Looking out for No. 1. It is an adage that many people keep close to their hearts in their personal and professional lives.
But all successful advertising agency businesses are built around relationships. Relationships between the agency and its clients, but also between principals and creative directors, strong links between writers and art directors, bonds between planners and creatives. Keeping those relationships strong through good times and bad means working together, coaching one another, and lending a helping hand. But with staffers eager to carve out a place for themselves in the agency or build the experience they need to move up, teamwork can be hard to encourage and even harder to enforce.
Teamwork is a habit, not a function. You have to show employees teamwork, and you do that by rewarding it and publicly addressing the lack of it. People who fail to conform to a teamwork culture may have to be let go. One agency had a couple of people who were talented but very destructive in their lack of teamwork. When other people saw that agency leadership would not tolerate that behavior, everyone understood that the principals were serious.
In distributed and hybrid teams, the challenge compounds. When people are not in the same room, the habits that build trust have to be more deliberate, not less. Here is advice from other managers on how to make teamwork a priority and keep the agency productive and connected.
Put them at the helm of a meeting.
Each week, a Texas agency gives a different person the run of the agency's Friday morning meeting. From receptionist to art director, each team member runs the meeting any way they want. This gives everybody a stake in the meeting because they know what it is like to have to lead one. Because people are given free rein, they lead in unconventional ways that give colleagues a chance to bond. One staffer asked everyone to bring in a family heirloom or something from childhood. Something your grandmother gave you, something from grade school, something your dad brought back from a war. It pulled down barriers because people got to know one another on a more personal basis. The format works just as well over video for distributed teams, as long as the same spirit of genuine participation is expected.
Write a game plan to build unity.
A Chicago agency fosters teamwork through a structured brainstorming framework built around four stages: investigate, create, evaluate, and integrate. Each stage is color-coded and represents a different phase of the strategic process. The team must work through one stage before moving to the next, which produces more ideas and gives every idea a chance to see the light of day. Role-playing exercises designed to surface competitive strategies and challenge conventional thinking are built into the process. The framework was developed with outside consultants and is used primarily for client accounts, but has also been applied to internal problems.
Try an unconventional outing to build solidarity.
Building teamwork is one of the main purposes of a retreat. A Colorado agency uses a rustic cabin in the Rockies rather than a resort. Each employee has assignments for the weekend, from preparing meals to organizing entertainment to leading team-building exercises. Everyone contributes by building fires, washing dishes, or cleaning the cabin. "We tell funny stories, take walks, and when we return, the camaraderie we've built spreads through the office," says their principal. "You get a better understanding of each person. By seeing them away from the office, you learn who they are and how they deal with their tasks." For agencies with remote team members, the annual in-person gathering has become even more important. The investment pays off in ways that no amount of video calls can replicate.
Offer non-profit clients a short brainstorming session.
Another agency has staffers use their Friday creative meetings as a forum for quick-turnaround thinking for non-profit clients. Employees work with organizations that need creative direction but are not ready for a full agency relationship. "Because the staff does not usually work with these types of clients, it is a good example of brainstorming at its best. There is nothing at stake," says their principal. They offer ideas directly to the organization and send them away feeling good about the agency, the people, and the thinking they received. The side effect is a team that has practiced working together without the pressure of billing.
Consider hiring an outside consultant.
If you have tried everything internally, it may be time to look outside. For this to work, the agency must genuinely value the consultant and be willing to make a real investment. A Georgia agency's principal says outside help is only engaged when the agency believes it will benefit both sides. "There are just some people who have a little voice inside that says, 'What about me? What about me?' The 'me' is not lost in the team. It is just glorified. But some people have a difficult time believing that."
The tactics above are not complicated. What is complicated is the commitment to follow through on them consistently. Teamwork does not happen because you want it to. It happens because you build it, reward it, and refuse to accept anything less.
