In the world of creative services, most businesses optimize for revenue. But I built one that optimized for trust.
At Instrument, the digital agency I co-founded and led for nearly 20 years, we ran on a different kind of equation—one grounded not in spreadsheets, but in human capacity and belief. While most agencies obsess over inputs and outputs, we obsessed over how it feels to do the work. Not just for a year or a project, but for a career. Not just at the top, but for every person on the team.
Our model was simple in concept, powerful in practice. We broke the company into teams of 20 to 40 people—small enough for real relationships, large enough to produce exceptional work. These teams weren’t departments. They were tribes. Mixed disciplines, flat structure, shared purpose. Within those tribes, we calculated the capacity to deliver, not by guessing, but by starting with a truth: people have limits. People have lives. People do their best work when they’re treated with respect, not treated like a line item.
We started with the number of working days in a year, subtracted all time off—vacation, holidays, sick days, parental leave, everything—and from there we calculated what remained. That number was 85%. The other 15% accounted for life. It accounted for the cost of being human. It wasn’t a bug—it was the design.
That 85% became the heartbeat of our operating model. Multiply it by a blended rate, and you get a team's maximum financial capacity. That number didn’t just help us forecast—it gave teams a north star. Not a target to chase blindly, but a frame for what they were capable of. Something to work toward. Something to own.
But the math was never the magic.
The real power came when we gave those teams full autonomy. They set their own goals—yearly, quarterly, monthly. They hired who they needed. They chose their clients. They took responsibility for their culture, their outcomes, and each other. And they did it with pride.
When you do that—when you trust people instead of managing them to death—everything changes. The work gets better. The morale gets stronger. The turnover drops. The culture becomes real. You don’t need to post values on the wall because people live them in how they show up for one another. You don’t need performance improvement plans because you have clarity and accountability. And you don’t need to beg for engagement—because belonging, when earned and protected, is the most powerful motivator in the world.
Instrument grew to over 500 people, but the lived experience was always within that team of 30. It was a company built out of micro-communities, bonded by a shared desire to be excellent, and a shared belief that we could only get there together.
For nearly two decades, that belief held. We grew at over 30% annually and maintained margins north of 30% for much of our history. We became known for our creativity, our consistency, our client service, and—maybe most importantly—for the quality of life we created for the people doing the work.
And I believe, without hesitation, that the secret wasn’t just our standards. It was our structure.
This wasn’t a rebellion against accountability. It was a rebellion against waste. Against the waste of human potential inside bloated systems. Against the grind of top-down decision-making that erodes trust. Against the accepted norms of open resourcing and time sheets and micromanagement that leave people feeling like replaceable parts in someone else’s machine.
I believed, and still believe, that if you trust people, they will rise. If you give them clarity, they will take ownership. If you organize your business around intrinsic motivation instead of extrinsic pressure, you unlock a depth of energy that no compensation model alone can buy.
I’ve moved on from that company, but the model lives on in me. I’m building it again now—this time not around hourly capacity, but around outcomes. Not just asking how much time we spend, but what kind of impact we create. And still, always, starting with the same belief: people want to matter. They want to do meaningful work. They want to be proud of what they build and who they build it with.
You can’t fake that. You have to design for it.
I didn’t just run a company—I built an ecosystem of trust. I built a system where people could thrive, not just survive. And I believe any leader who truly wants to build something enduring must start in the same place:
Not with the question “How do we make more?”
But with the question “How do we make this matter?”
If this episode spoke to you—if you’re someone trying to lead better, build stronger teams, or just believe there’s a more human way to grow—please share it with someone who needs it.
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Remember: real leadership begins not with control, but with trust.
Until next time—stay grounded, stay bold, and keep building what matters.
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