In business, flow matters. When your team, ideas, and goals are in sync, it’s easy to build momentum. When all of those things are performing their own solos or playing in different time signatures, your organization is at risk of becoming discordant and all over the map. That might work for avant-garde jazz, but it’s not great where profit margins and growth forecasts are involved.
Here’s how to conduct your business like a maestro – and get everyone tapping their toes.
Get Management and Creative Keeping Time
Too often management and creative are off doing their own thing, and only check in with each other when results come in or projects need to be costed. Running your business this way is like putting your brass and string sections in different rooms and hoping the end result will sound good.
You can encourage your creative and management teams to keep the beat by creating an environment that breaks down silos and encourages regular communication and cross-functional working. Set them in the same space, encourage collaboration, set creativity-led goals, and make sure that check-ins happen regularly – not just when everyone is scrambling to keep up. Once management and creative get into the swing of it, you’ll start seeing results.
Try:
- Creating and sharing key timelines
- Leveraging chat and project management technology
- Identifying deadlines for deliverables and working back to make sure people know what they owe, and when
- Encouraging feedback from all voices
Strategize to the Beat of Your Own Drum
If you want to keep it all together, you’ve got to keep the beat. But by that, we mean your beat, not someone else’s. When you’re building your business plan, establishing a strategy, setting goals, or measuring goals, stick to the cadence that works for your team, processes, and timeline. Trying to force a different pace will mess with your rhythm, flow, and harmony. Don’t be afraid to experiment or mix things up, but once you’ve settled into a beat that works for you, hammer it home.
Try:
- Blocking out time for creative work
- Broadening success metrics beyond productivity
- Exploring new frameworks and processes
- Adjusting your timelines and deadlines
- Creating an annual calendar with visualizations for key events, meetings, goals or projects
Don’t Be Afraid to Let the Beat Drop
You’ve heard it in a bunch of songs – that massive build-up that suddenly drops out into nothingness. Crowds go wild for it, and for a reason. Humans love rhythm and routine, but we’re not machines. We like to mix things up, and we need downtime, quiet time, and time to refresh and renew. This is true for work as well. Plan for quiet times during the day, across projects, or even throughout the year. Pauses, breaks, and quieter periods give your team and your business the chance to develop new skills, refill their creative wells, or pivot into bigger and better opportunities. Rather than pushing on through like a metronome, let the beat drop every now and then and see what happens.
Try:
- Encouraging “flex” working during the day
- Scheduling team-building activities and events
- Incorporating wellness into the workplace
- Supporting PD and skills development
- Encouraging employees to come to you with ideas
Get Insight from the People with Perfect Pitch
If your employees are struggling to find their rhythm or your business isn’t keeping time with the best of them, talk to the jazz cats at StellaPop. We specialize in bringing creative, management, and strategy together in a way that’s bold, creative, and seamless. Give us a call, and we’ll get your business’ beat back on track.
See Also:
Why Your Business Needs to Balance Its Creative and Management Brains
Perfect Brand Sound: Start a Surround Sound Content Marketing Strategy
