Lessons From a Legendary Advertising Agency About Being a Great Boss
The former CEO of Ogilvy & Mather reflects his experiences with some of his firm’s most iconic leaders
David Ogilvy, the father of modern advertising, once said: “Great hospitals do two things: They look after patients, and they teach young doctors. Ogilvy & Mather does two things: We look after clients, and we teach young people. Ogilvy & Mather is the teaching hospital of the advertising world.”
I was blessed in the advertising business with a succession of great bosses. They were different in almost every respect in how they approached their jobs, but they all did one thing superbly — they didn’t just tell me the right solution to a problem, they provided guiding principles that could be applied broadly to other issues.
Here are some of those principles:
Learn to write effectively
My first boss at Ogilvy & Mather, Bill Kelly, labored over his memos — especially those that went to David Ogilvy, then still involved at the agency as Chairman. I learned quickly that nobody wanted to expose sloppy writing to the great man; he would make a judgment about your intelligence.
“I believe in the dogmatism of…
