All Heart First, Work Closely Behind

A moment of appreciation for us agency boys and girls who rolled up our sleeves, did a lot of dirty work across clients and verticals, and somehow managed to make friends for life along the way.

We didn't look at colleagues as competitors or as people we had to "one-up". We looked at them as people in the same boat as us.

Perhaps I'm biased because the first ten years of my career were spent in agencies before I moved to corporates for the last five. Perhaps I'm not a true-blue corporate employee after all. I'm still that agency girl who likes building interpersonal connections across the entire organisation, from the office boy to the agency head.

I've carried these same ideologies into the big, bad world of corporates over the last five years. Perhaps people wonder why I talk endlessly without shutting up, and perhaps the canteen boy is surprised when I ask him what he has studied.

I owe this eccentric personality to my agency upbringing. Or perhaps it's just my family. Or perhaps it's a mixture of both.

All heart first, followed closely by work.

Work is never-ending, but what's important is knowing the people behind each of those documents. Putting a name to every face, finding out their stories and understanding the person behind the designation.

I suddenly recall an introductory call my team and I had with a senior leader who was based in the U.S. He asked each person to introduce themselves. When he came to me, I said:

"My grandmother told my mother to make me a lawyer because I talk too much. By that logic, I'm in the right business of people. I still talk too much, and perhaps that's why I chose Corporate Communications and Public Relations as my calling."

Every human has a story, and every story needs to be written about at some point.

And I think this is why I do what I do, despite the hard days.