Why Values, Behavior and Purpose are Important to an Organization Culture.

Values, Behavior and Purpose— 

Have you ever walked into work knowing that what you did felt like it had purpose? That what you did mattered?

In today’s workplace, it seems rare when a company truly makes you feel welcomed, appreciated and motivated to do your best work. The companies that do, have something in common—they have core values that act as guiding principles that mean something to everyone in their organization.

We often hear about how a company’s vision and mission is important, but to most people in the organization, it may mean little to how they interact with each other day-to-day. That’s because our work behaviors are dictated and shaped by our own personal set of values. At Makr, we can see this difference when we ask a room full of people what values they believe best define their organization—we typically end up with as many values as there are people. Every person will have a different take on what they think their organization believes in.

How we interact daily with each other is based on our own deeply held guiding principles that are the most important to us about the way we work. It’s our sense of right and wrong and how we make decisions. When we are in a group or organization, the collectiveness of our shared values and actions becomes the organization’s culture. 

Corporate values when they are viewed as abstract ideas have little collective influence on the real culture of an organization.

In human resources you may hear a lot of talk about the importance of “hiring for fit.” That to create and maintain a strong corporate culture, you hire new employees that will fit best into the perceived culture. This is where many organizations fail themselves and their employees. When values are abstract, people will lean on biases that can influence their actions and decision making. They may not hire for real “fit” but rather hire based on their own personal views of what the culture should be.

An organization where people feel mattered is one that welcomes and fosters strategic diversity—diversity in thoughts, experiences and expertise—to get results that make individuals feel valued for who they are, yet feel like there is a common purpose to the work. It is an organization where individual differences are nurtured, where the company adds value to the people in the organization, where the organization’s purpose is something meaningful and the work is intrinsically rewarding.

Feeling mattered means you pay people for their worth and you don’t make their lives miserable. This isn’t pie in the sky type thinking. The great resignation only emphasizes the importance of employee engagement. When people feel welcome to express themselves and work in an environment that is flexible to their needs, they are going to stay a lot longer than they would otherwise.

Diversity of Thought, Values and Behaviors.

Values are abstract terms — they are concepts, ideas and notions we may believe in. We can value ideas like, trust, respect, honesty, integrity, loyalty and service. However, since they are abstract terms, they can leave a lot of room for interpretation. You may value respect, but what it means to act in a respectful way can be vastly different from one person to another depending on their background and personal culture in which they grew up. This is why values to people in an organization can seem vague or insufficient, everyone may interpret them differently. Even the best organizations who publish a set of values on their website, or espouse them during an employee onboarding experience, have a hard time living them.  

Behaviors, on the other hand, are actions. They are far easier to explain and with more clarity. It is easier to teach, model and coach behavior and to give feedback. Behaviors put values into practice.

When we describe an organization’s culture in terms of the values we believe in, most people will feel good about the concept but it may have little influence on a what they do on a daily. When we describe our culture in terms of the behaviors we want to see taking place each day, it resonates with people in a way that influences their actions rather than grappling with a concept. 

When we talk about values in this context, where the abstract becomes actionable, we are really stating a person’s set of guiding principles. Principles are beliefs we stand by—they are how we desire to lead and act. They are not empty words, and they’re not popular jargon. They have meaning, and more importantly, they fulfill a purpose for the person and organization. They are actions that people do or don’t take, in the presence or absence of others. Values only matter when they are defined and understood as a set of behaviors.

If we move past vaguely understood values to guiding principles represented as day-to-day behaviors, we can move beyond hiring for “fit” to actual expectations of how people should work together. 

Saying that accountability is a value may not get the point across as well as saying that in this organization, accountability means “if I make a mistake, I admit it and I’m open to becoming better.” Defining what each value does and does not look like leaves no room for misinterpretation. 

Guiding principles provide organizations with culture alignment. They can be extremely helpful for work at home and innovative organizations. To start, they provide broad parameters for many self-organizing employees — the lack of which could result in a standstill of momentum and decision making chaos. They also provide a common language for making collective meaning. 

We make meaning of what we see and hear to evoke certain emotions, which lead to actions. Therefore, if you want to change behavior, you must change the meaning people assign to the behavior. Your organization’s values serve as a common foundation for the collective conscience, and creates your organization’s active culture. 

Think about how your guiding principles can really make a difference to your organization. What principles do you currently operate by and what is missing? Involve your organization to help you with building a strong foundational set.

