executive creative director | Nina DiSesa | copywriter | advertising agencies

You have between 30 and 60 days to make an impression, to convince everyone that you’re the right person, and to show people that you’re doing something. You have one year to make a difference.

What have I tried to do in turnarounds that I’ve been involved in? First, I find out where the company’s strengths are. Whom can you depend on? Who needs to stay with the company for things to get back on track?

At the same time that I’m assessing the people, I also create a plan of action. And you have to be decisive. You’re not going to be absolutely sure about anything, but that’s a given. If you have 80 percent of the information that you would ideally assemble to make a decision, go ahead and make it. If it’s horribly wrong, you can change course. But you can’t afford to waste time.

You’ll have to bring in folks to flesh out your team to move forward. And you’ll have to fire people as well. The crueler the action you have to take, the greater the kindness you have to show when doing it. You don’t want to destroy people. Remember: Everything you do is for the good of the company.

Finally, you’re going to have to put your personal life on hold. A turnaround isn’t a 9-to-5, three-weeks-off-to-go-scuba-diving kind of deal. And if you’re successful at a turnaround, don’t ever believe for a moment that you did it alone.

Nina DiSesa started her career as a copywriter and worked her way up to midlevel creative-director titles at two advertising agencies: Young & Rubicam and McCann-Erickson. In 1991, she moved to J. Walter Thompson as executive creative director, where she was part of a successful turnaround effort. In 1994, she returned to McCann — itself in a turnaround situation at the time — as executive creative director of the New York office.