Bossing It: For Alistair Schoonmaker There Are Always Lessons to Be Learnt
Alistair Schoonmaker, originally from Seattle, has over 20 years of agency experience leading teams and creating award-winning work in advertising, digital, design, and technology. His work in North America, Asia, and Europe spans various categories on brands such as Apple, T-Mobile, Nike, Gymshark, AB InBev, Diageo, Mondelez and Kraft.
Known for his belief in the power of creativity to drive business, Alistair fosters unique collaboration between agency teams and clients that ultimately helps brands discover category-beating work. He’s driven by creating the space for clients, creatives and business to do their best and most effective work.
In 2020, he founded Ultra in London alongside Matt Bennett and Will Battersby to disrupt the creative industry further and reduce the friction between brands and great work. Alistair works with clients globally and is inspired by bringing a new generation up through the creative industry.
LBB> What was your first experience of leadership?
Alistair> Being asked to captain my high school football team.
LBB> How did you figure out what kind of leader you wanted to be – or what kind of leader you didn’t want to be?
Alistair> Experiencing what I’ve liked or not liked in other leaders I’ve worked with. There’s a danger in building up idols or leaders without knowing them in a professional context.
Especially nowadays where high profile people’s personal brands are highly curated, manicured or written about by ghost authors.
LBB> What experience or moment gave you your biggest lesson in leadership?
Alistair> It’s always adversity. Seeing leaders who rush towards problems or challenges and others who run from difficulty and prefer to delegate the hard stuff. You don’t really know who you are as a leader until adversity hits.
A lot of leaders run towards owning part of ‘a win.’ Good leaders run at solving the biggest issues of the day.
LBB> Did you know you always wanted to take on a leadership role? If so how did you work towards it and if not, when did you start realising that you had it in you?
Alistair> No. I’ve always loved creativity in all its forms and just happened to stay in the business long enough to have what some might think of as valuable experience. Then responsibility hit and what I did had a genuine impact on more than just me.
That’s when developing my leadership became important personally. It still took time to develop though. It’s not a light switch to be turned on when the moment calls.
LBB> When it comes to 'leadership' as a skill, how much do you think is a natural part of personality, how much can be taught and learned?
Alistair> It’s as different as people are different. Some people have natural gifts but I believe anyone can learn to be a leader if they follow their own path to it. One that accentuates their strengths and is authentic. The worst thing you can do is emulate someone else.
There are lessons to be learnt, but you often don’t have the same strengths. If you’re an introvert, don’t pretend to be an extrovert. The hardest and most important step is taking the first one - developing a level of self-awareness.
Once you’re strong in that, the process can start. You don’t need to be loud to be heard.
LBB> What are the aspects of leadership that you find most personally challenging? And how do you work through them?
Alistair> Learning how best to contend challenges, problems or bad news. Early on I always felt the need to portray a sense of positivity and control, or solve a problem myself before sharing it exists in the first place, holding on individually to the very last minute. Needing help felt like a flaw.
Fortunately, I had people in my life who taught me how powerful vulnerability is. At the end of the day, one person can solve far less than a team. We only have so many skills individually and we work with brilliant people who, many times, genuinely want to help.
The same instincts come up now and again but having the tools to recognise them helps chart a different path.
LBB> Have you ever felt like you've failed whilst in charge? How did you address the issue and what did you learn from it?
Alistair> Yes. Failure is inevitable. It feels dreadful but burying it or not acknowledging it stops growth in its tracks. As hard as it is, we learn more from failure than winning. I’ve addressed failure in different ways - acknowledging it to an entire team or to a small group or single person.
Personally, I think it’s important to own your failures openly. You may be surprised how people react to that positively. Invincibility isn’t all that inspiring in the end and even perfectionists aren’t perfect in the creative industry.
LBB> In terms of leadership and openness, what’s your approach there? Do you think it’s important to be as transparent as possible in the service of being authentic? Or is there a value in being careful and considered?
Alistair> This is a tricky one and it really depends on the organisation and size of operation you find yourself in as well as what kind of leader you want to be. My personal bias is to be overly transparent so the team understands where we’re going and has the opportunity to really buy in.
But that has its downsides too.
Some people just want to know there is a plan out there and it’s going to be okay. Others have no interest in how the business is doing. That doesn’t hurt whether you’re being viewed as authentic. So, it really comes down to a judgement call - that’s where the care and consideration comes in.
Knowing your team is critical to what’s going to motivate them and help them operate at a high level.
LBB> As you developed your leadership skills did you have a mentor, if so who were/are they and what have you learned? And on the flip side, do you mentor any aspiring leaders and how do you approach that relationship?
Alistair> Not having a mentor is maybe the biggest single mistake I’ve made. Having one can unlock and and accelerate leadership skills. I couldn’t recommend it enough.
Now, I’ve since learnt my lesson and I get so much energy by speaking with a tight group of agency leaders and entrepreneurs. They’re such amazing people that inspire but also act as a sounding board and advisory force on how I approach business, strategy and lead.
LBB> In continually changing market circumstances, how do you cope with the responsibility of leading a team through difficult waters?
Alistair> Speak the truth, articulate the challenge, have a plan and communicate it powerfully. Nobody expects it to be rosy out there.
LBB> As a leader, what are some of the ways in which you’ve prioritised diversity and inclusion within your workforce?
Alistair> Sticking by our mission, especially when it’s inconvenient. I specifically seek to avoid sameness with talent and how we get to creative work. This is a big one for me.
Having co-founded Ultra it is a little easier to build a team from the ground up that represents our vision. More broadly, like many industries there are problems. Pathways are not equal. There is bias. But unlike some industries, widely diverse talent is there in numbers. Maybe being an immigrant here has helped lean-in to find diverse talent. You have to be committed to finding it and not take the easy way out.
More than ever, there are tools and companies out there that make building diverse teams possible. Prioritising diversity comes down to staying committed. Staying committed to a corporate policy can lose steam, staying committed to vision is something I get energy from. Building teams with different backgrounds and perspectives at every level of the organisation is something we’ve run at.
The job is never done and that excites me.
The makeup of our team at Ultra from top to bottom is already a reflection of our intent and it shows up in our work too.
LBB> How important is your company culture to the success of your business? And how have you managed to keep it alive with increases in remote and hybrid working patterns?
Alistair> For agencies, culture is talked about a lot and rightly so. It’s as important at Ultra as anywhere else. Culture is the glue that makes agencies perform like a band versus a group of loosely individuals connected by Slack. There’s a difference and you can sense from the outside.
We’re a hybrid working team. The days we’re remote, we have carefully planned a run of meetings to ensure everyone is clear but also allowing space and time to work and think. The days we’re in the agency, it’s high energy with all the synapses firing. We do a Friday team lunch every week and there’s a raft of experience we go to together for inspiration.
Culture flows from all of that. And everyone.
The most important thing is that we have fun - not forced fun.
LBB> What are the most useful resources you’ve found to help you along your leadership journey?
Alistair> The human ones; Experience. Travel. Curiosity. Empathy. Accountability.
The tools will change. Assimilate each one the world throws at the creative industry into your arsenal. Today’s saviour and villain is AI. Many have come before. Always learn and create bravely.