Remember, that we are looking not for the abstract, but for actions. Take each principle and write down the natural set of behaviors and describe them. 

If the principle is honesty, some behaviors might include keeping your word (if you can’t meet a deadline, say something early and say the truth about why), not withholding information, sharing everything a client said about your the work, providing all the details to a client, and only work with vendors who are equally honest in their bids.

To make this most meaningful work, build your principles in small group exercises, look to incorporate your work in behavioral change (fixing the now) and setting up your future. Ensure that top leadership is on board with every principle. Behavioral change only happens when leadership and managers model the behaviors you are describing. 

In my practice, we seek to build these principles into new employee on-boarding. So that every new employee understands what’s expect of them and how they should act when they are self-directed. When you build a culture based on these types of guiding principles, ensure that they match up with your organizations mission, purpose and business strategy. Taken together, these values should be ones that move your organization forward and will allow your people to make decisions in the absence of a step-by-step guide.

Knowing that the work you are doing has purpose, means that you have great clarity in the organization’s culture and that you feel comfortable knowing the actions (behaviors) you take are making progress towards a common goal that has meaning to you. When you feel that you matter in an organization it means that within the culture you feel that you can bring your own personal diversity of thought within a set of common expectations. This creates a strong culture a high performers. 

Guiding Organizational Transformation Through Behavior Change

Companies that undertake transformation—have to inspire their people to think and act differently.

Organizational change programs often focus on designing new solutions through process and workflow—with little regard for the people enacting them. 

Humans are naturally change adverse. We don’t like being told how to do our job. It’s not that management doesn’t understand what needs to happen to improve the organization, it’s that the people who are executing on the change need to buy into it on a fundamental level.

For the organization to transform, people working within the organization need to grow beyond their current mindset. They need to understand the rationale for a change in the first place. 

As people learn to adopt new thinking, new behaviors form so they can achieve outcomes that in turn benefit the organization. For the organization to change, people within the organization have to change. It’s this symbiosis that builds and sustains transformation over the long term.

Ultimately, organizational performance success depends on persuading people to think differently about their job and what they do every day. 

To help our people to adopt new behaviors that can translate into an organization’s business goals, we need to first set an important cultural value within the organization— we must embrace a learning and growth culture.

A learning environment (re)introduces and supports the concepts of curiosity, self-direction, engaging the world from different perspectives, and helps to motivate & encourage learning something new as part of every day work life.

When the organization empowers learning as a key tenet, it enables individuals to feel comfortable that personal growth in themselves is possible. When a person is open to new growth and possibilities, the organization will in turn, have a better chance of creating a compelling case for change. 

Social Learning

“Most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.” — Albert Bandura

Social learning theory tells us that people learn through observation, it can be watching others demonstrating the behavior, verbal instruction, through story-telling or watching media or engaging in play.

Culture change begins when leaders model the behavior they want the organization to emulate. 

This is why it is important to incorporate leaders, who will model the kinds of behaviors that they want to see through the organization who will also provide recognition and reward those who model the positive behavior change. 

Reinforcement and our own mental state plays a big part in determining whether a behavior is learned or not. When a person changes their mindset, displays the changed behavior and is reinforced by their team, it not only furthers the group’s collective development but helps to connect what we learned with positive use.

Build learning programs that will support your transformation goals.

Successful transformation requires leadership to focus on getting inside the mind-sets of their organization and understanding how attitudes need to evolve to enable the sort of broad-scale, fundamental change that’s necessary to deliver real organizational growth.

When an organization values learning, it is already on a path to breaking down the sources of an individual’s aversion to change. Change in behavior is assisted by providing outside of typical work day experiences and situations. 

Ultimately, your organization has to think holistically about change and marry new processes and solutions to the new mindset to ensure transformation success. Build a learning program that addresses key change resistance factors.

Individuals resist change by;

• Selectively Processing Information — How do I seek solutions beyond what I know and not focus on problems?

• Habit Enforcement — How can break them and establish new ones?

• Being Fearful of the Unknown— How do I get over that feeling of losing power or control?

• Feeling Insecure— How do I feel comfortable that change will still keep me in a job?

• Not Valuing the Change— How do I build understanding for the rationale of the change?

It is not enough to just empower learning if we want to break down resistance to change— we must empower people to act on what they learned. 

