Coaching tips to inspire and invigorate
When It comes to creative teams, we’ve seen the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Our work brings us in contact with all types of institutions in all kinds of situations. We’ve witnessed marketing and communications operations that are energised and effective. Their staffs collaborate to produce web content, publications and ad campaigns that turn heads.
But we’ve seen other operations that are how do we say it nicely? worn out. Their staffs crank out unfocused work that nobody notices. So what makes the difference? It’s not just budgets or staff size. It’s also the creative team itself.
Smart managers know that creative teams require nurturing. But where do you begin? We collected our best ideas and those of other industry leaders to help you to get the most from your creative team.
Assemble the Players, Hire for talent: The first step is kind of obvious: Put together a strong team. But not just any team a smart team. I think there’s a lot to be said for hiring people who are smarter than you, more talented than you, and then letting them do their jobs, it takes a leap of faith sometimes to trust their decisions, but it’s often the best way to go.
Start with the Strategy, Bring the creative team into the strategy: Always show the creative team the big picture. That information provides the context for the creative work.
The strategy inspires creative thinkers because it is part of a “puzzle” to solve, so help your team members formulate and understand the specific goals for each project. If you want to maximize the brainpower of your creative team, frame each project as a challenge. Most creative thinkers will respond better to “This is what we need to accomplish” than to “This is exactly what you should do.”
Organise the project, clarify the goals: It’s easy for individual staff members to get lost if there’s no shared vision of where a project is headed.
But the more you clarify your team’s goals and project steps upfront, the less you’ll have to manage (or micro-manage) on the back end. Two essential tools are the creative brief and the kick-off meeting.
The creative brief keeps everyone focused. This short document outlines the over arching strategy, project-specific goals, audience segments, key messages (if you know them) and other details. Be sure to include the important data that are driving your strategy. Not all team members will want to slog through piles of data, but they like your top-level administrators will definitely be interested in the executive summary!
An organised, detailed kick-off meeting sets the direction and creates the structure for a successful project. This meeting is the time for managers to help break the project into manageable steps, define individual roles, explain budget issues and put boundaries around “research” or “concept development” (which can easily go on forever).
The time spent setting overall priorities doesn’t just educate team members; it also sets clear priorities for managers. As a manager, you’ll achieve the greatest results on your important projects when the team understands what’s most important to accomplish.
Open up the creative conversation
Don’t keep your projects hidden away in file cabinets or tucked away on individual hard drives. Think about ways to keep your work in progress visible to the entire team. These options will get you started:
Post inspirational ideas where everyone will see them near the copy machine or coffee pot.
Pin rough concepts and in-the-works wireframes on bulletin boards to generate curious questions (and informal feedback) from passers-by. Set up an online space where everyone can contribute content ideas. By making the creative exploration visible, you’ll build a culture of collaborative thinking and remove the territoriality that can hijack the creative process. You might even generate some useful ideas from people who aren’t officially part of your team!
Encourage people to think big
Tear off the blinders. Slaughter the sacred cows. Trash the traditions. Push your creative team to develop big, bold ideas first. You can help adapt the ideas to campus realities later.
Sometimes you’ll have to dial back an idea that’s overly ambitious or find a way to ground a pie-in-the-sky concept.
Manage workflow with an eye on quality, balance deadlines and scale of projects
Creative teams often like a mix of consistency and chaos, so pay attention to your deadline mix. A job list stuffed with small-scale, speedy projects can seem trivial and annoying. Staff members will wonder, “Did I go to college for this?” On the other hand, a job list packed with giant, glacially paced projects can seem abstract and insurmountable. Staffers will ask, “Will these projects ever see the light of day?”
An ideal job list includes a little bit of both. Try to maintain a balance of long-term projects (which involve complex solutions and nuanced creative thought) and quickie projects (which deliver a jolt of energy and an immediate sense of accomplishment).
Excerpts from Zehno cross media communications
Shane Shanks