Relentless Customer Leader Podcast

Chris (00:01.742)
So I'm here with Jerker and it's great to see you, mate. It's been a while since we've caught up, but I'm keen to get a bit better understanding of what the latest has been in terms of your own leadership journey. And I think a good place to start maybe is, if you think back to your sort of early days of being exposed to leadership and leading teams and organizations and.

and people, what stood out for you? How did that journey evolve and develop for you?

Jerker Fagerström (00:34.805)
First and foremost, thanks for having me, Chris, and good to see you too, even though it's a screen thing in between. But a nicely framed question, because it actually takes me back, it made me think about my earliest role models without knowing it in terms of leaders. And I grew up in the Northern hemisphere in Sweden where it's,

Chris (00:55.747)
Mm.

Jerker Fagerström (01:01.289)
Everything we do has got to do with ice or snow. So I grew up playing ice hockey and it's the biggest sport in Sweden. And that was my dream. But we didn't have any professional coaches when we were six, seven years old. Like, you know, it was someone's dad, but those dads who volunteer their time and their care and their energy and their presence with no training whatsoever, they were just spectacular role models.

They were just amazing leaders and how they made everybody feel included. Because you know, when you're playing sports at a young age and kids develop at different pace, so those who were really, really good at a young age, they stand out, but they were really good at making everybody feel part of the team and everybody got their minutes on the ice.

Those things, kept on going till the age of 14, 15, and only then would they allow us to sort of like, okay, last 10 minutes of the game, we're gonna throw these guys in because then we have a higher chance of winning the game. But at the age of 15, know, making sure that everybody got equal amount of minutes on the ice. so the way that you frame that question made me think of those as potentially

Chris (02:16.504)
Mmm.

Jerker Fagerström (02:26.931)
you know, some of the first role models in terms of leadership, which is just down to pure luck, I guess that they were really, really good people, good humans, grounded and, know, really took a lot of care in what they were doing and what they were bringing to the team. sorry, I cut you off.

Chris (02:49.952)
Yeah, how did they I mean, what was the impact of that in terms of how they were leading and so on? I how did it make you feel? I guess what was the sort of outcome of that?

Jerker Fagerström (03:00.117)
So I was lucky to be one of those who, one of the better players and then as such, also have a responsibility in terms of it. And I was made captain of the team and I was, I can't remember 12, 13 or whatever, but it was, it was always communicated and drilled into us as a group, as well as individuals.

that it's a team sport, right? You know, this, this, would not be here if it wasn't for the whole team. And as such, everyone's important. It doesn't matter if, you know, you're the one scoring the goals because without that, without the defender, without the goalie, without the guy making the pass or the blocks so that the guy can make the pass for you to score that goal, you know, there wouldn't be any goals. And that was, that was held in such high regard.

from a very early age without making a thing out of it. It was just the way things are. Do you know what mean? So I think that's how it was made clear for us, even though some of us would play a year or two up every now and then because they needed, you know, support in their divisions and whatnot. And we needed maybe other challenges that other kids in my team needed and whatnot.

When we were in our team and when I was the captain of that team, was always, it's the team and that's what matters. So I think not having any formal education, just being, you know, good, solid humans. And we were lucky to have those dads.

Chris (04:31.15)
Yep. Yeah.

Chris (04:45.88)
Yeah, yeah. And I know that you moved on and then you were involved in sort of some military service as part of Sweden's program here as sort of the next part of your journey. Tell me a bit more about that and how that...

Jerker Fagerström (04:55.409)
Yes. Yeah.

That explicitly comes down to leadership and my own interest in developing leadership skills and learning as much as possible and being challenged as much as possible in terms of leadership. come from a background, first and foremost, in Sweden we've got conscription. everybody back in the late 80s early 90s, everyone, every boy

the age of 18, had to go in and do their military service, right? Conscription based. So, and I come from a background family where my dad did the same. He went on to become an officer in the reserves and my grandfather and his brother, they were both commissioned officer and my grandmother, her dad was a captain of the local regiment. So I come from the, you know, it's the Appledus and four far off from the tree and that tree was

Chris (05:33.698)
Yeah. Yep.

