Old dogs can absolutely learn new tricks

Opinion

It’s impossible to keep up with AI. Instead, enhance your human capabilities so you can harness and challenge the new frontier.

Yes, I’m afraid it’s another of those increasingly common redundancy stories — although hopefully one with an upbeat message.

After 30 years, I’ve really enjoyed a long-overdue break from work. While I’ve missed the camaraderie of smart and occasionally very funny colleagues, I’ve lost 10kg in weight, rarely feel the need for booze during the week and sleep like a bear.

Time out from media agency life can definitely be good for your health!

I’ve also come to appreciate a refreshing new approach to leadership from my new line managers: our two dogs, Maggie and Mabel.

OK, there is no hiding their self-interest, but they are at least transparent about it. While they can be demanding, they are refreshingly clear and consistent in their expectations.

There’s indifference to petty politics and zero business speak to contend with, and absolutely no mention of “pivoting”, “transformation” or worrying about the “optics” on another backtracked decision.

Looking at options

Aside from these minor commitments, the one thing I have had in abundance is time — the most precious commodity of all — and I have savoured every minute of it.

It has been an unprecedented opportunity to take a step back and use that time to both think about my future and, importantly, prepare for it.

Having looked at the numbers, and I’ve obviously consulted Maggie and Mabel, early retirement does not appear viable for a while. So, at the risk of oversimplifying, my career options boil down to three choices: something broadly similar to previous roles; seeking fresh challenges in a different role; or changing career completely.

Could there be something in the latter, the far bolder step? For years, my colleagues in investment never tired of reminding me that my name was more synonymous with fried chicken than media excellence.

But it should be noted that, after an incredibly varied career path, Colonel Sanders was the ripe old age of 62 before he first franchised the secret recipe that led to fame and fortune. Inspiring stuff.

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Finding your edge

So, having convinced myself of still having a few years left to explore that route, I have for now narrowed the shortlist to something closer to my current CV of media planning/account handling roles.

That said, while it’s the more obvious path, it won’t necessarily be the easiest. Sir Martin Sorrell has already undermined my plans by proclaiming that tech was about to have an apocalyptic impact on agency roles, saying: “There’s 250,000 people, roughly, in media planning and buying. It’s going to go.” (But then, in the same interview, for the sake of balance he also said that “Trump was good for business”.)

Nonetheless, not a week goes by without news of further redundancies in an industry already leaner from years of aggressively offshoring huge numbers of UK jobs, regardless of the impact on quality.

The largest employers, the holding companies, are now quite openly saying that jobs will go. When even the likes of Mark Read don’t appear to be safe, the odds feel pretty stacked against just keeping a job, let alone finding a new, decently paid one.

What was already a tough job market is only getting tougher and so any possible competitive edge needs exploiting. The trick is finding one.

WPP CEO Mark Read: ‘No doubt’ there will be ‘fewer people involved’ in work due to AI

The importance of personal development

My “edge”, I decided, would come via personal development, training and education — something that had all but dried up in my last few years of work.

Based on my earlier experience with the great — if intensive — IPA Excellence Diploma, I was aware of the benefits of in-career vocational training. That was in 2006 and things have moved on dramatically since. An audience weaned on YouTube followed by the last five years of intensive Zoom- and Teams-based interaction has made online learning a perfectly natural behaviour for us all.

Combine that with its flexibility and convenience, it’s the internet at its best — democratising access to an unparalleled breadth of incredibly high-quality, well-produced courses varying in length from hours to years.

My personal focus has been the pretty much mandatory AI, along with data and analytics, so I chose to take an annual subscription with Coursera, giving me unlimited access. All available at a time and to a pace that suits me.

AA and Adwanted UK launch training hub for advertising and marketing industry

If that wasn’t enough, while Coursera provided me with an “all you can eat buffet” option, I sometimes fancied going a bit more à la carte. Of these, the standout for me has been Mark Ritson’s Mini MBA.

As you cover the modules, it is impossible not to reconsider past experiences and challenges with the technical knowledge and critical thinking the course both develops and provokes.

Would I have shown more empathy towards clients, with a far greater appreciation of their broader marketing challenges? Would a more confident and vocal demonstration of this knowledge have helped build or repair some of that trust, which has clearly eroded between agencies and clients over recent years? Maybe I would have asked better questions, eliciting better answers, better briefs and better work in less time.

I could not recommend the Mini MBA highly enough. To paraphrase a great quote while showing my age: you may think you know all the notes, but take this course and you’ll be more likely to play them in the right order.

Fresh perspectives

Which leads me to my next point.

Personal development is not just about learning new things. It should also be about exposing yourself to fresh perspectives that may well prompt, with intellectual honesty, a change in previously held — maybe even long-entrenched — opinions and approaches.

All too often, training and development in large organisations can be limited to a prescriptive syllabus. It can be carefully curated to complement a regimented process that steers (or restricts) groupthink towards a pre-determined list of potential solutions, ideally via a template in centrally approved font.

Contrast that with broader, unfettered learning that encourages different, more challenging thinking and suddenly very contrasting recommendations, approaches and outcomes appear likely. Control, consistency and efficiency versus free-thinking, creativity and — evidence would suggest — far greater effectiveness. I know what I would choose.

Finally, while all this learning has improved my knowledge, critical thinking and technical skills, I guess the ultimate benchmark for success is whether it will help get me a new job once my full-time contract with Maggie and Mabel ends in September.

I genuinely think it will. I feel re-energised from the break and, armed with a fresh perspective, excited about the future — with a clear idea of how and where I will add human-driven value to an employer that will nourish me even more than my current bosses.

We will never keep up with machine learning and nor should we try. Instead, we need to enhance our human capabilities by being more open to fresh ideas that empower us to harness and even challenge the new frontier of AI-driven technology.

Matt Sanders is former global business lead at PHD and currently taking a career break