The ground rules: Empathy for colleagues, clients and #$%@&
Prue is a Design and Creative Director at Fjord Melbourne and their local inclusion and diversity lead. She’s also a member of the board for the Australian Graphic Design Association. But really, she’s a kick-ass woman who captivates a client, a crowd, a conference, whenever she talks and wherever she goes.
Words by Prue Jones
Relationships at work can cause joy but also unimaginable stress. When things go wrong, uncommunicative leadership, absent managers, lack of understanding, project mismanagement and unclear objectives can all be culprits. But speak to any agency or supplier and they’ll be sure to point at least one finger – perhaps the middle one – at their clients.
But that’s essentially a cop out and removes agency from those who service them. Unreasonable demands and unrealistic expectations cause stress and strife in relationships of all kinds. Whether they’re business or personal, the ability to put yourself in the shoes of others is vital.
In other words, empathy is crucial to the health and longevity of the bonds we share with others.
But setting some ground rules, areas of expertise and some principles around basic human decency can help. When you’re working on a project where 80% of your time is spent shoulder to shoulder with a client, consciously and clearly setting a baseline level of empathy and respect (even writing that feels weird, should these things have to be negotiated?) can mitigate so many potentially awkward or upsetting situations.
And it invites empathy’s cousin, authenticity, along for the ride, who always makes things more enjoyable.
But empathy isn’t just for client-facing situations, it should be right at home inside your organisation and embedded into every interaction, process or policy.
Recently I was a guest on the excellent ‘Asking for a Friend’ series hosted by Andy Wright of Never not Creative. The format allows creatives to anonymously submit questions to be answered in turn by an industry professional and a psychologist.
I was utterly horrified when this question came in,
“I’ve worked every weekend for the last 6 weeks… as well as some pretty late nights. It was fun at first but now I’m tired, pissed off and starting to feel very fckin unloved. How do I bring this up… and who should I bring it up with?”
While the entire premise of the question was concerning (what corner of hell is this workplace located in?) the thing that struck me was the latter part of the question. Not only were the terms of the project/engagement/job fuzzy enough around the edges for transgressions on personal time and energy it to occur (which incidentally impacts the quality of the creative outcome), the questioner had no idea who to turn to for support or to escalate his or her resentment. Not only is burning out with no end in sight and no one who has your back to turn a recipe for feeling “very fckin unloved”, implicit in the question is,
“What exactly do I have to do to get some recognition and support around here?” What indeed.
I find it unbelievable that any business could retain staff for too long under such circumstances. However, it’s situations like this that clearly illustrate how our industry is often the perfect petri dish to culture the rates of mental illness that proliferate across all of its disciplines and workplaces. Too many passionate creatives giving their all and feeling powerless to shape their own terms of engagement or enforce reasonable boundaries.
Fortunately, it’s not usually brought about by unvarnished selfishness, cruelty or outright sadism, more often than not it’s down to simple cluelessness of higher ups.
The key to all of this is clarity. Almost every negative situation that arises between people, employer/employee, client/agency, lead/team, peer/peer is down to unclear or changing expectations. One of the ways to avoid a lot of issues is to head them off before they even start. This can be done at all interpersonal junctions, starting with properly negotiated and understood terms (the phrase ‘standard working hours plus “reasonable overtime”’ occurs in way too many employment contracts in this industry – and ‘reasonable overtime’ clearly means different things to different people). The best way to do this at a project level is with a social contract.
Like most design firms who specialise in mobilising teams for clients or consult to them, we start every project with a social contract. These can also be known as project charters, or some other name proprietary to the organisation. Essentially, they set out the terms of engagement for everyone working on the team. We like to craft them, print them out (large, obviously) and stick them up on a wall in the shared project space so that all team members understand very clearly what is expected of them day to day.
Social contracts cover everything from standard working hours and mandated working arrangements (time spent client side versus time back in the studio) and agreed rituals (such as team breakfasts) to the channels through which people communicate project information and sometimes contract terms specific and bespoke to individual team members and client requirements.
All team members (and sometimes clients, especially client product owners) are expected to agree and then sign the contract to demonstrate that everyone is clear on expectations. It’s hard for anyone to be surprised when they are asked to comply with the contract terms and drawing the boundaries in such clear and visible terms manages stakeholder expectations around how Fjord will interact with their teams in a way that minimises potential ripples.
Projects can be stressful enough without knowing where you and the team stand. Getting basic agreement on how to proceed before you even start simply sets you up for success.
Behind the curtain there will also be agreement between team leads and team members that reflects time in lieu policies within the broader company. Leads watch for team members who are putting in too many hours and ensure everyone receives timely praise and feedback for the contribution they’re making. The cadence of personal check-ins and progressive ‘retros’ to identify how things are going and how they can be improved can also make it onto the social contract.
So back to our questioner. How many of those negative feelings could have been easily averted before they surfaced? How much better could the outcome for everyone have been (including the creative outcome) if the broader organisation had enough time to show empathy in situations that might not ever eventuate, but in case they do, there’s a contingency?
All it takes is the foresight to show a little fckin love.
