Getting Thas Naseemuddeen’s incredible perspective

Most industries work in teams. The recent adaptation to the way we work has affected our approach in some simple and profound ways. As I’ve spoken to strategists and marketers, I’ve learned that this has impacted the way their assignments happen, or maybe just the way they feel. Work, or parts of work that was formerly done by teams in shared space or at least shaped or nurtured in hallway conversations, has become solo work. Passed from person to person digitally, like an assembly line, in which each person is not always clear on what they are meant to add to the product. It can all feel a bit lonely. Ultimately, each person has a role and a responsibility to the project. What decisions one makes probably hasn’t changed. But they may feel more isolating, and more revealing about what is at stake in each case.

When you listen to a choir, it’s not always clear who is performing which part, while reviewing the 16 track recording tells you exactly who is doing what. Remember, we all dislike the sound of our own recorded voice. So it is with work, we want to know how what we do, what we decide fits in to the bigger picture, how our role contributes to the bigger result. When Thas Nuseemuddeen joined me for the following chat, she revealed a deep intelligence and curiosity about an incredible array of subjects. She casually dropped insightful comments faster than I could take notes. I realized in her role as CEO of Omelet, she is the type of leader thinking about challenges like these that her team may be facing. I never even asked, when she said something I’ve been thinking about deeply since: Making these decisions can be very lonely. Thas has a perspective on how all the parts of the choir should sound together, and we’re fortunate to hear how she thinks in this episode.

Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thasnaseemuddeen
https://twitter.com/thaz7

You want to hear for yourself? Fine. Go then. Listen here: https://specific.substack.com/p/getting-thas-nuseemuddeens-incredible

Adam Pierno: Alright, welcome back to another episode of The Strategy Inside Everything. This is an exciting day for me I am talking to a CEO, and that’s exciting for me. Today’s guest was a strategist at one point in your career and has climbed the ranks to lead as the CEO. Welcome to The Strategy Inside Everything. This is Thasnim Naseemuddeen.
Thasnim Naseemuddeen: Thank you. Nice to be here.
Adam: How are you today?
Thas: Doing great sun shining we can’t complain.
Adam: I know, I know, it’s nice. It’s nice when that when we finally get to springtime, are you do things slow down for you guys in summer or is it just go go go?
Thas: It’s summer is usually our busiest time so this is sort of our little ramp up into into what will hopefully be a really busy summer.
Adam: What is that, that’s pretty unusual usually agencies tend to have that slow doldrums period as everybody goes on vacation, not true for you.
Thas: Not for us it’s actually interesting if you look at our business cycle into sort of how things work and maybe we’re a little unusual like that but our years tend to be a little quieter at the very very beginning. So the Jan Fab tends to be sort of our ramp up and then, you know, typically we’ve been we’re busiest in spring summer so it’s just it’s just, it’s our way. I love it, I love it.
Adam: Before we get going on our conversation. I wonder if you could give people a sense of your background just kind of high level overview of your career before you before you got to your current role.
Thas: Absolutely. So I’m going to go I’m going to wind all the way back because everybody wants to go that far back, I would like. I’m Canadian so I grew up back in Calgary, Alberta. So we came out to America for university and spent kind of the first part of my, my life and career in San Diego. I kind of came into the the career world or my ambitions were really around AI, and this was now 20 years ago, back when that really wasn’t the thing, but just the idea so I actually started in cognitive psychology and car and con science but I ended up evolving that as my love for calculus started to wane as I decided to kind of stay lean more into the psychology side of things, so I was I was in developmental psychology relies on graduation that being a preschool teacher was not going to be for me learn some really important life lessons in that space. Things I still use to this day now that I work with preschoolers but the psychology of learning and how we develop is one of those really critical things that I think I had early on. And then I ended up not really knowing what I was going to do and so I ended up getting an MBA, because I was like good something multi disciplinary I have lots of doors I could potentially open I was really interested in organizational design. So from there, I ended up getting an internship at an ad agency, and it was a small design. They’re like, do you want to be a planner and in truthfulness, I had just learned what a planner was by being at the agency. And I was like, this sounds like a great idea. It was at the beginning of a financial crisis, I was like, I have a job this is amazing. I will do whatever is needed if there’s a mock needed I got it I’m on exactly so we were just getting into that time and again I think I got into the industry at a really interesting time because things like digital was definitely all kind of coming to coming into its own social was coming into its own so I think as a strategist, it was a really interesting time to kind of be in communications and really thinking about the impact of digital and technology on how we communicate and that’s really the lens that I had for the first few years of my career and I think I continue to have that, even as I as I sit in the position that I’m in now. And from there I kind of went to a series of different agencies, kind of big ones and small ones so try a day. And I went, I was over at BBH was like employee number eight over there and it was really fun being like the first of a big giant agency that I’ve admired for so long, but being able to kind of be a part of a startup.