Jerker Fagerström (05:57.961)
the regiment, pretty much. So it was very close to me. And my dad always spoke very, very highly of, in particular, the leadership training and education and challenges, the opportunities to put that into practice that he was given for free when he went to the Officers Academy. And don't quote me on the exact like

numbers and ins and outs of this. But the story as we were told when I was doing my military service was that the way it's being trained in the Swedish Army and the Swedish at the Swedish, Swedish Officers Academy has become the norm for pretty much the Western world. And the story is that in during the Vietnam War, wanting to

casualties that were officers on the American side comes down to Friendifier because the way that they were teaching and training their officers at West Point was pretty unsuccessful in that they would then transfer over to Vietnam and they would be put in charge of a platoon of veterans and they would be young, insecure and relying on very authoritarian leadership style.

Chris (07:12.483)
Mm

Jerker Fagerström (07:20.787)
my way or the highway kind of thing. And, know, when, when, when you're doing that at such a situation where it's like, no, no, no, I'm telling you, we're crossing his rice field out in the open because it's my decision. And that it, and when it's a group of veterans knowing that the chances of us being spotted and being taken fire because of that choice, what's going to happen at the end of it is, you know, friendly fire. So on the grim learnings.

for the U .S. Army on the back of Vietnam War, there were many grim learnings for them. But one of them was we needed to completely change the way that we're training and educating our officers in leadership. And they started to look around the world, who does it well? And they came and they studied and they took in all the data from the Swedish Army and they're like, let's just copy this. So ever since the Vietnam War or the aftermath of the Vietnam War,

The way that it's being trained and educated in Sweden has sort of been also an export for Sweden into various other countries and their military services. So it's widely regarded in Sweden as the number one leadership education and training you can get your hands on. And it's for a very select few.

Chris (08:30.626)
Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (08:44.533)
So every year there's like 45 ,000 18 year old boys, then now it's 100 ,000 because it's also girls now who get called up to do a two day test to sort of figure out what role to do their military service as. So out of the 45 ,000 back then, only 4 ,000 would be placed in a position that would make them eligible to apply to the officers academy. Now out of those 4 ,000,

The offices Academy would only take 40 a year. So you go from 45 ,000 to 40. Right. So it's, it's, it's pretty tough to get in. So when I was offered a spot, coming from my family background and all that, and you know, I liked it and it gave me exactly what I asked for and more.

Chris (09:21.304)
Yeah, yeah. Very selective.

Jerker Fagerström (09:39.221)
I was 23 years old when I served in Bosnia and I was in charge of 28 guys, all but four older than me. when, much like when the situation I was telling you about in Vietnam, when we called it, when they were pinging us, when, when, when, as in when they were firing at our APV to, you know, make their presence known. I'm 23, they're older than me. And remember these are civilians who have decided to take a gap year.

to do good by putting on the uniform and go into a pretty, you know, intense situation for a year. If they don't trust me, if they don't believe in me making the right decisions, they just won't do what I'm asking them to do. So that kind of experience at the age of 23, you know, you can't read that in a book. So I'm eternally grateful for all the...

Chris (10:33.4)
Not.

Jerker Fagerström (10:37.481)
the lessons and the putting it into practice that the six years that I spent in the army gave me from a leadership standpoint.

Chris (10:49.132)
And when you think about that, Jerko, mean, the contrast between that sort of authoritarian sort of command control, do what I say, regardless of whether it's, you know, whether there's trust involved and all that. How do you contrast that then with the Swedish approach and the approach that you were sort of taught to engage people around? What were...

Jerker Fagerström (11:13.607)
Again, it goes back to, you know, me as a six, seven year old learning how to play ice hockey. It's, it's we, it's a team. It's a team sport, right? And your role as as a leader in building peak performing teams is all about making that team function at its highest level. But it's a team, everything is it. It's a team sport, right? So the way that it's done in the, in the Swedish army is that everybody starts at the same level.

So everybody starts as a private because the idea is if you've been giving the order, carry all this shit and run up that hill. I'm just making this stuff up, right? If you've been on the receiving end of such order, you will know what it means when you're giving that order. So that's why the whole philosophy is everybody starts at the same level and you need to be on the receiving end.

feeling, experiencing, learning all the consequences of what you in the commanding role later is going to ask of others to do because that will inform your decisions before you're making it. Right. So you will know the toll it takes and what is required for people to do what you're asking them to do. So that's again, it starts from day one when you, you put that uniform on and you

Chris (12:25.932)
Yeah, yeah.

