Facing Feast or Famine? (Part Two)

If you feel like you’re facing a feast or famine, there are things that can help make both a lot easier on you.  I have already posted thoughts for those facing famine, since it is the more likely of the two in “this economy” as everyone is saying; however, facing a feast can be equally daunting.

Think of the terms as they literally apply to food: feast or famine.  This means we have either too much or not enough.  Neither is a very good thing, I think.  When you have too little, obviously you’re starving.  When you have too much, you’re either (a) wasteful because you can’t eat it all or (b) gluttonous because you want to eat everything in front of you.  Just like Goldilocks, you don’t want to aim for the extremes but the option that is “just right” because it is best.

Unfortunately, we have the phrase “feast or famine” for a reason.  All too often, we experience it.  So, if you are facing a feast right now, there are ways in which you can prepare to better handle it:

• Don’t overeat.
  Overeating, in the figurative sense, can be painful for freelance creatives and agencies alike.  It means staffing up, stressing out, or simply working too many hours in a week.  This leads to a diminishing level of quality because you race to keep up with all of the details.  Juggling so many balls in the air inevitably leads to something being missed.  We all have our limits, and knowing them will help us be much healthier.  Just like health experts recommend drinking water to fill up so you eat just the right amount, or using a smaller plate so your portions are smaller, find a way to make sure you and your agency don’t overeat during a feast.  One simple way is to share the wealth when you recognize that you have too much work coming in.
• Share the wealth.
  At Thanksgiving, you send loved ones home with to-go plates because you know you can’t eat it all yourself before the food goes bad.  The same can be true in a client-creative relationship.  Personally, I would much rather a designer tell me they are too busy to help me right now instead of taking on the work, missing the mark, and leaving me disappointed later.  Take heed to prepare sharing when you know you can’t handle it all alone.

  When you’re sharing the wealth, it can take on many different forms: passing work onto a peer, delegating to someone else on your team, or simply hiring employees at your agency before everyone gets overworked.  If you know you have too much to do, find a way to share the wealth in a way that works within your organization.

• It’s not quantity, it’s quality.
  Know that the quality of work often goes down when the quantity goes up.  It is possible to ensure that the level of quality work going out is maintained, but during a feast this can be tough to do.  Focusing on those quality assurance processes during a famine is a good idea, but that does little to help those already facing a feast.  If you see your work load getting heavier, be careful before taking on too many more projects and remember that it’s not quantity, it’s quality.

When you’re facing a feast, be just as strategic as if you were facing leaner times.  It’s always possible to have too much of a good thing.  That balance in between the two extremes is the goal, and if you can reach that with a few slight variations, you may find yourself (and your agency) to be much healthier.

Have suggestions?  Please feel free to add them!

Facing Feast or Famine? (Part One)

The phrase “feast or famine” keeps getting thrust at me in many conversations lately.  The first time I heard it, I thought, “Yes, I know what you mean!”  The second time I heard it, I thought, “Yes, I was just talking about that the other day.”  The the third time I heard it in the past few weeks, it lingered in the air.  It hung in the air like thick haze.

Why do we assume that it is one or the other?  Can we, as clients and creatives, not prepare in some way to keep it balanced between the two extremes?

I like to think of the ant and the grasshopper from Aesop’s fables.  (Don’t remember it?  Read it here.  It’s super short.)  The moral of that story was preparation for times of necessity, something which seems to make sense but can be quite challenging.

Many of my friends find themselves without jobs these days.  I imagine that a lack of gainful employment can be incredibly difficult, and count my blessings each time a friend tells me they are still looking for a job.  I have had the opportunity to speak with so many people lately who are feeling famine instead of feast.

To the unemployed, or the creatives/agencies feeling that work is slacking off right now, I recommend these few quick tips.  These are mostly targeted at individuals but can also be applied to your boutique agency.

