YouSaid · the spoken record

Mark Read

lines on the record: 28
first: 2023-10-05
most recent: 2023-10-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Maybe too much tolerance, but I think that you have to let a thousand flowers blossom. And the sort of people that work at WPP are kind of innovative, curious people. So the best way to motivate them is to let them do things. And then you have to say, well, okay, these are things where we're really going to focus our effort. And these are things where we're really going to make an investment. And I think that's sort of the place we're at today.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think the biggest challenge we have is figuring out the impacts of AI on our business in the next three months, the next year, in the next five years. How do we have conversation with clients about how to use this in their business? How do we build AI into the services we offer clients in a way that will keep us competitive? If we spend too much time focusing on three months, we'll forget the future, too much time focusing on the future. We won't be able to deliver in the short run. Now, what makes me positive is every week someone sends me a new campaign using AI. Sometimes I think, oh my God, there's all these disconnected things going on. But you have to live with some level of sort of disconnection. And I think the fact that people are embracing it is probably better than me trying to sort of control it from the center.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, we are responsible for one in four, one in five of the world's commercial messages, either creatively or through our media business. And I think with that comes some responsibility to try and shape that. About four years ago, we decided to try and eliminate single-use plastic across our business. And we've had pretty good success in doing that. But I think one of the benefits of doing that were the conversations that started with clients about their own efforts to reduce single-use plastic in their business. But one person's persuasion is another person's imposition, if you like. And ultimately, I think we have to reflect the ability for people and companies to have freedom of speech and to advocate their positions. And for respect, people's intelligence, that they'll decide what is right and wrong or what they believe and what they don't believe.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Told me that it can't just be the CEO's personal position on the social issues. Isn't it in some ways though inevitably defined by the CEO's choices and strategy? Ultimately, I guess it does become my decision, but us working for a particular brand or court doesn't necessarily mean I agree with every element of it. I do think that the free speech angle of this sort of cancel culture debate has got more merit than some people give it, you know. We can't be in society where if you don't like what someone says, you try and withdraw their right to say it. And I have been more, we come maybe a little bit more sympathetic to that point of view over the last year as well. So it's a challenge.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the other thing is there'll be other people that would criticize us for not taking those clients, right? So that's where it's got even more challenged, right? So look, my view has always been that climate change is real, that we need to move to a low carbon economy and that energy companies, as I prefer to call them, have going to have to play a role in doing that. Not everybody inside the company agrees with that and not everyone out there agrees with that, which is fine. I also think though that if we were to resign those clients, we might be criticized for a violation of free speech and not enabling them to talk. So I think that's why I think the world has got more difficult today. You know, you can be criticized for both sides on any decision you make.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't say lazily where they've done things they thought for the right reason. And then when they've got challenged, they've sort of had to reevaluate it. There's no way out of that reevaluation without annoying at least half the population. And that is a challenge to people today. There's some news reports recently in the wake of Climate Week that WPP has more fossil fuel clients than any other ad company. And there might have been a time where, well, that was something to be proud of. And now there's some corners that are saying, oh, that's something to be criticized about.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Two words use thinking and forced, that's the interesting thing, isn't it? I mean, I think there was a time during COVID where everyone said companies need to lean into their purpose, they need to do the right thing. And I think, you know, the Bud Light moment was in some ways a turning point that made CEMOs and CEOs realize that there was no easy out in this purpose conversation. You couldn't appeal to one group without thinking through, you know, Is that really what I want to say? Is that really the right way to achieve my marketing goals if I get called out on it? Am I prepared to stand up for what I believe in? And I think all of those are questions that companies need to ask. We're asked, as you could imagine to, weigh in on many of the topics facing society every day. And we try to induce it when it's directly relevant to our business or to our people, where people have come into trouble is where they sort of.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A company, but we have to make sure that optimistic is not delusional. I guess that's probably my task, right? Let's not be delusional about things and let's just bring a sense of sort of reality. When we talked last time, you brought up purpose and the sort of the challenge over the last year that has grown for brands, clients who are thinking or forced to take positions on societal issues.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, running a business the size of WPP every day, you could find things going on in your business like, oh, that's a disaster. And you could find things that, oh, that's great. Like, how do you know what the balance of those things are? Bad news tends to rise up any organization more than good news. Look, I think you have to ultimately just have to look at the overall numbers you're winning more on your business than you're losing, how your relationships with clients. Are there more pieces of work that you're proud of, you know, showing to colleagues or friends or sometimes my kids? So there's softer, less tangible metrics. You're right, whenever in your business pitch much as I would like to. And we are a cyclical business as well. When times are tougher economically or businesses cut back, we're inevitably impacted by that. And we're also an optimistic industry. Optimist is one of our three core values.