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Mulholland drives organisational cultureEven before you come face to face with Richard Mulholland, you know this will not be your typical business interview. As you enter the offices of Missing Link, the company he founded 11 years ago, a large graffiti-style sign warns: “Assume f*%$ing nothing”. Nearby, the staff are using what seems to be a table tennis board as a desk. In the corner is a large skateboard ramp.
Meeting Mulholland is something of a shock, too. Granted, you do not expect entrepreneurs to necessarily look like sober bankers; but you also do not anticipate a spiky-haired, tattoo-laden roadie for a rock ‘n roll band.
He is different… very different. It is not the carefully cultivated bohemian image you find in the secretly-quite-corporate advertising industry. This is something more: an earthy honesty perhaps; a take-me-or-leave-me authenticity.
He has made his mark by being a maverick, and so, too, has Missing Link – a business of around 30 people who specialise in corporate presentations and conferences for the likes of Absa, First National Bank, Momentum and others.
“Helping you suck less in public” is the way that one of Mulholland’s multiple business cards describes the service. “Because your presentations are sh*t” helpfully explains another of his cards.
Judging by the success of the company – it is claimed to be the largest service provider of its kind in the country – there are a great many organisations in South Africa that believe they require professional help to avoid the cardinal sin of ‘sucking’ in front of staff, shareholders and the public in general.
“We’re a presentation strategy firm,” explains Mulholland more formally. “Basically, our job is to sell alert and wide-awake audiences. We’re in business because any idiot can put together a presentation – and usually they do. We ensure the audience stays awake throughout the entire thing and leaves understanding what you’re trying to say.”
We are seated in the boardroom – or what passes for a boardroom in this ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ environment. In contrast to the mod-and-minimalist approach in the rest of the open-plan offices, the furniture here is old and heavy – something you would buy on auction at a platteland farm following ouma’s untimely demise at age 90.
There is no boardroom door, either. Privacy is achieved by rolling down a garage door. Oh, and the flower-and-vase painting in the corner actually is hinged, and staff pop their head through if they need to serve drinks or deliver a message.
Missing Link can apply its tricks for ensuring a compelling presentation to small groups – a chief executive officer sharing his vision for the new financial year with a select group of top managers, through to well-attended shareholder meetings, multinationals announcing their annual results, or international sales conferences at exotic locations.
It is far from unique in this. Indeed, there are any number of local and international companies offering similar services. What sets it part, however, is the unique corporate culture and the persona of Mulholland himself.
Rock n’ roll
The reason he resembles a let-the-devil-take-tomorrow rock n’ roll roadie is simple: he was one. Scots-born but raised in South Africa, he spent his early years touring with the likes of Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, Bon Jovi and others.
But he realised the concert business was largely seasonal, with limited work in the winter months. “So I went to my boss and said I wanted to push the corporate divisions,” he recalls. “I would go and sell businesses these cool shows, with lots of exciting effects happening. But I realised that, if the speaker was any good, they didn’t need us and our light-and sound show.
“At the same time, you could have an absolute extravaganza of lights and effects – and then some guy would walk on stage and bore everyone to death for three hours. That’s when I realised I was fixing the wrong thing; you had to transform the actual content, not the special effects.
“Often, all that the smoke and mirrors does, is increase the gap between the awesome benchmark of the effects – and how crap and boring the presenter actually is,” he adds.
Mulholland sensed an opportunity to make more money than he could as a roadie – and Missing Link, a business dedicated to turning terrible presenters and presentations into good ones, was born.
Still only 35, he has expanded his horizons along with that of the business; to the point where he is a respected R25 000-a-time speaker and Master of Ceremonies in his own right, addressing audiences on topics as diverse as word-of-mouth marketing, technology and social media. He is also an avid blogger, with his own site called “Capitalist Punk”.
How many successful businesspeople can claim to be avid and devoted punk rockers? “Everything I’ve done has been with the punk rock ethic of ‘do the right thing’ and ‘try to be yourself’,” he says.
“I’ve really tried to live by it. Punk rock is not about anarchy, like people think. It’s about looking for alternatives and questioning things.
“One of my tattoos says ‘reclaim yourself… question everything’ – and I do. It’s not to say that you must be wrong. I just want to understand why you are saying that in the first place,” explains Mulholland.
“I think I may be a bit of a case study actually; that you can live by a punk rock ethic and be successful. There’s this belief that to be a punk rocker you have to be poor and downtrodden.
