The Business of Creativity is a series from Emily Cohen and Hunter Vargas of Casa Davka, a consultancy that helps creative firms evolve their business strategies and practices.
Our industry is in a constant state of flux, and so are we as creative leaders, firm owners, and employees. Our priorities regarding what “work” means to us and what we want from our job, role, and the firms we lead are shifting, and as a result, we need to re-prioritize our thinking and expectations regarding how our organizations are managed and structured, how and who we hire, and what we want from our team and leaders.
Shifting Priorities
We need to evolve the ways we think about our organizational models, decisions, and strategies as a result of shifting demands and expectations of our staff and the leaders/principals of creative organizations:
For staff and candidates:
What defines happiness and even a healthy work-life balance has changed. For many, “work” is no longer a passion or a priority. Employees and candidates want and expect a flexible, transparent, supportive workplace culture that complements their robust and healthy personal lives. They are seeking out jobs that they enjoy and workplaces where they are valued and supported professionally and personally so that, at the end of the day, they can truly “leave” work at work.
“Manufactured culture will always seem forced, which is gross. It has to come organically, with meaningful efforts toward shared experiences.”
Johnny Selman, Principal & Executive Creative Director at Selman
Staff are burned out by the intensity of their work, what they are working on and doing at any given moment, and when they are being pulled in many directions at once. The combination of too many meetings, communication platforms, stopping and starting between projects, etc., results in staff not having dedicated time to focus on their tasks, being stressed and overwhelmed, and, ultimately, working less productively.
For leaders and principals:
Leaders are also shifting their priorities around work and their personal lives, striving to take more time off by building a team and business that will survive and even thrive without their presence.
They are realizing they no longer should (nor want to be) all things to all people, and they, too, are burned out. They are looking to build a team that supports them at a higher level and takes true ownership and responsibility for their tasks and responsibilities.
And, to help support them with these new priorities, they need and often expect everyone on their team to be “unicorns” that can:
Be both big-picture thinkers and detailed-driven
Work across many different mediums (branding, digital, print, experiential) and platforms
Work both independently and collaboratively
Value and adhere to budgets and schedules and manage their own projects and clients
New and Evolving Strategies
These shifting priorities require us to rethink many of our tried-and-true organizational strategies:
Think about the future:
We must think more deeply and strategically about our ideal organizational structure from a fresh perspective (i.e., not only considering who we currently have on our team). We can start by answering: Who are we now and who do we want to be in the future? Then, and only then, will we make effective hiring and management decisions. We can no longer build a team solely based on the current and/or short-term need or latest “fire” that must be extinguished, but what is best for our organization’s future growth and success in terms of who we are, who we work with, what services we provide, what our future growth looks like, and what culture and team we need to support this vision.
Be thoughtful and patient when hiring:
We should be more deliberate in the hiring process. Instead of hiring reactively (e.g., we need someone now), we should, as mentioned, be more strategic about the growth of our firm, who we’re bringing onto our team, and when. Instead of hiring someone only because they work[ed] for some big-name firm, we fell in love with them/their work, they were recommended to us, etc., we should hire someone because they fill a role that aligns with our firm’s current and future needs. The best candidates often take months to find!
“We made a change two years ago and put together hiring committees for each role and included folks from different disciplines to be a part of the different rounds of interviews. 4-5 people typically. It allows us to get better perspectives and has led to overall higher quality hiring selections.” – Craig Johnson, President & Co-founder at Matchstic
“We follow the three simple virtues outlined in Patrick Lencioni’s book ‘The Ideal Team Player.’ He states that any person who is humble, hungry, and people smart is your hire. Forget depth of experience and pedigree. We agree. Now, it’s not easy to determine this in just a few interviews. We’ve gotten good at it over the years, as well as simply attracting people with these traits. It’s a winning formula.” – Bill Kenney, Partner & Chief Executive Officer at Focus Lab
Be clear and transparent about roles and responsibilities:
We must have clearly defined job descriptions so that we have a clear alignment on expectations for each role. Job descriptions should include details on everything about the role—what they do, and the level of involvement (e.g., develop, contribute to, lead, approve, manage), etc.—across all areas of the business. To supplement job descriptions, you should also have an “accountability matrix,” which compares each role on your team, side by side, and aligns as well as clarifies areas such as:
Salary levels/bands
Expected level of skills and qualifications in particular areas
Who do they manage and mentor, and in what areas
Who they report to
Primary and secondary responsibilities
Attributes and soft skills required
Approximate percentage of time and related responsibilities each role will be accountable for in various non-billable and billable areas of the organization
This is a great tool to use when employees want to be promoted and/or given a raise, as it shows how each role is different (and similar) from the others and what is needed and expected to move from one role to the next.
“We brought on a People/Creative Operations professional who has established a clear career development framework within our company. This framework not only outlines the skills and achievements required for progression but also includes personalized development plans and regular feedback sessions to ensure everyone feels supported and has a clear path to success. It’s had a tremendous impact on creating a ‘clear-is-kind’ culture.”
Johnny Selman, Principal & Executive Creative Director at Selman
Find the right balance of employees vs. contractors:
Many teams are moving away from traditional staffing models to employ a mixed balance of employees and contractors, reaping the benefits of both. While having employees has its obvious advantages (e.g., consistency, stability, more economical), contractors do allow more fluidity to scale and give you access to a broader range of resources and specialized skills and talents that you may not have a full-time need for.
