How did I get here?

Lets go back to 1984...

I really didn’t see it coming. It crept up like a fog. I talked myself out of it being anything serious, this is just the way life feels, right? It was the travel, the meetings, the deadlines, the hard conversations, the duplicitous necessity of managing and being managed in a big machine.

These are the things you must do to get on. The delivering of bad news. The pretending to be OK. The numbness of feeling anything like a human. Drowning in a bubble that matters so much like there is nothing else in the world more important than this bubble. You, and  hundreds of others live in them, that is, until you realise it doesn’t matter at all.

But, by then, it may be too late.

You have been sucked in, you cannot go back, anything other than 100% success is not an option. You tell yourself you wanted this, you walk the walk and talk the talk. Keeping up appearances, climbing the greasy pole, pretending the view from the top is amazing and everything's coming up roses.

You wanted to get here, so it’s all your fault.

 Of course, I never realised that over a period of thirty plus years, that my work would reduce me to far less than the sum of my parts. It was a gradual thing, so subtle that I was the last to admit that there may be some unwanted, or even potentially harmful side effects to the ‘success’ that I once so craved.

But once you can stand back and look at your lifetime career achievements, you have earned the right to ask, what is the true cost of it all? Health, family and even your integrity?

In my case, success had certainly come at a high cost to my mental health. It had not helped with my family relationships. But it was never going to get my integrity. That’s why it was time for me to get off the ferris wheel.

Like Malmö, I had to ask “How did I get here?”

OK, I have seriously moved on in the last five years; so, where did it all begin?

For me it was a career in media. What started as a simple interview to work in an advertising agency in Manchester back in 1984 developed into decades of fun at work, interspersed with learning and occasional creativity taking me from graduate trainee to the heights of Chief Operating Officer for a global brand.

t’s easy to explain on  paper - a marketplace of competing companies, learning, promotions, opportunities, take-overs, mergers, job offers, movers, shakers, snakes and ladders. It might sound fantastic, exciting, and dynamic, glamorous even. And yes, it was, for a long time. So how then did I get from those dizzy heights to sitting in the Doctor’s surgery? 

You see, despite the glitz and the adrenalin, everything was not as it would seem. Those years took their toll. With career development comes responsibility, with responsibility comes pressure and anxiety and then, extreme anxiety. Eventually, and inevitably, it must come to an end. That is somewhat paraphrasing, condensing 33 years into short order, but that is what has happened, very slowly. Anxiety could probably tell you exactly how I got there, far better than me. Anxiety wrote every word of this story.

For all of us in the corporate world, progress is usually always a trade-off. To really succeed in any discipline it takes commitment, effort, and sheer hard work. Sacrifices must be made and one day you may well find yourself wondering where is the happy, carefree individual that you used to be. You’ve got a great title, a good pay cheque, power, status, but  why aren’t you having fun anymore?    

When I first started out, the media department of an 80’s ad agency was more like an episode of Mad Men than I would care to admit. Sending a fax or making a map from acetate and board, more like an episode of HOW or Blue Peter than Tomorrow’s World.

Life was fun and seemed pretty carefree. The truth of the matter for any generation is this; the carefree axis unfortunately seems to have a negative correlation as you measure the progress and progression axis, certainly in the current corporate landscape.

Perhaps a better way to understand the wider journey of life that we are all on, is to consider the work of German Psychologist Erik Erikson and the 8 stages of Psychosocial Development. Let’s put the specifics to one side with some good old fashioned psychological contextual theory.

What happened to me and no doubt millions of others through time can be seen in the context of a crisis. Erikson was the man who coined the phrase ‘Identity Crisis’ back in the 1950’s with his extraordinary work considering each of eight stages of life through birth, childhood, early adulthood and on to old age. His central thesis being that we cannot develop and grow as an individual without crisis, crisis at different stages of development. The formative years received the bulk of attention from his 8 stages, culminating in the negative outcome of rebellion brought about by the  crisis of identity coupled to the virtues of fidelity characterised between the ages of 12-18.

