Talent, Culture & Building Agencies People Want to Work For

In this episode of The Edge of Influence, host Iman Issa, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of North SeventyFive is joined by Kat Bazalova, Managing Director of Incubeta and Chelly Meagle, People Director of Incubeta , to explore what it really takes to build agencies people want to work for. 

Together they dig into leading through a period of regional change, why operational clarity, transparent communication and a clear "North Star" matter most in uncertain times, plus how genuine psychological safety, not just rhetoric, lets teams take risks and thrive. 

The conversation also covers empowering people over micromanaging, building a feedback and coaching culture, using psychometrics to hire for fit, and recruiting for attitude and adaptability over linear specialism. 

They close on a candid case for why independents still have work to do on talent perception and why proximity to leadership, real ownership, and visible impact make them worth the leap.

Production Credits:

Presented by: Iman Issa
Editor: Ian Carless
Executive Producers: Iman Issa & Ian Carless
Produced by: North Seventy Five & Poddworx Dubai

Transcript

Welcome And What Matters Today

Iman 0:17

Hello and welcome to The Edge of Influence, a podcast brought to you by the Alliance of Independent Agencies, Middle East and North Africa and North 75. I'm your host, Iman Issa, and today I'm joined by Kat Baslova, Managing Director of Incubita, and Shelly Miguel, the People Director of Incubita. And in today's episode, we're talking about talent, culture, and building agencies that people want to work for. Over the course of today's episode, we're going to be understanding what keeps talent happy, what leaders need to do to empower individuals to succeed in their jobs and their roles, and how we support psychological safety in today's workplace. So,

Running A Healthy Agency In Change

Iman 0:55

Kat, obviously, there's been a lot of change here in the Middle East over the last few months. What does it take to ensure that you continue to run a healthy and vibrant agency?

Kat 1:04

Top of mind, I'm sure, for pretty much everyone that's going to be listening to this. Not an easy one, but something that is front of mind for us, and Chels and I are absolutely focused on that. I think the current geopolitical situation is difficult. Working within advertising marketing is always being complex and is getting more and more complex. Overlay that with the speed of tech development, overlay the speed of an expectation rise of Middle East overall, bunch all of these things together. I think it's definitely a cultural leadership task that is equally exciting as it is challenging. Now, what to answer your question, Iman, because it's front of mind for us, and I think there is a couple of key points I would like to talk about, I think, that come to mind. One is, and it's really boring, but I think really a fundamental belief and passion about the operational clarity and business clarity with your teams is absolutely important. Communication and transparent and frequent communication, super important. And second one would be psychological safety to make sure that as things evolve and continuously change, you know, there's the constant novster and the constant, this is why we're here and this is the journey that we're on, and we're all going in the direction. It goes to my first one communication, clarity, and transparency of that. But within that, life and business, that's a continuous chaos, right? So yes, the spine is there, but the safety of making sure that people feel comfortable talking about genius, chili, I just don't know. Can I try this? Can we try that? Can we fail? And can we try again? And making sure that's enabled and it is not a rhetoric, but it's something that's practiced by absolutely everyone on a team. But I think it's been really working really well for us. We've been attracting incredible talent, uh, the retention has been solid, you know, and the client work has been great. So I think it's just kind of a self-fulfilling loop of continuous self-sharpening, clarity, communication, and and one little bit, one, one.

Iman 3:03

Yeah, I think I think you've touched on a lot of things there. But for me, I think where we are in today's world is the importance of communication that comes from the top. You know, you mentioned the North Star, making sure that when we have moments of disruption, that we really focus on the fact that there are 12 months, right? There's a long road ahead. A lot can happen in a couple of weeks here in the Middle East, and a lot can happen in months, and even more can happen in a year. So I love that kind of concept of really focusing on the North Star, where we want to get to by the end of the year. And you also talked a lot around psychological safety. For a really great workplace, what are some of the tools or tactics that leaders need to

Psychological Safety Starts With Leaders

Iman 3:44

do to ensure that a team feels safe?

Kat 3:46

Um, I think it's just, it's just, I it's the simplest, in my opinion, setting example. I think we as a leaders define leader, but we bring the weather, right? So it is to make sure that we continuously have open conversations. It's allowing, truly allowing decisions to be made that are not only made by a leadership. You know, it's empowering your teams truly, not just through rhetoric, you know, everyone says the right things, but an application looks very, very different. And to me, that's the make or break over the success of that. Not everything will be done the the way that as a leader you would imagine it to be done, right? And that's that's okay as long as the outcome and the and the impact is what it needs to be. Let your teams make their own decisions and showing that an application's not having to step in and not micromanaging, letting them teams to figure themselves out. You know, you you meant to be hiring people, in my opinion, that that challenge you, that make you a little bit uncomfortable. And that's that's the right thing is they're continuously push and pull. And I think that's been working decently well for us.

