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DPM Podcast
Made To Lead (with Karl Sakas from Sakas & Company)
By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 20 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony. Ben's a Certified Scrum Master, PRINCE2 Practitioner and productivity nut.

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17 Comments

  • Congrats to Mike Biewer—you're the randomly selected winner of a signed paperback copy of "Made to Lead"! I'll coordinate with Ben to get your mailing address. Thanks to everyone for listening! If you didn't win, you can get a paperback or Kindle copy of "Made to Lead" via Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1537639358/

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  • Great podcast! Enjoyed it very much, and can totally relate to most of what was discussed! Hoping to get a free copy of “Made to Lead”!

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    • Thanks, John Paul! I'm sorry you didn't win, but you can get a paperback or Kindle edition here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1537639358/

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  • Very interesting

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  • Great perspective on leadership. And the challenges of managing projects and leading in the digital space. Keep up the great work Ben!

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  • Nice to know that Karl’s attentions are more towards getting to know the workers. I worked from one of the top agencies in the world and the last thing they would care was about your personal life… I was doing my master in PM and they “kept” me busy till 8-9pm every day knowing I had to go home after that and study. Therefore, my work wasn’t the best.

    Good on ya Karln and Thanks Ben to bringing it to us.

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    • Thanks, Jean! It sounds like your previous agency had too much of a short-term attitude. Thinking about the inevitable morale problems and employee turnover, I wonder how much their strategy cost them in the end.

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  • Awesome episode with great insight!

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    • Thanks, Marcus—glad to hear it was helpful!

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  • Really enjoyed this podcast and can’t wait to read the book!

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    • Thanks, Ryan!

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  • A few leaders at our agency have been following Karl for a while, there’s always a new insight in his content that we can discuss and see how it applies to us. I’ve done the advance retrospective he mentioned, it was a really helpful exercise for firming up vision in a more tangible way. Plus, thinking about our goals in a day-to-day way actually helped us uncover some issues to think through and resolve, that otherwise we would have ended up resolving months down the line after the issue came up in client work!

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    • Thanks, Jon—glad to hear the Advance Retrospective has been helpful in your work! For those who haven't used it, here's more on the free tool: https://sakasandcompany.com/using-advance-retrospectives/

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  • Another great episode. It was great to hear Karl’s advice.

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    • Thanks, Christian!

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  • Enjoyed the podcast. I really like the idea of hearing about real stories and how real solutions were actively solved through synthesizing all of the information at our finger tips to make a good decision. I look forward to reading the book!

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    • Thanks, Mike! You won the book, so we'll in touch to get you the signed copy.

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