The art of fostering ambitious brand teams
Oskar Schlemmer ‘Interior with 5 figures’, 1928
Embarking on a journey and moving forward together
Lately I’ve been speaking to quite a few design agencies who ask me to help them achieve the goal of becoming more relevant in terms of process and product. I’m assisting their evolution by inventing smart and minimally disruptive processes and ways to become more prolific and business driving. Having led agencies and internal teams over the years equips me with insight, and I pretty much spend most of my time thinking about the challenges and pitfalls of composing THE team and THE agency of today. Every company wants to stay relevant and only few have the courage to put teams together that have what it takes. The heart of the problem is that we’re almost always dealing with firms and teams who still are, or once have been, successful. Unfortunately, along with their new objective of evolving with the times, their success (and a deceptive sense of security based on the glory of ‘proven methods’) becomes their worst enemy.
The danger is to confuse a comfortable ‘culture’ with an ambitious one. Teams are not at full throttle just because they remain in a static, comfortable zone, but because they manage the challenges on the journey they have embarked on together. They are moving forward together in the same vessel and need to reach a goal. That goal should be to achieve respect and influence through their work. The whole idea of embarking and moving is to keep adapting and evolving as the new and constantly changing terrain of their journey requires them to modify processes and tactics to reach their destination. This surely requires harmony, but it also requires the willingness to let go of what has previously worked so well. The point is, we always move on and then move even further.
Oskar Schlemmer ‘Group at table’, 1923
Design means to solve the difficult questions; not to sustain a harmony that avoids them
The captain, the Creative Director or Brand Leader needs to keep the crew motivated through appealing to their individual passions and spark their curiosities. His/her objective towards them is one word: Vitality. Vitality means not keeping everything comfortable as is, but to continuously inspire to move forward. To bring infectious courage and new convictions for the teams to believe in. We need to be critical of yesterday’s successes as tomorrow will require a totally new set of tools to move forward. Teams and clients need to constantly ask the difficult questions. We are strategists and designers to solve the difficult questions and not to avoid them. A team member who is too inflexible to be critical may be a comfortable friend, but would you lean on them to bring anything new? Or would you call on him to seek out new opportunities?
Recently, I’ve been speaking to two successful agency leaders whose courage to introduce new thinking quickly crumbled as soon as a mid-level director in their organization showed concerns as it would question his/her position. The reasoning on the leaders’ end was that they need a happy, unchallenged director more than they needed change. What a silly thing! I say challenge the director to evolve and reignite his/her passion for the craft and business! And as leaders, create an environment that values curiosity and courage as a glue that holds culture together. Complacency should never be confused with vitality. Not taking risks should never pass as harmony.
Oskar Schlemmer ‘Four figures and a cube’ 1923
Reaching relevance through vitality
What can a client get from an agency that lacks ambition? Not much. Expectations can easily turn predictable. We are no longer in a world where relationships mean a blind commitment that is disconnected from the world’s technological and social advances. The soul of an agency or successful brand team is relevance in time. There is no such thing as an approach or scheme that works now and forever. That is the very reason why a brand agency or an internal brand team is consulted in the first place - to help customers to stay confident as the world moves forward. That would require to pass confidence from the giver to the receiver. Are you confident your team is vital?