This time last year, a new executive management team took over the day-to-day running of the award-winning agency The Public House. Kerrie Sweeney, MD of the agency, reflects on what she has learned in the intervening period.
Taking the reins as managing director at The Public House was always going to be an adventure. A business adventure, a creative adventure… and of course the daily adventure of trying to remember which Slack channel I’m supposed to post in.
Seeing tax from a business-owner’s perspective has taken me to levels of shock I didn’t know possible, while leading and managing a team of people has simultaneously brought me pride and perplexity.
I’m one year in and I’ve learned so much. Here are my main take-outs from my first year steering this glorious, chaotic ship:
The hardest part isn’t making decisions – It’s finding five minutes to think.
When you move into leadership, people tell you that you’ll spend your days making tough decisions. What they don’t tell you is that the real challenge is carving out the headspace to make the right ones. The constant pull of meetings, emails, and daily fires to put out can trick you into thinking you’re making progress. But the best decisions – the ones that truly drive the business forward – require time, perspective and often, a step back. I’ve learned that saying ‘no’ to the noise is just as important as saying ‘yes’ to the right opportunities.
Hack #1: Block out your calendar with mysterious ‘meetings’ so you can have some time to think. (Bonus hack: Become a shareholder, then no one can accuse you of sneaking out to do job interviews.)
Culture is the most powerful and most fragile thing in an agency.
People don’t stay at agencies for free snacks. They stay because they believe in the work, feel challenged, and most importantly, enjoy who they work with.
We are not ‘one big family here’, I actually think that’s a weird thing to say. We’re a group of adults who choose to show up each day with a shared ambition to do great things.
I believe maintaining and evolving a strong culture isn’t about grand gestures, it’s about the little things like the daily interactions, the feeling that your work matters and that you’re surrounded by people who care about you and push you to be better.
A great agency culture is a bit like a Jenga tower: strong at times, fun, slightly terrifying and always one bad decision away from collapse. My job is to keep it standing, preferably without resorting to mandatory trust falls.
Hack #2: Don’t try to define your culture in a deck. When we started encouraging people to bring the best bits of themselves (and their pets) to the office, things just felt better.
Clients don’t just want a creative agency; they want a creative partner.
Clients aren’t looking for suppliers, they’re looking for allies. Having a shared ambition with your clients to do great work is paramount.
The best relationships are the ones where we stop pretending everything’s fine and start being useful. Where we’re helping solve business problems rather than just delivering outputs, the work is sharper, the results are better, and let’s be honest it’s a hell of a lot more interesting.
This means getting comfortable with uncomfortable conversations and always focusing on the bigger picture. At the end of the day, we’re not just selling ideas – we’re helping our clients ‘outcreate’ their competitors. We’re always working hard to ensure what we do sits within the 15%* of ads that actually get noticed.
Hack #3: Find clients who are aligned with your agency philosophy. Ours is ‘Boring Doesn’t Sell’ and we are proud to work with some amazing clients who are not prepared to pay the ‘cost of dull’.
Doing the right thing doesn’t always feel so good.
Whether that’s choosing not to work with a brand who operates a factory on an illegal settlement in occupied Palestine, or whether you finally decide to bow out of a dysfunctional, albeit lucrative, client relationship – trust your instincts and follow your heart.
The world will not stop turning, but you might get to make a small difference to it. Knowing where you draw the line and that you can draw the line is a really powerful thing.
Making money is crucial when running a business, but sometimes you have to ask yourself ‘at what cost?’. Never compromise on what you believe is right. You are a human being first, not a money-making machine. Be good.
Hack #4: When you find yourself in the fortunate position of being able to choose right over wrong, do it.
Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from.
I’ve always been open to feedback, mainly because it’s helped me stay on track, and occasionally because I’m just nosy about what people really think. But when you step into a big role, you start seeking reassurance more.
In the early days, I spent a lot of time wondering if I should be more polished or more serious. Then, a few weeks in, I received some feedback from someone outside the business about me, and it took the wind out of my sails. My personality. My more casual approach. My tendency to make a joke and have fun with it. The issue is those are things I don’t want to change. They’re part of what makes me who I am. Of course I won’t be cracking jokes at inappropriate times, but I will absolutely be knocking the craic out of it when physically possible.
Constructive feedback from people I respect is always welcome. But not all criticism is created equal and it’s a waste of energy to internalise the opinions of those who don’t have the full picture, or who you wouldn’t go to for guidance in the first place.
Hack #5: Take on the useful bits, laugh off the rest, and remind yourself to not lose sleep over it. (I’m totally over it! Water off a duck’s back…Definitely not writing about it a year later for Adworld…)
It’s all about the people. And the people are the hardest bit.
No one really warns you just how much of the job revolves around people. You can have the best strategy, the strongest work, the biggest ambition, but if the people stuff isn’t working, none of it sticks.
And the truth is, people are messy. They’re inconsistent. They’re emotional. (And that’s just me.) Leading well means being present, listening properly, having tough conversations, and learning that no two people need the exact same thing from you. It’s really hard and exhausting. It’s also the most rewarding part of the job – right up until someone books a meeting that could’ve been an email, and you find yourself searching LinkedIn for roles that involve zero humans and possibly a forklift license.
Hack #6: Tailor your style. Some people need reassurance, others need clarity, a few just need you to tell them to cop on.
TL: DR In all, I’ve learned that leadership isn’t about having all the answers, it’s about asking the right questions. It’s about making space for what matters, protecting what makes a business great, and never losing sight of the fact that, at the end of the day, we’re in the business of creativity, and that’s a massive privilege.
Here’s to year two.
Kerrie Sweeney is managing director of The Public House.
