizations.
Ralf Specht is a visionary business leader, highly sought-after speaker, and creator of the Soul System™, a framework that aligns value-creating employee action with broader corporate strategy through shared understanding & shared purpose.
More about our guest:
Ralf Specht is a founding partner of Spark44, he was the architect of an innovative, industry-first joint-venture with Jaguar Land Rover, which grew under his leadership to a global revenue of $100+m and 1,200 employees before it joined forces with Accenture Interactive in 2021. Previously, he consulted with global companies and brands for more than two decades with McCann Erickson. He is the author of 2021’s Building Corporate Soul: Powering Culture & Success with the Soul System™ from Fast Company Press, as well as his newest book, Beyond the Startup: Sparking Operational Innovations for Global Growth. His driving vision is to make soulless companies a thing of the past.
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Episode Guide:
1:40 - What is Innovation?
3:29 - What isn't Innovation?
5:24 - Advertising: Changing the game and creating something new
7:53 - The Procter and Gamble Experience
9:30 - Innovation: Shaping and Molding Careers
11:11 - Disrupting the normal
17:29 - Business Development Process and Staffing
20:04 - Becoming the CEO
22:26 - Creating Job Titles
25:07 - "Building Corporate Soul"
29:07 - Having a shared purpose
31:37 - Benefits of spending time on Culture
32:38 - Advice to Innovators
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OUTLAST Consulting offers professional development and strategic advisory services in the areas of innovation and diversity management.
/This transcript was automatically generated using AI; please forgive any inconsistencies. We are working to provide the correct and more concise copy of the transcript. For urgent need, please send us an email.
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Jared Simmons 00:05
Hello, and welcome to what is innovation. The podcast that explores the reality of a word that is in danger of losing its meaning altogether. This podcast is produced by Outlast consulting, LLC, a boutique consultancy that helps companies use innovation principles to solve their toughest business problems. I'm your host, Jared Simmons, and I'm so excited to have Ralf Specht.
Jared Simmons 00:30
Ralf Specht is the author of building corporate soul. He developed the soul system, a framework that powers culture and success for any business. After two decades, with McCann Erickson in various executive roles, he was a founding partner of Spark 44 and innovative industry first joint venture with Jaguar Land Rover, under his leadership as CEO, Spark 44 grew to a 1200 person business in 18 countries. His second book, beyond the startup shows the operational innovations that drove spark 40 fours growth before it joined forces with Accenture. His driving vision is to make Solus companies a thing of the past. Ralph, thank you so much for joining us. I'm so excited about this conversation. You've had such an amazing career, and I can't wait to talk to you about innovation and how it has shaped your journey.
01:17
Well, Jared, thank you very much for having me on the show. I think innovation is a wonderful topic, actually. Because when you're in business, and obviously I've been in business for quite a while being at the end of my 50s. There's been innovation in lots of areas. And it's been in there all the way through. So I'm really excited to be on the show and have a conversation about
Jared Simmons 01:38
Thank you very much. Let's dive right in. What in your mind is innovation?
01:44
Well, I think innovation is is about introducing something new, right? Something that hasn't been done, or hasn't been there before. And probably an example that you've heard too often for that as the Apple iPhone, because obviously there was a completely new category that was opened up. It's been innovation that's shaped and impacted millions of lives across cultures and technology for the better, I think for everyone has been capable of using.
Jared Simmons 02:14
Right, right? I love that definition. Because it's so elegant. Just the introduction of something new, a lot of times people bring a lot of alcoholic baggage to a definition of innovation, you know, has to be technology driven, it has to be new to the entire world. It has to be this has to be that but introducing something new, I think is really the core of what innovation is. Yeah. And
02:37
I think if you remember that famous product presentation of the first iPhone back in Windows, that was 2006, I think something along those lines, when when Steve Jobs was on stage and said, Well, it's an iPad, but it's a tone as well. And it's a computer as well. So it's like an iPod, it's a phone, it's a computer, it's got all of that. And he made his jokes about the BlackBerry with where to type and all of that, and how can you combine these things and all of that. And I think that was truly a relation because it was basically merging existing technologies into one device, which actually changed the way we all interact. So there's many more examples, but that's probably the one most widely recognized by everybody who's listening.
