August 24, 2015
The overused and somewhat cliché phrase “doing more with less” has never been truer. Clients are demanding quality output in a lot less time and at a much lower cost than ever before. As an in-house agency, this means balancing who you say “yes” to and who you avoid in the lunchroom. With proper …
August 17, 2015
Raytheon’s in-house creative-services team, Advanced Media, consists of over 120 design professionals working from several different cities across the United States. We’re involved in the company’s proposal efforts, marketing campaigns, facility branding, employee and customer meetings, and …
August 10, 2015
When we were younger, team building happened all the time—without us even realizing it. As children, we learned how to get along in the sandbox, to share and play nicely with other kids. I’m reminded of an old folktale: The Four Harmonious Friends—Bird plants a seed; Rabbit waters it; Monkey …
April 27, 2015
Every spring the IHAF team hits the road to host one of our most popular annual events—the IHAF Huddle traveling discussion group series. This year, we’re adding another stop to our upcoming travel calendar, the ANA Financial Management Conference in Phoenix, AZ on April 26-29th.
This four-day …
April 21, 2015
One of the keys to leading a successful organization is recruiting and nurturing new leaders within your agency. Finding and cultivating people who could give us “more legs on the stool” became one of the most gratifying achievements for my core group of senior leaders and for me personally.
In …
April 13, 2015
Every organization has a culture built on its behaviors, habits, values and, most importantly, the collective energy of the people that comprise it. In my experience, strong culture is foundationally rooted in the ability to attract and retain the right people with the right energy, the right sense …
April 06, 2015
On paper, leading a strong in-house team is easy. All you have to do is: 1) hire the right people, 2) establish processes that enable them to work efficiently and productively, and 3) keep everyone (your team and your clients) happy. Unfortunately, doing all three is difficult.
What’s more, even …
March 30, 2015
The IHAF Huddle is right around the corner with this year’s focus on internal/external agency collaboration. Agencies inside and out are invited to attend one (or all) of our six spring sessions in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, NYC, Richmond and San Francisco, where internal/external agency duos will …
March 23, 2015
Not long ago, I joined other members of our agency’s leadership team to celebrate the 30th work anniversary of one of our tenured art directors. We talked over lunch about how her career had evolved—from a call center position straight out of school to the agency’s secretarial staff and ultimately …
March 16, 2015
I was once interviewed by a Japanese magazine on the topic of managing creative personalities. Apparently the personal, emotional side of assessing unique personality traits, beyond the basics like trust and tangible skills, was a foreign concept in their business culture.
For me, it’s the first …