Chris (12:32.504)
Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (12:40.007)
you're going to do your military service, that's when it starts. The leadership training starts when you're starting to receive orders from your officers then. Do know what mean?

Chris (12:49.368)
Yeah. It's a great example, isn't it? I mean, for me, when I listen to you say that it's, you know, you're starting with a level of sort of perspective taking. immediately when you go in, you're experiencing something that as a leader, you're going to impose on someone else in the future. Right. So you've got that, you know, it's kind of tapping into sort of the built in empathy that, that we have, right. To say, okay,

I know where I'm sending this guy because I've been there before. And so I know how challenging that is.

Jerker Fagerström (13:20.233)
Yeah. And I think an added benefit of that as a, I don't know, process, I guess, is they know that you've done it. it automatically comes with a bit of trust in that they know that I know and therefore it removes that thing. You've never, you've never run.

10 kilometers with all the gear and all that and then been asked to sort of like breach a house and do that. Because you've gone straight into the offices academy, right? Whereas in Sweden, I've run the 10, 15 kilometers with all the gear and all that. And I've breached houses before I'm asking anyone else to do that.

Chris (14:07.906)
Yeah, yeah, No, no, they're great examples. I mean, when you've taken that then into your career in a very successful career around the world in advertising and you've got a resume that many aspiring creative people would be, you know, aspiring to have. How did you kind of get involved in the industry and where did you start and how did that sort of develop?

Jerker Fagerström (14:37.657)
you know, again, my dad, was an officer in the reserves, but his day job was as a marketer. was the, he was, he ended up as the CMO, one of the biggest banks in Sweden. So I kind of always knew that the army wasn't going to be a lifelong career for me. I wanted something else and I kind of liked what my dad was doing. You know, that looked fun and engaging as opposed to.

you know, punching in and punching out and, and, and he was excited about his work. and I wanted something that excited me. So one side decided to, well, are you, the way I tell the story is that, you know, when, when, when I managed to score a season ticket at Stanford bridge in London, and when I got that, it was time for me to leave the army and, go to uni in London. So that's how it came about that I went to university in, in, North.

London, which is terrible because I'm a Chelsea supporter. But you know, hey, that's, that's where uni was. spent most of my time down in Southwest London and went in and studied marketing with consumer bio behavior. It's ended up being the degree. And I knew I wanted it to be in marketing, but I didn't know where or what capacity. Clients side, agency sides, I had no idea that there were sides, you know, it's

It was just like going in pretty fresh and basically figuring it out over the course of the three years at uni. And what I did figure out was that I wanted to work.

the core of the experience of a brand, which I think is way deeper and more meaningful than anything. And I felt that the closest or the fastest way I could get to the core of influencing an experience or several experiences of a brand was to work in strategy at a brand.

Jerker Fagerström (16:48.597)
slash creative agency. So I started out working as a strategist and I did that for about, what was it now? 10 years. I was a founding partner of Sarchis in Sweden. I then left that and became chief strategy officer for DDB in Sweden. then I started getting a little bit, I don't know, complacent. The learning curve wasn't as steep as I would have wanted it to be. my

CEO came to me one day and said that he could see that I was getting a little bit restless and a little bit. So he, his, his suggestion was that I would take on a business director role, which was to apply my strategic skills, but in wider sense and in more of a leadership role for leading a number of clients and leading a bigger team.

So moving into sort of more like the business and the management side of things within the agency and still keeping a foot within the product. I did that for a couple of years. And during that time at DDB, we lost our ECD. It was poached by McCann New York. And we made the classic mistake of elevating our two best creative directors into leading the creative product. So we lost our best.

creative directors and got shit leaders and creative agency, communications agency, remarketing agency. It's a very, very, from a cultural standpoint, it's a very, very fickle thing. You have to build an environment and a culture that is completely ridden of fear. You have to have faith and trust in everybody around you that

Chris (18:18.179)
Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (18:43.583)
When you say all the silly stuff and you're making all the mistakes and you're making a fool out of yourselves on a daily basis in order to get to the groundbreaking stuff that no one's judging you. No one's making fun of you. No one's calling you out. The minute someone does that, you're screwed. It's the hardest thing to build and the easiest thing to kill. Right? So when we elevated those two and didn't get very good leadership,

Chris (19:02.584)
Yeah.

