Making teams work better -Why Greengrass was created…
Greengrass was born out of passion and frustration.
For 10 years I’d been running Aprais UK trying to improve the relationships between marketing and agency teams. Loving it, yet also aware there was much more I could and should be doing to help.
Dragging some back from the brink of divorce, getting others to a deeper level of trust, driving many to greater shared efficiency. Lots of challenges, and a fair few successes amongst the thousands I worked with. Never dull, the relationships were as varied as the people, the agencies, the companies and the countries involved.
Clichés were confirmed- Russians are tough, the UK conservative in their highs and lows, LatAms “high 5” with gusto. Other patterns spotted -FMCG should be SMCG as so often slow moving in their decision taking, the new client celebs (tech, mobile) have grown so fast, the grown up clothes of professional practices have yet to fit, whilst attractive clients with sexy brands can be like really good looking people, they take liberties and have an arrogance, which makes them…..well, a bit of a pain.
Pouring myself into the challenge time and again, I never, ever believed I couldn’t make a positive difference to the working lives of the teams. I became a cliché myself in my dogged determination to make things better.
But here comes the BUT..
But, all that experience showed me time and againtwo fundamental truths about strong teams.
To work at all, teams need either effective leadership or a constructive company environment.
Ideally both. Working in alignment to give clear objectives, a shared intent to the team.
When neither was present, I sawteams struggle to get any better. Couldn’t rise to the challenge. Bobbed around in the doldrums, took an age to action plan, so no real change. Same old, same old.
Frustrating beyond belief. I’d be repeating myself every 6 months. People would come and go, the issues remained. Not an acceptable state of affairs, given my passion and my promise-to drive performance improvement.
Which got me thinking.
I needed to be able to look wider and dig deeper. Wider, examiningthe companies behind the teams, reviewing their culture, the operating structures and ways of working. Deeper- interrogating the working styles of the people in the team, and their management and leadership capability.
I needed more tools in my tool box, as I wanted to combine rigorous, world class analytics with the insights and experience I’d gained over the Aprais years.
And so I investigated and I found them (more of that another time) Got excited, wanted to use them.
But (yes, another but..) Aprais wanted to remain 100% focussed on agency/client team on team evaluations.
And so Greengrass was born.
Libby Child
Founding Partner