• Keep yourself busy, even if it doesn’t pay.
  Volunteer.  Get crafty.  Reorganize a room in your house.  Do something nice for someone else without expecting anything in return.  No matter how you found yourself with some down time, keep yourself appropriately busy.  Don’t get so busy that you can’t cope with what is happening, mind you.  But take the time to stay active so that you won’t get lazy.  Inspiration comes from unexpected moments.  And something you’re doing may just lead you to a lucrative entrepreneurial business idea or two.
• Don’t retreat.  Keep meeting with family, friends, and professionals.  But don’t ask for something unless you’ve earned it.
  It’s easy to hibernate when things get tough.  Take the time you need initially if you’ve just gotten laid off, but don’t spend too long wallowing.  Self-pity gets you no where quickly, and leaves people feeling sorry for you instead of energized to help you.  Instead, spend your time focusing on the positive.  You now have more time to catch up with family, friends, and professionals you’ve met throughout the years.

  Go back to the people you konw and tell them you remember how kind they were to you.  It can take a matter of minutes on the phone, or an hour getting coffee–choose what works best for you both.  Just be sure you’re connecting with others in a very genuine way.

  Be flexible when you meet up with folks, too.  Don’t get irritated if they only have a few minutes.  Remember, you are now the one with more wiggle room in your schedule.

  Don’t ask for something unless you’ve earned the opportunity.  Making connections is important, but no one wants to feel used.  I remember an old contact met me for coffee, and within minutes she was trying to sell me something.  I felt duped and irritated, and wanted to leave immediately.  Feel out the situation, and don’t abuse it.  If you feel comfortable in the conversation, ask them to think of you if they see a fitting opportunity.  Make it easy for them to remember what you need: a job, new clients, etc.  Give them one word to hang their hat on.  They are busy thinking of the things in their own lives, so you want a trigger word to help them remember you when the opportunity arises.

  Say thank you.  Always.

• Save like you may never get another pay check again.
  If you find yourself on the famine side of “feast or famine” then you can make great things happen simply by being conservative with your spending.  I’m Clark Howard,  but I was known as a tight wad as a kid because I kept such a tight fist on my wad of cash.  Rarely spent a dime on anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary.  This practice has taught me how to be a better entrepreneur.  If you save and spend wisely, you will find just how far your cash can go.  It takes some adjusting if you have been living in feast mode for a while.  But the lean times teach us great things about our spending habits.

Do you agree / disagree on any of these tips?  I welcome the conversation.

More for those facing a feast in Part II, coming soon.

Reducing Waste Within Your Agency

This morning, a new acquaintance of mine got me talking about how agencies and clients work together.  He keenly observed problems I have recognized within the agency-client world: processes that fail and the costly waste that creates for agencies and clients.

It is a subject I have long enjoyed studying.  While working at an energy nonprofit, I listened to building science expert John Tooley talk passionately about process.  I like John.  He is an avid reader, tells a great story, speaks with great conviction about the ideas in which he believes, and has devoted his life to improving the complex building industry.  By listening and observing him for four years, I learned a lot about process and quickly became obsessed with it.

There is a process for everything.  For example, what process do you use to wake up each morning?  An alarm clock?  Your dog’s cold wet nose on your hand?  Or do you have no need to wake up each morning, and simply wake up when you wake up?  No matter what method you use, there is an existing process in place–no matter how simple or complex it may be.

Quite often, we fail to recognize a process until it fails us.  Within the past month, a handful of people related stories about failed alarm systems that caused a domino effect.  One person missed a morning meeting, and apologized profusely about it.  Another person was two hours late to work, causing her coworkers to panic and think the worst, calling everyone to find out where she was.  There are countless stories like this…

John Tooley always preaches that systems fail, and not individuals.  He talks about a blame-free workplace, where the focus is on improving systems and not blaming the people using the systems in place.  (Should that utopia exist, please let me know.)  According to John it was the process of waking up, and not the aforementioned individuals, that failed.

Where these failed systems exist, waste can be found.  By seeking improvements to the processes we use, we can reduce waste.  Waste reduction has many great benefits such as cost reduction, profit improvement, and quite often a healthier client-agency relationship.