Empowering people leads to putting new behavioral learning into action

Empowering individuals means enabling people to not only participate in the planning of change but to be a source of it. When you enable people to learn and grow, the next step is to empower them to create change and adopt new behaviors, building on what they learned.

When you give employees a certain degree of autonomy and responsibility for decision-making in their daily work, it empowers employees to step up, make their own decisions, be accountable and pave their path to success. To keep things on track, leadership has to continue to model new behaviors, reinforce concepts and reward positive change.

Focusing on process change alone limits organizational transformation.

It is more important for your employees to understand what to do in a situation and how they should act, rather than following a process blindly. When we make a change to one part of our process, it can often cause a crazy Rube Goldberg effect, causing all sorts of unintended and intended after effects down the line.

When we empower people, we permit them to engage with the process differently—to learn how inputs affect outputs in the system. When folks take time to learn about their work processes and potential new solutions, they can help optimize strategies for a wider set of situations. Deep process understanding leads to better solutions and a continual organizational improvement model. 

In a learning environment, there must be a willingness to have open and frank discussions about what separates great ideas from bad ones. If you want to be innovative, you also need to let people explore boundaries and sometimes fail along the way.

Empowerment and Learning should be part of your organization’s DNA.

To be successful, empowerment building needs to be baked into your organization’s cultural value set. Building new mind-sets with employees starts by incorporating them into your company’s culture as well as adopting it as a baseline corporate value and success measurement factor.

Empowering your people, incorporating behavioral change and building a learning environment can be major organizational shifts. These are shifts that are fundamental to transformational change. When they are boxed into a single program or are part of segmented initiatives they are susceptible to high failure rates.

If we want people to think and act differently in our organization, we need to incorporate the values into the company foundation, so they can be used by leadership to help guide the organization's strategy, to align and map out the key beliefs and new behaviors that will be modeled for transformational success.

Core cultural values act as the underpinnings of decision making and help people understand what’s expected of them. As a group these values/behavior sets let people know the right and wrong (accepted or frowned upon) way to behave in the organization. They identify not only what it means to be successful as an individual in the company, but guides what the organization considers successful as outcomes. 

Core Values & Social Systems: Shared Meaning Making

Organizations are social systems made up of people that share a set of written and unspoken rules as well as a set of loosely shared philosophies that form the organization's culture and sub-cultures. A company’s leaders and people exist as individuals, but together, they exist in a larger interactive social system, where people and different groups interact with each other.

Each member of a social group processes thoughts and interprets the world in a completely private manner, people develop a sense for the meaning of things in the world entirely on their terms. 

Socialization helps us to organize and unify our thoughts to create shared meanings. When we can state a value, define it and point to it, we can help socialize the shared meaning to the larger group. A shared norm helps people to expect what the decision making of another person within the group will be.

Organizations change through new learning at this social system level — where we share insights, knowledge and our mental models (how we think about the world and our behavior choice) with each other. We push the organization to change by introducing new learning to model the behavior of others to ensure that people understand what’s expected of them in the common environment. We then use reinforcing measures to communicate shared meaning to sustain new behaviors. 

The quality of organizational learning can be affected by a wide matrix of variables (systems within systems) the number of sub-groups and how they interact with each other to differences in management styles between them to the diversity of its people to the value they place on activities to different existing cultural norms in subgroups to the quality of individual interactions. 

Incorporating Shared Meaning in Change Adoption

Change adoption means alignment between social groups within an organization. 

From an organizational perspective;

We design the change solution,

We identify what new behaviors will get us there,

We align the solution with role-modeling,

We ensure we have the skills to enact the change, 

We design ways of activating new behaviors,

We design ways of sustaining behaviors,

We learn from our change.

In addressing this path, the organization may need to address communication gaps or evolve cultural norms into its organizational value system. 

If we want people to modify their behavior, then an organization’s cultural values must be aligned. For example, if a company states that they place value in “a work-life balance,” but does not create a social environment where this is true, they are less likely to see individuals modeling behavior that matches this value. 

Organizations need to follow through on building activities and processes based on their stated cultural values to enable true behavioral change. If the organization falls short in embodying a cultural value, people are less likely to adapt their behavior holistically to the social norms of the organization. If the organization states that they believe in a work-life balance as a value, then they need to support that value with activities that enable it.

