Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Negative energy: its effect on ad agency morale, & the work.

I read this article and I thought it was so true. I loved the simplicity of it, and the logic.
However, I know that being inside an ad agency, where you have a combination of creative and logical people, not always in the departments you might expect, negative energy is elevated to Olympic standards!

The key is this, from a management point of view. If you're at the helm, and you're the one doing the whining, it sets off a cancer like attack on the morale and energy of your team, and the quality of their work.

How can you expect your team to be 'up and at-em', if you're slagging the Client off loudly to all and sundry? It compromises your staff's integrity (especially the young, un-cynical ones), and it makes you look like a jerk. And it makes them question whether they want to do their best work for a client that their boss clearly doesn't like. And when that happens, the 'creative tap' is well and truly turned off.

So whilst a lot of this stuff in the article applies to everyone in an agency environment, the most important thing is for the management team to provide a source of positive energy, not 'I'll be on the window ledge if you need me'-energy, or even worse 'I can't be bothered to do great work for this Client'-energy.

If the Client is that 'bad' - resign the business and renew your energy with new clients.
Or sort out what's bugging you, hug and make up.
But the slag-off-and-keep-the-cash approach does no-one any good!