Jared Simmons 03:22
Right? Right. That's a it's a great example to kind of anchor the conversation around. So we talked about what innovation is, what in your mind isn't innovation? Well,
03:32
my career has been in advertising marketing for many, many years. And when I say the introduction of something new, like the Apple iPhone is true innovation, then obviously, the different company launches something similar, like Samsung with the Galaxy smartphones shortly after, that's actually not really innovation, at least not at the first moment. I think, as the category has shaped up over the years, there's been many innovations that Samsung and Galaxy portfolio has brought to the world. But initially, I think the innovation actually truly belongs to Apple and the iPhone, just a new feature. I think it's just not unless it's a it's a killer feature. Right? It's gotta be more profound than that something new must be really something new.
Jared Simmons 04:20
Right? Right, right. So Apple sort of invented a category correct in participating in that category. After that you may invent some new things to compete differently or to add features to it. But the innovation, you're saying is the innovation was sort of the creation of this category that didn't exist the day before. Correct. That makes a lot of sense. It allows you to separate innovation from invention. Because I think if you look in the last, even the last 10 years, Samsung has probably been more inventive than Apple in terms of what they've done with cameras and some of the other hardware but the innovation at the heart of it belongs to Apple in terms of taking us from the Push Button phone to the Slate form factor that we have today with computers inside. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, it's it's well put, how does that translate into sort of how you think about marketing and advertising? It's a great product based example. Is there a similar example from the world of advertising that you can think of in terms of someone who changed the game and really kind of created something new in that space?
05:25
Well, I think in advertising, there's the old saying that we've all seen it before. It just comes in different shapes and forms and colors. And I think that's true. I mean, there's there's only a few fundamental approaches that have been there. And whenever any creative folks got to something unique, that actually worked well, with the brand, they were advertising and in the media they were using to advertise, I think, then there has been some breakthrough work. And we see that every year. And can we see that the FES and so on and so forth. But in terms of true breakthroughs? I mean, I would argue the advertising industry is pretty traditional. There have been a few and those have been, obviously, in the world of media, with the internet changed things, like by a factor of I don't know what Yeah, I mean, I still remember those days, I was working on a car account here in Europe. And we would want to actually developing the first Configurator for a car brand. This was like, I think, 97 or so. Wow. I mean, in today's world, can you imagine the only thing that that was kind of your product information, and whether it was the color you liked, and the engine, and so on and so forth. And the gadget, you had to work your way through a big catalog, and figure out which model allowed which options, and so, so on and so forth. I mean, the internet in terms of marketing, and accessing kind of democratizing access to consumers, obviously has been a huge game changer and lots of innovative elements of how to communicate in which to communicate with people have emerged from them. Probably the biggest change since the printing was developed.
Jared Simmons 07:01
Wow, yeah, that really puts it in context and thought about it that way. It's probably its biggest shift is printing.
07:07
Yeah, I mean, look at my kids who are in their late 20s and early 30s, are probably the last generation whoever can remember that. There were times when you had a map, when you were driving from place A to place B. And you were always concerned that you miss ST X, because you just didn't see the sign early enough. And now Google tells you kind of where the traffic jam happens, and what's the best way around it. And you can tell your people that you're visiting that you're going to be 15 minutes late, because that's the traffic jam on the motorway, and so on and so forth. I mean, think about it, oh, this is just like 20 years ago.
Jared Simmons 07:46
That's unbelievable. But in that context, as we think about the advertising industry, and the impact of the internet on it, I'm a product guy, I grew up career wise at Procter and Gamble in r&d making products. And so we always had this viewpoint of, we were consumer centric, and we were building things that solved problems for the consumer, and the core benefits and all those things. And then we build it tested with consumers, and then hand it over to the marketing team, the advertising folks to go do what they do. I feel like there's been innovation in that whole process. I feel like it's much more integrated and seamless than it used to be, say, 20 years ago.