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're an industry that has demonstrated its ability to weather a lot of disruption. I mean, what makes running WPP so fascinating is we deal with many of the world's largest organizations dealing with some of the most difficult issues in society around purpose. Guiding clients on tricky reputational decisions and at the same time we're coming up with sort of creative ideas that really engage consumers sort of at the intersection of fashion and entertainment and music. We have seven and a half thousand people in China, 10,500 people in India, fantastic business in South Africa, Brazil. That global reach may make WPP hard to manage, but it's fantastic power to our clients.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Own. And so the computers tend to cut problems down into finer and finer things that need more and more people to manage. One of your colleagues said to me about you. They said, he's a details person, which he meant in a good way. And I'm curious, what does that mean to you and how you balance between details and strategy as a leader so you don't get pulled into the weeds, but you stay informed about what's going on? Yeah, I think my job is to give people a sense of direction. about where we're headed, but also understand whether or not we're getting there. I mean, I think I'm quite a sort of practical person, so I need to understand how these things work in practice. I sort of like to think about it as curiosity as much as being in the detail. People sort of panic a lot about the future, you know.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were talking earlier about encouraging people to come back to the office. And some of the conversation about AI also makes people who are workers uneasy. Do you hear back from your team concerns about what AI will mean for their jobs? We've got to embrace these tools. We know what jobs they will disrupt, but we don't know what jobs AI will create. And I'm sure it will create many, many jobs. If I look at WPP, probably half the jobs inside the company didn't exist 20 years ago. We didn't have social media managers. We didn't have programmatic media managers. We didn't have search engine optimizers. I could go on e-commerce people. Net net, will we have more people or fewer people in the future? I think the jury is out on that group. M, our media business has been most impacted by technology, has seen its employment grow quite strongly over the last 10 years because technology needs people to manage. No one wants to let these computers totally go off on their”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The break, we heard the CEO of WPP Mark Reed make the case for more in-office work and for more reliance on AI. Now we delve into leadership challenges about managing a workforce amid disruption and the rising complications of leaning into purpose. Plus, the line between optimism and delusion and his AI strategy over three months, twelve months, and five years”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Listeners, Bob, here, if you listen to rapid response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday we release a second rapid response exclusively in the rapid response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from the Devilware's Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this idea really captured everyone's imagination. The eggs flew off the shelf. It really brought to life what they were doing. But the answer was a totally different answer from the brief we got, right? Now, AI would come up with a fantastic poster. It's not going to tell you to strap a Fitbit to the back of the chicken, you know?”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Often in our business, the trick isn't answering the brief. The trick is that the right brief or the wrong brief, right? Because clients come to you with one thing, but actually something else is better. And my best example of this is some work we did in Australia. So clients came to us. We've got these free range eggs, the chickens roam over, you know, acres of land. They're very healthy, lead happy lives, and the eggs taste great. Can we do an outdoor campaign in Sydney to promote them? So we put that in the Creative Department and actually a young woman in the Creative Department said, you know what? How about this? She said, in Australia, on every egg, you have to print the date the egg was laid. What about if we printed a number of steps the chicken took in laying the egg? So the team designed this Fitbit, they extracted the back of the chicken and they calculated the chicken would take four and a half thousand steps. They could print the number easily on the eggs.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What I think like anything in life, you're only going to know about it if you try it and use it yourself in 2008, 2009 we did a board meeting in Palo Alto and we got sort of young people to come in and get the board signed up to Facebook and upload a video to YouTube for the first time. And I think it's a bit like that where we are with AI. People have to get on to mid journey. We have a way of working with clients where in an hour we ask clients to develop a new product and come up with a campaign for its launch. And they can really see what AI can do. And by the way, you're creating a brand for a client in an hour that sometimes those clients would have taken six months or even a year to do, right? So the increase in cycle time is quite substantial. When you do that, you see what the technology is really good at. It's really good at coming up with ideas, but it doesn't really know what's a good idea and what's a bad idea, right? The other thing it doesn't know is that”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have a bigger break with the new Kit Kat. Actually, the AI had picked up the core intrinsic value of a Kit Kat was this notion of have a break and combine that with bigger. Now, is that the best slogan? I don't know. But I think that it's a starting point from which creative people can take ideas. And it shows the potential that this technology is heading.