On Managing Creatives
Me, second from the right (bald), surrounded by my team of unbelievably talented creators.
Before I start, I feel like I should drop a disclaimer that these are only (obviously) my philosophies on people management - specifically people management in the creative space.
They are certainly not the only ways to do it and be successful. Let’s get to it.
In August of 2022, I inherited Chicago Fire FC’s team of videographers and social creators as the team’s Director of Content. Upon accepting the role, I was faced with a few clear and immediate challenges:
Establishing trust - To that point, we’d all been part of the same content and creative team for a couple years, but during that time my actual work focus had been fairly silo’d in the worlds of copywriting, web maintenance, and mobile app development. I needed to consider that the team might be wary of my leadership, given my relative lack of hands-on experience in their areas (more specifically on the video production side).
Swimming us out of the deep end - We had a mountain of new and unfamiliar content priorities ahead of us that Fall and going into 2023 (which I’ll get into). I’d be charged with navigating the team through all of it while still applying our world-class look and feel to each project on our plate.
Creating balance - My move up from manager to director didn’t come with a passing off of my prior responsibilities. I’d still be charged with all my regular writing, web, and app duties. However, I care deeply about the people side of management and I wanted to be good at it, so I’d need to find a way to also layer in regular check-ins with my group without cutting too much into our already outsized workload.
This is going to sound corny and probably fake, but reading about management strategy had been a hobby of mine for a few years (in anticipation of hopefully reaching the level someday), so I was eager to put the general core beliefs I’d developed into practice.
At a high-level, here’s how I chose to approach the first of the three challenges laid out above in order to get the team on track*:
*Frankly, I didn’t realize how long this was going to be until I started writing it, so I’ll cover challenges two and three in a future piece.
Establishing Trust as a Manager
Don’t Masquerade
I’m self-aware to a fault, so I had no intention of stepping into the director role and being a pretender.
My lack of experience in filming and editing was known to everyone, so it would have been foolish for me to act otherwise. Instead of trying to present myself as the source of all knowledge and truth, I chose to supplement my lack of video experience with a promise to my team that I’d break my back to support them however I could.
While just words, I fully intended to back them up with action. I was comfortable accepting a level of hesitancy in me and my abilities while I proved my worthiness over time.
You do have to prove it, though
I believe the best teammates proactively go out of their way to support the wider group.
That includes things like being the first to raise your hand, staying until the work is done, picking up others’ slack when needed, etc., and I try to embody that as much as I can. However, I simply did not have the skillset required to pick up any slack on the filming and editing side as a way to establish that I was here to help. I’d need to find other ways to support the work the video team was already doing.
I decided that I could do all of the relatively “unsexy” stuff that goes into video production - writing creative briefs, sitting in stakeholder meetings, coordinating interview times and filming locations, dealing with corporate partner expectations, sourcing freelance help, etc. - in order to free the team up to simply shoot, edit, and create their best work. I figured that if I could create an environment that allowed them to focus solely on doing their best possible work, that would mean that our team was very likely going to help the organization achieve and surpass its wider marketing goals.
In short, I could be the one to remove all of those monotonous barriers that jam up creativity, and I could be the one to shoulder all the administrative stuff that protects the team’s work-life balance. So that’s what I did.
Advocate!
I believe there are few tools as powerful for a manager - especially when looking to gain trust - than advocacy.
As the head of the group, I needed to be the one to interpret my team’s needs, concerns, and feedback, and ensure their voices were heard at the highest levels. I needed to be the one to negotiate for additional support and resources with executive staff. I needed to be the one to communicate the specifics of what we could or could not deliver relative to what was on the team’s plate. I needed to be the one to find creative solutions when project requests came in that we couldn’t fulfill due to lack of time or bandwidth or whatever. And sometimes, I needed to be the one to say “no” to those requests altogether, while still maintaining positive working relationships with the folks who made them.
If our content team was a night club, I saw myself as the bouncer. Probably a dumb comparison, but either way, protecting my team’s work load and well-being was the hardest and most rewarding responsibility I’ve ever had.
Give trust
You’ve read it a hundred times on a hundred LinkedIn posts, but it’s true. Lead with trust. It tends to result in having that trust reciprocated.
Each member of the team I inherited had their own ways of doing things, their own creative visions, and - as established - their own abilities that I didn’t have. Each person contributed to just about every project in some capacity, and I chose not to micromanage anyone’s specific ideas or approaches as long as they caused no harm. Essentially, I didn’t feel like I had to have the loudest voice in the room.
I’d do all the aforementioned things laid out in the previous section above in order to set the group up for success, and once I’d done that, I generally let go. I always turned out proud of what they were able to accomplish.
My case study on the Chicago Fire’s 2023 “Kit For All” jersey launch campaign dives a bit further into the specifics of that type of approach.
Summary
I suppose I’d need my team to tell you whether my approach to managing them was successful or not. I’d like to think it was? Prior to my departure, we were unquestionably on pace to complete on a record number of video projects in 2023, while also prioritizing the need for appropriate project lead time and having lives outside of work.
I wouldn’t change a thing. Part two coming soon.
Until then,