08:25
Yeah, I think 20 years ago, it was probably three silos, an organization and you handled all this stuff. And then you saw the end product pretty much the same time, as the consumer did, or you're watching TV, and all of a sudden looks, oh, that's what they've done. Exactly. Whereas I think today that is much more integrated, because obviously, with the opportunities that the internet is offering to target consumers more and more directly, you mean, we're not in the age of the singular consumer that you can target. Obviously, group is much closer and much more direct and make sure the benefits hit that consumer exactly when he or she is in the mood. Yeah, considering it, and not just when you get other things on your mind. And yeah, that's part of where the innovation has gone, too. But obviously, we've also seen with the rise of social media, we see lots of benefits, but we've also seen some dark moments. So innovation usually is not a virgin thing.
Jared Simmons 09:20
Exactly. doesn't have an inherent goodness or badness to it. Just it's something new. It solves a problem, but it could create other unintended consequences. Yes. So I'd like to talk a bit about your career and how the role innovation has played in sort of shaping and molding your career. Can you talk to me a bit about that?
09:38
Yes. So we've already noticed that my career has been predominantly in been in advertising. I spent more than 20 years with McCann Erickson in lots of roles have been in management of local markets here in Germany or running global accounts or regional accounts across Europe, London for 20 years and as I mentioned, We'd like the first configurator was one element Yeah. of innovation. Or I still remember we did the first billboard in Russia back then. Was it 1990? Whatever one, I think, the first billboard first billboard of a Western brand in Russia. And as we're talking about it, I mean, there's no more billboards or Restaurant Brands in Russia today, right? Yeah, we won't be for a long time, right. Lots of innovation. But I think these 20 years working in global advertising have allowed me to actually jump ship back in 2011, when a former colleague of mine, Steve Wolford, called me up one night and said, Listen, I'm planning to build up a new kind of agency and actually, in an industry first type of agency, a joint venture with the client, and would you want to be part of this and build the organization for the European and Asian markets initially? What happened then was exactly probably what happens with most innovations. Is, the person on the other end of the phone actually goes like, are you serious? This is a joke.
Jared Simmons 11:09
There's a moment of disbelief.
11:11
Yeah. Obviously know, it's time series. And this is kind of where I'm at. And this is kind of what I think. And I was like, okay, Steve, worked together before. And we had a pretty good way of doing things and getting things done back in the day. And so that's the better your business plan, I want to see it. I see it in writing. That's fine. I'll get it to us straight after the call, which he did, which was late at night time. So next day, I looked at the business plan, and I was like, Okay, this is serious. This is real. Yeah, we talked again, the next evening. And so okay. Now, there's a few bits and bobs in the business plan that need a bit of work. But the general direction was pretty straightforward, and pretty good. And so we created this first advertising agency that was half owned by the client, which was Jaguar Land Rover. Wow. And they wanted us to the advertising for the Jaguar brand globally, initially. So we started with four agencies than those were based in Los Angeles and London, Frankfurt, and Shanghai. And I can tell you one thing if you buy into such an idea, and you get the client approvals, and so client slash partner, because it was a joint venture, right, one thing you notice when you get that approval is okay, it usually comes with a strict deadline. And theirs was like, Okay, this is what about the middle of February 2011? We would like you to start on June 1.
Jared Simmons 12:36
Wow. Like operating as an as the new integrating.
12:39
So at that time, we were just five guys. Business Plan and a passion and an idea. Right? And then it got real very, very quickly. Yeah. Because the one moment you're excited, because Okay, now it's really happening. The next morning, you wake up, and it's like, okay. We actually needed 20 people in each office. So hire four times 20 People in four countries in which you don't have an office or not even have a company yet.
Jared Simmons 13:11
Wow. And have them coordinated and operating in three months. Yeah.
