10QUESTIONS with Danny Green

Our 10QUESTIONS feature asks members of the Freshfield community ten questions about their working life. Featuring client partners, colleagues and FF friends, our guests share some personal stories, views and fresh words of wisdom.

Our colleague Danny Green has recently joined the Freshfield team as PR and communications manager, here he talks about some of the lessons he has learned from his career in marketing.

1. How do you like to start your working day?

Now the mornings are getting brighter, I like to start my day by taking the dog for a quick stroll down the canal, followed by an extra-large coffee and a bowl of fruit and yoghurt. 

2. How has the pandemic changed your working life?

It’s taught me to slow down. Previously, I was working in Manchester moving a million miles a minute and trying to please everyone at the cost of my own wellbeing.  

The pandemic forced me to change my routine and realise I could not and did not have to be everything to everyone, and that it’s better to focus my time and energy on the areas I know I can help with, and trust others to support when needed.  

3. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Don’t worry about things that are out of your control. We only have so much mental capacity to handle our work–life balance, so it’s best to spend time and energy focusing on the things that we can control and less time worrying about the things we can’t.  

4. Where and how do you come up with your best ideas?

Ideas come to me in all sorts of places, usually when I’m out for a run, listening to music or reading a book – but I feel the best ideas are born from collaboration and discussions with colleagues or clients.   

5. What does leadership mean to you?

It’s having the ability to inspire and motivate others, by being committed, open minded, and understanding. These qualities are contagious and are usually adopted by other team members when they have a role model or leader to look up to. 

The most admirable leaders I have worked with provide their staff with a collaborative and open environment that encourages creativity and offers them a chance to try new things, rather than doing the same thing over and over again only to achieve the same results. 

6. Which current or historical business figure do you most admire and why?

Working in PR and communications I’m naturally fascinated by master communicators, so I would probably have to say someone like Winston Churchill or Barack Obama as they share the ability to inspire and motivate people through words and how they present themselves. 

7. What is your most trusted source of news?

That’s a difficult question in our current landscape, where information is being thrown at us from every angle – but I find having multiple reliable sources, rather than just one, provides me with a more holistic view of what is going on in the world today.  

Social media can be a good (or bad, depending on how you use it) tool for this, as my Twitter feed is made up of brands or publications I trust or find relevant. But I always find it best to do my own research on stories I’m interested in, to ensure I have all the facts to help form my own judgement. 

8. What is your favourite brand and why?

I’m not a huge follower of brands but I have recently been impressed by Tony’s Chocolonely, not just because it’s absolutely delicious, but for how it’s managed to carve out a name for itself in a highly competitive industry, while promoting a very positive message. 

It’s an ethical, purpose driven brand and very big on sustainability. I also like that it partners with other influential, like-minded brands such as Ben & Jerry’s to increase the reach of its important messages. 

9. What’s the most recent new skill you have learnt?

I’ve been using the design platform Canva quite a lot in the last year which has given me a newfound admiration for the work designers do and the overall feedback process. 

It’s also made me appreciate the need for a solid creative brief and see how information can be interpreted in different ways, again reiterating the importance of communication between team members. 

10. We all use them… what management jargon phrase do you use the most?

I find myself saying ‘let’s take this offline’ quite a lot. I think it’s easy for meetings to go off course, and during lockdown this phrase was used often across many, many Zoom calls!