Supporting a Creative Team
DATE: DECEMBER 11TH 2023
TIME: 5 MINUTE READ
SUBJECT: CULTURE
We gave a talk recently where we sat down in front of fifty or so of our peers in the local industry. It was an incredible experience, if we’re being honest. We were able to be fully vulnerable and open about some of the perspectives we choose to take with our business, some of which are definitely a little “out of the box” (but in our opinion shouldn’t be).
It was such a great conversation that we thought that we would try our very best to share similar information here on the blog. Obviously, nothing replicates an in-person conversation, but our hope is that other business owners or designers (or humans in general) will read this and be inspired by even one of the points that we make.
The greatest challenge of modern business owners, in our opinion, is the choice between people and profit. We were bred as capitalists, we are more educated in marketing than ever before, we are armed with new technologies every single day and have access to every single ounce of information at our fingertips.
It’s the perfect storm for unethical choices and a race to see who can do it better, faster, and for less money. But that’s not everyone’s choice, and it certainly isn’t ours. There is a growing base and movement of amazing, people-first, heart-centered business owners that are choosing people over profit every single day. So, that’s to say, we aren’t special. At Maker + Made, we’ve just decided that, while we love money (and definitely profit), we love our employees and our lives so SO much more.
Honestly, it had to be like that! Brittany and I are best friends, after all. From the very beginning (like at 2am on a phone call about how we were finally going to do it) we decided that if ever one of us wasn’t happy that we would drop everything, sell the business, and keep our friendship intact. It’s our relationship that matters most to us and we were never, and still aren’t ever, going to allow ourselves to put the business or profit before our friendship.
THE CONCEPT OF FRIENDSHIP-FIRST WAS REALLY OUR FOUNDING PRINCIPLE.
At the time, we didn’t have employees — it was just us (: We never deemed it “people first” or “relationship-based”, but that’s really what we meant and we just didn’t know it quite yet. What do we mean when we say “people first” or “relationship-first” when talking about a team environment? Here’s a list of some of the things we brainstormed:
We know intimate details about each other in and outside of the office. In fact, we would consider each person on our team as a friend, and we treat each other as such.
We always listen to one another, whether that’s listening to active words or things left unsaid. We are always doing our best to use our empathy to anticipate each other’s needs, and when we can’t, we always make sure to just ask.
We focus on holistic wellbeing, not just mental, not just physical, but taking into account every aspect of a person and their environment and circumstance. We encourage each other to take time off, to enjoy life, and to listen to our bodies.
We focus on the positive and lifting each other up, making sure that everyone around us feels seen and celebrated
We promised that when it stops being fun we pivot.
^^^All of that up there is what Brittany and my friendship looked like, really. To us, the business was a direct representation of that friendship and we were unwilling to sacrifice any of our personal values.
The only thing we had left to do at our founding was to figure out how the heck we were going to go about marketing ourselves to get clients. We talked strategy, we researched other agency launches, and we realized that none of it really felt a whole lot like us. So, we just decided that we’d show up as us — crazy, we know.
But we think it actually might have been crazy for the time?? We don’t know. All we know is that it worked! We exposed everything — not just our services but information about how we did it, blogs about business strategy and marketing, information about our lives, our culture, our people, the fun things we do all day, all of it. We gave it all away during meetings and let our real emotions show our clients how genuinely excited we were to work with them and how much we truly value their relationship.
RADICAL AUTHENTICITY, RADICAL TRANSPARENCY.
We chose and still choose to show up as we are with no apologies, certain that all of the people out there worth knowing will see us for who we are — an office full of silly-goofy-badass-loving-kind humans who are doing their best, just like everyone else. And there are always going to be people (everywhere in life) that don’t get it. Wanna know what we do? We let them! It’s okay to not be everyone’s favorite flavor.
LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE
And with that belief in tow, we let it drive and define who we work with, who we work for, and how we market ourselves online and beyond. We’ve managed to build an incredible team of like-minded and talented individuals and we have the pleasure of close relationships with clients who have supported and worked with us for our entire history. We get to work with new clients “just like us” all the time, and it’s genuinely (selfishly) the best feeling knowing that you’re able to help a business create the same atmosphere that you’ve strived to create for yourself.
Beyond relationships and authenticity, our team has formed their own culture over the years. Through uncomfortable situations, pivoting, communicating, team wins, and better ways we’ve worked together to form the environment we work inside of each day. We’ve covered so much of it above, but here goes what’s left ——
NO FEAR MENTALITY.
Uneasiness, burnout, disagreements and the like are a normal part of life (and the workplace) and they’re going to happen. We’re not saying that it’s a conflict-free environment, but we are saying that it’s a fear-free environment. When it comes to not knowing the answer, feeling uneasy about learning something new, disagreeing about a concept, or having to have a hard conversation, we all feel confident that we can come to one another and find a solution, no matter the problem. We create a safe environment for one another to be able to truly show up as ourselves each day, fear-free and ready to party.
WE TREAT HUMANS LIKE HUMANS, NOT EMPLOYEES.
Remember friendship-first? This is the grown up version of that very same idea. It goes further to include thinking about things like celebrating birthdays and anniversaries together, reminding each other of our worth each day, never letting anyone talk badly about themselves, and even little thoughtful things like giving gas cards to teammates that go to off-site shoots or having everyone’s favorite drinks pre-stocked in the fridge.
Humans need to be seen and celebrated to be happy. It’s true for me and it’s true for you, so that’s what we try and focus on each day. Of course we have days where we fall short, everyone does. But that’s the beauty of it all, because when I’m having a hard day, there is literally no place I would rather be than at the office — it’s our happy place.
You might have noticed something — we didn’t talk about work.
THE WORK SHOULD BE IRRELEVANT.
That’s our hot take. But what we mean is that if you took away all of our team’s amazing projects, clients, vendors, all of it, what would we have left? So fucking much. And that’s the point <3
If you like an ending that wraps everything up real neat-like, here you go:
Be generous. Be real. Don’t be an asshole (on purpose). Have a good time. Give a shit.
Xoxo,
Millie, Brittany, and Maker + Made
P.S. — If you made it to the end of this it probably means that you’re really into the concepts we just talked about. It also might mean that you like to read books about being a better leader, human, and friend. Here’s everything that’s in our library at Maker + Made, take a peek and let us know if there’s anything else you would add!