13:16
And bring them into their jobs. Right? It was interesting, because some of us like, Okay, I work together well with X, Y, and Zed. So X, Y, Zed, what you want to be part of this, similar to how Steve called me. And I actually thought, I've been with McCann's for 22 years. And I was excited to do something new. And one thing was clear to me, it wouldn't be really new if I would bring in the boys. Right. Right. So innovation also comes with bringing in diversity and thinking and experience and background. Yeah, new voices. Yeah, I didn't just want everybody who's been the same sort of same shit that I have employees and try to do the same thing, but different, right? I thought to do it different. It needs difference. So that's the way we did it. And I still remember to this day, having the interviews with all these people. Usually I was a bit scared. I was like, Okay, let's see how that goes. Yeah, because you just don't know. But after having done, I don't know, 10 interviews on a day for a week. I said on the weekend, I said, Look, don't count me in for the afternoon. I'll just need to make sure I can put those candidates see what's the right mix. And my initial thought was this will take six, seven hours to actually go through this. Right. And I was wrong, because it actually took one and a half. Wow. And the reason they took one and a half was very simple, because there was one question that we asked during these interviews. That was the question that divided the ones who were the right people to join versus the others. Were probably not the right people to join at this moment. They might have perhaps been interesting later because Question was not a question that I raised was a question that these people raised. Everybody raised the question, but the answer was different every all the time. question was, Do you have a job description? And my response was, Well, you know, we neither have an office yet. But a company yet, we have an idea about the functions that we need, and which levels of seniority that we're actually interested in people who are interested in writing the job description, in the first three months, right.
13:17
There was a group of people that could not get their heads around this, right. And so just the conversation about this facet made it clear whether they will be the right people for our startup or not. And that's why I'm saying some of them actually joined. In year two, or three or four, they were definitely not the right people for day one. But there were a lot of people who were the right people for day one. And so we were happy, and we look for the opposite. I started from those 20 people, I think 18 were a perfect fit to weld, I thought that was a pretty good result for convincing people to get on a mission. I think that's the critical part. So what was the reason that convinced them, so our mission was to restore the Jaguar brand. And that was something many, many folks felt very much attached to. And so it got us a lot of people who were behind this mission. And that made it easy for us to build a company culture that was second to none. And sounds like for the floor, which is the name of the agency put up its doors on the first of June in 2011. And 80 people were there. And it all happened. And the rest is history. I mean, the company grew in its first three years to actually six offices, and 250 people. And as our joint venture partner was Jaguar and Land Rover, and the initial agreement had been that this is not going to be just a Jaguar agency. So we would open the doors once the operation was solid and robust way to other brands. And like three years later, we said, well, we feel we're in a good shape we can we can now open the doors for other clients and our joint venture partners at the time said, We think so too. Why don't you just take over the Landrover wrap? Wow. And then we did okay, let's not forget any other clients. But actually, it means tripling the agency in just six months.
Jared Simmons 17:26
Wow. With no like business development,
17:29
you could argue the business development was the three years because the performance Yes, for sure. Yes. Yeah, the performance because in the meantime, we had won the global Fe for the Jaguar Super Bowl campaign in the US with the good to be bad. Yeah. Remember? And do? Yes. And so I think that's the power of great work. This was 2013 with another 2020 tools. It's nine years ago. And I mentioned it, you just ah, yeah. Yeah, it was very powerful. And to this day to be pretty much a defining campaign for the brand. Some people say history repeats itself. So the moment we got the green light for for the lender or brand, similar story, the incumbent, the largest of the incumbent agencies said, well, actually, if you really want to leave, they will close the doors on June 30. So by July 1, there won't be any more service. So again, same thing, can you please set up the teams for the Land Rover brand, between early March on the first of July, the only difference was in the initial phase, it was for officers with 20 P believes, right. In the second phase, it was an additional 12 officers with 500 people altogether. And with a strict deadline, because the operations had to be capable of running in four months later. So Right. And that was probably the most intense phase of how innovation shaped I
Jared Simmons 18:52
definitely wouldn't be.
18:54
I mean, you are free from your Procter and Gamble days. At the end of the day, it's all about the team that you have, and is capable of doing. And I remember Steve and I had this conversation because he wasn't so sure whether this was a good thing. And I said, Well, you know, would we rather want somebody else to do the job or not? So that was the first question. We all said, no, no, we don't. So then the next question that was on the table was, how can we preserve the culture that made this agency? Great? Yeah, that's obviously the biggest topic. So we were lucky, because for the 12 agencies, we had to set up I think we nine of those, we had, like point people point account people in various markets where we didn't have an office. So those have been dyed in the wool with the culture and the approach and the ambition and the passion. And so we felt they really qualified to step up and become the general manager in these agencies and policy. And so that got us a head start, which was different, obviously, to like three years before where it was just the five of us,
Jared Simmons 19:54
right. So you were able to sort of promote folks into leadership that already understood the culture knew As what was important and could guide and shape it as it grew. Yeah.