Adam: Yeah, you were there for the opening of the LA office, right?
Thas: Yeah, so it was it was a really fun time and I think, you know, from there I went on to Deutsch and got kind of more of my big agency experience which was great. And then, finally, I’ve landed here at . And I’ve been here for over five years, which is a very long time for me. So, as one would see if you look at my career path I jump around a lot and, and honestly like I you know I remember I like talking about it because I think there’s such a stigma attached to kind of moving around and being mobile particularly as strategist, the reality is I think we all have insatiable curiosity and like that’s what yeah you can like and sometimes you’re just looking for that and it’s not necessarily that you’re not committed to a thing, but the way that you kind of have to feed your strategic spirit is one that you kind of have, you have to be a little bit more transient. So that was, that was like that’s my, my rationale but I stand by it wholeheartedly and I you know I talk really candidly about it even to folks at our agency to because I know that I like I experienced that and I am not necessarily the CEO who was that upset when people are like I need to try something new. I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s a good idea. We love you. You’ve done a great job here but maybe it is time to kind of grow those wings and fly.’

Adam: You’re not the person who takes it personally when, when people give you their notice.
Thas: You can’t unless you’ve done something wrong as an organization which also happens. And that’s where I think you have to be really realistic about it but for the most part when folks are ready I think you’re, you’re ready and you know and no one can tell you outside of the only person that really knows is yourself so I think it’s a it’s a good philosophy that kind of again helped me. I think shaped my managerial prowess and kind of who I am today. And obviously this this translated into my roles at at . So I started in as the Chief Strategy Officer, I evolved into the role of the Managing Director and Chief Strategy Officer so my purview kind of expanded to our account management and brand management teams, as well as business development, and that naturally have for aid into in the next couple years. The CEO role that I’m in right now.
Adam: That’s such an interesting path, when you were in that role as the, the dual roles of CSO and managing director, where you transitioning from active strategy work client leadership, and into more and more management of the Managing Director role and that led you into the CEO role or was there something more, something more at work there?
Thas: Truly I think with with our agency and given our size we’re about 60 people there there is it, it’s not the lines are much blurrier so I think even as the Chief Strategy Officer, you’re already very involved in the business itself right so the evolution wasn’t as wasn’t as stark so it really was. And you know a lot of the time they talk about, you know, you should get your promotion when you’re already doing the job. And that’s really part of our philosophy and outlet and honestly, it was part of kind of my evolution as well and my relationship with our now Chairman who’s our former CEO. It was a very and you know we talked about it a lot. It was actually a very smooth transition from one to the other because we’d been already doing it for a couple years, how do we have that you know again every, every month or every week it’s a different kind. There’s a different kind of responsibility and I guess that’s another thing as being sort of the curious person that I am. I’ve always wanted to like learn more understand more, even if it’s not directly in but it’s like kind of part of my strategic role. I really love learning more about the business and I think I was really pulling on a lot of the things that I had, I had a dual focus in my MBA of management and marketing, and as I started to kind of evolved into the managing director role that then became the CEO role. It really was about kind of utilizing some of the skills that had really just do I sat dormant for, you know, 15 years, and then like, ‘Oh, that’s where I apply it.’ So like it’s great to know that that works for you waiting for that opportunity was lying in wait or. I have no idea I was just like, wait, I have this in a textbook somewhere I have heard about how we manage EBITDA, and I’m like I know these things this is great I actually have the ability to kind of pull on some of that knowledge and I think that’s a really typical thing for a strategist to because we all have, we might not be business accurate it might be something we all have this battery and bank of random knowledge that we have and we pull on in different ways in different spaces and I think that sort of became part of it it was, it was certainly strategic relative kind of where my career growth went. But really, I didn’t anticipate you never in a million years anticipated being as an agency CEO that was not on the docket, it wasn’t in the plan. But I think again I evolved into this role that was, it was a lot more natural than then I initially thought it would be.
