Moving + Staying Still.

NOTE: This piece is part of an ongoing newsletter series about a bold new position I'm piloting at Eleven, an advertising agency headquartered in San Francisco. The "Creative Entrepreneur in Residence" is a role that focuses on inclusion, belonging and corporate social responsibility. You can read the job description itself and subscribe to the newsletter here .

I’ve been quiet these last few weeks on the newsletter front. For a very good reason.

I moved.

Lord have mercy. Moving is the most disruptive, exhausting, zen-busting experience. And I mean quite literally the MOST. A recent survey of Americans found that the most stressful event in life is moving, followed by going through a break-up or divorce and getting married.

It got me to thinking how corporate America seems blissfully ignorant to supporting employees through this particular life transition. I had planned to do the move on a Friday and return to work at Eleven the following Tuesday. Yet as the day crept closer and I was buried in boxes and bubble-wrap, I realized I was walking in circles, high on Sharpie fumes.

And then it hit me: you can ask for help. I called Courtney (Eleven’s CEO) and asked for not one, not two, but three weeks off.

Physician, heal thyself

Here’s the thing: I’ve been the Chicken Little clanging the alarm about stress and burnout and mental health, both at Eleven and here with you, dear reader. Yet even I had to get to a point of full headless chicken before I raised my hand and asked for help.

Factor in that more people are moving and changing jobs than at any time in recent history and I think we need a public service campaign, sloganed?MOVING! It’s Immobilizing! Bad copy, but you get the drift. And we need some good HR policies to give people the breathing room they need and reward people for recognizing their own breaking point before they reach it.

Oddly enough, just before my time off, I was working on the exact opposite business issue: getting people to speak up when they wanted time not away, but time together. I wrote in a previous newsletter about how we’re all living through hybrid models and shifting timelines of offices opening or not. What became clear at Eleven was that people were craving face time with others and seeing the value to creative collaboration, yet not having a sense of permission around acting upon it. Is it okay? Can I buy this plane ticket? Will it seem frivolous?

So I did what any other creative does when facing a challenge: I wrote a creative brief. I’m sharing it here because I suspect many other companies are in this weird in-between place and might benefit from ideating around this brief for their own internal campaigns, communicating this next phrase of togetherness.

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Creative Brief

Assignment

Project description. What are we creating? Have we done this before?

We are creating an awareness campaign and rally cry to normalize travel and face-to-face meetings. We’ve never done this before because it’s never been necessary.

Assignment

What is the business challenge? What are the business KPIs we’re being measured against?

The business challenge is figuring out how to navigate remote work after a prolonged period of lockdown and distancing. Key KPIs will be employee happiness, connectedness and retention.

Background

What’s the big picture? What information would help shape the approach of creative? Prior learnings?

This is the ultimate big picture brief. As in, it’s never ever HAD to be done before. Eleveneers, like everyone else globally, are slowly emerging from a 2-year period of lockdown, isolation, stress and health worries.

While each person figured out their own way to work remotely, they have grown accustomed to “seeing” their co-workers in small squares on Google Meet. Some employees have never visited the SF headquarters, nor met any other Eleveneers in person.

While this was the safest course of action for very real health considerations, those risks are diminishing quickly as employees are vaccinated, boosted, and as mask mandates ease or end entirely. Additionally, air travel is considered safe and business travel is slowly resuming.

It is in this time of transition that employees are likely unsure how they’re expected to act. They may assume that WFH will continue indefinitely. And that traveling to meet with co-workers (or clients) is not expected, endorsed or fiscally responsible.

Yet the few early face-to-face meetings of Eleveneers has revealed the opposite to be true: that the agency cannot afford NOT to have people bonding, collaborating and building trust together.

Leadership must convey this in an emphatic, memorable and positive way – to give “permission” to people to start gathering again.

Target Audience

Who are we speaking to?

Every single employee of Eleven.

Why/How have they been selected as the target for this campaign?

Because a collective cry requires the collective!

Communication goals

What are we trying to communicate to our target audience? What do we want to make them think/feel/do? What is our goal (i.e. general awareness, changing behaviour, showing value?)