20:04
And fast forward a few years later, Steve resigned and his retirement. So I became CEO. And when I left, I stepped down from the position at the end of 2019. Something happened that actually got me to write the first book, which is building corporate soul. And what happened was, as you can imagine, I was the last of the family team that was leaving. So people were quite concerned for a number of reasons. And so I received countless farewell messages. And they went much, much deeper than you would normally expect them. Right. So people were really concerned about kind of the next phase, and that people also felt this was a moment to say thank you in a different way. Many of them said part of the book, you've actually made us accomplish things that we never thought possible. For me, actually, I always thought it was possible, because I saw what capabilities those people had, right? They weren't sure whether their capabilities were as good as I thought they were. So they were afraid, right. But if you look at that, you very quickly get to a place where you think about what is required to drive innovation and what needs to happen. One of the guys that I do by actually created the first configurator on Instagram, now they talk innovation. So again, obviously, it's not like fully fledged one that you have on your computer. But it gets you to a certain place for which buying decisions are made much easier. And I think there's yeah, there's five things that you actually need, or five traits, if you like, you got to provide psychological safety. People need to feel they got your back. That's critical. If you've worked in product development, same thing to come up with crazy stuff you learn, okay, let's see. And you need that boss, that leader that actually pushes you even further to then get to a place where like, Okay, I never thought we would do this. But here we are area. So psychological safety is critical, you need to create an environment that is highly collaborative, very, very important as like diversity in the early days of the industry first agency approach was so critical means it stated exactly that way to operate differently on a global scale. You got to be sure about your hierarchy or non hierarchy, right?
22:26
We did an experiment at the beginning. And that failed, actually, because we said, well, we will want job titles. And we had a difficult time and convincing everybody because it's easy. And I have to confess, it's easy if you're the Fabula on the management team to say you don't need a job title. But if you're like 27, and in your first or second job, and you want to show progress to the world, and not just say you're working in sales or in customer service, right, right, you need some kind of thing there. So we have tons of discussions on what's the right amount of job titles to their action. And then you need the willingness to experiment. If you know that for property development, you just got to try. And as you have that willingness to experiment, it only works if you have a tolerance for failure, because not everything will work as you can be sure the good or the bad example is a great case is like if you got that tolerance for failure, every now and then something great happens. And this was the moment at that point. And there were many more. So if you celebrate those moments, not just a great campaign, but the all those little moments that happen along the way, where innovation in how you do business, or how you manage projects, or how you leverage different things to create something new. And I think you're on a journey to actually bring people to this promise of the Fun fact, in any organization because you can create something something new. It's something that everybody values, not just the leaders. I think if you talk to young people inside any organization, it's very often the innovation project. That's the fun part, right? Because everybody knows, certain things won't work. So you can just try, try, try try, try but whatever project six will work. It'll be phenomenal.
Jared Simmons 24:17
That's well said. I think you're exactly right. In terms of the failure tolerance and the experimentation of minds. I love all five. Those last two really speak to me, because of my background and things I've seen as an engineer that moved into consulting. I expected the world would be different, but it's not that different. The business, the broader business world, you still need to have that space, just as you said for experimentation and the tolerance for failure because no one knows. We're all guessing. Yeah, we're all saying I think this will work. And anybody who tells you differently is deluding themselves. Those last who really resonate with me personally and the framework of all five I think, is a great backdrop for culture. How would you set a mindset for folks to really feel comfortable innovating and see it as valued as a book
25:07
title for the leadership book is called Building corporate. So when I get asked, I usually say, Well, every company has a culture when if you get so. So the real question then becomes, how do you get there? Right? As I said, You can't not have a company without culture. Yeah, yeah. So the question is, what do you do with it. And from own experience, and from the book, I can only say, culture is something that needs to be reflected on my leadership, and ideally, very early on. So there's a framework in the book, which is called the soul system. But it's got three levels. Level one is the shared purpose, shared purpose, because it's to be shared by the leadership team and with all stakeholders. And there's the shared understanding, the shared understanding, to me encapsulates the usual suspects of vision mission values. And I've added a fourth one, which I believe is fundamental critical, which is spirit. To me, Spirit is the intended culture. So what is management? Consider, what's the culture we want to see, because at the end of the day, management can decide lots of things. But it can only create an environment for the culture to emerge. If you want to know about the culture in any business that are asked the CEO, ask the receptionist, or ask the driver, or ask the janitor or ask whoever. So the third level, then are the sharp behaviors, because they actually make the culture. And if you have the purpose, and the understanding and the behaviors, connected, right, well connected, there's an integrity between those three, you actually are getting close to being a company was sold. And the companies with sold outperform their peers.