Adam: Yeah, and that’s that’s I guess you wouldn’t have mapped it that way. CSO was probably the title that maybe if you know I’ll stay with it long enough to get to that role and then see what happens but it’s not always a direct transition to CEO from from strategy role.
Thas: No and i think i think that the the one thing that is interesting is that all of our skills as strategists really can be utilized and if you’re a certain kind of strategy. I’m not saying every single strategist is built to be an of the business type of person or business centric person but I think that all of the things that we have its fundamentals so they just being able to strategize for brands and clients and being able to utilize those skills to help create jobs develop creative work. All of that is really useful when you think about running a business as well. It’s like I think of myself as yes I’m the CEO, but I’m really the strategist for the agency and thinking about our business strategically whether it’s how we launch initiatives, whether it’s how we’re launching our own work, and really kind of putting that critical eye on our own brand and thinking about it through that lens versus just being kind of the the typical CEO,
Adam: Do you, are there processes you used as a planner or, you know, things checklist that you worked your way through as you were problem solving when you were a planner that you still apply today that you still realize you’re, you’re following kind of the same program?
Thas: Oh yeah I mean if you look at our my agency because we you know I’m, I am quite diligent relative to making sure we have annual plans we have annual strategies. You look at that they lay out almost identically two strategies that I’ve done my whole career. It just looks like the one is just for our business versus again for our clients, and yet and it’s not just marketing-centric and again it kind of pulls on some of the things that I, I worked on really early in my career and and and in my education relative to business, but kind of pulling those things together and just throughout my career I’ve always been a bit more of an upstream strategist anyways like I love working with creative but I also can vacillate in the boardrooms and kind of work with with clients on business strategy projects and tie all of the fun, interesting creative work that we’re doing back to business objectives and back to business imperatives. So that part. That part is really served me well in this role because again I’m doing that all day long.
Adam: Yeah. Which part of your approach to strategy, do you think makes you the most successful. Is it is it the alignment to business initiatives and being able to tie it back to business goals and outcomes or is it the open mindedness and curiosity that I’ve heard you express that had you learned in calculus and then had you go get your MBA and had you not done? Each of those things you wouldn’t be who you are in it, I can see the wheels turning while you’re talking It’s incredible. Like, do you have you thought much about which aspect of your approach has applied most directly or do you consider a strength?
Thas: I it’s interesting years ago was asked what my career mission was, and I think it’s a really great question to ask people who are kind of later in their career are deciding like which fork to go down because they think it addresses just where you’re asking. When I think about what my career ambition really is. It’s really helping creative people be better business folks and business people be better creatives. So what I tried to do is sit in the middle which is not an easy place to be. But I, I was fortunate in that I do speak the language of creativity, I have the I have enough acumen and true curiosity in that space to still drive kind of my own authenticity, and I think you know our people feel there are, you know, my clients feel it, but I also the other side of it is is harshly harshly business minded and extremely rational and and I think I’m able to couch it in sort of my more creative spirit. But the reason I’m very aware of realities and probably slightly too realistic a lot of the time. That’s something I’m really working on even, even today. The idea of being an entrepreneur, which is a very different kind of creative is something that’s very challenging for me because I know that x plus y equals z, and I’m like there is a formula that and I understand that and I know how to get there. Being an entrepreneur, add sort of an extra element into the old
Adam: Many other many extra elements
Thas: There is an A and B and a W. There’s lots of stuff is rolling around in that, that makes it a lot more challenging. Just as someone who’s who’s fairly linear in that respect, but then also I juxtapose that with. I am obsessed with creativity I love the, I love the business that we’re in. I love it when we challenge ourselves to be much more inspiring and much more different we don’t do it enough anymore and, and I realized the React but the other, the scary Type a side of me definitely understands why we’ve become who we are as marketers. So it’s a balance like every day is like vacillating between these two sides of my brain, which is really fun but also somewhat tiring.