Core Organizational Value Making 

Core value statements shape how everyone in the organization is expected to behave, what the organization as a whole place's value in, build shared meaning and act as a check to determine if the organization is on the right path. Processes and systems in the organization can then build around these principles to create a shared pattern of expected behavior.

Core values help define what matters and elicit specific behaviors in the organization. These values can encompass specifics on integrity, ethics, commitments, relationships, understandings, teamwork, respect, and accountability. They can be internal values, that may relate to your agency's mission statement or they can incorporate tenets that you want others to know about you externally.

When building core value statements they work best when they are specific, humanistic and compatible. Limit your organization’s value set to around five in total. When you have too many stated corporate values, you risk an individuals ability to remember each criterion.

Core values are not just part of a static mission statement. A core value is only true if it has an active influence and if the people and company manage to live by it, at least most of the time. They are part of how you would hire, who you hire and how you evaluate employees.

It is very important to remember that individuals have core values too. They can be aligned with the organization or only partially aligned. What one person deems important, another may not.

Behavioral Change Success

Successfully implementation of behavioral change requires properly preparing for change, managing the process and institutionalizing new processes. During these stages, facilitating change requires a strategic vision, clear consistent communication, open-mindedness and a commitment to defined goals on the individual level. 

While individuals and teams are ultimately the transformation factor, we can help our people engage in the change by facilitating the process. 

Set processes tell us how we act in specific instances. Process creates a framework for how we manage projects and teams. Behavior change addresses the way we work. 

Changing process can look easy on a flow chart, but asking folks to enact them and behave differently—is not.

When we make changes to the way we work, we must be sensitive to the individual. We adopt change by being empathetic to others and addressing a person’s will to change. “Will,” refers to the motivational and emotional aspects of behavior change. We must be patient, encouraging and recognize and reward progress. 

People may have a will to change but may not know how to change. We address this by examining if the individual has the knowledge, skill or capacity to change. Then we create a plan to break down this barrier for the individual. 

We also make sure everyone in the organization has come to terms with the “new shared norms," and has an understanding of their roles and a true willingness to accept personal responsibility for maintaining the shift.

Behavioral change is hard work, but the pay-off is transformational to the organization.

Conclusion

Setting a business change strategy means setting a people change strategy. To help enact big change there are two key components; creating an environment for learning to build openness to change, and creating an environment where people feel empowered to organically follow through on delivering organizational change goal.

Corporate values when developed into activities can help shape shared meaning and understanding between the people that work within the larger system. They also help develop what the meaning of success looks like in the organization and the criteria in which it is based. If people believe in a company's overall purpose, they will be more open to changing their behavior to serve that purpose.

Leadership can play a huge part in being role models for change, to inspire their people to think and act differently. Change requires a mindset shift to go from one way of working to another to achieve new goals. Behavioral shifts require observation learning and modeling. Leadership can help build reinforcement systems to promote the building of innovative cultures.

Lastly, process change and behavioral change go hand-in-hand. To change the way people work, we not only need to make sure there is a will to change but we may need to give people the skills, learning and space required to change. 

Learning and development is vital to achieving your business goals.

People development isn’t just important to a company, it is also one of the more neglected aspects of management and business planning. Helping your staff shape the direction of their careers is tied directly to your growth as a company and achieving your business goals. Training should never be an afterthought or baked into a one-time on-boarding exercise.

No training program can mean a loss of top young talent and high IP (intellectual property) talent.

People development programs present a prime opportunity to expand the knowledge base of employees, but also helps to stem early employee exits. When you satisfy a person’s need for on-the-job development, they value these opportunities. When we feel valued we feel wanted.

Understandably management often views training as expensive, time-consuming and taking folks away from billable projects. However, despite these potential drawbacks, training and development provides both the individual and organization as a whole with benefits that make the cost and time a worthwhile investment. 

The return on investment from training and development of employees should be considered a no brainer. So many organizations are constantly in a state of upheaval, reorganizing and trying to do more with less. In this environment, we tend to focus on the day-to-day operations. We use the excuse that there is no time for training.

However, here’s the bottom line. 

Training and development programs improve employee performance — the employee who receives the necessary training is more able to perform in their job, thus increasing efficiency and productivity.

Training has to come from the heart, it can’t be mandatory, it has to be focused on the individual. This is why training goes hand-in-hand with mentoring and the development of an on-going development program for the individual. When people see you take a real interest in their future, it creates a genuine connection. This connection helps to build employee loyalty. Development planning should be something you take a real personal interest in, you need to understand what learning is need and unique to each individual employee.