26:53
So when I finished writing the book, I looked at all the analysis and all the research that I had been going through over the past few months. And one thing occurred to me was, it's usually been the same companies that always stood up as great example. So I looked at all the research and then did weighting to those and created the solar index, which is a performance ranking companies, and it's 75% of that index are based on employee data. Right, right. Right. Engagement, employee satisfaction, but also employee approval of the CEO. Interesting. And when that ranking was complete, I asked someone at a bank that I work with, can you please do me a favor and calculate the portfolio returns over a period of time, right. And when they did that, I knew that it would be good because 60% tech companies, and they have been doing great for for a number of years. But I wasn't so sure whether it really was so good overall. And so I was really, really, really excited when I got results, because the index between 2016 and 2020, beat NASDAQ by nearly 20 percentage points are sold index was like 199%, return NASDAQ did 190. And over those five years of data from s&p were in the 70s or 80%. So all we're doing great, right? In the grand scheme of things, right? This was just another from another world if you like, right? Yeah,
Jared Simmons 28:17
yeah, I think
28:18
when you look into shared purpose, shared understanding and shared behaviors, you can translate those three, but the three B's as I call them, shared purpose to me is about being shared understanding is about believing. And shared behavior is about belonging. So being believing and belonging, and yeah, and if you worked out two questions for each of those that leaders can ask themselves, they sound simple. So similar to your what is innovation? Or being on a shared purpose? The two questions are why am I here? And why are we here?
Jared Simmons 28:55
Interesting. You can look at those answers side by side probably and get insights just from the comparison of those two,
29:01
I think to get to the answer is not an easy feat.
Jared Simmons 29:04
Yeah, exactly. Why are you here? Yes, there
29:07
are the quick answers that you can shoot out, right? If you start reflecting on those today that question. So why am I here? Why are we here on the being shared purpose on believing the shared understanding, vision, mission, values and spirit? What do we believe in? And how do we shape belief in others? Right? So how can we as leaders make sure that everybody else inside the organization or our suppliers and our customers or the communities and the investors and what have you? How do we make sure that they believe in what we think the dream of the company is? Right? Right. Then you get into the share behaviors and it's all about belonging. Right. And you've probably seen that McKinsey study from last October, which was about the great resignation. Why are people leaving? The number one reason why people are leaving is because they don't feel To me sense of belonging in their organization and their company. And so the topic of belonging is so critical. Yes, it's actually the one topic that separates the boys from the men, if you like, because the companies with culture and companies were so because you could get the strategy, right. And you can get the vision, right and your intended culture, the spirit is there. And it reads nicely. It's all gray. At the end of the day, if it doesn't happen inside the organization, it's all just fig leaf PowerPoint, right? It doesn't get captured anywhere, right? So shared behaviors belonging, what does it feel like to belong here? And how do we create belonging for others? These are two questions for leaders to reflect on. And once you get through those, and I haven't seen anyone who, after hearing those questions, like two minutes later have an answer you don't know, because it's heavy stuff. But it's worth thinking this through. Because you look into research. There's OC tena, in the US, we've got a global culture report, global culture index that basically says that companies with a thriving culture, which to me is synonymous with the company was sold 13 times more engaged employees have a double likelihood of increased revenues. Employees in these companies are three times less affected by burnout situations, and the companies themselves are three times less affected by potential layoffs. Oh, interesting. Happy days.
Jared Simmons 31:35
Yeah, that's a that's a win win for everyone. Right?
