The lows and highs of three years of Blurred
By Nik Govier
Blurred is three. Since Covid, time seems to have warped. In some ways three seems ludicrously short and in others extraordinarily long. We’ve done so much. We’ve been through so much. We’ve felt so much.
There have been some incredible highs but also some devastating lows. And in a twist on the usual anniversary post I thought this time I’d focus on the lows.
Why? Because often life looks easy from the outside and it gives a false impression. And because I think honesty can also be both humanising and motivating. It’s why I’ve been open about some of my personal struggles – from dyslexia (though I don’t, in fact, see this as a negative) right through to detailing the pain of six miscarriages.
Context is important. And context makes me all the prouder of what we’ve achieved. So we’ll start – briefly - there. In three years we’ve been Blueprinted, achieved an average of 98% in our employee surveys, won numerous awards, got to a fee income of just shy of £3m in our third year of trading, become a B Corp, been recognised as a mental health champion and a ‘best place to work’ and delivered genuinely meaningful work for some of the world’s biggest companies - 15 FTSE 100 / Fortune 500 clients. The work we do has a very real impact on the world, from helping businesses get to net zero quicker, to helping them become genuinely inclusive entities.
We’ve found a unique proposition in terms of ESGP (ESG + Purpose) and are credibly combining management and communication consultancy with creative excellence to genuinely make a difference.
And we’ve done all this by and whilst living by our values. Often taking the harder but better path. Proud.
But the lows and blows of these last three years have felt disproportionate to our size and scale.
The pulsing heart of our pain has been the C word. No, not Covid. Covid of course has made life tough – it’s been a universal tragedy and we’ll face the repercussions for years, be it team members with long Covid or the unknown damage done to our children, we, alongside everyone else, will continue to have to roll with the punches.
The C word I’m referring to is Cancer.
The first father it cruelly stole from us was just weeks before launching. And the most recent, just last week. There’s barely been a team member not affected, at close quarters. In our first year it also came for one of our own, who fought back, bravely, and mercifully won. And it’s also taken a mother. It’s taken aunts and uncles. And it’s taken friends.
That should be enough, right? But no.
It took a sister. A younger sister, with small children, leaving the kind of pain that settles like a rock.
And it took another in such a cruel way – inflicting pain on someone that had already experienced a lifetime’s worth of pain by the time she was 12 – taking its time to wound over and over. And in the cruellest twist of fate, when it finally took the one she loved, the cancer had gone. But the damage left was unsurmountable.
It’s ripped the heart out of families, and it’s done its best to destroy our own Blurred family. For we are family. There is love here. There is friendship. There is history as well as joint futures yet lived.
There have been many times when we’ve just cried together. There’ve been board meetings where the agenda has been ditched and we’ve just mourned. Times when we’ve not known up from down. When record-breaking fees or ground-breaking work have meant little because we couldn’t save him. Or her. Or take away the crippling pain.
Writing this is difficult. I can feel my heart break all over again, even though I’ve personally escaped the loss of a loved one. But to witness the pain of so many loved ones, on what seems like repeat, hurts like hell.
But there have been wins. There’s the mother that was given a 50% survival rate going into surgery who made it through. And when I was referred to a breast cancer clinic recently, I feared the worse. I knew too much. The results of mammograms, MRIs, biopsies didn’t look good. I had surgery a week before our 3rd birthday and – thank God - was given the all clear just last week.
I’ve felt nothing but love and support from my colleagues. But we’d already been a founding partner down since April - on compassionate leave - could the business cope with another? Could we cope with the repercussions of a positive diagnosis?
But here’s the thing. Even in my darkest hours I knew the answer was yes. That we could and would cope. And here’s why. Because we’re strong. Life has thrown shit at us over and over again, and we’ve not faltered.
Quite the opposite – we’ve soared.
But that’s the thing about values. They don’t just guide you. They help you. We’ve become closer. Tighter. United in the face of adversity.
We’ve become so much more than four founders with a vision. We’ve built, grown and willed an unbreakable unit into being. We’ve got each other’s backs and that’s everything. As I waited to be taken down to surgery I re-read the messages from my senior team – one message on repeat “We’ve got this”.
I can honestly say that as the grip of tragedy tightened, the bonds grew stronger. There have been very few cross words. Pettiness melted away and we’ve stood shoulder to shoulder ever more committed to doing things right.
You’d think all of this would have given us licence to cut corners. And that we would have settled with doing just enough to keep our heads above water. But somewhat perversely it didn’t. “Let’s do this right. For Katy” has been a popular mantra. Doing just enough, just wasn’t good enough, for any of us.
Superficial work for companies not wanting to genuinely improve wasn’t good enough for us. We’d work with them if they wanted to have a positive impact or they could, frankly, just go elsewhere.
Lightweight targets, in the DEI space, weren’t worth the paper they were written on if there was no real substance behind them. Why bother?
Mental health had always been something we felt needed nurturing – it’s why we launched with an NED for People and Purpose who also coaches the entire team. But we bolstered this, cultivating a culture where people feel supported.
Doing just enough would never be enough. For the people we’ve become. Because of the pain we’ve been through. Because of the things we now know.
Everything must count.
With this level of tragedy there can really be no silver linings. But there is still so much to be grateful for.
Our achievements blow my mind. They would anyway. But set against the context of devastation I barely believe they’re real. I feel a kind of bond with my colleagues that is disproportionate to the length of time I’ve known most of them. We’d go into battle for each other. We already have.
I’ve personally grown in ways I didn’t know I could. I’ve met people who have changed me. Elizabeth Bananuka is one of those people. She’s opened my eyes. She’s made me a better person. She’s made us better.
I know now what matters.
Little did we know how many times our grief policy would be needed – for cancer, for miscarriage or just last week even the horror of an unexplained death of a close friend. Sometimes it feels a bit like sleep walking.
But what I do know is what it feels like to be strong. Not always as an individual. But as an entity. It’s OK for me to have a bad day because I know another will rise for me. And vice versa.
As we enter our fourth year, the overwhelming feeling I have is pride. And belief in us and in the human spirit. And a belief that the worst is behind us. Our metal has been tested and it’s held. We’ve packed a lot into our three years. Here’s to year four.