Challenging Chaos - Anonymous employee Outspoken Media Employee Review

Thank you for leaving a thoughtful and balanced review. I think it's an accurate reflection of who we were at the time. Good clients, diverse industries, challenging work, smart team, lots to learn, good benefits, and good balance. It's wonderful to know we're doing those things right! As for areas to improve--I'm sorry you felt unsupported and like there was too much change too soon. The unsupported comment is the worst to read. I never want someone to feel like their needs aren't met, but I know this has been a concern for a long time--putting the right structure in place to give everyone access to our process documents (if we even have them for a specific task), formal agency/industry training and educational materials, and most important--time with management (or a manager at all). I'd like to believe we're better at this today though there's always room for improvement. For example, in the last four months we've created a central area for training and process docs in Basecamp, an agency account for Lynda.com, more brainstorm and breakout team sesions for internal training, and hired more experienced industry experts who are eager and available to the team (though all of us still want more time with each other). We also added a more formal structure with team leads for both the Technology and Creative & Content Teams. We're still looking for the right SEO & Data Team lead, but simply by putting strong managers in place we've been able to set incoming team members up for success. On the client and team change note--we've definitely gone through a ton of change in a few years (add physical offices, brand, service offerings, deliverables, process, and tools to the list of change as well). Some of this is industry-specific, because we're only as good as the work we produced yesterday and we need everyone on the team to grow with us. Some of the changes were also due to cultural differences and at certain periods it was totally due to mismanagement or the absence of management. Addressing the parts I can own--at the core, I didn't know if I wanted this agency and I didn't know how to hire or be a manager or I checked out a bit during the pregnancies and subsequent recoveries. Definitely wasn't ready to be a CEO when I took over the reigns and didn't really understand the difference between a founder and a CEO until I read up on it recently (that may sound odd, but I'd wager most founders don't discover this themselves until it's too late and/or many are replaced, fired, ousted, or quit). I've spent the last year finally growing into and feeling like I deserve the CEO title and it was a grueling process with hurt moments in there for all. This leads me to my biggest regret--knowing how many brilliant team members and clients I got to work with over the years who didn't get the benefit of a strong, level-headed, and experienced leader at the time. I've done a lot of work since then, which I think addresses the mood and whim comment. Simply by being a healthier human, there's been a palpable and positive impact on the team and culture. I'm still spontaneous, passionate, and require horse blinders at times, but now it usually comes from a positive place versus fear or insecurity-based. Real talk--everything had to start with me. That's such an egotistical statement, but on a small team, it's true and I didn't see it for a long time, because I was in triage mode post-partners or during pregnancies and recovery. It really wasn't until the summer of 2017 that I realized I a) wanted this agency and knew what to do with it, b) could accomplish nothing without truly supporting and trusting my team (by being self-comppassionate I learned to be more compassionate with others), c) needed to hire for culture and actually set the tone with a clear vision, mission, and values (and live them), and d) could truly grow this into something special with my head on straight and the right people on the bus. Where we are today is incredible given certain moments in our history. The team and clients keep stopping to say we need to take a moment to celebrate and daily there are reasons to celebrate now! This momentum wouldn't exist if not for all the lessons along the way and people who helped us get here. So, no matter your experience, thank you for being part of our history and I promise to be and do better. ~Rhea