Iman 4:42

One of my first ever bosses said to me, I think I was an account executive at the time, that his job was to hire smart people and get out of the way. And I really think that that touches on what you're saying in terms of empowerment. You've got to hire people that have that get up and go, that can make those decisions, that can drive the business forward, but likewise that they are empowered by managers and directors that support them on that journey.

Kat 5:05

Absolutely. So people that intimidate me are the right people, in my opinion. You know, I always, and Chile knows that it's Meritrick in most of my meetings. If I have to be focused on today, I'm not doing the right thing. You know, I should be working nine to 12 months ahead of the team to make sure that whatever it is that they need isn't able to do them. So I don't have to be involved and I'm not in their way, is my job, is not being in a way. We've got some incredible, awesome people. Why would I be, you know, why would I be telling them what to do? They know better than I do. And, you know, Chili and the people team are truly a people team.

Psychometrics And Radical Team Transparency

Kat 5:40

You know, they we we do not stick the box. We we build around those people. We do psychometrics when we hire to truly, to truly look into, you know, how the individual likes to likes to operate in context of the wider other people within that team. You know, so back to your emantuo point about tactics, you know, the psychometrics and the psychometrics that that that are then shared transparently. We we run on transparency, might be commercial transparency, operational transparency, board transparency, business transparency, people transparency, learn each other, be curious about each other, you know. Yes, you will clash sometimes. That's okay. Health attention is fine. And just again, allowing for that, being ahead of it, Chelly's team preemptively talking about the fact that that's will happen. And it's okay for that to happen. You know, it's it's a big part of what we do.

Iman 6:29

So in Chelle's team, when you do these psychometric tests and you have that transparency of how you build a team, do you think those types of tools are being deployed enough in agencies to build that type of strong foundation and that culture?

Chelly 6:44

I I do feel some agencies are moving towards that direction. Like you do your task assessment, like you do your initial screening, but then at the end, especially in leadership roles where that kind of psychological um skill needs to be there. But yeah, I think they're adopting more and more because there are so many incredible talent in the in the market, right? It's just trying to find that person or that skill set that is gonna link back to what your business needs. And like Kat was saying, the context of the wider team as well. And just building on the psychological, psychological sorry, safety. Kat mentioned that in the beginning. I think people thrive and they are not operating with fear. So allowing, and we we do that quite well. Like we we allow people to say when they are overloaded, right? We listen, we proper listen. It's not just, oh, I'm I'm we have a listening coach, and then we proper listen and we sit down and we discuss, we prioritize together when it feels too much, and that that creates a safe environment for people to thrive and operate better. Um, I've seen firsthand when micromanagement doesn't basically does the opposite. It creates uncertainty, and I think it it creates that kind of dependability that is not healthy, right? Because they always think and wait what to be told or for approval instead of taking the initiative. And for me, that is a massively formula for failure, right? In the long run, it doesn't, it doesn't help at all.

Ending Micromanagement With Feedback And Coaching

Iman 8:16

How do you ensure that people don't micromanage? How do you kind of knit that tendency? It can creep in, especially when people are busy and pressured or feeling the heat. How do you curb people's desire to potentially fix every detail of a project?

Chelly 8:33

Look, I think it starts from the top. Like the the leadership basically shapes what the culture is gonna look like or what the kind of management is gonna look like. So if your leaders are behaving in in the sense of control or uh micromanaging, that's essentially what we're saying here. It's it's it's just gonna be cascaded down. And the way we do it is simple things like um we do regular meetings where we do and check and prioritize together, right? If things are not moving at the speed that they need to be moving, we do and talk about it. We just don't try to to to oh no, we we don't do the blaming thing either, right? It's more it's more about sitting down and talking about what really matters in that moment and why things that were supposed to be happening are not happening, and and then really discuss openly about it.