Adam: Why did you describe the type a side of scary?
Thas: Oh you know it’s like this as much as everybody loves to hear me talk about it all day. It is. And driving growth, I think there is there are things that as a CEO and very responsible to and and and again I take it very seriously. But it’s all packaged in kind of who I am as a person and the things I’m actually interested in.
Adam: Yeah, there’s something you said I want to go back to you, you’ve had experience at big agencies you talk specifically at BB he got the opportunity to be in that big agency system, but have the the thrill I would call the thrill of like the new startup within that system, Omelet is almost 60 people. How do you think about the push and pull of big agency small agency as you’re creating processes and shaping Omelet to be what you want it to be?
Thas: Hey, there’s something that I learned at the big agencies and I do have quite a bit of reverence to is, is the idea of being dedicated to process and being and having having kind of having structure is I do think that it’s real easy for smaller shops independence startups to kind of get into this somewhat frenetic and wild space which I’m not saying that we never are, but we’ve really actively work towards getting some structure. Getting process. But understanding and the part of the small agency startup that I love is the idea that we still live in the grey, we have black and white things to help direct us and to keep things. And honestly, I think the idea of process can make creatives feel more secure. At the end of the day if everything is just kind of left to the skies. It can actually be somewhat paralyzing from a creative perspective. In the time like we’re living in right now. But I think, allowing ourselves to have a bit of a box, but understanding that the lines of the box can be great, and sometimes we’re going to have to change things. Again this last year 18 months has taught us nothing else like we is that we have to be able to change and shift and do it on a dime, and still come out the other end of it. Take something away from it and do it better the next time. And that’s something that’s been really important to my time with all my particularly in the in the CEO role was was experimenting with things I mean, experimenting with a pandemic. Has your that’s been that’s, like, over half of my time. I have not I’ve been being a CEO of a remote workplace was again not in the cards, but it just requires it requires a lot of trust and they have an excellent team. And I think there’s there’s huge amounts of trust within our leadership team so that helps us a lot but being able to just kind of ride whatever the next day, what the next day brings you has been has been one of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned in my career.
Adam: Yeah that’s incredible your perspective, coming from that, that collection of agencies from from BBH and which during that that time you were there, particularly, it was like on a killer run when you were there was amazing.
Thas: And BBH was so special via we had a creative leader there Pelle Sjoenell, who is a is was so extraordinarily inspiring. And I think that, you know, I feel so fortunate to be able to have cross paths with them and and to be able to get to know people in that, in that capacity of eight people. Yeah, there is.
Adam: It’s a different relationship than knowing the CD, at a 200 person agency where they’re kind of a person in meetings with you.
Thas: Exactly. And I think that’s a lesson that I learned and that’s something that I take with me and what I do today. I think it’s so incredibly important for management and leadership to be accessible and to be I mean this world has challenged it like nothing else. But to be able to be like that’s what you really can get out of a smaller agency is the access to folks who have been through it who’ve done a lot of interesting things and kind of been through tough times as well, and be able to have learned from some of that is, is something that we can share that you don’t always get at the thousand person shop know for sure.
Adam: You, early in your career you did some pretty crazy cool stuff. And what I wonder, I always look at leaders at, at any business. And I wonder how those early experiences shape the way they view the experiences they’re making for their staff or their company when they get into that leadership role. Have you have you thought much about how you apply some of the early projects that you’ve got to work on some of the early brands that you got to work on it towards how you are building and designing the experience for employees at Omelet.