Thus, training builds loyalty and accountability, which means increased productivity. Taking an honest interest in a person’s growth builds loyalty and engagement. Engaged folks are more productive. 

Training also gives folks a greater understanding of their responsibilities within their role, and in turn can build their confidence in doing their job. This confidence will enhance their overall performance. Employees who are competent not only helps them to complete work but will add value to the work being done.

Capable, ambitious employees want training, mentoring and coaching. They want to feel valued and be valued. Development programs improve employee satisfaction and morale and creates a learning environment that solves problems.

It also addresses an employee’s weaknesses. Most employees will have some weaknesses in their workplace skills. Training allows you to strengthen the competencies that each employee needs to improve on. This brings your folks up to a higher competency level which helps reduce any weak links within the organization who may rely heavily on others to complete basic work tasks. 

Providing training creates a more knowledgeable staff with employees who can help one another as needed, work in teams or independently without constant supervision.

Training programs are vital to increasing innovation and building new strategies and products. When we up-skill our people, we encourage creativity and practicing new learning. New ideas, thinking and behaviors can be formed in the organization as a direct result of training and development.

To maintain your company’s health, development of competencies are essential to reach your future organizational goals. This can mean building up current employees for succession and future leadership roles or developing people to fill vital educational and changing role needs so that your company can remain competitive.

People development programs do not have to be elaborate, but they do have to be guided. You need to understand your employees, recognize their skills and (personal)needs and guide them to fill in their competency gaps. When it is done properly, the payoff can be substantial. It means reducing employee turnover. Your people are more likely to feel valued if they are invested in and therefore, less likely to move-on. Training and development directly reduce recruitment costs that go along with employee retention. 

Training also enhances your company culture and reputation. It helps make your brand more attractive than others for potential hires. Training can be used to help meet potential new employee needs and can be a key differentiator and deciding factor. It keeps people engaged from day one.

To learn more about how organizational development can assist you in developing training programs that are aligned with your corporate goals, reach out to Ed today.

Trust & Authentic Feedback

In the book, “The Invisible Element: A Practical Guide for the Human Dynamics of Innovation,” Rosenfeld and Wilhelmi stipulate something that should make common sense to all of us that, “organizations don’t innovate, people do.” 

And it’s true, to be creative and produce something innovate means allowing people in your organization to be free to do so. Creating and sustaining innovation is a very complex undertaking, and only happens when organizations provide the environment, resources and focus that will allow it to flourish (Rosenfeld & Wilhelmi 2011).

To allow people to use their talent, you have to give them a bit of free range to do so in an environment built on honest to goodness trust. If we could name one factor that can kill a team, project or agency, I think it would be the loss of trust. If people don’t trust you, then you can forget about getting the truth, real communication, and honest work reciprocated. 

Trust

Organic team development only begins to develop when people trust each other, and only grows when people share values and beliefs that drive positive team behavior. However, sharing values doesn’t mean that we lose our individual differences. 

When I trust some one, then I feel comfortable in sharing something with them, and when they trust me, they will share something back, then we are able to work together in a collaborative manner. Building trust at different levels is a common theme though out this book. From building an organization that has transparency at all levels to building organizational and individual values, to using our communication and listening skills to ensure understanding to building flexibility in what we do to working with our teams at the proper level. 

We all know the old saying, “Trust is hard to earn, but easily lost.” I know it sounds cliché, but authentic reciprocal trust requires an individual to take a personal risk and that’s not easy for some people to give. Once people lose trust in you, it can spread very quickly to other members of the team and the organization. So be yourself, be honest, communicate and be resilient. Have compassion for others but don’t be a push over either, push back when you need to. Minimize the unnecessary crap that your team doesn’t need to be involved with, but keep them informed through solid communication. Remember what you told people, and keep your word. Get to know people and how you can best motivate them, and look at for them.

Feedback

Working in a collaborative team environment, means that not only are people sharing ideas, but they are providing feedback.  I know it can be hard to give honest feedback (that’s not always job related)sometimes, but their are some rules that you should follow when giving feedback. 

As a manager and leader you are there as a servant for betterment. It is very important that when you give feedback, it with energy that is giving. Before you set out to give feedback, do your homework, prepare for what you are going to say and make sure its clean of negative energy and done with intention and presence.