Kat 9:26

And if I if I just may on that point, it's you know, and recently that's happened as a prime example. Feedback culture is super important to us. Again, not a rhetoric, but truly, right? So we've got someone in the team who is incredibly talented, but they are new to their role, leadership role where they not have to manage big teams, right? So either me observationally or Chili, you know, we kind of lean in and say, look, this is probably where you would need help. And help is not a bad thing in our environment, you know, coaching and investment, then to get you to the next level with that one thing that you might need improvement. That's not a bad thing. You've got a million other things that you are brilliant at, you know. So that's really leaning in, supporting, investing to make sure that people, management styles, back to the micromanagement point that you're raising out. Like, you know, that if you haven't seen that done or you've seen it done and you had no one to kind of put the mirror up to you saying maybe this way a little bit more, still make it yours, but really make sure that you know can bring your teams along the way, the the right way, you know, the how for us it's really important. And then Chile always leans in, make sure that we've got the right programs with the right investment for all of our people.

Iman 10:29

I think in today's world, people are expecting and also need a degree of coaching, but then you also need those day-to-day programs that you can go and learn the skills. And I think a good agency is able to balance the two, right? I'm gonna provide you with some training courses, I will give you a good manager, but then obviously there's a huge that's um down to the individual. That individual also has to do the work, accept the feedback, hear the feedback, not put up boundaries for feedback. And then there also needs to be a degree of independent learning as well, right? The best talent will go off and learn on their own. Do you see that as well?

Kat 11:07

Fully, fully, fully aligned. And for us, recruitment is one thing that we do not compromise on and we do always in advance. Finding the right talent, technically, I we we live by the thing that technically we can teach a lot, okay? But we can't teach you how to want to be here and want to learn. And again, it comes to a different degree depending on the level of seniority, of course. But that filter, in my opinion, goes for absolutely everything. So, you know, when it comes to the kind of talent prep, Chelle and the people team are always amazing, we always on the lookout. We've got a clear business strategy, which means a clear operation strategy. Now, again, it's a it's a business, right? So things do evolve, but we've got a good idea enough to understand what level of talent approximately we will need when. And we really start looking in advance to really make sure that we are never caught in a position where we have to hide out of desperation, right? And for me, that's linked to the point that you just mentioned, because out of we are size of 40. So we are we are beautiful in a position of kind of we are quite big, but not big enough to pivot. For us to make sure that the continuous, the kind of the culture of what you talked about, they want to learn, want to sharpen, want to feedback, want to get better for myself, but for each other, for us as a team, for the business, you know, it all connects. And if that falls apart somewhere, and you bring in one or two people that do not want to, and not why that way, that can really affect the whole ecosystem. So for me, that kind of comes down in hand. And what you talk to Iman is absolutely critical for us. You need to want to be here, you need to want to get better, you need to want to give feedback, you want to receive feedback. Not in like, you know, not a school type environment, but because you know the world is difficult and you know that two to three years, we don't know what our jobs will look like. And I'm still fundamentally to be persuaded. If if anyone tells me they they will know how how next two to three years will look like for our industry and our individual jobs within that. So for me, that kind of the feedback loop of okay, tomorrow has changed. What we're gonna do about it for us as a team, for us as a business, and you as an individual within that, you know, is you need people who are willing to accept that. Um, and that comes to resilience and and and again wanting to work within a certain level of unclarity and bit of gray. So those are the type of people we personally look for.

Iman 13:20

I think fundamentally what we're saying is we want to have individuals have a get up and go, right? You can teach skill set, but you can't teach attitude. And I think when you look at the the younger generation, especially as they're coming in, they're hungry to learn, they want to experiment, but you can definitely look at all of those individuals and say, right, you're very talented, you've got a lot of skills, you could do really well technically, but your attitude, how you show up every day, that feeds very much into a culture of an agency.

Kat 13:51

Yeah, and and to your point, I think for us, I see our job as a leadership. Again, just it's a weird word for me, but as a leadership, said an off star, set the outcomes that we need to achieve in order to be successful. Now, define success, business, individual, team, client, um, and get out of the way and be curious enough within that to then make it your own. And, you know, Chili and I will hear us talking about it a lot. Make it your own, make it better, tell us what we need. Our job is to provide you with the tools, systems, clarity, communication, data to for you to go and figure out and do you, right? We are, I genuinely believe in if you've got the right people, the results are magic. The results are magic for each other, for clients, for the business. And yeah, there needs to be freedom with it within that space for people to do them. But you need to be in the mindset to want to.