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A great example is this work we did in India, vocabularies, a Mondelez brand where we took Shah Rukh Khan, you know, probably Bollywood was most famous actor. It enabled hundreds of thousands of small Indian businesses to use him in their commercials so that they could then send through WhatsApp. And Gen AI enabled us to manipulate his image and his voice with his permission, by the way, to create these ads. Or we've done an ad for Virgin Cruises with Jennifer Lopez, hence the Gen AI, allow people to create their own personalized invitation to come on a virgin voyage. We've built a creative platform called Imagine. We get quite long breeds from clients. Take a 30-page brief, and it will summarize the five key points of the brief. They'll probably need to read the brief against the five key points, but it saves some time. We might use Gen AI to say, come up with a new campaign idea for a new bigger Kit Kat. Actually, I tried this, and it's interesting because one idea was...”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, look, I think that for the first time we can see that computers can do what we thought only people could do, right? Take photos, write copy, create press releases, you know, not a perfect job of it, but certainly enough for the first draft to help our brainstorming, to inform a creative team. And then if you think further out in the future, you can see the potential for computers to totally automate the process. You're sitting in a client office and you want to launch a new ad for Dove, you know. reaching this audience over this period of time at this budget press a button and it goes out now i think it's some time before we get to that place but i think many of the tasks we have ai can play a fundamental part sometimes in replacing the human quotient sometimes really in empowering people i mean ai is amazingly empowering to our organization but it will be also disruptive”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not about the number of emails you answer, not everything you measure is important. In fact, many of the things that are most important are unmeasurable. There was a time where, frankly, coming into work, well, you came in because you liked your colleagues, you know, and I don't think we should all be sort of locked away at home on our own all day long either. I don't think that's healthy for people. I think coming into an office and being around other people is in general good for people's mental health. I came in the office today on Monday morning and the office felt busy, our campus here felt busy. And I think it's a sign that people are being productive.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, that's why we haven't done a mandate. All I would say is we have one board member closely associated with the supermarket, and I know they've moved their cashiers from Saturday to Thursday and Friday because the shopping week has evened out a little bit. And you see anecdotes about the cheap midweek golf course being busy. I don't want to be too cynical. Look, I think we have to trust our people.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We saved some money, but if you staff your offices to be busy three days a week and it seems everyone wants to come in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, actually, she's massively inefficient. We have these buildings empty four days a week. But I think the big thing is around building a company's culture and how do we train young people? Most of the things I learned in my job, I learned from people around me, overhearing, being in meetings, seeing how they dealt with situations. That doesn't happen on a Zoom call from home. We see the short-term productivity benefits of an extra hour off the commute. We don't see the longer-term sort of more debilitating impact on learning, culture.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Amazing, isn't it? My experience of working in America is it used to be a little bit of a sort of FaceTime culture, right? And I think people learned in COVID they could get back control of their time. And I think that people are reluctant to give it. So we have to have a different contract, emotional contract with our employees. I'm not one of these people that says you have to be in the office five days a week and, you know, I think we have to give people flexibility, but we need to get somewhere closer to London than we are today in New York.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd say we vary between 15 to 25% occupancy. I think we should be in the office more often in New York. And I think talking to my colleagues and other business leaders in Mumbai, they worry about the competitiveness of US business given the attendance in the office, I would say, to be polite.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm sure some of that is true, but my argument back to those people is like personal productivity is not the only measure of business success, right? How many emails you answer in a day or how many Zoom calls you do is not really what business is about. Business is about how you solve client problems and how you help clients succeed. And I think you can do that better more often if you're together. Sure, there are times where you can save the commute. But I was in Mumbai last week. We had a board meeting there and it really interesting talking to a young woman who works for us there. She commutes in an hour and a half each way every day. Now she comes in four days a week. She used to come in five days a week. But I thought I'd pull our office statistics to give us some fact on this. Shanghai, we're running at 75% Mumbai 64% average occupancy here in London 52%. Milan 45 and New York 24. And in the US.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, look, I think the consensus is generally that when people are in the office, they're more collaborative. Ours is a creative process and collaboration is key to it. I think people are more productive. You know, people get inspired from each other. I think the difference is not that we do like people back. It's like, is a mandate the right way to go? To some extent, I think we have to inspire people to come back to the office. People have to want to come back. You know, pre-COVID, the assumption was you came to the office and you had an exception to work from home. Sometimes that feels now like work from home and the exception is coming in the office. That's kind of what we need to shift. And mandates may form part of it, but I'm sort of more of a believer in carrots than sticks.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I came in the office today on Monday morning, and the office felt busy. You know, our campus here felt busy, and I think it's a sign that people are being productive. We see the short term productivity benefits of an extra hour off the commute. We don't see the longer-term more debilitating impact on learning, culture, creativity that come from having a workforce that's far too separate. Personal productivity is not the only measure of business success. Business is about how you solve problems. And I think you can do that better, more often if you're all together.”
2023-10-05 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT