I have learned to respect ideas, wherever they come from. Often they come from clients. Account executives often have big creative ideas, regardless of what some writers think.
The more for whom we strive to serve, the greater effectiveness we will have.
Seeing clients as people with goals and desires helps you to understand their perspective, animating their existence beyond a line item in a sales pipeline report.
Usually all I care about is how elegant or over-the-top the pieces are, it's nice to really get to understand what the customer wants and needs as opposed to just focusing on the aesthetic.
Organizations are accumulations of historical debris. They are not consciously thought. So when you ask the Education Ministry 'What's your core function and who's your client?' they laugh at you. When I say that the client is the Afghan child - and the Ministry is an instrument, not the goal - it's greeted with shock. It's a new idea.
The financial industry is a service industry. It should serve others before it serves itself.
The ad industry thinks their clients are their customers. They think the companies who pay for the production are the ones they are supposed to serve. So the ads they produce make their clients happy... but infuriate the rest of us.
The best way to look at any business is from the standpoint of the clients.
I've asked our people, "Why don't we just put a revolver on top of our basic loan?" Make it easier for the client.
MTV lets us do whatever we want. For me, there is freedom in serving an experienced client who knows what they want and has the money to do it. MTV is that for us.
Engel & Volkers is unlike any other real estate company I have known and I am proud to be part of an organization that raises the bar to such high levels.
The broad range of services we provide across our five businesses, together with our deep industry expertise, continues to differentiate Accenture, and we remain the partner of choice for the world's leading companies.