Don’t be shy about giving feedback, it scares people when you are giving off odd body language or verbal hesitations. Giving feedback can sometimes be pretty hard to do, people can feel vulnerable. You aren’t looking to break trust, you are looking to build it. 

Watch what you say, when you say it. Don’t be an ass an make anything personal or bring up stuff the person did months ago. Make sure the feedback is timely and something the person can use to help them grow.

Try and give feedback in private, where it’s just you and the other person. No one wants to be given negative feedback in front of the group and the team. Help the person out by providing specifics, on ways that are what I call “strategies for working.” This way together you can both explore ways of improving together, and the person has gained new thinking in ways of tackling problems.

Be conscious of the way you are giving feedback, if you are an ass, then the person is not going to listen to you, the only thing they will remember is you being an ass to them, not that there was a problem that needed to be addressed. Providing feedback is not an easy task, but a place where trust can be easily lost. This is why you need to really think hard about the right way of providing feedback to the individual. Different personalities, requires you to frame your feedback in ways that are proper to them. Understand that not everyone will be open to what you have to say. 

Integrated Producers as Project Managers

Integrated production in creative land started out as merging the production of digital, broadcast, print and almost all other production into production department in the agency. This happened because many agencies shifted their creative philosophies, talent and structure to better orient themselves to create ideas unencumbered by specific media; agencies shifted their core principles to being media agnostic.

As agencies began to tear down silos, the transition to having one hub for managing production and project management made sense. Creative firms rarely find themselves working on one type of project anymore, and having one producer manage the content helped to coordinate the larger creative campaigns. 

Addressing an ever widening landscape of creative work

As we have moved to having multi-disciplined projects, the producer model allows a central project manager like person who has an understanding of everything that goes on. In the integrated producer model, you are more than likely going to have a team of producers who have the critical thinking experience needed to work across different disciplines, but may be an expert with a deep understanding of one or more unique disciplines. Having a team of producers allows you a group of key people who can handle not only a large diversity of work, but they can also collaborate and work off of each other’s specialities to get the best work produced as possible. 

The mentality of the producer is one that searches to solve problems, building teams in-house as well as outside the agency to do the impossible, to help wrangle complex scheduling and budgeting and negotiating and orchestrating a complex set of inter-related projects. 

The producer model can also be found in a production services company as well as on the digital agency side. Integrated production shifts the emphasis to looking at the big picture, with the thinking that producers will look to the best way of accomplishing a project. This was similar to how broadcast production companies used producers, as well as digital agencies who found themselves working directly with agencies.

The emphasis on who makes up the best integrated producer in agency has also changed. Many single silo’ed producers had a hard time making the switch to handle multiple platforms. However, integrated production is less interactive central now, as the diversity of platforms and creative, technology and content needs has changed.

Protecting Creativity

It’s okay not to have all the answers, but having a producer mentality focuses the energy into finding the answer. Now, the expectation is not that the producer knows every answer themselves, but can call on their peers, their team or help to bring in outside partners or artists that they can call on at any time to see the project through.

Improved Budgeting / Profitability

In this model, budgeting comes into line with the producer. The concept is basically to allow the team to focus on strategy and creative, with the producers sitting alongside. Together, with other agencies specialists (like a creative technologist) they will build out the budget and advise on what platform or ways that a client is going to get the most out of their budget.

When Integrated Production Makes Sense — Content, Content, Content

We no longer create on one platform anymore. How people consume content is changing, we are drifting away from the broadcast commercial model to content living simultaneously on second screens and smart devices. High quality creative content is still in demand, even as the way we are watching it has changed to on-demand culture.

How we are reaching audiences has changed, as well as the media mix. We may still communicate using traditional media, but we are now dealing with communicating with smaller audiences, in more unique ways, building content that is social and sharable friendly.

The “user journey” in the digital world has merged. The journey of the consumer can include, traditional media, digital, email, direct marketing, the retail space, social, experiential, event, loyalty & CRM programs. The integrated producer model helps to support an agency process that starts with a larger discovery period before getting to the conceptual stage.

Agencies have implemented the integrated model in a few different ways. However, more than likely, integrated agencies are going to be creating content that is story-driven and perhaps heavier on the immersive side.

Integrated advertising has changed in meaning through the years. But the intent is the same, to weave similar experiences through multiple channels, platforms, technology and touchpoints.

Integrated production and project management workflow is also driven by agency culture. Technology doesn’t drive decisions, creative decisions drive the technology.

