How to Develop a Happier, More Productive Creative Team

There are people in your company who don’t know what your company does.  Sometimes people who sit right next to each other have no idea what their colleagues do, and they don’t have any way of understanding what it all adds up to.  Are the designers talking to the tech people?  Do the creative directors talk to each other?  Does the receptionist know what the company does? Do they know where their part fits into the overall vision?  Do they know what the overall vision is?  If each understands what the other can do, they can use it and learn from it.  If people know where their part fits in and what the company as a whole is trying to do, they can help to support and grow it, and the organization will get stronger.

There are people on your team who aren’t on your team.  You might have a hard time believing this (or not), but I have actually met someone in a company whose personal agenda is working against the greater good.  (“Say it’s not so,” I hear you cry!)  The creative business encourages individualism and outside-the-box thinking, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have some common goals and work together.  There are creatives who go to their workstation, put on their headphones and don’t resurface all day.  You know who I mean.  Get in there and talk to them.  Find out what they want.  Find out how you can help them, and how they can help others in the organization: and in so doing make a better product and build their career and the business together.

These things could never happen in your company …right?  But I’ve seen it happen all around. Take a look and see.  Maybe there are some simple ways to engage and involve your team so you can build a stronger, happier, more cohesive and more productive creative operation.