31:37
Yeah. And so this whole conversation that often happens is like, Oh, we haven't got enough time to care about our culture is just booked. Yeah, it is. Because it's actually the other way around. If you spent the time on the culture, you will see higher performance, you will see higher commitment, you will see happier employees, who usually create happier customers, and they're more healthy. So you don't have to worry about them being sick, and all these things. And if you start thinking about it, there's a lot of benefits that come there. And my personal vision is to make sell these companies a thing of the past, because I think companies with soul are not just better business and better financial performance, they're actually a better contributor to society as a whole. And to me, I think the time has come. Well said,
Jared Simmons 32:26
well said, I think you could probably launch a podcast on any one of those six questions. Ralph, this has been so helpful. Before I let you get away, I want to ask if there's any advice you might have for innovators out there.
32:45
Yeah, I think, as we said, is the introduction of something new. And you've been working in product development at Procter and Gamble, which is a company that is pretty good at product development. And I think you probably have noticed as we're going through focus groups and testing and what have you, that sometimes people at the concept level were not able to, to get what you had on your mind. Because very difficult for people to understand what they don't understand, or what they haven't seen before. Right. So I think if you're looking at innovation, and save, so how, where can I innovate? I think the best starting point is to look at the pain points of your industry. Our joint venture advertising agency, joint when venture was looking at the pain point of transparency, clients were always concerned about transparency. It's a joint venture, you've got an open book policy, because your your joint venture partner sees everything right, exactly. And all of us came from agencies where there was not really an attempt for clients to see everything and can understand that we turned that around. So transparency was the was the pain point, and the worry about not getting the best. And so we said, we need to be better, faster, cheaper in that order. And by doing all of these three, we would create a better relationship, which obviously was the ultimate testament was the growth to 1200 people at the end and 18 offices. So the pain point of the industry, if you really honest with it is a simple analogy to the question of why am I here is what keeps people up at night in customers, any stakeholder that's relevant, if you have an understanding of what it is like I mean, your your need states check Procter and Gamble what what problem we will solve here, right? They are about that. Then you had a chance to innovate. And there's something that you think you have a better solution for then go about it. Chances are, you're onto something and you find a way to explain it to people and declare to people so convincingly that they immediately get it. You're there.
Jared Simmons 34:57
That is that's the goal, right? And it's eight have mountains to climb to really close that gap between what's in your head and what's in the person's head?
35:05
Yeah, it's a tough mountain to climb. But it's actually a very rewarding mountain to climb. Because as I remember getting these messages when I stepped down, I was actually very moved by those. And I put through the book because I felt they were very moving actually. So I believe the reward to me has been how people that I work with valued what I helped them to do differently overall. So the legacy that I left behind with respect for the for to me wasn't 1200 people, 100 million plus turnover and 18 officers. That's all been there. And I enjoyed every moment. But actually, the reward has been the legacy, I think has been the have been one of the leadership team that was able to create an inspired community at a performance culture that was human centric, all the way through. And yes, we've also done our mistakes. Not everything was perfect. But I think overall, I think we've created a lot of innovation in that in that industry. And many consider the agency as a role model. And I've taken parts and copied them. And that's a great honor. Actually.
Jared Simmons 36:16
Yeah, it's the sincerest form of flattery, right? Absolutely. Well, this has been such a treat. And I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us about innovation, the cornerstone of your work in terms of making sure all companies have a soul. That is I think it's so important just in the world of business in the interactions of human beings. And I think until you get things like that, right, it's hard to even start to have productive conversations around innovation, and how you start to think about the level of collaboration, as you'd mentioned, and the level of cooperation and thinking that innovation requires if you don't have that, that core, right, it's just not going to be sustainable. So thank you so much for sharing your insights with us. And I can't wait to get one book. I'm gonna get the other one. I'm looking forward to reading the second one as well.
37:10
Thank you very much, Jared. It's been my pleasure today.
Jared Simmons 37:12
All right. Take care.
Jared Simmons 37:18
We'd love to hear your thoughts about this week's show. You can drop us a line on Twitter at Outlast, LLC. Whoa, you TLAST LLC, or follow us on LinkedIn where we're at last consulting. Until next time, keep innovating. Whatever that means.