Chris (19:07.756)
Mm, mm.

Jerker Fagerström (19:13.941)
and we lost our best craftsman from a product standpoint. The agency then decided to go on a global search for a replacement. And once that was coming to a near end, we were 17 equity partners in the agency. Seven of those were creative directors, two of those seven being the ones who were about to be replaced. So they were well aware of this.

They then went to the chairman and the CEO and said, hang on a minute. We're about to make an offer to this guy. An English guy. We've all been part of process. He seems amazing, but we don't really know him. However, the guy sitting in that corner, we know him and you know, on his clients, have, you know, we get to do our best work.

Our CFO tells us that we're making the most money. We seem to have the happiest clients and you know, why don't we get that on all clients? Not just on the ones that he's responsible for as a business director. So the day after because my CEO and chairman needed a night to sleep on that because that making that transition from strategy into management and then into creative is unorthodox to say the least, but it came from the

Chris (20:37.187)
Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (20:38.707)
the people who want.

They asked for me to be their leader, you know, and had it not been that way, I would never have been asked and I wouldn't have accepted the role. So the following day I was offered the role as executive creative director at the agency and I was a little bit confused and like, where is this coming from? And my chairman said something to me.

Chris (20:49.667)
Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (21:08.713)
that I really appreciated and it stuck with me ever since. And that was that I could either look at this as something that I had never done in my whole career or the only thing I've done throughout my whole career. Because it's basically, again, it's about creating an environment, a culture, where people can do the best work of their careers, the best work of their lives, and then turn around and get clients to understand the value of the work that they've just done.

and making them realize that they need to buy this for the benefit of their business. It doesn't matter if you're a strategist or if you're a manager, CEO, COO, or if you're a creative leader, it's the same job. So that was in 2012. So I've had various creative leadership roles ever since in various agencies around the world. That's how it came.

Chris (21:53.4)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (22:03.704)
Yeah, yeah. No, it's a very unique environment, isn't it, Jerker? I I haven't worked in the agency world, but I worked on the client side when I was at HP years ago. so, and, you know, it was a joy to work with the agencies. I mean, the energy from the agencies, the creative energy, the way in which they worked was really, you you could see that they were having fun and they were in the right environment.

Jerker Fagerström (22:08.766)
It is.

Jerker Fagerström (22:31.699)
Hmm.

Chris (22:32.962)
certainly had been my experience. When you think about customer centricity and the customer centric culture, it seems like it sort of maybe comes naturally to agencies. Do you think that's the case or how do you think about the customer centricity side of an agency and how they sort of manifest?

Jerker Fagerström (22:54.325)
To be perfectly honest, Chris, I actually do think that it's more natural for an agency than it is for its clients.

constantly agency side, it needs to move the needle. It needs to be a meaningful experience and it needs to create an emotional reaction with customers, with real people. And if it doesn't, it's like setting fire to money.

In everything that we do, in every part of the process at an agency, it's constantly, constantly evaluated against, is this going to make someone laugh? Is this going to make someone cry? Or is this going to make someone think? If, if, if, and if the answer is yes, then, then it's a go, right? Continue. If it's not, you know, boy meets girl on the boat.

boat sinks, boy dies. Doesn't sound very engaging, but Titanic in the hands of James Cameron with Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, you know, becomes an experience that still, you know, when I watch it and I know the end of this story, I cry.

Chris (24:22.776)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (24:24.009)
That's the difference. And we're constantly thinking about how is this going to be experienced by real people in the real world with real worries and thousands of other distractions? How is it going to be worth their time? Because they have, know, we're the work that we do for our clients is not, we're not competing with other ads or other brand experiences. We're competing with Netflix.

We're competing with, you know, reading a book to our kids. We're competing with, you know, a podcast. That's, that's the competitive set in the strive for precious few seconds, minutes, hours of true engagement. And a true engagement is an emotional one that generates an emotional response.

So sorry, that was a little bit of a detour to get to. It's the only thing that we think about. How do we get to that reaction? And that being as strongest possible, most meaningful and therefore powerful reaction with the work that we do for our clients. So because it's the only thing that we think about, I think it's closer to our hearts many times than it is to our client's heart who tend to get stuck in

Chris (25:39.63)
Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (25:50.069)
processes and tend to get stuck figuring out, you know, what does my boss want in not necessarily what does my consumer, my buyer want. And the bigger, the bigger the clients, the bigger the red tape and the bigger the problems and the more obscure the view gets in terms of who's the real customer. Do you know what mean?