Thas: For sure I mean there is I was really fortunate to work on some, some big pieces of work early in my career and also understand. I think just really getting my arms around the politics of big brands and and understand because like there’s great work that comes out and you’re like, and everybody loves it for maybe three minutes, and then it goes away but that takes years to make it takes years of research it takes years of research, and you know all of those pieces so it makes me appreciate that work and that kind of at one point like literally just the layers between myself and my chief strategy officer and you wonder about the efficacy of those things and, I mean, given given our size we’ve been pretty we’re pretty efficient efficient is always the code word for just like y’all gotta do more than you think. But it is but it I think it’s a really fun space to be into because you get the autonomy, you get the the ability to shape your your your own thinking the way you want to. But I think those big brands when you’re when you’re more kind of junior in career are really helpful because it’s real frustrating to and you think that it’s going to be a lot quicker and easier than it is. You it’s not the hours or the amount of work but you don’t fully recognize kind of the the the structures that can hold you back from doing great work.
Adam: Yeah, so, are you, so you’re obviously mindful of the structure you’re setting up that kind of what the shape of the org chart is to keep people coming up with ideas and creating things from feeling that crushing weight above them in the org chart that prevents the work from moving forward or getting advanced in some meaningful way.
Thas: Yeah, and I also think it comes back to a little bit of the mission I was talking about earlier is helping our creative people be better at business, and that includes the creatives and all the people who have the big C or little c creative in their titles. It’s important for everyone to understand the business context of things. And it doesn’t mean that everyone needs to have you know like the needs to be able to read a p&l and whatnot, but it is important to understand and empathize with our clients about her What are the realities that they are working with. And really like how do we use that as the fuel in the fire that really helped push our ideas forward versus just like, Oh, it’s like all the budgets smaller again I mean yes but just smaller is never fun, however, like how can we be more creative in this space because clearly there’s a business imperative that’s actually driving that it’s not that people don’t want to spend more. It is, it’s BS but having that sense of empathy and I’m really proud of our people at Omelet for being able to kind of work within that and I think it helps us a lot a lot of our clients are internal creative agencies as well so they are us like these are these are old colleagues and these are old. These are people that we’ve seen in our careers before but now our client side, and it’s working with them so it’s not that the the relationship between client and agency is is different today and I think that’s that and everybody in their, you know, says that your collaborative, but it’s like you have to be, it takes a different level of collaboration to truly manifest the empathy that you have for their business, because that’s just something that I think that a lot of because we’re so removed from the money side of things and agencies. I think that we we lose a little bit of that and that’s something that we endeavor with our with all of our teams to be conscientious of and to be open about.
Adam: Not just disconnected from the, the money side of it but disconnected from the, the organizational pressure that comes from the at the client side where it’s hard for a creative team always to know. ‘Okay, I’m going to go show it to the client and why did why did they kill it?’ Well, let me tell you about the 25 other meetings, they had to have about not just that the thing you’re bringing the website or the app, but the the product itself, you know they’ve had 15 meetings just about that that changed the detail that you focused on as your key attribute in the spot. And so, it’s dead.
Thas: I mean we I’ve worked on apps and things like that that we bring to clients and we’re like, gosh, this is the best thing you could possibly do why is this so hard. And then we learn about actually the basket size is only seven items and if you have if your ambition is to actually have 12 items, the whole site’s going to crash and we’re going to have a lot of problems like those are just things that particularly as you’re, you’re maneuvering the digital space you truly have to understand all of the like business fundamentals that go into every idea you make because if it wants to be a true utility, you have to work within the organization otherwise it’s like it’s just a piece of, like, interesting marcom. But if you want it to help be a business change and and business mover, you’ve got to be able to get as much of the nitty gritty as possible, you’re going to connect it all for them and make it make sense.
Adam: Do you have training in place, you know you talked about making creative people better a business, business people better creative Do you have training, either way for either people in either capacity to expand on that?