Integrated driven agencies are also shifting where they look to build content. In both large and small agencies alike, you are seeing more agencies build internal production capabilities; from development, motion graphics, to shooting video, photography, editing and animation. Agencies are looking to respond to their client’s audience faster, and with more original content then ever before.

Depending on the agency, the team structure of integrated production can vary;

Integrated Producer (from SOW, content to end-to-end producing and project management)

Integrated Producer (SOW & Content Development) & Project Manager (managing day-to-day work and resource allocation)

Integrated Producer (SOW & Content Development) & Project Manger (managing day-to-day work and resource allocation) & Technical Lead or Scrum Master (overseeing development)

One of the reasons why integrated production came into being was because agencies and marketers are challenged with costs and efficiency. How do you create, commercials, print, digital, and social media content in a cost effective, but engaging way? 

However, the old model of “create once and reuse often” is being seen as somewhat limited. Content in today’s communications world, can get stale very quickly.  So even in the integrated producer model you are seeing new practices being applied.

Central to the integrated model is working within in teams, that cover a number of different channels. These team members are brought into the mix as the larger umbrella thinking progresses from strategy into discover and creative phases. Many agencies embrace the team structure in a semi-agile like manner, where teams work on the clients business and can react quickly to take advantage of cultural, technical or media opportunities. 

Agencies are also building internal teams that will work with the larger team model that have autonomy to quickly work on a client’s business to take advantage of timeliness.

Integrated production models can follow through on either type of advertising model, taking advantage of near-time as well as working in “big idea” environments.

What makes for a great integrated producer?

• Being an integrated producer is very similar to being a creative project manager. In many agencies, the integrated producer is the project manager. 
• You have to have a deep set of skills in one or more area, digital, broadcast, product, etc.
• You have to be a good critical thinker who can realign teams on a heart beat.
• You have to live and breath, creativity, design and innovation.
• As a big agency hub, you have to fit into the culture seamlessly across all levels.
• Client-facing skills
• Find the best way to produce any given idea.

Integrated producers mean different things at different agencies and when they hire, they might be looking for different types of integrated producers to round out or fill in. Integrated Producers can live within an agency that has other internal processes as well, where interactive work is run with project management or with product / scrum methodologies.

Integrated Project Management Breakdown - Large Agency

Integrated Producer    Head of Technology    Project Manager

Client Kick-Off    Client Kick-Off    Client Kick-Off

Production Kick-Off    Production Kick-Off    Production Kick-Off

SOW Creation    SOW & Estimate Review    Estimate Creation

Production Methodologies    Technical Audit    Resource Allocation

Source Production Partners    Manage Development    Manage Schedule

Manage Partners    Manage Tech Partners    Project Execution

Production Review QA    Production Review QA    Production Review QA

Integrated Project Management Breakdown - Digital Agency

Integrated Producer    Tech & Creative Leads    Scrum Master

Client Kick-Off    Client Kick-Off    

Production Kick-Off    Production Kick-Off    Production Kick-Off

SOW / Estimate Creation    Story Points / SOW    Story Points / SOW

Production Methodologies    Technical Audit    Backlog

Source Production Partners    Manage Development    Manage Scrums

Manage Partners    Manage Tech Partners    Project Execution

Production Review QA    Production Review QA    Production Review QA

Integrated Project Management Breakdown - Team Based

Integrated Producer     Team

Client Kick-Off    Client Kick-Off

Production Kick-Off    Production Kick-Off

SOW / Estimate Creation    Story Points / SOW

Production Execution    Audits    

Manage Partners    Execution

Production Review & QA    Production Review & QA

Integrated Managers are tuned to managing cross-functional teams

Integrated producers act as project leaders of small groups of individuals that can cross both formal and informal functional departmental boundaries and levels of hierarchy. The teams are created by the integrated producer (who acts inconjunction with other producers to handle staffing resources) to commit to a common goal — typically formed for a project, program or by client for a finite amount of time; the team acts and works as one unit. They communicate frequently, cooperating and providing mutual support, coordinating activities, drawing upon and exploiting the skills and capabilities of each other, while considering the needs of individual members to meet the larger project goals.

Small cross-functional teams can have an advantage over other structures in an organization to accomplish a project than individuals acting alone or in a large, permanently structured hierarchy setting. The belief is that cross-functional teams, improve the quality of the outcome (by diversity of discipline) and become committed to see the project through to the end.

