“Having a personal relationship with somebody within your network—or somebody within your network’s network—who has been through the challenges you face and will gladly give you advice and pointers is invaluable. Reach out and get involved!”- Bill Carr, CEO of Carpe Diem, a specialist Digital Transformation Agency, speaks to us about developing a career as a business leader.
As part of our commitment to supporting candidates to develop fulfilling careers, we’ve invited some industry leaders to share the secrets of their success.
This week, we had a great conversation with Bill Carr at Cape Diem, who began his career in Marketing with the ASICS Corporation before moving to Brand New Media to work as an Account Manager. In 1999, Bill founded the Carpe Diem web design and digital marketing agency, where he continues to serve as CEO.
Alongside this role, Bill has co-founded the online portal ‘My Kids Day Out’, and has served as both a Committee Member and Chair of the Cheshire division of the Institute of Directors.
Can you tell us how you got into a leadership role and why?
Initially, I went to university to study Mechanical Engineering. I didn’t particularly think that I was going to use that as my career and wasn’t enjoying it, so I left and went to work for ASICS. That was my first experience of the commercial world, and a real learning curve. I was thrown in at the deep end, so I had to grow up quickly, but I fell in love with the commercial side of work and decided not to go back to university.
Instead, I worked my way up within the company, eventually taking on the role of Marketing Manager. During my term, the company experienced some challenges that gave me my first experience of managing people and our relationships with clients and suppliers in times of adversity. That taught me a lot about how to negotiate and deal with people, and I decided to move on to pastures new with those skills.
After that, I went to work for a digital agency based in Leeds as an Account Manager, tasked with managing projects and people, and I found that the agency side of things was a completely different world, especially in terms of the pace. I used to work with agencies a lot when I was on the client side, and I’d always had this perception that they’d just have meetings for the sake of it without doing much, but when I went to work for one, I realised very quickly that that wasn’t the case. There are a lot of different pressures with agency work, and where my grounding in the sports industry was very analytical and finance-focused, the agency didn’t operate that way at all.
I left that agency and started Carpe Diem when I was 21, and have run the company ever since then. We started taking on a few members of staff within the first 12 months and grew within the first three years to about the size we wanted to get to. Our numbers are growing, but we’re a solid company with a solid workforce now—although it hasn’t been easy.
When I first started out, my experience of management and leading a team was all taken from being a football captain, so I was quite good at driving a team on, but not at putting an arm around people when they needed it. That’s been the hardest thing for me to learn.
You have to be a lot like a chameleon, and I tend to find that I change my personality and the way that I communicate with people an awful lot depending on who I’m talking to. I try to set an example of what I expect, lead according to it, and hope that the team will follow that.
Are there any strategies you would say have been particularly helpful when leading your teams?
We run a lot of internal design sprints and strategy sprints, which bring the whole organisation together. They give us a lot of clarity—not only in terms of why it is the staff are being asked to do something, but in terms of where we’re heading as a business. They also provide an opportunity for changes to filter up rather than being a top-down organisation, as well as get the team involved to make decisions easier for everyone.
It’s about enabling rapid development, so we always try and find things that we can improve very quickly. One of the mottos we work by is to disagree and commit, which means that even if we disagree about the way something is delivered, we will commit to doing it that way, but review it in four weeks and see if it needs to change.
The other thing we always have is that it’s better to start than to finish. We used to take months to make decisions on some things, whereas now we make decisions very rapidly with these sprints. Getting it 80% right is far better than delaying a decision to try to get the 100% solution.
It’s a very valuable strategy, and we’re happy to share it with others either through direct contact in workshops or our webinars.
Can you tell me about the key themes and challenges that are most prevalent for you as a leader at the moment?
We’re currently growing, so we’ve set up a management team and brought in a Managing Director, and the biggest challenge there is instilling the same management philosophy the company has always had down a level, as well as trying to maintain our company culture within that and take into account people’s personalities. We’ve also been going through the process of changing the company to remove me from more of the day-to-day operations but ensure that the leadership structure is still there, and that has been a challenge as well.
I suppose what I’ve learned is that it’s important to utilize support networks, which are much more prevalent now than when I started the business. There were no mentor networks or big angel investor communities back then, but now there are so many people out there who have seen it all, done it all, and are very open to giving back and getting involved with businesses to help them develop. I do quite a bit of that work now—I’ve been involved with advising and mentoring over 20 companies to help them on their way—but I myself didn’t realise how helpful that could be until after 12 years of running the business, when it would seem odd to be looking for a mentor or confidant.
I think we’re in changing times. Where there’s all kinds of information you can get online, in study groups, or through programmes you can pay for, a lot of that is poorly-executed and probably doesn’t really deliver value. On the other hand, there are great organisations like the Institute of Directors that will support you, and you should take advantage of them.
What career advice would you offer to someone either working towards taking on a leadership role within their organisation, or looking to start their own business and lead others that way?
Having a personal relationship with somebody within your network—or somebody within your network’s network—who has been through the challenges you face and will gladly give you advice and pointers is invaluable. Reach out and get involved!
Alongside that, have courage and belief in yourself. It’s very difficult to make that transition to starting your own business or stepping up into a leadership role, so you’ve got to have that internal courage and belief behind you and surround yourself with people who will support and encourage you. That will help you to feel confident and help you to present calmness, confidence, and strong leadership even when things might not be going as well as you’d hoped.
I spend a lot of time reading and being very reflective on what is happening around me, and I take the time to make lists and put things on paper even if I don’t act on them. I find that that helps my clarity around what we’re doing and keeps me focused, even if that’s just day-to-day.
Bill has been working as CEO of Carpe Diem since 1999, overseeing all operational aspects of the business as well as the implementation of a strong leadership structure as the company continues to expand. He is heavily involved in mentoring other business leaders through his roles within both Carpe Diem and the Institute of Directors.
If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support growing your team, please get in touch today.