As an older individual, I am more interested in what happens next - for the younger readers amongst you, this could also prove an interesting observation and preparation for what is to come, namely, the three-headed beast of crisis of intimacy, crisis of generality and finally the crisis of integrity for those aged 65+ to look forward to.

Erikson essentially dissects the mid-life work obsessed person’s inevitable lack of intimacy, leading to depression, isolation and an underlying unhappiness becomes a turning point for so many in this age sector.

So, what lies ahead of that turning point? Well for me, I can Identify with the consecutive virtues of love, care and wisdom that respectively buddy up with the negative outcomes of isolation, unproductiveness, despair, and dissatisfaction.

The 40-65 year old’s battleground of concern is generally over their role in the world, and their unproductively and ‘usefulness’ being called into question, before the final crisis where the virtue of wisdom at least provides the ability to look back (in anger).

Does this all sound rather too theoretical?

Well, I did ask myself - how did I get here?

And this psychological analysis and categorisation of stages in the Chris Broadbent 1.0 story would be an extremely valid scale both to calibrate and rationalise my own development to this point. 

However, this is real, it’s not a textbook. 

So, actually,  a more useful exercise would be to recap on my ‘Glory Years’, from serial underachiever, to playing the boss. How did I really get here?

It’s a bit like a football team; there were good times and bad ones, certainly a lot of bad ones. The problem is, with football, it is the amazing highs that linger longest in the memory, conveniently enabling the rose-tinted, bespectacled fans to keep coming back for more punishment in the hope that the next performance will take them to heaven and back. However bad the last match was, there is always the next 90 minutes to look forward to. And so, it is in the advertising industry. Although, after 34 years in the advertising business, I was tired. Indeed, my last match was a disaster, and I was stretchered off with no applause at all. But that should not be the memory that defines the career, the last action that wipes out all that went before, the dismal ending to a sorry string of seasons, no!

It is easy to forget the many years of joy and happiness, the amazing people, the lasting and loving relationships, real business achievement, start-up success and failure, creativity, fun and personal growth that were indeed characteristics of that journey. Yes, it had been an extraordinary privilege for me up until March 2018. Perhaps it is worth just outlining what my former world entailed, to give some perspective on ‘how to get ahead’ in advertising.

While to the observer it seemed a highly enviable lifestyle, there was a trade-off taking place. Certain behavioral expectations were always there, being a responsible leadership dictates a need for a responsible and measured way of doing things. 

Adapting to this while retaining your sense of self can be a challenge, to certain personality types more than others. This is especially true for somebody like me- the class clown, the crowd-pleaser, the boy who was told off at Shadwell County Primary School for laughing and smiling just a bit too much, a mantle I can now see so much in my own son. As his career forges ahead at the BBC, I do find myself wondering if a smiling disposition is hereditary, and potentially limiting. Hopefully this will not be debilitating for him in the same way. For me, the formative period of my career proved the most enjoyable. Time served vs enjoyment taken is a PhD thesis waiting to happen.

Walking into my first proper job, aged 21 years and ten months, having searched, and searched to get into the sector after graduating in the summer of 1984 was an exhilarating moment. I was an economist, good with figures, looking to start as a graduate trainee in a full service advertising agency. I had fired off letters and mocked up the front pages of campaigns as personalised mail shots, I would settle for nothing else. The rejections flew in, but after a few weeks of toiling from back at my parents’ home, and a couple of interviews, I finally got my chance

The truth is, I could have ended up in any department, in any agency; it happened to be the media department - that room billowing smoke down the corridor where the money was spent, and everyone had a massive ash tray on their desk. I had little idea of what the role would entail, but on the outside it looked incredibly interesting and exciting.

The day was Monday 10th December 1984. 

Band Aid was at number one in the charts, the Apple Mackintosh Personal Computer had been launched that year, and I was walking into the offices of J. Walter Thompson in Manchester, UK. Not just any old advertising agency, one of the largest in the UK at the time, and having been around for over 100 years, one of the most respected on both sides of the Atlantic.

