How the hub-and-spoke model of generalist leadership & specialists allow both Formula 1 teams & marketing agencies to deliver excellence
As a fan of Formula 1 it’s fascinating to witness in excess of twenty people conduct a pitstop in less than three seconds. Twelve of them are responsible for changing the wheels & tyres alone – and then there’s another six ‘jack’ crew, ensuring car stability, two on the front wing and the ‘lollipop’ guy who signals to the driver to stop/go.
Twenty-one individuals – and yet none of them are the most important members of the pit crew. Nor is the team strategist who calls the timing of the stops, or the driver himself.
No – it is the Team Principal. As the person who runs the team and makes the ultimate decisions that affect every aspect of the team’s performance on – and off – track, they are the ringmaster; the person that makes sure each team member:
- Is recruited due to their specific skillset and attributes
- Fully understands their role
- Is fully trained to deploy their skills in a way that benefits the team at an optimum level
Without their leadership and direction, there is a real danger of something somewhere going wrong at precisely the wrong time.
The best Team Principals – the Toto Wolff’s, Christian Horner’s and (more recently) Zak Brown’s – are masters of surrounding themselves with specialists who focus on one or a few jobs that they excel at and are obsessed with. They are, in the truest sense of the word, the Generals.
Generalists, as we call them in the marketing world, are excellent at understanding a multitude of disciplines that provides them with a ‘helicopter’ view of the professional world they inhabit. As such they can see the bigger picture and visualise what it will take to move the dial from A to B or beyond.
In B2B Marketing it’s often the case that we focus on specialisms; this is due to the way in which the industry segments each discipline, whether it’s Search, Paid Ads, Social, Lead Gen etc. There are good reasons for this, but when it comes to providing marketing support via an agency, this leads to clients naturally wanting to cover multiple bases.
In order to maintain manageable overheads, many agencies will have recruited account teams that are – in the main – generalists in order to cover off a multitude of marketing tactics. And that’s a problem – too many generalists is like having an F1 pit crew that can do all the specific jobs but aren’t necessarily outstanding at any of them. Getting the balance right between the two types is the key.
When we set out to build our agency, we knew that true excellence comes from balance—the right mix of big-picture thinking and deep expertise. That’s why we designed our model around highly focused specialists who are exceptional in their fields, supported by strategic generalists who ensure everything moves in the right direction. This hub-and-spoke approach allows us to offer best-in-class execution across key marketing disciplines, while keeping a sharp focus on what matters most: helping our clients gain traction, accelerate results, and ultimately cross the finish line ahead of the competition.