Chelly 14:38

And I think independence, they do have a space for that. Like it's not all a blank canvas, but you do have a bit of a white canvas that you can then shape yourself and you can help shape when you go to big networks, some of the processes and policies and and everything is already in place, right? So there's not a lot of room for you to improve or for you to change. You have to follow that process with us. You have that freedom, you have that um the freedom is not just is in the air, but is in the day-to-day as well. It's something that we do foster a lot, where you can, like Kat was saying, what can you do better? Show it to us. We are here to listen and see what we can improve. It's not just us setting the tone and making sure everything is like checking the box.

Recruitment Pipelines And Hiring For Attitude

Iman 15:28

One of the things that you had mentioned that I thought was really interesting was around recruitment. And you'd mentioned that you sit down with your team, you look at the kind of inflow of work, but Shelley, your team is constantly on the lookout for great talent so that you're not necessarily having those crunch points. What advice would you give to other agency leaders or other people directors in terms of building a network of talent that you could draw upon or have that kind of pipeline of great talent that you would hire?

Chelly 15:56

I think it's really understanding and immersing yourself in the business as well. Because we are the support team and then we are not on the day-to-day, right? You tend to be a bit far away from how the teams are working or what they are looking for, right? And you basically, okay, here's a brief for you to recruit someone, and then you just try to find that talent. I think when you immerse yourself, not in the day-to-day, but like really immerse yourself within the business, that is a great advantage, and really understanding how the agency is positioning themselves to the market, right? So I the the other day the team was taking us through the credits that we put together, and I was like, oh my, this is so helpful for me when I do recruitment. That can I can then really spot a few things that would help. And I think it's really if I would say one thing is really understanding the business, not just being on the sideline and and just yeah, just being fully immersed in the agency.

Iman 16:51

I think you know, a lot of um we we once had a kind of a disc discussion of whether the team was an HR team or a people team. And I think when you brand a function like that as a people team, it really puts the emphasis on we are here for the agency, we're here to support people, to develop, to thrive. And I love the idea that you're immersed in the day-to-day world, that you're looking at those cred stacks, you're understanding the work, it helps you then find better talent, it supports the business in the long term for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Kat, from your side, when we start to look at new talent that comes into the business, where do you think the best opportunities are to find that type of talent in this region?

Kat 17:33

It's a it's a mix, nothing has changed. I think if you ask me a few years ago, you know, I'll tap into the good old, let's look at networks hearst ad, you know, because there's, and I think I think all three of us actually on this call come from the background, right? And it's given us some really great foundations, and I will be forever grateful. But I feel the world has the world has changed. So, you know, I will always first start with what does the client want? And then Chelly and I tend to, and you know what that means in context of obviously in Kibita's positioning. And then we kind of we we tend to not recruit traditional roles anymore. We look at really hybrid mix of yes, technical skill sets, but with you know, really understanding who they are as people and how they how they come to the party. And then we tend to write to really kind of, and Chili and I stress this to each other on that, you know, what is the job, what what is the role that we want? And then we look through that filter, and it comes honestly from very different places. It's it's truly is a mix. I love people from startup backgrounds, to be honest, because again, for us, I can teach you a lot about what we do. You know, we can always teach and you can learn some of the best practice foundation. Like I cannot teach, we cannot teach you how to system thing and how to problem solve at speed. There's certain kind of character that needs that. And we look, when we look for talent, it's mainly through that lens. And again, it totally depends what layer of talent you are looking for. There's so many variables, but you know, the biggest shifter, um, um, and it's not fully answering your question directly, but the biggest change we're looking for right now is kind of it's more T-shaped, adapted that historically I think we would have looked for, it would have been quite linear and specialized, and this is this is your area. That no longer is the case for us. AI fluent and adaptable, those are like three things for for which it doesn't matter which layer you are, might sit the top leadership, or might be intent coming through the ranks, those will be the three things that we'll look out for. And you know, you we've got people from different different backgrounds joining. So it's not a one simple answer to say in these startups, networks, uh, we've got a mix of all, to be honest. Uh, but it's through the lens. So it's more of the individual who you are, your corrects, your your your psychometrics, if you like, more than more than anything else.

Iman 19:56

In terms of the talent grab in this market, obviously, we always talk about the battle for talent, that there are a lot of agencies, but potentially the pool of talent is not as big as the demands are from the client. Is that a statement that you still agree with? Or do you think in today's world it's a much more mature market with a lot more talent available?