“But you will never change the world that way. What you have to show to the world is that you can be true to your heart and still be successful. No matter what subculture you’re in, you should never be trying to remain a subculture – you should prove to people that it can be viable in the mainstream,” he adds.
Fun factor
Another of Mulholland’s core tenets is to have fun in the workplace. In a prominent corner of the Missing Link offices, a life-sized plastic mannequin lies on a hospital trolley, its all-too-realistic intestines spilling from a gaping wound in its stomach.
Immediately behind it hangs a sign reading “surgery”, which has been crossed out and replaced by the word “deli”. Sure enough, within touching distance of this macabre tableau is the in-house deli where staff can get snacks and have meals prepared.
“Free tattoos” is company policy – although medical aid is not. For two weeks a year, a tattoo artist is flown from Cape Town and sets up himself in the Randburg offices, plying his trade on staff and willing customers alike. There is no charge.
For the rest of the year, the company will pay for tattoos done elsewhere.Then there is the weekly ritual of the “caught in the act” bonus. Staff who notice a colleague doing something that is not in his/her job description, note this down in a book and allocate a bonus voucher based on what they think that task was worth. “We give vouchers in hundred-rand increments and the staff can just write them in at any time,” Mulholland explains.
“Every Monday, we read out who did what to help one of their colleagues.”
He is convinced that it is touches like these which help to kick-start a corporate culture. “On average, we’ll read out five to 10 names a week – and nobody will ever ask a colleague to nominate them. I’m convinced that the vouchers – whether they’re R100 or R500 – are not as important as the recognition you’re getting from your peers.
“There’s a line that I use in one of my public presentations and I believe it’s in play here: ‘Great service is not defined by how well you do your job; it’s defined by how well you do your not-your-job’,” adds Mulholland.
Another novel staff incentive is to award an employee R500 every time a client mentions him/her positively in a letter or e-mail. A client who says: “Dave was amazing, we think Dave is an asset to your organisation” has earned the high-performing staff member a thousand-rand bonus.
Organisational culture
Unlike most employers, though, Mulholland refuses to trot out the hackneyed phrase that “people are our greatest asset”. “Your culture is your greatest asset,” he asserts. “You have to try and create a culture and then let it manifest with your people. But understand that every time somebody leaves, somebody else brings something new into the business.
“We keep what works and evolve what doesn’t work. And that’s how businesses should run – there should be no mammoth book of rules for a company.”
Perhaps surprisingly, Missing Link is supportive of entrepreneurial employees who want to leave and start their own business.
Staff members are a young crowd: management tends to be in their early 30s and the rank-and-file in their 20s. By the time they reach 26 or 27, many of the latter will strike out on their own.
Mulholland says he wants to be a finishing school for the corporate world. “Sometimes young guys jump this (small business) stage and go straight into one of the big companies to do corporate videos – and they miss the lessons they can learn here,” he says.
“I want to take people straight out of design school, or college or whatever, and have them work here for three or four years. In that time, I’ll teach them everything else about business: how to operate; how to start their own business; ways to work with clients; tricks to making an impression; how to constantly push the boundaries. Many of those who leave, end up staying in the system because we use them as freelancers,” he adds.
Employees who have what seems a viable business plan can apply to have every Friday off for six months, on full pay, to work at starting their business. At the end of that period, they either must resign and start the business, or return to work as normal.
“I’m willing to give a hand-up – but not a crutch,” Mulholland observes.
Great presentations
So, what constitutes a great presentation, and how do the ex-roadie and his young guns give a shy and retiring executive that winning edge in public?
“Everyone’s been taught that public speaking’s horrible,” Mulholland laments. “That’s bullsh*t. I always say, presenting on stage makes you a rock star of the business world; it can be awesome. We have to change the mindset and make them love the stage.”
He believes it is also important to make executives take more seriously the responsibility of presenting.
Preparing your slides the night before – and telling your audience so – indicates that you do not respect them and their time. If you take the responsibility seriously, you put more into the preparation and try harder to please the audience.
Visuals are also important, Mulholland says. “Your slides aren’t cue cards for you – they’re memory retainers for your audience.
“One of the best things about what we do, is when the presenters we work with come back and say: ‘I love this’.
“Done well, presenting is the closest you can get to the thrill of being on a rock stage,” he concludes.
Mike Simpson
