The Power of Speaking Up and Embracing Diverse Ideas

“The engagement of creative conflict begins when you make a conscious effort to speak your mind. Every time you’re not speaking up, you’re risking not bringing a good idea to the table. We are not reaching our full potential when we don’t speak up.”

Meet Paul, our Senior Partner Manager and parent to pet lizard, Marley. A thought leader and dedicated team member, Paul has been instrumental in propelling new ideas and opportunities across the organization, skillfully balancing relationships with our partners and across teams. When he is not playing golf, he’s traveling and looking for the best pescatarian-friendly restaurant.

What life experiences relate to your role at adMarketplace and what is something you take from it that overlaps with your life outside of work?

I definitely bring creative conflict to my life outside of AMP! Creative conflict has the power to propel ideas, enabling them to reach their fullest potential and come to fruition. Embracing it is necessary for growth. That’s why I’ve always been the one to play devil’s advocate and challenge the status quo. For one, I love giving hot takes. I’ve been told I’m like Larry David from ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm.’

Something that working here has taught me is independence, in terms of problem solving on your own. A lot of people, including myself sometimes, find a problem, notify their managers and friends and expect it to be solved, when it also makes sense to brainstorm a solution yourself and bring something to the table. It goes without saying that it’s helped hone my problem-solving skills.

What is your favorite part about your role and team here?

I speak to and work across a lot of different teams in my day-to-day role. Together, we investigate and monitor problems that may arise. Project management skills are definitely also important due to so many opportunities for cross-team collaboration.

And that is my favorite part – that we get to collaborate and strategize with a lot of different people and teams to reach a common goal, to create the best value for our partners. Every team has their own individual goals but at the end of the day, you can point to it and say a lot of people contributed to common objectives and that is a great feeling!

What is an effective way you communicate while embracing ‘Creative Conflict’? What habits and values allow you and your team to engage in this type of communication to make it beneficial?

Regardless of titles or positions in an organization, feedback is and always will be valuable. Being curious, proactive, and receptive to new ideas is important in order to effectively communicate at this level. For me, I’ve never been the one to just do my job. It’s almost like I feel an obligation to question the processes and methods in which we do things to try to better them, whether that means brainstorming solutions together as a team or trialing and experimenting with different ways to do things.

The engagement of creative conflict begins when you make a conscious effort to speak your mind. Every time you’re not speaking up, you’re risking not bringing a good idea to the table. We are not reaching our full potential when we don’t speak up. Creative conflict evolves at a higher level when we are open-minded when we communicate a problem or opportunity to improve. We want the back and forth participation in discussions and insightful feedback coming from all parties. Good ideas can come from anyone, at any level in the organization.

In the end, it’s a team effort!

Amazing! Speaking of team, we see you have a degree in Sports Media and Journalism. What is your favorite sport?

To play: golf

To watch: Football

What are some things no one would guess about you?

I am a pescatarian (for environmental reasons). I also have a pet lizard named Marley.

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