Waste reduction can come in many forms within an agency.  While there are thousands of possibilities, I have listed a few to help exemplify these thoughts:

• Improve internal communications between cross-functional teams
  Can you walk down the hall or call instead of taking a time to describe something in great length via email?
• Improve external communications between account managers and clients
  How often are you meeting with clients?  How well do you know them, and their decision-making process?  The better you know one another, the easier it is to move forward together.  Communicate regularly, but don’t over do it.
• Improve efficiency in meetings
  Are you meeting about meetings?  Do your meetings last a full hour, when information could be shared in fifteen minutes instead?  There’s merit to face to face time in terms of building relationships, but be sure you’re not over scheduling when it comes to meetings.

Remember, changing processes has side effects. Most people resist change initially.  It can be seen as threatening, or time-consuming.  So go about studying processes within your agency carefully and strategically.  Change management takes time, patience, and planning.  Sometimes the same advice you offer is more widely accepted when it comes from a paid outsider.  And depending on your role within an organization, you may be seen as rocking the boat; don’t be discouraged if you see opportunities for improvement, though.  Anyone can become a leader.  In the words of Seth Godin, “Anyone who wants to make a difference can.  Without leaders, there are no followers.  You’re a leader.  We need you.”

Change takes time.  But by studying existing processes within your organization, waste can be reduced and client-agency relationships can be vastly improved.

Have thoughts or suggestions?  Please share.

The Lost Art of Listening

We have two ears and one mouth so we may listen more and talk the less.

Epictetus
Roman (Greek-born) slave & Stoic philosopher (55 AD – 135 AD)

A fleeting thought crossed my mind today, “People have forgotten how to listen.”  The more I contemplated the statement, the more I realized it’s not entirely true.  We still know how to listen, but we don’t practice it nearly as often as we probably should.

Last weekend I returned from the National Storytelling Festival, and it made me appreciate the seemingly lost art of listening.  So many storytellers got up on stage with nothing more than a mic, and a few thousand attentive audience members.  They had people willing to sit and listen to them with undivided attention.  I didn’t see anyone in the audience leaned over talking to their neighbor, sitting with a bowed head and locked gaze on their iPhone, or staring off into La-La Land.  This audience was fully engaged.

Listening is something that we’ve not forgotten, but practice less often these days.  One friend of mine talks incessantly.  It’s refreshing from time to time because I feel no pressure to have anything interesting to say; there’s rarely an opportunity for me to add anything to the conversation.  It may sound like a one-sided relationship, but she regularly provides an opportunity to practice my listening skills.

Listening and hearing are two entirely different things.  Are you listening to your creatives when they offer you thoughts and suggestions?  Are you, creatives, listening to your clients when they make a request or ask for changes?  Both parties must be sure to practice the art of listening.  Miscommunication regularly leads to dissatisfaction, so be sure you’re listening to one another.

Reading Subtext

As a designer, it took me years to learn to say, “No.”  The experience that gives confidence in one’s own actions was not yet there.  These days, though, I embrace the word.  It’s a challenge and a thrill to defend what I know is best for the client and their clients.

Some clients don’t like the word.  Others expect a little bit of a fight.  So, how is a creative to know when to stand and fight or raise the white flag and do as requested?  It’s a dance that can be tough to learn, and I am so grateful to have been on both sides of the equation in my life.

Reading subtext is as much an art form as design.  Practice the art of reading subtext, just as you practice your creative skills.  Improvisation has taught me a fair amount about reading subtext and learning people’s wants, despite their best attempts to be subtle or hide it.  Once you start practicing this little game, it becomes thrilling to test your skills.  It is the keen skill of listening and observing in order to predict what might happen next.

When you’re with family and friends, practice reading subtext.  When people make an offer or a statement, what are they really saying?  In improv, every line means something.  Every physicality means something.  And the two together can lead the scene and the improvisers.  It becomes easier to anticipate what is coming.

The same is true in films.  Try watching a film you have seen a few times already.  Take notes of each bit of information, and see if they pay off later.  Typically each line, scene and transition further develops the story.  Everything means something, whether we see it or not.  Be warned, though, practicing this can ruin your movie going experiences later if you don’t learn how to turn it off and just enjoy the film!  I have, however, watched movies that I have seen millions of times, just for the sake of capturing those subtleties I missed the first time.

