Creating great teams in creative agencies

Great things come in small packages they say and that’s definitely the case with creative agencies – and for small, read agile, contemporary, responsive, modern. But there’s a catch: keeping ahead of the game takes great passion and commitment; it’s demanding on business owners and their dedicated team and sometimes doesn’t leave much head space for looking to the future.  

So where does people development fit in? Do you find yourself saying, ‘there’s no time for training’, ‘we don’t have the budget for coaching’ or ‘we’re at full capacity, learning on the job’?

Invest in your future

When you’re managing a creative team, it can be hard to prioritise, you’re pulled in all directions keeping the day-to-day work flowing while searching for the next big job. It’s easy to fall into the trap of dealing with the ‘now’ and failing to invest properly in the future.

Your people are your greatest asset and staff turnover is a big business cost, in recruitment, lost productivity and smoothing out the bumps of introducing yet another account manager to a client.

Why should creative agencies invest in the development of their people? As well as the well-documented benefits of improved performance and innovation, employee satisfaction and retention, increased quality and productivity – developing the skills of your team gives you the opportunity to expand the knowledge base and enhance the company’s reputation and profile.

As leaders of a marketing, PR or design agency, it’s time to take a little of your own medicine! You spend your days advising clients on the best way to communicate their key messages through words and pictures, and my top tip is that good communication is at the heart of great teamwork, so use it, every day in lots of different ways. Share ideas, celebrate success, seek feedback, ask for help – you don’t always have to agree but you’ll settle on a solution and grow stronger as a team.

Who’s in your team?                                       

It’s true that you get out what you put in. To get more out of your team, you need to invest in developing their skills and to do this you need to understand how the team performs and works together. The best performing teams are often made up of a diverse range of personalities with different skills and strengths to contribute. Understanding these personalities and skills helps you work better and use different methods to communicate effectively to them. 

Thankfully, you don’t have to be a mind reader! Tools such as DISC personality profiling can give you some great insights into the different personalities within the team and how to get the best out of them.

Find out more about DISC personality profiling and how to improve team performance and communication skills.