Get Shouty

1 of 10 QUESTIONS FOR STRATEGISTS

I’ve been lucky enough to have a new audience for my nonsense in the Strategists Anonymous series of workshops put on by You’re Good, Get Better.

Standing up with the largest cup of coffee I can find the first question of the day is fired at me….

Q: So, what’s a strategist?

Being a strategist, I start contrary wise…

This is what I think we aren’t:

• We’re not ninjas
• We’re not wizards
• And we’re definitely not rockstars

So what are we?

• Curious
• Driven to hear the signal in the noise
• Keen to mix the elements we find and the ones that don’t exist yet into a cohesive score

Q: And what’s the process? How do you do that?

I love this story of Ray and Charles Eames:

Sell your expertise and you have a limited repertoire. Sell your ignorance and you have an unlimited repertoire. Sell ignorance and your desire to learn about a subject. The journey of not knowing to knowing is the work.

It’s from the documentary The Artist and the Painter, and it really is “an extraordinary and enjoyable history of how two people influenced so much of our thinking and surroundings today”. I couldn’t recommend it more highly..anyhoo

As strategists we’re incredibly fortunate to sell people our journey of not knowing to knowing. We get to take people on the ride with us. We get to keep what we learn and get better. And get paid for it. It’s a crazy good deal.

But it probably won’t shower you in glory.

I have 10 of these questions mapped out as a result of the crews who participated in the workshops. Thanks for the curiosity y’all- hope sharing these helps.

P.S. You’re unlikely to ever need more cowbell