Clients and creatives, practice the art of reading subtext.  Take the time to really listen to one another so that you can communicate clearly and work better together.  Every line, every physicality means something.  Are you paying attention?

Our best work is the work we do for the sake of others. It is in the lives and hearts of people we serve that we craft our legacy.

- Steffanie Lorig, Principal, Lorig Design

The Power of People

Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone.

- Margaret Wheatley

The relationship between clients and creatives fascinates me endlessly.  Why are some more successful than others?  Where does a project derail, leaving both parties frustrated and jaded?  What is the recipe for a thriving client-creative relationship so that it can be duplicated?

In my life, I have had professional relationships flourish and others wilt.  This is the natural course of life, so we find out what we value, appreciate, and need to be successful.  But by paying attention to the signs, we can become great predicters of an outcome.  Let’s use the example of a child.

A child reaches for the hot burner on a stove.  The parent stops the child and says, “No, that’s hot. It will burn you.”  But the child has no concept of a burn.  The parent looks away.  Child reaches for the burner again, touches it, and immediately starts crying because it burns.  Moral?  Sometimes the burn teaches us to move with caution.

We have to learn the hard way sometimes.  We don’t heed warnings because we want to do it ourselves.  And soemtimes we get burned as a result.  But, often enough, good comes out of the bad.  We learn to recognize cause and effect, and how to prevent the bad from happening again.  (Sometimes this can make us too cautious, too.)  In the end and if we are lucky, we learn that working with only the best helps us be our best as well.

All too often, I hear clients and creatives complain about one another.  Being in the middle has helped me see that it is the power of people that make the results great.  Great client-creative relationships happen by design.  It’s my belief that if you surround yourself with the best people, then great things can happen.

Never doubt the power of working with great people.  Treat and pay them well when you find them.

The Old Days

Recently I found myself in a conversation about the old days and how much more difficult things once were.  (Wow, could I sound more like an old timer?!)  A friend of mine and I laughed heartily about the days of creating newspaper layouts without the help of Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress.  Remember the hot wax and roller, or the pencils you used for hand-cropping images?  If you do, then you’re probably laughing, too.  It seems like such a crude way of creating a page layout, having worked with today’s programs for so long.  Today we can sit down at a computer and design a 100+ page book without getting our hands too dirty (or burned by hot wax).

The tools we have on hand today make things much cleaner and more efficient.  That is, only if we know what we want to do when we sit down to use these tools.  Before you put that wax on the paper, you were certain of the outcome you wanted because you had prepared for so long.  You thought and thought before you used the wax because it was so final, and starting all over again because of a goof was incredibly unappealing.  Without this preparation, the final results were a complete mess.  There were physical, visible results to poor planning.

There are a whole host of new tools for today’s business communications.  We have an entire Creative Suite, but we also have social media tools on hand.  Lately I have heard many people asking about Facebook and Twitter management for business.  Asking for help from an expert is great, of course, but it seems to be more and more common to neglect the original purpose for using these tools.  Why push and push to get more friends and followers without looking at the bigger picture?  What are you strategically trying to accomplish?

In comparison to using hot wax and a roller for page layout, it is incredibly easy to set up a new account on a website.  Our new tools make things physically cleaner in comparison to the old days.  But without that strategic thought process prior to starting the work, the end result of our efforts can still be a big mess and lost time.  It’s important to remember this when we’re managing our client-creative relationships.  Almost everything we do professionally is improved greatly by the use of clear concepts, goals and measureable results.

Clients that don’t know the results/outcome they want can be dangerous. They take the wildly inefficient approach of asking a creative to just have fun with the work.  This is tempting to a creative because it happens rarely and they think it will be a huge success, but this is where the entrapment begins.  The end result is usually much less attractive than the idea of going wild with a design concept.  The client thinks the creative just can’t get it right, and keeps limiting the amount of tweaking.  Meanwhile, the creative gets irritated with the client because they have provided what they thought was spot-on, only to have the project drag on and on with entirely too many revisions.  Both parties end up frustrated, but can’t quite see the physical evidence that a concept, desired outcome and measurable results were not specified from the beginning.

