Creating productive conflict in partnerships

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Are you winning exciting projects but still feeling exhausted at the end of every quarter? Does your agency look successful from the outside, yet feel fragile or chaotic behind the scenes?

For most agency owners, the real struggle isn't creativity. It's sustainability. The real challenge begins after the win, when you have to deliver consistently, protect your margins, manage your team, and somehow still have the energy to lead.

Michael Boychuk is the founder and creative director of DNA&Stone, a creative agency that deals in real emotion and embrace the hard truth, understanding that brands that connect emotionally see 50% higher revenue growth.

He'll talk about scaling creatively led agencies, navigating mergers, embracing productive conflict, and integrating AI without sacrificing emotional storytelling.

In this episode, we'll discuss:

• Why creative isn't enough

• The merger process

• Embracing tension & clear swim lanes in partnerships

• Set audacious goals or stay average

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Leaving Amazon to Start a Creative Agency

Michael's career began in small, strategy-led creative shops before moving to Leo Burnett in Chicago. Eventually, he crossed to the client side as Global Executive Creative Director at Amazon, working closely on major brand initiatives.

While many creatives were moving in-house at the time, Michael saw the gap in how external agencies worked with internal creative teams. Even the most respected agencies struggled to collaborate effectively with in-house counterparts.

So he made the decision to leave Amazon to start his own agency.

He co-founded Little Hands of Stone (later merging to become DNA&Stone), building a nimble, creatively driven agency with operational discipline at its core. The goal wasn't to be another agency in a crowded market. It was to build one that worked differently.

The Project Roller Coaster: Why Great Creative Isn't Enough

In the early years, Michael and his partner excelled at landing high-impact project work. The agency would scale up quickly, execute powerful campaigns, and then scale back down.

• The upside: Strong margins.

• The downside: Revenue volatility.

Some months were record-breaking. Others were terrifying.

This feast-or-famine model made it difficult to invest in long-term infrastructure, particularly account management and relationship-building functions that sustain retainer revenue. As Michael put it, scaling into projects and rapidly reducing afterward may be profitable, but it's not easily sustainable.

That realization set the stage for a major shift.

The Merger: Combining Creative Firepower with Account Stability

After years of competing against DNA, Michael's firm began merger conversations. His six-year-old, creatively led shop was volatile but high-impact. DNA, a 26-year-old agency, had stable retainer revenue and strong account leadership.

They were opposites and that made them perfect.

The nine-month merger process was far more complex than expected. Michael describes it as "drawing up a marriage certificate." But strategically, it functioned like a time machine, instantly solving growth limitations both firms faced independently.

However, merging on paper is easy. Operationalizing it while "building the plane during barrel rolls" is the real challenge.

One year later, they're still refining the model and balancing creative ambition with financial discipline.

Account Management vs. Creative Leadership

One of the biggest lessons Michael learned post-merger is the value of strong account leadership.

Creative leaders tend to chase the next exciting idea. Account leaders think in terms of long-term relationships, financial discipline, and sustainable growth.

You need both.

Rather than avoid tension, the four partners embrace it.

Michael believes healthy conflict is essential. If there's no disagreement, you're probably not addressing the real issues. But the key is respectful conflict rooted in trust.

They operate with:

• Clear swim lanes (each partner has decision authority in their domain)

• Open debate before decisions

• 100% alignment after decisions are made

No back-channel dissent or lingering resentment. Only unified execution.

Embrace the AI Wave But Protect the Emotion

Michael doesn't sugarcoat his views on AI. If agencies aren't actively integrating AI into workflows and developing proprietary approaches, they risk irrelevance.

But he also warns against overcorrection.

Yes, AI improves efficiency and enhances pre-visualization and brainstorming. Yes, it can increase margins. But creative agencies aren't data-processing factories. They're emotional engines.

In his view, the industry is currently drowning in data while starving for emotional resonance. AI can create competent output but it often carries a detectable "stink," a subtle lack of human nuance.

He chooses to use AI to:

• enable better creative.

• improve efficiency.

• remove bottlenecks.

However, it should not be used to replace emotional storytelling. Because humans still crave human connection and no algorithm can replicate lived experience.

Set Audacious Goals or Stay Average

The biggest lesson Michael took from his time at Amazon working directly with Jeff Bezos was to set ambitious goals.

After campaigning to have an Amazon ad during the Super Bowl, he got Jeff's attention and set out to create a top-five Super Bowl ad. But during development, director Wayne McClammy challenged him: "Why aim for top five? Why not number one?"

That shift in ambition changed everything. Every decision became filtered through one question: Is this the move that gets us to #1?

The resulting product was the "Alexa Loses Her Voice" Super Bowl spot featuring Cardi B and Anthony Hopkins. And, yes, it was ranked the number one Super Bowl ad that year.

The lesson for him was about standards. If your goals don't make you nervous, they're not big enough.

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