How ironic that after serving three years in my first role, progressing to Media Planner Buyer in 1987,  J Walter Thompson would be acquired by WPP in one of the earliest holding company purchases within the UK ad business. A transaction that signaled the dawning of a new era. Thirty four years later I would depart from the aforementioned WPP, but truth be told, it was many years before then that I knew the glory years were well and truly over.

Don’t worry, this is not going to be an extensive chronological ramble of the next thirty four years, far from it…

The point is, where you end up is certainly not where you start, apart from the obvious spanning of time over anyone’s career. There are so many other things that change as the days and months and years whizz by. That they may change for the better or worse should never diminish what those things were at the time and that is, they were real, real to you, real elements of your story, real things to signpost the achievements of your life. It is very important to stop and remember these things. 

The mid and late 80’s were really something. My formative years, they won’t come back again (good, many of you will be saying!). Yes, they may well have been brought with many things that would be laughed at, today, but like any previous period of fun, personal growth and character-building, they meant something to me, in the same way that the ‘noughties’ will perhaps mean a lot to you or your children/parents.

You don’t need to be nostalgic and constantly hankering back to those achievements and experiences, but you do need to acknowledge them, and by doing so you can help give much needed perspective to the demons and self-doubt that have been the more recent occupiers of your grey matter, as they were mine. So, I compartmentalised my entire career in advertising onto one sheet of A4 paper - quite soon after the crash. It was, and still is, sobering and uplifting to look back at it now.

Monday 10th December 1984 to Wednesday 21st March 2018 

12,155 days

33 years, 3 months, and 12 days 

60% of my life right there

You see, I said I was good with figures.

J Walter Thompson, Steve Bowden Wilson, McCann Erickson, TMD Carat, Feather Brooksbank, Brilliant Media, and Mediacom. I started in an American owned full service ad agency and finished in a Global Holding Company owned media agency; progressing through full service, independents, start-ups, dependents, and market leading specialists, each with variable degree of success or failure, tenures ranging from a one-year mistake to an eight-year wrench.

That first role was in a bygone age - no internet, no satellite TV. I was buying television spots for Allied Carpets on 14 regional ITV contractors, carefree, learning, having fun. My boss was off for a couple of months with a prolonged illness quite early on, so this scary period of early responsibility got me both noticed and hooked. The opportunities would start coming my way; hiring people, soaking up knowledge, keeping a disciplined team, many staff employed by one client, each team member a specialist in one field.

Things progressed: Graduate Trainee, Media Planner Buyer, Account Manager, Senior Account Manager, Group Head, Associate Director, Director, Managing Director, Founder, Owner, Chief Operating Officer - all words that were, at the time, very important, not anymore.

Buy-outs, mergers, start-ups, reverse-takeovers, dependents, independents, holding companies, head offices, shareholder agreements, resignations, gardening leave, buy-backs, administration, fire-sales, acquisitions. I endured it all and although extremely challenging at the time, some of the more difficult manoeuvres I presided over proved to be the most character building and rewarding experiences of those years, glory years indeed.

Inspired by some incredibly powerful female leaders in those formative years, I learnt the importance of respect, working in a hierarchical structure, growing an amazing team, building trust, and always being true to yourself, learning, inspiring and growing others while working with stakeholders, suppliers, colleagues, and clients, win or lose, we were a team. 

These were the best of times. Intensive pitches, presentations, trips and parties, no two days the same. The antidote to boring desk jobs, working in an ad agency was always fun. In later years, starting up a business and walking out of an established one with a box of possessions, taking on the world, secret phones, finding new offices, employing the best people…the list goes on.

And then the worst of times.

Disasters, bad meetings, sackings, losing pitches, losing accounts, working ridiculous hours for no reward, not being paid, chasing money, being chased for money, administrators, ruining people’s lives, being paid-off, being fobbed-off, politics, cliques, firing people, losing discipline, losing sleep, losing perspective…..

Upsizing

Downsizing

Redundancy 

Mergers

Buyouts

Launches

Closures

Take-overs Deals

Being in the loop 

Being out of the loop 

Paranoia

Smoke and Mirrors 

Hot air

Compare and Despair

Ego

Targets

Targets 

Targets 

Performance 

Underperformance

Spin

Crash

And that’s not even mentioning the Provisional IRA bombing of Manchester and the offices of TMD Carat on the 15th of June 1996, or the untimely death of countless colleagues taken too early; the divorces, the alcoholism, the infidelity, the wreckage of the sector.

