The senior project manager at an advertising agency thought his latest campaign was buttoned-up when the client requested a change to logos the day before content was scheduled to go live across an entire media buy.
The last-minute request sent the agency’s creative and legal departments scrambling to make the change and avoid a costly mishap. They pulled it off, but the experience left Smith and his team with an unforgettable takeaway: You cannot wait for challenges to appear, especially within the chaotic fluidity that often comes with working at an advertising agency.
“An experienced PM can see potential roadblocks before they stall a campaign,” Smith tells The Workback. (For instance, he notes that he’s become especially skillful at correctly identifying when legal will issue a red flag over an advertising claim.)
Smith, a PM at Canada’s largest digital advertising agency, has no choice but to remain nimble and responsive amidst the day-to-day chaos of agency life. Each week, Smith’s schedule entails fielding client requests, leading brand campaigns, creating scopes of work, tabling budgets, crafting workback schedules, overseeing quality assurance, and much more. It’s a lot, to say the least.
However hectic his work days may get, Smith doesn’t lose sight of his most important responsibility: Inspiring his team to hit their productive stride everyday, even when they face a curveball.
For Smith, seeing suspected slowdowns before they occur is just one ability he’s developed over the years as the nature of his work evolves.
First things first: Clarify your team’s priorities
Creating clarity is key for managers of managers and company leads, especially as one of the most common barriers to productivity is a lack of clarity around priorities. When teams are spread thinly relative to their number of goals, they might take on tasks that don’t align with the project’s strategic goals. It’s key to ensure those goals are clearly connected and prioritized.
“When everybody is constantly trying to juggle too many balls, that’s when some people are going to drop the ball,” says Bruce Tulgan, author of The Art of Being Indispensable at Work and founder of management consultancy firm RainmakerThinking. According to Tulgan, leadership communication is the first step to preempt that kind of collaborative chaos.
“Leaders have to ensure everyone’s priorities are clear,” Tulgan tells The Workback. “They have to provide marching orders that are applicable today, tomorrow, and next week. And they need to offer that guidance and direction right from the beginning. The thing is, most managers don’t do that.”
For insight on clarifying team priorities early, business leaders must have a clear and cohesive vision.
Create a collaborative culture to increase productivity
When a collaborative environment sours, it creates friction and destabilizes team cohesion. For business leaders, the case for working to preempt or undo a toxic work culture is crystal clear: A sizable body of research shows that a toxic culture negatively impacts productivity. According to an MIT Sloan Management Review report, it also has an enormous effect on employee attrition and turnover, with toxic cultures reportedly being the biggest factor driving the so-called Great Resignation.
Creating a collaborative culture, then, is paramount to promoting team productivity. What’s more, that collaboration must be intentional—not just time spent working together, but time spent working together with a purpose.
“Your time together should be spent securing resources, having active discussions, and removing roadblocks from your projects, not, ‘Here’s what I did and why,” Michael Gamber, Asana customer and director of technology at New York Cares, says.
Assemble a diverse team
Diversity fosters equality and a more well-rounded range of perspectives at work. It can also directly impact team productivity. According to a 2020 report from Gartner, inclusive teams perform up to 30% better in high-diversity environments.
Leaders may see the benefits manifest quickly when inclusionary efforts are folded into teams. Employee performance in diverse organizations is reportedly 12% higher than in those without inclusivity efforts. “We know there is a correlation between innovation and diversity,” notes Gartner Senior Director Analyst Daniel Sanchez Reina in a statement accompanying the report.
Design team workspaces with productivity in mind
The physical design of the spaces where your teams collaborate can lift creativity, foster focus, and lead to better productivity. Indeed, the cognitive benefits of a well-designed workspace can flow from unexpected places—like the ceiling, for instance.
“There’s a way that you can place yourself into certain environments that will allow for abstract thinking, creative thinking, and indeed expansive thinking to emerge,” says neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman in an episode of the podcast Huberman Lab, focused on designing focus-friendly workspaces.
Nurture worker-led social rituals
It’s tempting for leaders to instigate workplace outings or rituals to build stronger bonds between team members. But what can be more productive and empowering is handing the reins to employees, writes author Daniel Pink in When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.
He’s noticed that, before they practice, groups of rowers sing a song together. Of course, your team may not opt for that route, but allow them to create their own rituals that can help bring them together during off-hours, such as meeting a local café at 8 a.m. or going out monthly to compete in trivia nights.
“Organic rituals, not artificial ones, generate cohesion,” Pink writes. Such camaraderie can foster a culture of joy at work, which is linked to increased performance. Indeed, happy employees are 13% more productive, according to research from the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
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