Creatives that do as you wish are equally dangerous. Be wary of the creative that says yes all the time.  It is a challenge for some to set clear boundaries and limitations; however, finding a healthy relationship that allows for two-way conversation is important.  Creatives who resist requests that harm the design process or final outcome are the type I want to work with because they help me become a better client.  Like Cesar Millan says, “Set clear rules, boundaries and limitations.”  People actually crave rules, boundaries and limitations.  They may not admit to this, of course.

Lessons
In the old days, we had physical consequences to poor planning and rushing through work.  If we moved too quickly, hot wax might burn us.  The tools we use today are changing the game of being a creative, but some of those lessons from the old days still apply.

Take the time to make sure the concept is key.  Honor the practice of a trusted, peaceful working relationship.  Follow the Golden Rule.  Do the best work you can do–all the time.  Laugh at the old days, hard-earned lessons and stop to appreciate the present.

Show Your Gratitude

Over the past few weeks, I have felt an overwhelming rush of gratitude for the people in my life.  They are all from different backgrounds, industries and parts of the world.  And I am so thankful that they are a part of my life.  This week, I took the time to give a select group of people written affirmations and thank yous.  It was a very small gesture in comparison to what they have done for me, and I wanted simply to tell them how much I have appreciated their presence in my life.  While I thought it was a very small gesture, it turns out that it meant a lot to them.  They thanked me in person, smiled and a few even offered me a hug.

Today, as  I start looking towards the weekend, I paused on the thought that this should not be a rare occurrence.  How often do we share our gratitude with those that make our lives enjoyable?  Especially professionally? We expect thank you notes for interviews, wedding gifts, baby showers, and birthdays.  But wouldn’t it be a great thing to offer words of written gratitude to those with whom we spend so much of our time professionally?

If you have a client, creative, or even coworker that has treated you kindly, give them a written affirmation.  It doesn’t have to be elaborate or use beautiful handwriting.  But it could very well mean a lot to the recipient.  Just a few minutes of your time can mean so much to someone.  At least, that’s what I’ve been told this week.

Bravery and Fear

Bravery and fear are interesting things to study.  What makes us act bravely, or shrink in fear?  What foundational experiences make it easier to act bravely, versus live with fear?  Similarly, what makes a client and creative choose a bold color?  One that makes the product stand out on a store’s shelf, instead of blending amongst the competition?

There are plenty of quotes about bravery and fear.  They both can be larger than life, or every day little things.  While I wouldn’t label myself a particularly brave person, some of the activities and adventures in my life have caused others to label me as such.  This makes me think that one man’s fear is another man’s play.  Just as one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, so too can we embark on journeys that make others nervous because they seem too brave.

When and how do we act bravely when needed?  If a creative brings us an idea that we feel is too bold, do we let the idea exist?  Do we give it a chance to live in a state of possibility or do we kill it quickly?  How do creatives get the courage to act bravely in bringing clients bold ideas?

Personally, I believe that information and trusted relationships make those things we fear feel like play.  When we have the information we need, we’re better prepared to act.  And when we act with those whom we trust, we are more likely to take seemingly large risks because we are not acting alone.

Sometimes it’s easy to live in a state of fear.  It feels safer than taking bold actions.  Then again, some times it’s easy to accept a challenge and act bravely for the adrenaline rush. You feel a sense of freedom from the fear that previously bound you. What brave actions have you taken as a client or creative?  When did you instead accept fear?  How did you feel about the action your took?

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Praise

Working with someone you really appreciate?  They may have undeniable creative talent, project management skills, the gift of gab, or spunk and personality that you crave when you’re not around them.  Celebrate them!

Give that person, agency or client a shout out when you can.  A LinkedIn recommendation.  Or a tweet that confesses how much you enjoy working with them.  Offer to write a testimonial.  Let them interview you so they can write a case study.  Find a way to give them a pat on the back.

When someone goes above and beyond, find a way to reward them.  You just may find that sharing the praise uplifts your own spirits.