You are guaranteed success if…

Phil Johnson, the founder of one of the agencies we partner with, PJA, posted a pretty profound article to the Advertising Age Small Agency Diary blog today titled Why I Want to Give Out Big Raises at My Agency. Here’s a quote that I thought was great:

“You are guaranteed success if you can break through the status quo and help create change within the agency; if you can practice craftsmanship at the highest level; and if you’ve got the operational genius to help people get the work done and still make it home for dinner.”

Back in February at our company’s annual winter retreat, I spoke about three necessary disciplines (they are Be a Human Synthesizer, or be able to process a large amount of information and let it actually change you, Try to Visualize Catastrophe, or accept the possibility of failure early and shape your decisions to shrewdly avoid it, and Think Like a Time Traveler, or take a long view on things- yourself, your work, your company) with the hope that if we can make those part of our core values as a company, there’s little we can’t do successfully. Well, I think Phil’s quote speaks to the practical side of that- how to be valuable as an employee by doing your job with excellence and without sacrificing your person or sanity.

I think each of us can do this.