The creative industry is known for movement. Agencies grow, shrink, merge and reinvent themselves. People come and go. Teams change. Churn is often treated as normal, even inevitable.
But it has consequences.
When people leave frequently, experience walks out the door with them. Context is lost. Trust has to be rebuilt. Clients feel the disruption, even if it’s never explicitly acknowledged.
Long before I joined Insight, one thing stood out to me from the outside: people stayed. That stability wasn’t accidental. It reflected a philosophy Mike Tisdall embedded from the beginning, treat people with respect, listen properly, build trust, and create an environment where good people can do good work over time.
When I became CEO in 2014, my role wasn’t to replace that philosophy, but to build on it. To strengthen the conditions that allow people to stay, grow and do their best work as the business evolved.
“That kind of environment doesn’t just happen.
It has to be modelled and protected.”
Psychological safety is central to that. People do better work when they feel trusted and respected, when they can challenge ideas, admit uncertainty and ask better questions without fear. That kind of environment doesn’t just happen. It has to be modelled and protected, especially when pressure is high.
Growth matters too, but not at the cost of churn. Developing people is more valuable than constantly replacing them. Experience compounds. Teams that know each other well work faster, collaborate more honestly and make better decisions. Clients benefit directly from that continuity.
The past decade has tested those beliefs. Covid was disruptive, but the period that followed was more demanding. A prolonged economic downturn, rising costs and sustained uncertainty placed real strain on the business. There were no easy options. We did have to reduce our cost base, and that included letting some people go. Those moments are the hardest part of leadership, and they stay with you.
“Trust isn’t built in good times alone.
It’s tested when conditions are toughest.”
Even then, how decisions are made matters. Being honest. Being clear. Treating people with respect, even when the outcome is painful. Trust isn’t built in good times alone. It’s tested when conditions are toughest.
What I’ve learned is that loyalty can’t be demanded. It’s earned through consistency, transparency and follow-through. Through doing what you say you’ll do. Through recognising that people have lives beyond the work, and that trust runs both ways.
For clients, stable teams deliver very practical benefits. Fewer handovers. Less re-explaining. Deeper understanding of their business, their history and their pressures. Advice informed by context, not just the latest brief.
Awards can be useful benchmarks, but they’re fleeting. They don’t build capability. People do. The quiet strength of a business is often found not in what it celebrates publicly, but in who chooses to stay.
Looking forward, the focus remains the same. Create an environment where people feel supported, challenged and able to keep learning. Because when people stay, judgement sharpens, relationships deepen and the work improves.
That continuity, built over time and carried forward with care, is one of the most important things we offer our clients.
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50 years forward
- Lesson from 50 years
Stable teams compound capability. Continuity builds trust, speeds up decisions and improves the work. - What that means for you today
Delivering for clients means keeping experience in the room, leading to fewer handovers, faster progress and advice grounded in real context.
