• “Will any agency hire this man? He is 38, and unemployed. He dropped out of college. He has been a cook, a salesman, a diplomatist, and a farmer. He knows nothing about marketing, and has never written any copy. He professes to be interested in advertising as a career (at the age of 38!) and is ready to go to work for $5,000 a year. I doubt if any American agency will hire him. However, a London agency did hire him. Three years later he became the most famous copywriter in the world, and in due course built the tenth biggest agency in the world. The moral: it sometimes pays an agency to be imaginative and unorthodox in hiring.” - intro
• I really liked this book for the internal company memos, often focused on acquiring talent and leadership…

If You Ever Find a Man Who Is Better Than You Are - HIRE HIM

• “I have a new metaphor. 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 advertising people. Ogilvy & Mather is the teaching hospital of the advertising world. And, as such, to be respected above all other agencies.” - become a company of giants - “Long ago I realized that I lack competence, or interest, or both, in several areas of our business. Notably television programming, finance, administration, commercial production, and marketing. So I hired people who are strong in those areas where I am weak. Every one of you Syndicate Heads is strong in some areas, weak in others. Take my advice: get people alongside you who make up for your weaknesses. If you are strong in production and weak in strategy, have a strategist as your right arm. If you are strong on strategy and weak in production, have a production genius as your right arm. If your taste is uncertain - or nonexistent - have someone at your right hand whose taste is impeccable… Who wants to admit, even to himself, that he has no taste, or is bored by television production, or inadequate on strategy? Ah, that is the question.” (Pay peanuts and you get monkeys)
• “If you ever find a man who is better than you are - hire him. If necessary, pay him more than you pay yourself.”

Become a Company of Giants

Relentless Delegation

• Creating a great culture: “Some of our people spend their entire working lives in our agency. We do our damnedest to make it a happy experience. I put this first, believing that superior service to our clients and profits for our stockholders depend on it. We treat our people like human beings. We help them when they are in trouble - with their jobs, with illness, with alcoholism, and so on. We help our people make the best of their talents. We invest an awful lot of time and money in training - perhaps more than any of our competitors. Our system of management is singularly democratic. We don't like hierarchical bureaucracy or rigid pecking orders.” - hire A players then give them autonomy
• Rockefeller: “Has anyone given you the law of these offices? No? It is this: no one does anything if he can get anybody else to do it” (relentless delegation) → “The best way to "install a generator" in a man is to give him the greatest possible responsibility. Treat your subordinates as grown-ups - and they will grow up. Help them when they are in difficulty. Be affectionate and human, not cold and impersonal. It is vitally important to encourage free communication upward. Encourage your people to be candid with you. Ask their advice - and listen to it. Senior men and women have no monopoly on great ideas. Nor do Creative people. Some of the best ideas come from account executives, researchers, and others. Encourage this; you need all the ideas you can get. Encourage innovation. Change is our lifeblood, stagnation our death knell.” (change is the only constant in capitalism)
• He’s a Learning machine and looks for that quality in his people: “You have a first-class mind - stretch it.”

Hard Work Never Killed a Man

• What makes McKinsey and Ogilvy & Mather top-class organizations: “The harder your people work, the happier they will be. I believe in the Scottish proverb: "Hard work never killed a man." Men die of boredom, psychological conflict, and disease. They never die of hard work. I am a stickler for meeting deadlines. I can do almost any job in one weekend. I think everyone can. The trouble is that most chaps are too lazy to burn the midnight oil. They are unwilling to rise to the occasion. On the other hand, I believe in lots of vacations. When one of my partners gets abrasive, it is usually because he has worked too long without a vacation. I also believe that the partners in a service business should be given sabbaticals to recharge their batteries.... When people aren't having any fun, they seldom produce good work. Kill grimness with laughter. Encourage exuberance. Get rid of sad dogs who spread gloom.” - work to live: pursue excellence in your job but take time to be with family/friends and explore the world
• What he admires amongst his team: “1. First, we admire people who work hard. We dislike passengers who don't pull their weight in the boat. 2. We admire people with first-class brains, because you cannot run a great advertising agency without brainy people. 3. We admire people who avoid politics - office politics, I mean. 4. We despise toadies who suck up to their bosses; they are generally the same people who bully their subordinates. 5. We admire the great professionals, the craftsmen who do their jobs with superlative excellence. We notice that these people always respect the professional expertise of their colleagues in other departments. 6. We admire people who hire subordinates who are good enough to succeed them. We pity people who are so insecure that they feel compelled to hire inferior specimens as their subordinates. 7. We admire people who build up and develop their subordinates, because this is the only way we can promote from within the ranks. We detest having to go outside to fill important jobs, and I look forward to the day when that will never be necessary. 8. We admire people who practice delegation. The more you delegate, the more responsibility will be loaded upon you.”