We want to honor Eleveneers’ longing for togetherness, help them feel empowered to make plans to gather IRL, and to connect the concept of being together with being creative.

Key Message + Reason(s) to Believe

What do we need to communicate to them? What do we do/o?er/provide that would make someone believe our message?

It’s time to come together again. Meeting in real life with other Eleveneers is good business and good humaning.

CTA

What is the key call to action? What do we want them to do?

Make a plan to see your teammates.

Considerations/Mandatories

Anything to consider?

Show sensitivity for the economic reality of taking on new travel, lodging costs when the agency has been upfront about certain financial realities. Make it clear this is something we are planning for financially because it’s of such value.

Deliverables

List anything that feels necessary without limiting the range of thinking

A rally cry statement or shareable visual asset that gives people permission to get together and excited to do so.

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“For Now”

A phrase I’m loving these days are two simple words that can be added to almost any sentence: “for now.”

Leadership is so accustomed to speaking in certainties. Yet the world is in a perpetual trial mode right now. Everyone’s figuring out what works, what doesn’t, and factoring in shifting virus variant realities. False certainty isn’t leadership -- it’s misleading. Far better to amend your thoughts with “for now” and let people know that you’ll be evaluating how things go, soliciting feedback, and reporting back.

What I love about this time is that it requires over-communication. All the promises of tech tools to help us zip through tasks without having to talk to one another? That’s great for linear, repetitive things in more predictible business times. But what we are living through right now, folx, is resistant to simple algorithms. We need to talk to each other, regularly, and keep asking “how is this working for you? What could make it better?”

Courtney and I are co-delivering a keynote on Wednesday at the 4A’s Talent2030 conference . After we ironed out our talking points about our session Vision Meets Bravery: Now is The Moment for Bold Talent Transformation, Courtney had an insight that was spot on. Instead of us presenting together from the Eleven offices, as we had planned, we’re going to do it from separate locations (one at home, one at the office), modeling the very realities we’re talking about.

So much of the goodness at Eleven is happening in these side conversations and Slack exchanges. All of the commentary on business realities IS the central narrative. Until we can find our way forward in this new workplace terrain, we’re working with one foot in the old world and one in the new. Not exactly a sturdy posture for growth. But we’ll get to more sure-footedness once we navigate through so much not-knowing with a spirit of curiosity and goodwill.

This New York Times article , which Courtney emailed me last Friday, once again builds the case for the 4-day workweek. I emailed him back the following:

Oh, yes. The 4-day workweek is slowly becoming a palatable notion.

This line jumped out at me: “The most impressive, most professional person is not the one who needs 80 hours a week to finish the job,” he said. “It’s the person who can finish it in 30 hours.”

It reminds me of when I started freelancing. I quickly realized that getting paid by the hour advantaged the more junior writers who needed multiple rounds to get things right. I started billing by the project because I typically worked quickly and sold work in on the first round.

There's something in this time/value equation that feels like the answer to the devaluation of agency services. If we start to blow the whistle on the notion that longer workweeks mean more dedicated productive teams, then it follows that clients see that the value they receive isn't tied to hours clocked in an agency war room.

Women’s History Month

Last month, in honor of Black History Month, Eleven organized a series of educational viewing/discussing opportunities plus a gift card to spend at a local Black-owned bookstore or other Black-owned business you could share on their growing list. I was grateful to have these gatherings organized in advance and added to my calendar.

I was honored when Eleven asked me to select videos from hundreds captured during 28 3% Conferences over 10 years to generate conversation around Women’s History Month. I ended up choosing four videos that address key issues important to women's equality, including sexual harassment, motherhood, freedom of emotional expression, body policing and pay equity.

What is your agency doing to celebrate Women’s History Month? I'm a big believer in planning ahead for things that matter. But this year –?for so many reasons –?has made it hard to think at all, yet alone think ahead. Doing something is better than doing nothing. Feel free to use the Women’s History Month Video Playlist to host your own watch/discuss gatherings.

That’s it for now. Eleven has some big news on their leadership front and I’m excited to share my take on that journey. Stay tuned…

Until next time, remember that culture is the new creativity.