James of all trades: how ADHD can power versatility
James Harris, VP of planning and strategy at WPP, talks to Tim Cumming about the impact of story, keeping it simple and how his ADHD has helped him build a multifaceted career.
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All over the planet, biodiversity is encouraged, its benefits seen as universal – because without it we would lack the healthy ecosystems that sustain our lives as well as every other kind of life of earth, whether that’s plant or animal, or the mediums in which they live and thrive.
Neurodiversity is similarly crucial to our lives as human beings, and acknowledging that diversity is as important as encouraging biodiversity in nature. Our human natures, after all, are not a one-size fits all, as advertisers and strategists know only too well.
Our industry is so fragmented that people tend to do the one thing – whereas I enjoy the ability to bring [different sectors] all together.
For digital entrepreneur and strategist Jack Harris – who was diagnosed with ADHD only a few years ago – strategy is wrapped up in story, and together they form a helix, the cortex that powers creativity and communication.
“I’m a big believer in strategy; it’s eclectic, but a lot of it is about problem solving and inventing,” he says. “I’ve worked in all sectors – media, digital, data, in brand strategy. Looking back, it’s super interesting, I’ve learnt different skills. Our industry is so fragmented that people tend to do the one thing – whereas I enjoy the ability to bring those all together. I work with big clients making sure we show up with all the different parts of the business. Connecting all that, and coming out of those silos.”
His neurodivergence was a mystery to him for much of his life – going right back to when he was a kid, the one most likely to be sat outside the headmaster’s office awaiting punishment. But now he sees it as a fundamental part of his professional and personal self, a driver for what focuses his attention as a creative strategist, entrepreneur and digital pioneer.
My first boss was a brilliant storyteller, and challenging, but in a very good way.
“I’ve been in the industry for 30 years now,” he reflects. “Like a lot of people, I wanted to be a musician, was a guitarist in a band, and we did quite well, supported Katrina and the Waves, and then you run out of money and need to get a job and I ended up in a media agency.”
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Above: James Harris, and main image: Harris as imagined by AI.
His first job was a TV print buyer on £5K a year. That led to co-founding a new business, the MediaCom agency, in the late Nineties, in Manchester. Which is where he discovered the power of story.
“My first boss was a brilliant storyteller, and challenging, but in a very good way,” he recalls. “And with starts ups, that’s how you win business. You turn up and tell a better story, with different ideas. For our first pitch for MediaCom north, we used a video that featured a real Mancunian guy, and the boss, when he saw it, was so besotted he gave us the business straight away.”
If you don’t offer something different, no one hires you.
More entrepreneurial start-ups followed – digital specialists Diffiniti (now iProspect) in the Noughties, and Aegis Media Labs, as part of the Dentsu Aegis Network, in 2010. He’s since held digital and strategic roles at Carat, AOL, and IPG Mediabrands, and joined WPP from Mindshare, where he was Global Chief Strategy Officer.
“With my current understanding of the neurodivergent brain, I realise that’s why I have been good at what I’ve done with the start-ups,” he says. “A lot of it was about inventing new ways of doing things. Because if you don’t offer something different, no one hires you. My creative, divergent thinking is probably my biggest strength. So a strategic role is good for me. I often get given complex or difficult problems and enjoy solving them, and making them really simple. The greatest compliment is when a client says to me: ‘That’s really obvious’ when I put something in front of them.”
One of the big benefits is your emotional empathy. You start to read people more than ‘neurotypicals’ would do. I can detect when someone is going to get annoyed before they get annoyed.
He sees his ADHD as a core part of his being creative and innovative in an industry that is dependent on both qualities if it is going to be successful. “One of the big benefits is your emotional empathy and understanding,” he says. “You start to read people more than ‘neuro-typicals’ would do. I can detect when someone is going to get annoyed before they do get annoyed. I just know when something is not right. You have this emotional radar – otherwise you wouldn’t have survived. A lot of neurodivergent people have the same abilities, and are really good with clients.”
I’m so good at masking because for 50 years that has been my coping mechanism. I now know what that was doing to me – you get very, very tired.”
Not that he sees it as being as valued as it should be. “We have a long way to go,” he says. “All industries do. Because it’s kind of new, in terms of understanding. It’s also a very diverse thing, and invisible. If I didn’t want you to know about my neurodivergence, you wouldn’t know. I’m so good at masking it because for 50 years that has been my coping mechanism. I was very good at convincing myself I was entirely normal. I now know what that was doing to me, which was you get very, very tired.”
So while we need programmes internally for our people, pushing that into the work along with other forms of diversity is the biggest difference we could make.
Nevertheless, he is passionate about bringing neurodiversity into more creative work, and not only to the workplace. “My bugbear is that I didn’t see any work in Cannes that referenced neurodiversity. I was quite upset, and a bit vocal about it. So while we need programmes internally for our people, pushing that into the work along with other forms of diversity is the biggest difference we could make.”
Harris in 1994, while touring as a guitarist with the Jesse Garon Band.
For Harris, the bedrock of communications is simple and very ancient, and starts like this: ‘Once upon a time’. Story is king. “It’s a human currency that has been around as long as we’ve been around,” he says. “It’s a single currency. Why you enjoy a good film, book or a song is because you get dopamine, endorphins, you get these wonderful chemicals that people call the angel’s cocktail.
Once you understand the structure [of story], it’s such a powerful mechanism.
"So there’s a reason why we like good stories. And because you learnt it as a child, that story spine – that ‘once upon a time’ – means that the more complicated a problem is, the easier it is to articulate or solve if you apply that to it. It forces you into two really great things – first, ‘where am I, where do I want to go?’, and then it forces you to find the catalyst, the ‘until one day’. Once you understand that structure, it’s such a powerful mechanism.”
"He points to advertising of the pre-digital age, a time when the apex of creativity was ads for booze and fags. “And they are brilliant,” he says. “They’re based on a very simple insight – and what they did beautifully was keep it very simple."
The reality is that most people are illogical, they’re stupid, they’re lazy – and that’s us, right?
He adds, “My job is to be the most stupid person in the room. I’ve worked with strategists who’ve been clever and had a bad meeting. Then they’ve done the story thing and gone back in with a really simple ‘once upon a time’ and five minutes later the clients love it and sign it off.” “Being dumb and simple is really good,” he adds. “It’s the old currency, storytelling.”
Another piece of old currency he brings back into play as a creative strategist is the illogicality of human nature – another crucial tool in the human kit as machine learning takes hold of so many processes.
When I started out in the industry there were a lot of mavericks, and a lot of those people were probably neurodivergent.
“The reality is that most people are illogical, they’re stupid, they’re lazy – and that’s us, right – and that’s what I love about humanity,” says Harris.
“When I started out in the industry there were a lot of mavericks, and a lot of those people were probably neurodivergent,” he adds, “but it was never a thing. But actually, in the world of AI, where we have all this stuff that does oh shit that's really important stuff, what we need to bring back is a few mavericks. And if you arm people who are smart, diverse thinkers with those tools, the possibilities are almost limitless.”
