November 11

The Pay Off of Participation

Phillip Oakley

With Veterans Day upon us, it’s important to recognize that our freedom couldn’t be accomplished without teamwork. At Common Giant, nothing is more important to us than teamwork and collaboration to express our creativity. These are the agents of change for us, the facilitators of growth and evolution within the walls of our office. Here we call it our “all hands on deck” approach to business, similar to how our military functions. In simple terms, everyone contributes to every campaign in some way, shape, or form. When we all team up on an assignment, we discover and implement ideas that may have gone unnoticed if we hadn’t. The same goes for our partners; we encourage different angles and perspectives so we can maximize our combined results. Exercising an “all hands on deck” approach allows us to do more than get the job done; here’s how:

We Gain Personal Experience – Every time we submit a proposal or a final product, we gain experience, even if it’s small. Every objective we help our partners meet instills new knowledge and insight into our being. As an agency, Common Giant grows but more importantly, all of us grow individually. The personal experience we gain not only helps us on future projects but also helps us individually in our personal development. Working with each other every step of the way also aids us in learning from one another.

 We Learn from Our Mistakes – Nobody’s perfect. If someone claims they are, they don’t work here because our ego-free environment doesn’t allow it. Mistakes are made from time to time and we collectively work to fix the issue at hand. Once resolved, we go over what happened and work diligently to prevent it from happening again. This also promotes our personal development and we learn more as we go.

We Become Closer as a Team – Teamwork is essential in our type of workspace and every time we accomplish our partners’ objectives we become closer. The closer we are, the faster and more efficient we are at getting the creative mojo flowing. Comparable to reading minds, we develop a knack for how others on the team would like things done. We can accurately predict the direction a project needs to go. The more opportunities we have to do this, the more creative we can get.

When we all participate, we all benefit. We synchronize our efforts to create tailored work and when we do, we deliver. Participation is the key. We sit down together and think about the course of action that is going to make the most noise for our partners. Once we have examined every avenue, we run with the idea that supports the most teamwork. This way, we know progression is imminent. Would an “all hands on deck” model be beneficial for you? Give it a shot; you might be surprised by the results.