Thas: Yeah, so one of the things that we do and it’s it’s a really, it’s a strange unfortunate thing we have, but our chairman is actually he didn’t come from advertising so he’s actually he comes from like the finance world, and we hold several sessions, a year, where he helps lead kind of, again, essentially like financial literacy, whether it’s kind of personal finance things, or just walking through agency p analysis as well and talking about kind of what things mean. And that’s something that we’ve done, kind of between a formally and informally year 60 person agency. Over the course of the last few years but the other thing that we’re really working towards is a more comprehensive L&D program this year. It’s a really challenging thing to do,
Adam: It is.
Thas: We’re 100% self funded independent. So every dollar we have in it’s like it’s it’s a careful, it’s careful management’s like Do we need a person or do we need to do training like, there aren’t any-this is a zero sum game because it’s one thing of money. That’s it. But L&D has been very much on our radar for a long time and I think this year is really where we’re trying to solidify some of that that we’ve done in a more informal ways or one off ways about really trying to create institutionalize it more for the org has been has been one of our challenges because again, clients or clients and you’re out there, you’re out there a roller coaster will win some days but it’s something that’s been really important to us to help with that because I think as an industry we don’t do a great job of L&D. We try hard, we I think we talked about it a lot. I do a lot of mentorship work I work with me. I work with, I work with the city as well. Just particularly looking at new kinds of talent who are coming, coming up in the industry but it’s really really challenging to be able to create programs for the first time they and we and we just don’t do that and we wonder why we wonder why our talent is, it leaves us.
Adam: Yeah, I think we know we need to do it, but it’s hard to actually like you said, it’s a zero sum game that that budget has to come from somewhere that time has to come from somewhere if it comes from client work then that’s hours you’re not billing so –
Thas: Yeah and I mean, then there’s always there’s such, there’s every single thing I do, it’s a calculation of some sort, because yes you’re losing client time, but you’re probably also gaining skills that then will be used more efficiently or more effectively for client time in the future so are you building for today are you building for the future? And and that’s a that’s a really hard thing to balance, particularly when you’re independent because you are you are building the the airplane whilst you’re flying like that is just every single day, and and it’s it’s not it’s not for the faint of heart.
Adam: No, and there’s no holding company to go make a budget request for all, there’s, You got to make it
Thas: Totally,

Adam: What, if any, what advice do you have for strategists looking to get to the to a seat, similar to yours?
Thas: I think it’s I, I guess one of the big things is, is, don’t work towards being a CEO, be the very best person in your role that you can possibly be. Because I think when you have, because I see it I’ve seen it throughout my career, where there are people who have their eyes squarely on the C suite on the CEO role, and that becomes their end all be all, but they forget to kind of take the moments that they’re in right now it’s not just about achievement, it’s not just about getting to the next like little pole to like and just be planting that in the earth and saying this is where I’m at. It’s like it’s about understanding and appreciating the experiences that get you there. Because if you don’t take that time if you don’t take that moment of self reflection, it’s really hard to be able to manage this kind of role when you’re here, and that’s that’s something that I spend a lot of time just think of being more self-reflective I think it’s very much as the trade of many strategist, we, we overthink everything. But I think that is it’s critical for us to be able to kind of look back and ask yourself why you want to be it. Again, I got I asked myself all the time and I’m here. Is it the title? Is it the monikers of success? Or do you feel like you can really make an impact on the industry on the business on your clients business, and there are no right or wrong answers in any of that but you have to be clear about why you’re doing it, otherwise it’s just I feel like you get, because this role takes a lot like I I don’t mince words when I say like it takes a lot of out of you emotionally takes a lot of you physically yeah just because it’s a it’s, It’s not the best role for everyone. Some days I wonder about myself, but it’s like, but it’s it, but it’s one that I you know I take with with great reverence and I am so appreciative of this, but it is, it’s hard, and I think it’s hard and I talked a lot about it being quite lonely. Because it’s not the kind of role where, particularly if you’re a strategist and you love working with people, and that is what I still do I rely so much on my teams, but there are moments that you as an individual have to make a decision, and that is your decision and your decision alone. And sometimes people love it sometimes people hate it, and you can’t you can’t control with other people think of it but that’s it’s a it’s a tough transition it’s not always it’s not always fun.