Chris (26:18.626)
Yeah. Yeah. I want to touch on that idea that you mentioned earlier about fear, right? And creating an environment that's sort of free of fear as being a really important, necessary ingredient to creativity and for people to be able to do their best work. What have you found have been the ways in which you kind of create that environment and ensure that it's, you know, as you said, it's fragile. So how do you...

How do you really ensure that you're kind of minimizing fear?

Jerker Fagerström (26:49.434)
Jerker Fagerström (26:54.997)
Three things. One, I try to lead by example, by making a fool out of myself in the work and like leading the way by exposing my own flaws and silliness and like, you know, getting it wrong more so than the people that I work with and manage to sort of set the tone. That's one. Coming down extremely hard immediately, whenever.

someone is doing anything that threatens to kill the culture. I'll give you an example. We had an internal function a couple of years ago, an agency when I was working at the time. And, you know, there were drinks involved and, you know, everybody's having a good time. But there was a guy who was

And it was done with sort of like the not a, not a bad intent, but they were like getting into a competitive spirit and they were, you know, challenging each other and they were like, you know, they were, they were working themselves up and she got the better handle on him. And the way that he got back to her was to lift up her dress. Right. And

immediately, it just immediately it just killed the party. And the day after I put him in a taxi, him home. And the day after I told him don't come into the office. And you know, we worked with him to find a job at a different agency at a sister agency of ours, because there was no way you cannot undo

what he had done in terms of trust and in terms of freedom to be in terms of freedom to fight. You it's like, you can't undo that. That's that cats out of the bag. So coming down immediately and with force to proving to people that I'm serious about this is number two. Number three, for me is, is constantly encouraging the people that I work with that

Jerker Fagerström (29:22.867)
encouraging and telling them that I've got their back, that I believe in them, that they're doing a great job, that I think that they can do even more and better. Just like, you know, don't hold back because I know there's more in you. Constantly, constantly pumping their tires, constantly pumping their tires, constantly protecting the culture and constantly leading by doing.

That's kind of like the way that I've been doing it, you know, since, since I accidentally ended up in a leadership position in a creative agency.

Chris (30:02.008)
Yeah, yeah. That's great. Great, great tips and really important, right, to actually put weight behind the words and actually make it real for people and, you know, visible. So that's a great story. When you think about the different roles, so you've been in a lot of different creative agencies, you know, the best in the world, many of them and

Jerker Fagerström (30:12.756)
Hmm.

Chris (30:29.262)
taken on different roles in different parts of the world as well. I mean, when you move into new roles, how do you think about that process of transitioning? You're coming into a new team, you're about to take on a new role yourself back in Europe. What's your approach to that? How do you think about taking on the new role and moving into a new team, right? A new environment.

Jerker Fagerström (30:54.397)
I think, and it doesn't matter what level you're going into, think, you know, trying to manage expectations is important so that you don't over promise because you're going to have a hell of a mountain to climb. So that's one of the things that I try to influence before I start. And when I do start, I try to...

In a very open way, tell everybody that I'm here to listen and learn, right? For a hundred days, it's about having big ears and asking all the questions and asking all the stupid questions, not trying to, you know,

out smart, the smart people who are already there. Just because that is my need as a human to sort of like prove who I am and prove my worth and what I can do. And holding back and trying to rein that need in is really important, I think in respect for the people who are already in the business and who are doing a great job already. I don't need

prove to them that I am at that same level, even though that's my basic human need. Now, a hundred days is a pretty long time when it comes to a business. So at the same time, what I try to do is I try to find something that is a low hanging fruit, something that's as tangible as it gets. It could be a problem. It could be a brief. It could be a project. It could be anything.

And I'll just make that mine and I run with it. So I try to, I try to stay humble and I try to listen and ask a lot of questions, but at the same time, I take something, I siphon something off and I just apply myself to that, to instead of talking a big game, I try to show using that as an example. That is usually my first 100 days.