Cross-functional teams can be formed by producers in a number of ways.

• They can stretch across all project phases and include, strategy, business analysis, project management, designers, creatives, developers or technologists to name a few.
• They can work together as a unit full-time, meet once, or meet on a regular basis.
• Cross-functional teams can network together in smaller groups.
• Individuals in the team can bring in additional experts or network with the other specialists to bring back new learnings.
• They can be directed by a project (or team) manager, be self-organized or have facilitated delegation of tasks.

When teams work in groups that are multi-disciplined, they can bring together a wide range of knowledge, experience and problem solving skills to the table that enable projects to be tackled with multiple perspectives and thinking. The value of cross-functional teams is that there is a greater depth and understanding of a wider range of perspectives to look at a problem.

To build cross-functional teams, firms need to support them not only on the organization level, but support them through the stages of team formation so 

Integrated Managers are tuned to managing cross-functional teams

Integrated producers act as project leaders of small groups of individuals that can cross both formal and informal functional departmental boundaries and levels of hierarchy. The teams are created by the integrated producer (who acts inconjunction with other producers to handle staffing resources) to commit to a common goal — typically formed for a project, program or by client for a finite amount of time; the team acts and works as one unit. They communicate frequently, cooperating and providing mutual support, coordinating activities, drawing upon and exploiting the skills and capabilities of each other, while considering the needs of individual members to meet the larger project goals.

    Small cross-functional teams can have an advantage over other structures in an organization to accomplish a project than individuals acting alone or in a large, permanently structured hierarchy setting. The belief is that cross-functional teams, improve the quality of the outcome (by diversity of discipline) and become committed to see the project through to the end.

Cross-functional teams can be formed by producers in a number of ways.

They can stretch across all project phases and include, strategy, business analysis, project management, designers, creatives, developers or technologists to name a few.

They can work together as a unit full-time, meet once, or meet on a regular basis.

Cross-functional teams can network together in smaller groups.

Individuals in the team can bring in additional experts or network with the other specialists to bring back new learnings.

They can be directed by a project (or team) manager, be self-organized or have facilitated delegation of tasks.

When teams work in groups that are multi-disciplined, they can bring together a wide range of knowledge, experience and problem solving skills to the table that enable projects to be tackled with multiple perspectives and thinking. The value of cross-functional teams is that there is a greater depth and understanding of a wider range of perspectives to look at a problem.

    To build cross-functional teams, firms need to support them not only on the organization level, but support them through the stages of team formation so that they can become effective groups.

We build Cross-functional teams so,

They share a common vision, and are committed to achieving a common purpose.

They share leadership roles as well as responsibility for processes, project progress and outcomes.

They are both individually and mutually accountable to each other and to their collective performance.

They agree on a common way of working, establishing rules of engagement with each other in how they will contribute to the team’s efforts.

Every member displays respect, trust and openness to each other, and encourage open communication, exploring each others ideas and have an active problem-solving approach that is transparent between all team members.

They are dedicated to doing the best job they can at all levels.

They can assess their own collective progress and work and will help each other to complete the final outcome.

The firm supports them with systems, structures and frameworks that allow them to work in this fashion.

The idea of establishing cross-functional teams is simple, it is to create a flat-structured way of working that ignores hierarchical structures and constraints. 

As the firm grows, you look to build additional dedicated and ad-hoc teams to scale your organization, without having the baggage of creating lots of unnecessary levels of hierarchy. 

Working in cross-functional teams creates a peer environment, where members can share their knowledge to improve the overall level of decision-making. Teams are meant to increase efficiency, as they can come together quickly, work and complete projects, they are not limited to a particular set of skills or roles and can be redeployed as projects come to completion.

Because the team has shared goals, the team shares in working towards achieving those goals. 

Integrated project managers play an important role in cross-functional team structures as well. They can help establish goals and help the team set priorities, a backlog of tasks and manage project constraints. They act as the main provider of information and can help the team seek out unanswered questions, or unclear information. They can help the team through the formation process, and analyze, measure and report on individual abilities, training or skill issues. They can also participate in creative team problem solving or conflict resolution and contribute their own technical or functional experience with the team.

Additional Charts in Other Sections

Visit the workflow section or the interactive or strategy sections of the blog for additional workflow diagrams. Leave comments here if there are particular diagrams you may be interested in. – Ed