Kat 20:21

Uh well, uh, Chelsea, I think please lean in here. I think it's a bit of a balance. And I think meet as independent still got some work to do here. You know, I think there is still, you know, the independence alliance that we're part of actually, you can see that that that is starting to change through that lens. And I think talent starts to, uh, people started to recognize that. And it's not a right thing or wrong thing here, but you know, the the perception still can be a little bit cloudy on what independence means. You know, uh a lot of Indies are still hiding chaos behind the world, agility, and so on and so forth. And I think talent is still a bit scared of that. So I think we need to come through parties to, you know, really have a proof point as why it's really great to work in independent. What does that mean? You know, we, especially in this region, we still got some long way to go in terms of you know, match the benefits of networks. Okay. So what else are we bringing to the table? Might be from proximity to leadership, proximity to business. So I think we still got some work to do there. Um, we still still tend to struggle sometimes to find the right time regionally, um, you know, fully transparently. But again, we because we know that we take our time because we believe in hiring within the region. Um, the experience that people can bring to the table who have been in the region for a while is really, really important. The cultural nuances in the region are definitely a thing that we all need to be mindful of and are absolutely important. So I always tend to always have a conversation have we done enough? Is independence to really learn the point why independence in this region are. The place to be. No, we haven't. And I think that's still a job to be

Why Independents Offer Real Career Impact

Kat 22:03

done.

Iman 22:03

So I think if we were to say to independent agencies, here are three things that you can do that really showcase why you should take that leap of faith. So if you are going to give some advice to whether it's a senior talent considering moving to a smaller agency or a junior that's potentially thinking of joining a kind of a smaller company, what would be the three things that you would tell those individuals about the world that they're potentially going to enter into? Why is it different? Why does it matter? Why should they take that chance?

Chelly 22:38

I think it goes back to what I was saying in the beginning, like in terms of communication boundaries in the sense of protecting people's time and the proximity that Kat mentioned. I think clear communication gives brings proximity as well. Right, like Kat was saying, people want faster decision making. They want to be part of those decisions, right? They want to be part of the the conversations that shape what we do as a business, what we the directions that we want to take. You giving that is is extremely valuable. And I do believe sometimes that it's not very clear on big networks. And that protecting people's time it sounds very simple, but I think it's the most powerful well-being tool you can give to someone. Here at Incubita, what we do is we kind of have a policy, right? It's but we do not have meetings on Fridays, and we started not having meetings Monday morning, and we tend to we push to finish early on Fridays. Some of that comes from legacy of ways of working from the past, but we purposely kept because it works. And for me, that is uh that kind of flexibility, it's it's one of the things that I that I think people and I've seen it in recruitment. A lot of candidates are not shine YA for asking those questions, right? They talk, they ask me about leadership, they ask me about hybrid and flexible working. So I think that is something that is, I would say those three things are the most important ones, in my opinion.

Kat 24:16

And Kat, would you have any other advice to give? I fully agree. To me, if you are the kind of person that wants to make a visible impact, I think indies are the place to be because of everything Chile talked about. You've got direct access to decision making, you co-create, you've got real responsibility, not vanity metrics that you just write a deck within your linear little space. And you know, again, it's not for everyone and it's totally okay. But I'm a massive advocate of that. And if you really want to go and feature-proof yourself, in Lisa, the place to be for those reasons. Real impact, real access, clients, business problems, business. And that's ultimately what pays for our lunch. So um, for me, having the understanding is going to shape you and sharpen you, we have an agency that will back it and invest in you to be able to get on their journey, not just like expectations on top on your head. And to me, that's that's beautiful.

Takeaways On Culture And Talent

Iman 25:10

Yeah, I think we've talked about so much on today's episode from how we look at recruitment, how we bring on board psychometric testing, how that really gives agency leaders an understanding of the type of talent that they can recruit and make sure that they match the agency ethos. You know, we've had a look at better recruitment, what that means for people taking a leap of faith into this world. And I think I love what you said around lifting the lid on the independent agencies and making sure people understand that there is speed, agility, ownership, co-creation. There's a lot that's happening here that allows you to feel a sense of achievement every single day. Um, yes, you've got your client work, but you can also help build something quite meaningful. And I think there's something really special in that. Yeah. Thank you so much for your time. I think there've quite been a lot we've covered today. Um, it's been really lovely talking to you both. Yes so much. It was a pleasure.

Kat 26:04

Thank you for having us.

Iman 26:07

The Edge of Influence was brought to you by the Alliance of Independent Agencies, Middle East and North Africa, and North 75. The executive producer was myself, Iman Issa, and the producer was Ian Carlos. And this podcast was produced by North 75 and Podworks Dubai.