Chris (33:08.386)
Yeah. Yeah. When you think about, I mean, attracting top talent, like that's a key part, I imagine, in the advertising world in terms of finding talented people and trying to attract them to work in the organizations that you're part of. What's your approach to that? How do you think about identifying those people and then trying to engage them and get them involved?

Jerker Fagerström (33:37.887)
But it's...

It's, you know, it's the chicken or the egg. What comes first? Great work or great people, I think is great people, you know, because without great people, you will not be able to make any great work. And great work is the work that actually makes it rain on my client's business. Right. So that's, that's all that matters. So I'm constantly, constantly talking to people.

that I think have something that will add to my team, to my department, to my business, to my culture. And what I am looking for, I'm a firm believer that great minds don't think alike. I need different minds and different experiences and different people. I need as much diversity of thoughts as possible, right? So I try to avoid...

51 year old Swedes with a beard who love skiing and, you know, are fans of Chelsea, because we will have the same frames of reference and we will love the same things. And, you know, we would just be confirming each other. I need differences. need someone with a completely different frame of reference to come in and add to what I'm bringing to the table. So,

That's just a constant, constant, you know, switch that's on in my line of work. And it's expected of me to do that 24 seven. How then do I convince them to come and work with me? Not necessarily for me, but with me. And then I'm the pitch. It doesn't matter what it says on the door. doesn't matter what clients we work on. It's, know, it to...

Chris (35:17.1)
Hmm. Hmm.

Jerker Fagerström (35:36.191)
to some degree it does, but you know, you choose your boss and I'm asking them to choose me. So the pitch is me. So how can I help them, you know, make the best work of their lives? That's my promise. That's what I do.

Chris (35:52.664)
Yeah. Yeah.

You've had some really big intense jobs over the years. mean, how have you been able to manage that with other sort of things in your personal life? you know, it's quite a tricky balance, isn't it? I guess it ebbs and flows a bit, but how do you think about those sort of challenges that everyone faces?

Jerker Fagerström (36:17.383)
I think first and foremost, it's, you know, me and my wife, made a deal many years ago that we'd be, we're in it together. We're our team. And, know, at some point I'm in a driving seat, other point, other times she'll be in the driving seat. And, you know, we just got to respect each other and what we can bring to this and how we can help each other make the most of what we have and what we do.

So if it wasn't for that, I would not have been able to, you know, go for the things that I want to go for. so that's, that's one component that sort of like, it's a prerequisite and then I'm, I wear my emotions on my sleeve. It's as simple as that. Right. So I've had to learn that my wife is a, is a counselor and a therapist and

social worker. So she's pretty good at this. But I've had to learn how to leave work outside of the door. And then when I come home, it's something else. It's the kids, it's the dog, it's, you know, the lawn that needs to be mowed. It's, know, all of that. And then I might when kids are asleep, and the lawns been mowed, and the dogs been taken for a walk. I might

go back into work mode or I might get back into the office, but getting good at compartmentalize is really important. Now, I also believe that it can't be turned off, because for me, it's always working, even if I'm thinking about it or not, I'm always thinking about it, if that makes sense.

Chris (38:09.912)
Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (38:11.037)
And I need the influences from my wife, my children, standing at the sideline watching my son play soccer, football. I need those influences to sort of like help me unlock the problems I'm trying to solve. So for me, even I'm trying to compartmentalize, so it doesn't leak into and have too much of a negative influence. The positive influence is when life leaks back into my working world.

And I need that. Right. So for me, it's about managing that leakage, if that makes sense. and just remembering that, you know, it's a gift to do what we do, which is to sit around, you know, with our feet up and being silly and getting paid quite handsomely to be perfectly transparent and honest. And then we come up with stuff that makes people smile, laugh, or think, and someone else pays for that.

Chris (38:40.92)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (38:46.614)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Jerker Fagerström (39:10.323)
to come to come to life. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's a pretty good gig in that sense. And one needs to be respectful of others money and like what it is that we do. Having said that though, you never know if it's good or bad, if it's going to work or not. I have made a career out of my intuition. have,

Chris (39:23.021)
Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (39:37.205)
done all right. That also means that it's it's constantly I'm constantly thinking and nagging and nagging myself and like it's in the back of my head. So when I go quiet over dinner or out for an evening walk with a dog with my wife, it's I need a bit of an elbow to the side and go like a snap out of it. You can do that later. I mean, say it's, it's it's hard because it's always there. You can always improve and you can always do better.

