A chat with Eric Hughes, VP of accounts
“If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life” is one of those benign platitudes we’ve heard, so often its original author has been lost to time. Credit aside, true words about work have yet to be spoken. A recent survey from Pew found that more than half of all Americans enjoy their work, but what makes work, “work” for the happy among us? The secret sauce, believe it or not, is work culture.
So What Is Work Culture?
The collective attitude, belief system, behaviors, and values that define how employees interact with one another and how an organization operates is said organization’s work culture. Research indicates that workplace culture stands above all other factors, including salary and easy of commute, when taking a new position or staying at their current employer.
How Mad Genius Does Work Culture
There are many ingredients that go into the Mad Genius work culture stew. There’s the standard stuff like driven supervisors that trust in their employees’ abilities. There are flexible employees who not only expect, but want to be given ever-changing and challenging projects to work on. There’s healthy competition between creative minds, always looking to push the limits for both our clients and the agency. Our motto “deliver the unexpected” more than anything else, speaks to what Mad Genius’s work culture is all about.
Each department within Mad Genius fosters a unique environment that feeds into the overall work culture. Try to think of our various departments as vital organs, or part of an engine, for more squeamish readers. These parts need to function well individually for the whole to perform at its best.
One of those parts is the accounts team. If you think the artistic chaos and passion that pulses throughout Mad Genius goes to die in accounts, you’d be mistaken. Bridging the gap between the agency and our clients requires a certain set of creative navigational skills, not dissimilar to those the designers or writers use. The accounts team is filled with problem solvers and translators led by the VP of accounts Eric Hughes. To get the scoop on how a strong work culture helps influence a productive and positive team, Eric sat down for a quick chat.
Q&A With Eric
“Define the Mad Genius Accounts team’s work culture in three words.”
A team sport.
“What are the key principles you believe are necessary for building a strong and cohesive culture within your accounts team?”
First of all, trust. Trust between each other that we know each other’s strengths and who has what strengths in what departments. For instance, some accounts folks are stronger in staging up clients for success in video or web. Some of our people are stronger at asking business consultant questions. We try to be strong in all areas, but invariably you have different accounts team members who look at things differently, or they’re more talented in other areas. That’s why I answered team sport as to what drives our culture.
Another aspect to having a strong culture in accounts is you have to be good listeners. Not just listening to what the client needs, but what our agency needs for us to grow. What do the departments need to perform their best? What questions have to be asked? What information do they need to know, and when do they need to know it? You have to be really strong at listening to all 360 degrees around you.
The final thing is being able to bring the calm. You’ve got to have the ability to be the thermostat instead of a thermometer. Often, both clients and ad agencies are pressure cooker environments, and the accounts team is in a unique position where you have to be calm in the face of the client and the agency. We’re the only department that gets it from both sides. So the ability to remain calm, thoughtful, and nimble is important to making sure the client gets the best work we’re capable of on time and within budget.
“How do you encourage a culture of mutual support and collaboration among team members, and what benefits have you observed?”
It’s the small things, but I try to say “How are things?” a few times a day among our team and really mean it. Not just a throwaway question, but “How are you?” “What’s going on?” We all do that for each other.
I try to encourage attention to detail and acknowledgement of the small things. It’s easy to forget all the small things we have to do on the accounts team; things like a quick email. Those things stack up all day long and acknowledging good, timely communications, even the small ones, is really important.
I think the other thing, going back to “a team sport,” is having what I call a “meerkat mentality.” It’s the ability to look up from your world, your day, your tasks, and look at your teammate and go “Hey what can I help you with?” “Hey, you mentioned this earlier, and you asked me to remind of that. Have you done that today?”
Sure, a lot of times those are work things, but they don’t have to be. They can be personal. Asking someone, did they go to lunch yet? Or if someone hasn’t, asking, can I go get you lunch? Just acknowledging that the day is the sum of the year, which is the sum of the months, which are the sum of the weeks, days, hours, minute to minute. Be aware that your teammate might be struggling, or succeeding, and not letting those moments go by.
“How do you support continuous learning and improvement within your accounts team, and what role does this play in maintaining high performance?”
Like every department here, we encourage everyone on our team to be experts in our client’s businesses and categories. It’s not enough for me to know the business of one specific bank, I need to be a student of the entire financial category. Encouraging each other to go beyond simply getting information from a meeting with a client. We should walk in with an insight for the category.
Another way we want to get better is by being more direct at becoming students of the other experts in the other departments, and understanding exactly what they need to be successful. We want to make more out of the meetings we have with our clients. And we’re pretty darn good at it. But I think we could always be better.
Lastly, we can’t be experts in everything, but we have to be really aware that we aren’t becoming “jacks of all trades”. I think just understanding what people are passionate about goes a long way. One person on the team is very passionate about movies and video production. Another is all about non-profits and other causes. I’m mindful of making sure those passions are fed. How’s the saying go? “That which you care the most, you learn the best.” We try to identify those things and make sure the right people are on the right accounts, because that’ll naturally feed their learning and curiosity.
“What strategies do you use to manage stress and workload, ensuring that the team remains resilient and focused?”
I have to go back to “a team sport” and say that there’s a thing called load management you could equate to the accounts team. If we’re successful with all the stuff we discussed before, we’re going to grow–and Mad Genius is growing–but there’s a difference between being busy and being stressed. Busy is, you’ve got enough to do today, and you get it done well. Stressed is, no matter how hard you try today, you’re going to drop a ball. I have a philosophy about glass balls and rubber balls I like to use to help illustrates that point.
Start your day with a simple list. Figure out what on that list are rubber balls versus what are glass balls. And know the difference. A rubber ball can be dropped today, and it will do one of two things by tomorrow. It’ll either bounce back into your hand or roll under the couch, never to return, but everyone will be fine. And that’s okay, but some things just go away because some things end up solving themselves or end up not being needed at all. They just do, and honestly, they’re things that probably didn’t need to happen in the first place, but you won’t know that today. You might find out tomorrow, but the question you have to ask yourself is, “Was that rubber? Will it bounce back?”
The other is glass, and you don’t get to drop glass. It doesn’t bounce back. It simply shatters, and you can’t put it back the way it was tomorrow. The truth is, most people get stressed because they handle the rubber balls first, because those are easy. But maybe someone throws in three more rubber balls, and now you’re really juggling. But the glass balls are waiting, they’re getting closer to the edge of the table, and something’s going to break. I think helping my team understand how to drive their desk, juggle their tasks, and understand that difference is really important.
“How do you create opportunities for team members to take on leadership roles and develop their skills?”
It comes back to identifying those passions and then having trust. That and knowing what each person is ready to succeed at. If someone has passion for something, they really want to get after it, then that should be fed, and they should be given opportunities for leadership in that. If someone is nervous about an area or a growth or an account, it’s important to listen to that. You don’t want to put them in that position because there is something telling them that they aren’t ready.
We generally encourage courage. A big part of helping the team be courageous to take on leadership is letting them know they have the tools, and the team behind them. You may be asked to walk across a tight rope, but we’re going to have safety nets. We are not going to put you on plank. Nobody’s going to be put out on a plank. But I think our team knows that because, again, it’s a team. Anyone on the team can go to anybody, at any time, with a question and not feel dumb or discouraged.
Lastly, it’s about making sure they don’t get this Groundhog Day rhythm. “Is there something pushing you?” “Is there something that’s feeding your growth?”