Rapid Response: How to revive collaboration at work, with WPP’s Mark Read
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 October 2023
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
With companies wrestling with the question of returning to the office or to continue working from home, there are so many questions around the future of work. How do you maximize your team’s creative output and entice them to want to come back to the office, while navigating the opportunities and challenges of working with AI? WPP CEO Mark Read believes that working together in an office is better – for collaboration, for training new employees, and for company culture. In this episode of Rapid Response, host Bob Safian speaks with Mark about the hurdles companies face in bringing folks back to the office, adopting generative AI, and leading during an era of disruption.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Bob Safian. You've been hearing me as the host of rapid response in this feed for a few years now, |
| 0:07.8 | with short newsy interviews alongside the deeper dives of Masters of Scale. Well, I'm excited to share that rapid response is expanding into its own feed. |
| 0:17.0 | We'll be putting out shows twice a week, focusing on the urgent issues that business leaders are dealing with in real time. |
| 0:24.8 | So search for rapid response in your podcast player |
| 0:28.0 | and subscribe to make sure you get all our episodes. |
| 0:31.2 | I'll see you on the other side. our |
| 0:35.0 | our campus here felt busy. |
| 0:40.0 | I came in the office today on Monday morning and the office felt busy. |
| 0:39.0 | You know, our campus here felt busy and I think it's a sign that people are being productive. |
| 0:44.0 | We see the short-term productivity benefits of an extra hour off the commute. |
| 0:50.0 | We don't see the longer term more debilitating impact on learning, culture, |
| 0:56.7 | creativity that come from having a workforce that's far too separate. |
| 1:06.0 | Personal productivity is not the only measure of business success. Business is about how you solve problems and I think you can do that better more often if you're together. |
| 1:13.0 | That's Mark Reed, the CEO of WPP, the world's largest advertising company with thousands of workers across agencies |
| 1:26.7 | from Ogilvy to AKQA to Wonderman Thompson. |
| 1:30.2 | I'm Bob Safian, former editor of Fast Company, founder of the Flux Group and host of |
| 1:35.6 | Masters of Scaled Rapid Response. |
| 1:38.0 | I wanted to talk with Mark because controversies over Return to Office versus remote work have never been hotter and ad firms like WPP |
| 1:47.3 | are wrestling with mandates, possible penalties and cultural impacts. |
| 1:52.3 | The future of work is also being buffeted by the rapid adoption |
| 1:55.5 | of generative AI and here too ad agencies are in the spotlight. Mark is particularly |
| 2:01.1 | outspoken about the disruption he expects from AI, |
... |
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