Chris (40:00.301)
Yes.

Jerker Fagerström (40:07.433)
And because I need influences from all parts of life to help me with the work that I'm doing, I also can't just completely shut it down. know what mean? But it also comes back to, know, I told you what I liked about this line of work before I even knew what the work was, was watching my dad being energized and being, you know, passionate.

Chris (40:19.106)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (40:37.511)
and loving what he was doing because I don't, even though I've never been a poster boy for work -life balance, it energizes me. you know, it also brings back positivity into me as a husband and as a father and you know, so it, as long as I keep track on the energy, right? And it's a positive influence.

Now I've had the fortune of having worked under a couple of really, really bad bosses. And that has nearly broken my marriage because it nearly broke me. Right? Because the energy then and what it did to me and my intuition and my confidence consumed me. And I could not stop that leaking into my family life.

Chris (41:18.082)
Yes.

Chris (41:26.627)
Yeah.

Chris (41:31.638)
Yeah, yeah. That's a good point to bring up. I mean, we often learn from poor examples, right, of leadership. mean, when you think about those leadership experiences, I mean, what went wrong there? What was sort of the things that felt like they were, you know, not...

Jerker Fagerström (41:39.145)
Yeah?

Jerker Fagerström (41:52.059)
Well, in particular, know, if it's, it's, it's, every situation is a unique situation. And every individual is, is an unique individual. But if I'm, taking two learnings away from, from two bosses in particular, it's down to now there's two sides to every story. My side of the story is that it's down to insecurity.

around their own leadership and insecurity around that role. And the way that they chose to combat those insecurities was to put up a shield, be forceful, be a bit of an authoritarian leader. And then in one case, it was also

pretty poor communication skills because that person wanted to bring in said person's partner that they had worked with before, which meant removing me. And it was so clear to anyone and everyone that this is what's happening, but not having the legally, it can't be done.

I so anyway, that felt pretty close to, you know, bullying and it felt pretty close to harassment almost. it's almost like come to think of it now, it's almost like describing the way that those officers fresh out of West Point behave when they went to Vietnam, you know, they were just doing all the wrong things because they were insecure. They they. Yeah.

Chris (43:42.104)
Yeah. Yep.

Jerker Fagerström (43:47.593)
didn't know how to handle things and I was then on the receiving end of that.

Chris (43:53.708)
Yeah, yeah, Probably just jumping back to this idea of customer centricity and thinking about the clients that you worked with, did you, I mean, have you experienced differences in how customer centric those clients were and what did that look like to you in terms of how they operated and how you were able to work with them?

Jerker Fagerström (44:18.815)
Absolutely. But I think it's again...

I can't say that there's a trend because I think it comes down to obsession. Right. And if you're, if you're a founder of a business, you're, you're, you're pretty obsessed with something. Right. And usually founders who then become successful founders and who are running a business and they're CEOs or chairmen or whatever, you know, they still have that obsession with them. It's not going to go away. Right. But.

You can also see like young people who come into a big organization with a belief. It's almost like, you know, in, kids are omnipotent and they believe that they, they can change the world. Right. And that passion and that belief doesn't, it could be at Procter and Gamma, which is huge. Right. And there's so many layers and managers and

reporting lines and dotted lines and like it's really hard sometimes to keep your customer in view, right? But I've experienced young assistant brand managers who are completely obsessed with getting it right for all the right reasons. So I can't say that there's a trend to it, but what I can say that there's a massive spread between useless and absolutely obsessed.

if that makes sense. And it has infinite repercussions in terms of how it influences the work and the work environment and the end result.

Chris (45:49.646)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (46:00.696)
Yes, yes. So it's a massive accelerant, I imagine, right, to have something like that. Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (46:04.821)
It's exponential. anything, culture eats strategy for breakfast, right? Purely because the effects of culture is exponential.

Chris (46:17.836)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Probably a couple of questions that are worth touching on because of what's going on currently with artificial intelligence, new technologies that really, that everyone that is in a leadership role is trying to understand and keep on top of and see how it's actually affecting things. What's your view on AI and how that's impacting and

what your experience has been and what you've seen so far around how that's going to sort of impact the creative agencies and the creative world.

