One distinguishing characteristic of Aquent has always been our entrepreneurial spirit. That spirit, at its best, expresses itself as independence, self-reliance, creativity, and the desire to serve others. In this vein, we've developed a corporate culture that seeks these attributes in the people we hire and aims to cultivate and nurture these attributes thereafter.
As an illustration, consider the Leadership Meeting that we've been holding here in Boston this week. We used to call these annual get-togethers "Manager" meetings, but we wanted to emphasize that, at Aquent, it's not about managing people; it's about helping, enabling, and encouraging them to become leaders in their own right.
This is not just corporate ideology. It reflects the reality of our business. To our clients and talent, Aquent isn't "Aquent;" it's Dana Ailsworth or Eliana Hassen or Jerry Maggio or any of hundreds of agents we have working around the world. The power of Aquent resides solely in the capabilities of these individuals and the relationships they build with our talent, our clients, and with one another. You can't be managed into building relationships. You need to be self-confident, outgoing, and engaging, You also need to motivated and motivating. In other words, you need to be a leader.
Because "the people are Aquent," I wrote a corporate anthem, Can't Spell Aquent without U, and sang it to assembled Aquenters at our last big corporate gathering (I also sang "Aquent Is for Leaders," as yet unreleased, at the Leadership Meeting). It's also the reason that I sometimes think of Aquent more as a platform than as a company.
We've got a new website coming down the pike that will reinforce this point by placing our agents front and center. In the end, the people who work with us ("you," by any other name) are our truest differentiator and highlighting them will be more meaningful than any marketing copy we could generate about our global leadership and customer-centric innovation when developing impactful solutions for mission critical marketing and creative talent acquisition.
Image Courtesy of LollyKnit.
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