In 2016 I had the plum assignment (being the operations nerd I am) to support Verizon in the establishment of a new in-house agency. My specific assignment was to capture every activity that would be required to successfully launch an in-house creative team. I dove right in, learning how to use Smartsheet, an online project management tool, and started mining my brain for every tactic I could think of that I and my launch teams at past engagements had leveraged in establishing a new IHA.
After weeks of brain dumps and validation, I had crafted a spreadsheet and Gantt chart that captured literally dozens and dozens of actions that, if followed, would set a newbie creative team up for success. Everything was covered, from operational and physical infrastructure to organizational design. Yet when I took a close-to-final review of this headache-inducing document that, if printed out, would easily cover a thirty-foot-long wall, I realized there was a fundamental missing piece. I had neglected to include any mention whatsoever of the need to establish a healthy, sustainable culture that would ensure the agency's success. I quickly corrected this gross oversight, and the establishment of a team culture became the very first activity on the plan.
Arguably the topic of team culture should live in the People section of this book, but its importance to the success of an IHA warrants this positioning. Over and over again, business academic studies draw a direct link between good culture and employee well-being and the associated benefit of enhanced productivity. From a moral and ethical perspective alone, we should strive to create working environments that respect and, dare I say, actively care for our fellow team members. Add to this the benefits our companies reap from having a more productive agency that delivers the highest-quality creative, and putting a focus on culture becomes a no-brainer.
Ironically this first and most critical focus creative teams should engage in is often never even acknowledged, let alone started-crafting and embracing a culture that expresses your team's values and prescribed ways of being. Without a clearly defined system of operational beliefs, regardless of the level of talent, equipment, or process you have in place, your group will seize up and fail as team members either misunderstand your mission or default to counterproductive self-serving behaviors.
Culture is not just a kumbaya exercise that results in ignored bromides that end up on posters in meeting rooms; it is a practice that determines how your team members make decisions and judgment calls that directly impact your team's performance and provides guidance on how your team collaborates and coexists.
What attitudes, beliefs, values, behaviors, and mindsets are embodied in the cultures of fully evolved in-house teams? At the highest level they include:
- Authenticity as expressed through honesty, integrity, self-expression and transparency
- Respect for all players in the creative process and the organization at large, manifesting as the practices of active listening, consideration, objectivity, and kindness
- Collaboration by truly subjugating ego and actively supporting all members of the group
- Passion embodied in the extreme commitment to innovation, creativity, executional excellence, and entrepreneurial spirit
- And most importantly, Service-to the team, the greater company, peers and colleagues, and the community
Fortunately, as a group, the creatives who typically make up our in-house teams usually innately embrace these pillars of a great creative team culture. Unfortunately, the larger organizations that our groups exist within many times do not. The dissonance between these two cultures can wreak havoc within the creative team. Often members of the team become either disillusioned and act out in anger and frustration or become alienated and withdraw into a shell of apathy and resignation.
There are symptoms of poor culture and signals of a healthy culture that can help you determine where on the good culture/bad culture spectrum your agency falls.
The ADCs of poor culture. Is your team:
- Apathetic, Alienated, and Angry
- Disillusioned, Discouraged, and Defeated
- Comfortable, Complacent, and Careless
Just a note on the last bullet point. It's easy to default to assuming bad culture embodies maliciousness, backbiting, withdrawal, and other typical negative mindsets and behaviors. Almost more concerning are the seemingly benign behaviors of what is often called "punching the clock" or more recently "quiet quitting." It's important to look for those symptoms as well, as they have a real impact on an agency's ability to produce high-quality work.
ICE makes for good culture. Is your team:
- Inspired, Innovative, and Integrated
- Collaborative, Creative, and Caring
- Engaged, Energized, and Enlightened
Wherever your team lands on the culture continuum, there is always room for improvement and there are real-world practices you can engage in to raise the culture bar for your team. The best path to both establishing and sustaining a creative culture includes some very tactical practices.
- Create a unique mission and vision specifically for your team, separate from the greater organizational mission and vision. The entire team should participate in this at various phases of development.
- Acknowledge the disconnect between your internal and external cultures with your team; praise and support the internal culture and shield your team from the external culture as much as possible.
- Hire and fire team members with culture as your priority. It should trump skills every time.
- Embody the culture you wish to achieve in your actions and behaviors and make especially sure that your leadership team does the same.
- Showcase examples of the culture you wish to create, and sustain it by referencing movies, music, books, and other groups and organizations that embody that culture.
- Publicly acknowledge team members who exhibit good culture behaviors.
- Include reference to culture in job descriptions, performance reviews, and one-on-ones.
Building and nurturing a team that knows what to do when executing on a creative deliverable or service is the easy part. Creating an environment and dynamic where they embrace how they go about doing it is driven by culture, and that culture should be consciously and carefully driven by you.
When at Cella, we researched and developed a methodology for deconstructing and then creating practices to guide an in-house agency's culture. A critical exercise is the creation of three components that support this-a mission statement, a vision statement, and a value proposition. To dig into this a bit deeper, let's look at what makes up these three components and some other exercises that will help define your culture.
The Vision Statement should be a description of what your team aspires to be. The Mission statement is a declaration of how, at a high level, your team will get there.
Definition of the Vision Statement:
A bold and ambitious statement of the organization's desired future state:
"What is our destination?"
Components of the Vision Statement:
time frame + desired future state + how we achieve it
Example of a Vision Statement:
Within three years, Creative Services will be the creative source of choice to all BUs, helping to exceed business goals through industry-leading marketing solutions that differentiate the "company name" brand and deeply engage our target audiences.
Definition of a Mission Statement:
A brief statement of the organization's fundamental purpose and how the organization's vision will be achieved:
"Why do we exist?"
Components of a Mission Statement:
Functional purpose + why we exist + how we achieve it
Example of a Mission Statement:
The "company name" In-house Agency provides high-quality, on-brand digital tier two and three creative more quickly and cost effectively than external resources in support of our clients' efforts to drive business growth through the establishment of operational and organizational best practices, a supportive entrepreneurial culture of continuous improvement, and the hiring and retention of superior talent.
And a final note; while your mission and vision need to be unique to your team's intentions and ways of working, it's important to ensure they align to some degree with your company's mission and vision.
The Promises Paradigm:
This is an exercise you and...
