How We Work

There are only two kinds of people.

There’s the kind of person who adds energy and there’s the kind who takes it away. Every interaction, every piece of feedback, every email, every phone call is an opportunity to add energy. We treasure, protect and support the first kind of person. We cannot abide the second. Add energy everywhere.

Do the job. Not the assignment.

The assignment is what they asked for. The job is what needs to be done. Doing the assignment meets the expectation, doing the job exceeds it. This is how agencies continually surprise and serve clients. This is how we measure our performance.

The insight is everyone’s responsibility.

We’re all planners until we have the insight. It won’t just come from a department or a bit of research. And the insight never shows up the same way twice. Because it unlocks everything we do, everyone helps search for it until it has been found.

Everyone works.

Everyone creates, every day, regardless of title. CD doesn’t mean ‘curation director’. No one gets to simply ‘shop’ through the thinking of others. We don’t compete with our own teams, but we will create with them and in support of them.

Find the “yes”.

The world has a surplus of “no”. Your ability to look past the limits, the objections, and even common sense to deliver something that pushes the work and the agency forward is where your real value lies.

Never worry alone.

When the going gets tough, the only mistake you can make is keeping the problem to yourself. When you tell us, you are no longer on the hook for it. We’ll surround you with smart people who will help you get to a solution. If you find yourself surrounded by fools, then we’ll surround you.

Judo. Not Karate.

The saddest thing in the world is the creative who only has one idea and then fights to the death to see it through. Listen to the critique, figure out what the real problem is, empathize with your client, and then come up with 10 new ideas.

“NewMission”

Two words we use when everything just totally changes. How we handle that moment in work and life is critical. It defines you. So don’t resist it. Measure yourself by how well you adapt to the new state of thinking and acting. We once saw a piece of graffiti that read, “Fuck the past. Make love to the present.” We live by those words and they’ve never let us down.