“We find that 10% of our labor being contract allows us to take advantage of times when we are busier than usual. If that starts going over 10% consistently for 3-6 months or so, it tells us we should probably hire another full-time person to deliver the work.”
Craig Johnson, President & Co-founder at Matchstic
Client-facing and/or operational roles—particularly at the account/project and creative direction levels—are best suited to employees since needs shift on a daily basis, clients need a dedicated and available point of contact, and firms need someone they can trust to represent them to the client. On the other hand, contractors are best for skill-based roles where they are brought in to provide expertise the team lacks or fill a short-term resourcing gap. That said, having the right balance and being deliberate about who is an employee hire versus a contract hire is important to ensure you’re building a team that runs how you need it to.
Build a talent pipeline:
Because unicorns and talent with specialized skill sets can be hard to find and recruit, we should develop robust strategies to attract and build a pipeline of potential future candidates and contractors that we can pull from and consider when a hiring or contract needs arise. By building a network of talent even when we don’t have a need, we’ll be able to make more deliberate (i.e., less reactive) decisions when the need does arise.
“We maintain a healthy freelancer network as a great way to work with new people and leverage special skill sets.”
Johnny Selman, Principal & Executive Creative Director at Selman
Build a leadership team:
Many firms have incorporated leadership teams into their organizational models to retain exceptional talent, reward and leverage untapped entrepreneurial skill sets, and distribute responsibilities more evenly. The leadership team is the middle layer between the firm’s principal(s) and the rest of the staff. They are tasked with leading specific areas of the business and empowered to make decisions, often independently of the firm’s principal. Leadership teams can also provide the opportunity for more exit planning strategies for principals (e.g., ownership transfer).
“Establishing a leadership team with multiple touchpoints has allowed us to maintain the same level of care and attention during this growth for our internal team and external client projects. It has also freed me up to focus on the aspects of the studio practice that I love doing—creative art direction and connecting with our clients and collaborators.” – Dungjai Pungauthaikan, Principal at Once–Future Office
“As we’ve grown, we’ve made a deliberate effort to raise up senior-level leaders with business acumen in addition to their subject matter expertise. We’re counting on these folks to manage the day-to-day activities that contribute to our financial metrics. They are closer to the work, so they can enact more changes and bring their teams along with them. That means our executive team can focus on bigger visioning initiatives like how and where to invest, longer-term planning, and more intentional growth strategies.” – Jessica Teal, Principal at Teal Media
Be flexible:
To support the shifting priorities of our staff and leaders, flexibility is now a must and comes in many forms, from four-day workweeks to work days/hours that accommodate personal schedules (e.g., parents who work in the evening) to employee ownership (ESOP) to remote work policies.
“The four-day workweek defied conventional wisdom, but as we looked deeper, we saw a ton of value not just for our team members but for Friendly Design Co as a business. During our initial trial, we not only maintained our existing revenue levels, we increased them; while the team reported better mental health, the ability to spend more time with family and friends, and higher job satisfaction. What’s more, work improved as team members had more time to recharge and create space for their creativity.” – Geoff Silverstein, Partner, Managing Director, Friendly Design
“We are fully distributed and fly the team together 2-3 times per year to build more bonds away from the work. We also talk each week in our all-hands about our core values and have a different team member tell a story or lesson around one of them.” – Craig Johnson, President & Co-founder at Matchstic
“Life doesn’t always fit into neat boxes, so I ensure that people can take time for personal matters as long as they communicate clearly with their teammates, especially when deadlines are looming. This enables us to support each other more effectively without losing our momentum.” – Andy Kopietz, Principal at Good Done Daily
Infuse transparency:
Our employees are not only asking for but also benefiting from more transparency from their leaders. If done strategically, the right amount of transparency promotes team collaboration, shared learning, and provides more context for business decisions being made. Industry leaders are defining the sweet spot between what they are comfortable sharing and what they keep private. Your employees don’t want to feel the pressures of running a business (e.g., financial worries), but they do want insight and open communications into the reasoning behind certain critical decisions (e.g., new business choices, organizational changes, hiring needs, salary bands). Transparency gives them this context.
“We’ve always been a very transparent company—sharing the high-level financial metrics and explaining how those metrics inform decisions about how we run the company. When more people on the team understand how business works, there are more points of communication that connect the dots between the ‘business’ of a creative agency and the ‘craft’ of a creative agency. And you need both to have staying power.”
Jessica Teal, Principal at Teal Media
The End Result
By experimenting with and implementing new and evolved organizational strategies, we are fostering workplaces that are empowering, thoughtfully structured, and flexible to the shifting priorities of prospects, staff, and the leaders/principals of creative organizations. We must be open to the new, embracing change, and growing, particularly in our organizational approaches and strategies, if we want to build and grow our creative firms sustainably, ethically, and strategically.
Read more in the Business of Creativity series:
How Creative Businesses Can Advocate for our Firms, Our People, and our Profession
Strategies for Building Your New Business Pipeline
Emily Cohen and Hunter Vargas are business partners and consultants at Casa Davka who offer customized business solutions to creative firms so they are able to refine, evolve, and elevate their strategies and practices. Emily has been in the business for over 30+ years, partnered with 500+ leading creative firms, and is a frequently requested main stage speaker. Hunter is an experienced marketer, project manager, client partner, and business development manager. They also happen to be a mother/daughter pair, so they work together seamlessly, complementing (and challenging) each other in many ways.