Jerker Fagerström (46:58.581)
I think it's really, really exciting. I also think it's really, really scary. I was listening to this podcast, what's his name? Lex Friedman. And he was talking to a Swedish scientist at MIT, Max Tickman. And that freaked me out in terms he was one of the authors behind that. Just put the pens down for like six months and just figure out.

Chris (47:08.838)
yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (47:27.797)
where this is going. So that's the scary part that I do believe that we are watching a paradigm shift unfold in front of us. And we, we do not know where this is going. And I think, you know, in five years, 10 years, you know, but five years in five years, it will all have changed. I think something like 70 % of the jobs

Chris (47:54.652)
Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (47:57.877)
in 10 years doesn't exist today purely because of the rapid advancements in tech and it could not be any more exciting. Now, if I'm looking at what I do in terms of experiences and brand building and like how to build value from a communications and an experiential standpoint, this is like, because I'm old enough to have been around when

the Adobe suite and Photoshop came around and everybody was freaking out. Dennis was like, we're all going to lose the jobs. No, we didn't. Someone that's a paintbrush, right? Someone still needs to hold the paintbrush. Right. The, the thing that happened then was with that paintbrush came pretty much black and white. What we, what we've been given now is colors, still a paintbrush, but the stuff that we can do with all these tools.

Chris (48:40.706)
Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (48:56.517)
It's unreal. It's, it's literally, it's unreal. It's mind blowing what we can do now in particular, when it comes to versioning, production, scaling ideas and work.

Show showing the potential of the thinking, not necessarily the finished product, but like literally filling in the blanks because we're trained at seeing the end result of a thought. Not all of our clients are. Right. So it's asking a lot for people to sort of like visualize and, and think 18 steps ahead. We do that on a daily basis. And now all of a sudden I can speak into a computer and it's happening in front.

Chris (49:27.523)
Yeah.

Jerker Fagerström (49:44.477)
of my eyes on the screen. It's mind blowing. So I do think that all the tools that I'm developing, it's a gift. It's unbelievable. It's so much fun.

Chris (49:59.608)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it is mind blowing, isn't it? And I think it, for me, when I look at it, I think it just lights a flame underneath creativity, right? I mean, it's just unleashing tremendous creativity and creativity is gonna continue to be important.

Jerker Fagerström (50:18.613)
think what's it called then the World Economic Forum in Davos last year. And they wanted presentations there was the findings of a study they had interviewed 1500 CEOs, board members and like really, really senior executive executives at like 1000 of the world's biggest organizations and companies, right?

And they've asked them to across a wide plethora of areas, what are the most important skills and traits for the future? And this is like 12 different categories. In every single category, analytical skills and creativity was either number one or number two across the board.

So now it's, do we make the tech sweat? In order to do that, you need to have creativity and analytical skills, right? It's the last legal, but still unfair advantage in business to make creativity work really hard for your business, right? It's an unfair advantage that's still legal. And it's by far the most powerful force in business.

And as you say, the technology is just amplifying what you can do with creativity. So if all the business leaders around the world unanimously go creativity and analytical skills are the by far the most important skills that we look for in the people that we hire and in the organizations going forward.

You know, I think it's pretty exciting to be given the tools of AI when everybody's crying out for more of what it is that we do.

Chris (52:20.194)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. that's awesome, Jerker. Thanks so much for taking the time to have this chat. Was there anything, any other sort of pearls of wisdom or other topics that we haven't sort of covered that you wanted to share?

Jerker Fagerström (52:27.729)
Thank you.

Jerker Fagerström (52:37.877)
We could have spent a whole hour on talking about how to build culture and how to make the right culture thrive and make that sticky and make it the strongest possible. you know, it's that is going to be the last decade's been like the war for talent in like global business, I believe.

I reckon that the next decade is going to be all about, right, we've got the talent now. How do we make them do the best that they can? And it's all on culture. You need to give them the right foundation, the right culture, the right opportunities to do all that they can do as a team. And that is culture, you know? So we could have spent an hour talking about that because that is interesting.

Chris (53:32.993)
Yeah, well, we'll need to do this again sometime.

Jerker Fagerström (53:35.972)
we will.

Chris (53:37.582)
Thanks so much for taking the time, mate.

Jerker Fagerström (53:40.959)
Thank you, Chris. Thank you.

Chris (53:45.538)
I'll stop that there.