Adam: Yeah, you, you, you graduate to a place where you don’t have a peer group anymore. At that at that level.
Thas: Yeah, which is where it’s important to have, you know your your peer network outside of your agency and have sounding boards and have people that you really trust. And I think that works that that’s for any manager I think it’s so important for us to be able to lean into our networks because this is not an easy industry to navigate by yourself. I don’t recommend that to anyone. And I think that you know sources like this podcast are amazing as well because I think you, it, it provides you with something that makes you feel less alone. Because in something particularly in the world that we’re in today but even when you’re in an agency. I remember being in my first agency I was one of like a couple of strategist, and it was a very lonely existence, and you feel like you don’t have other people to share this not only the same interest but the same ambition and and I think it’s just, it’s it’s important to feel support.
Adam: Do you mentioned management early in our conversation and you just brought it up again and Have you always been a natural manager you I can tell just from talking to you that your people who report to you must love you.
Thas: That’s very kind, I don’t know if they’ll say that I mean, I don’t,
Adam: I don’t think they would say it all the time. I, but I can just tell from your manner that that they brought that people probably do get a lot from working with you and for you.
Thas: I appreciate that i think i think a big part of it was I, I’ve been in a coaching role for most of my life so I was a figure skating coach when I was 17, and they first moved to America. And I think that has always been, there’s the role of a coach is is critical to an agency as well like the idea of being, you’re. We’re I’m not here to win the metals anymore, like that that’s that time has passed. It was fun. It was great. my time is now to make other people better great and amazing at what they do and how I can and I don’t know how to do everyone’s job at, at an agency I don’t know how to be an art director or be a designer or be a producer, but what I can do is help shape goals help shape plans that will get you to that place. And so I think that the natural management side actually comes from the coaching because it’s all about incremental learning and it’s all about how that incremental learning can get you to specific goals, and knowing that to celebrate those little mid points and where we can celebrate and where you also have to have a little bit of tough love, because sometimes we began if you’re an ice skater you’re falling a lot, and you kind of have to keep going and I think that’s a very similar thing for the world we live in.
Adam: That’s so interesting. Thas, I want to thank you so much for making time this has been so great getting to know you and hearing how you think I, I feel like I could ask you a question and you would have a competent, enthusiastic answer for almost any subject I could throw at you.
Thas: I appreciate that.
Adam: I mean, you studied calculus.
Thas: That’s from years of being a strategist. Thinking on your feet.
Adam: Yeah, it’s like you could talk on any subject I could, I could just tell. I was watching you I was watching you go and I’m like, Where’s this gonna go now I’m so excited to.
Thas: I don’t know either. Most of the time, but it’s, it is I guess I think these are all skills that we develop a strategist like there is the ability to think on your feet, and the ability to kind of relate back to the people that you’re talking to active listening, all of those things are skills and strategies that you take for any career path you can be a CEO you mean anything with those goals. so I’m always always happy to have that as background.
Adam: Do you teach that thinking on your feet or do you encourage strategist to figure out how to harness that and hone that skill?
Thas: It’s definitely something I encourage it’s not and and honestly it’s a very difficult thing to teach I think it’s, you, you, a lot of it is trial by fire. I think you learn to do this by being put in the pit, a few times. Yeah and not doing it right, and actually coming up with the wrong answer but doing it anyways, I think that’s the part that, you know, making sure that people have enough of those opportunities is what’s important, which is where I’m also very excited to one day, get back into an office and be able to actually do some of that stuff more real time because the Zoom world doesn’t facilitate it quite as well as real life does.
Adam: I know I’m also anxious to have more, much more face to face and share space around a table with, with people much more frequently and then we’re, and we’re doing now. Where can people find you online.
Thas: You can find me on Twitter. I am Thaz7. This is where I came into the internet probably five days too late. So Thaz7, and you have that and LinkedIn.