On Quay Street, Manchester in 1984, the small newsagent kiosk at the foot of Astley House was the centre of the universe for gossip, your armful of newspapers and magazines and 20 Marlboro Red (of course) to start your day in the thriving epicentre of the media quarter.

With Granada TV and the Coronation Street set next door, the media department awaited, and you were where it was all happening!

Complex local press advertising schedules, huge piles of ‘Green’ and ‘Blue’ BARB books, stuffed with rows of television viewing data, manually matching exact TV spots viewing data with predicted performance for every single spot on every single regional ITV station, piles of grubby paper everywhere. 

Nobody said it would be glamorous.

A whole floor of secretaries, all pooled together, clattering away with a company-wide phone list alphabetically listing staff by department; the Directors floor with drinks cabinets in plush offices; sales representatives coming in to see buyers; huge ashtrays on desks, everyone smoking.

This was 1984; millions of pounds had to be spent and in truth nobody had any idea what good it was going for sales, but it had to be spent;. The army was mobilised, the adverts were created, the clients were convinced, and the drinks were poured.

This was a time before computers on desks. My first job entailed manually inputting Allied Carpets sales figures onto a machine that resembled a huge tumble drier with a keyboard, pre-satellite, pre-internet, a simple time. Mass media employed in mass communication of messages for the masses.

The media department was the afterthought down the corridor. Keep walking past the creatives, past the suits, past the top brass - the one at the end with the smoke billowing out.

This was the engine room, and in a very mechanical way, the cannon-fodder, the newest graduates, the ones who fell into it, generating the commission, the characters building deals, being creative, but with somebody else’s money.

In that sense, probably little has changed in 40 years.

Television buying back then became the programmatic targeting that we know today. Those delivering the results are in many ways similar, albeit in a more powerful position now, because whilst jargon does not equate to pure power, as with any business, it is the people within it that remain the most important asset.

Now the media landscape has changed beyond all recognition and the importance of the author and narrator in the new data driven universe requires both a different set of tools and books as well as elevating the ‘media players’ up the advertising hierarchy of importance. Those with the closest relationship to the money, and specifically the return on investment that it delivers, are truly the chosen ones. As in any sector, relationships are what really matter. And in advertising, it is your relationship with the cash that matters most.

But don’t tell me that the glory years of a naive 21 year old can seamlessly morph over three decades into stratospheric leadership positions for all. Sadly, not everyone gets that far, and most fell by the wayside over the years.

One could argue that they are the lucky ones - they may find something else before the inevitable finds them. I used to spend too much time wondering where all the old people in advertising were. As I got older, I came to realise the answer: the advertising sector is seriously blighted with a significant ‘ageism’ problem. There is no value put on experience, it’s as simple as that.

It’s such a missed opportunity, to hedge youth against experience.

While the magazine kiosk may have morphed into the rooftop garden with in-house barista and al fresco dining, the people inside the office (or now working from their homes) are the only thing that matter. 

Nothing lasts forever, nearly 40 years on from my debut, I should have known the glory years were always going to end in tragedy. 

We had some fun for a very long time, and then it ended quite badly. The higher the climb, the harder the fall; rather like Leeds United, the memory is best seen through the rose-tinted rear window as we speed away to different  things. 

I am truly thankful for my new life; it has been amazing too to reflect on my old one; unpacking many past positives can indeed be extremely rewarding

Dear reader, your glory years may still be ahead of you;  I don’t know how you found yourself here, but I encourage you to embrace every new opportunity and run into 2024 reaching for the stars, because you can do anything!

I hope you found this post of interest and if you do have the time or inclination, then please share and subscribe to ‘you can do anything’; It really means a lot to me as we broaden our flock of unconventionally driven individuals, welcome to anyone who does not know me - it means a lot to have some of your time.

Thanks for reading; and don’t forget, you can do anything.

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