How do you guide a team with different ideas and skills toward one common goal, without losing their unique strengths?
Eddy: Farin, Jonathan, and Neha, please feel free to share your thoughts at any time. To start our discussion, I'd like to know: based on your experiences, how do you lead a team with diverse ideas and abilities toward a shared goal while still valuing each person's unique talents?
Jonathan: I like how this question was asked because it points out two important things. First, you need a team with different skills and strengths to succeed, especially in marketing. Second, as a leader, you need to know your own strengths and weaknesses so you can build a team that complements you.
For example, I'm good at coming up with big ideas, but I need help turning those ideas into actual projects and tasks. Knowing this about myself helps me find the right people for my team.
The goal is to encourage teamwork without making everyone the same. We want people with different abilities, not a team where everyone has the same skills.
It's also important to put people in the right roles. Some team members are like rock stars - they need challenges and opportunities to grow quickly. Others are more like a solid rock - they provide stability for the team. People can switch between these roles during their career.
As a leader, it's crucial to understand where each team member is in their career and what they need. This way, you can help everyone use their strengths and grow, while working together towards a common goal.
As a leader, it's crucial to understand where each team member is in their career. To do this effectively, I like to have three types of conversations with my team members about the life conversation. This is where we talk about their life story and the choices they've made. It helps me understand their background and motivations.
Second, is about the dreams conversation. Here, I ask them to describe what they want their career to look like at its peak. This gives me insight into their long-term goals and aspirations.
Third is the 18-month plan conversation. In this discussion, we look at the near future and plan steps they can take towards achieving their dreams.
When you combine these conversations with a clear, inspiring shared vision and a mix of directive and supportive leadership, you can achieve great things with a diverse team. This approach helps bring out the best in people with different skills and backgrounds.
Neha: This is a common situation, especially in marketing with young teams. There are many great ideas and contributions. As a manager, you don't want to suppress their creativity or opinions.
It's challenging to find the right balance. You need to guide the team while making everyone feel included and heard. When team members feel ownership, it leads to better results.
I've managed growth teams at companies like ClassPass, GuavaPass, and Deliveroo. We often had remote teams, which made it important to include people from different regions in our big campaigns.
We used a simple but effective method. We put all our ideas in a spreadsheet called our "experiment register." We ranked the ideas from 1 to 10 based on how good they were.
This approach removes emotion from the process. We look at feasibility and impact, and everyone reviews all the ideas. We then get people involved in the decision-making.
We chart out the ideas and choose which experiments to run for the month. We pick the ones that are easy to do and likely to have a big impact. This helps us meet our targets.
I've used this method for many different projects. Taking emotion out of marketing decisions can be good. Sometimes people get attached to their ideas without thinking them through properly.
It's helpful to step back and look at things objectively. You might realize that someone else's idea is actually really good. Maybe you can even add to it and make it even better. This is how great teams work together. I hope this approach is useful for everyone here.
Farin: I agree about removing emotion from decision-making. We often get too attached to our own ideas. As a leader, your opinion can have a big impact. I've seen situations where team members are afraid to speak up against the boss's idea, thinking it must be the best one.
If you're the leader, it's important to step back sometimes. You might feel pressure to always have the answers and drive everything forward. But it can be better to hold back and not contribute right away.
When you do this, you give your team a chance to find their own way. It helps them understand their roles and what they bring to the table. This creates an environment where people feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts. It's one way we encourage open communication in our team.
Jonathan: I really like the points you both made. One of the biggest lessons I've learned is that I need to talk less.
Being in a leadership position doesn't mean I have all the answers. Instead, I need to ask more questions. I should make my team feel safe enough to disagree with me and have healthy debates. This helps us make better decisions by considering different viewpoints.
This was a big realization when I first became a leader. I found that my team does better when I speak less and ask them more questions.
Neha: I've experienced this too. When I was at Deliveroo, we usually did simple discount campaigns. But one day, a team member suggested a seafood promotion. I wasn't sure about it and asked if we had any data to support the idea. They said no, but wanted to try it anyway because we had great seafood merchants.
It turned out to be our best campaign ever. My team member would come to me often, saying we'd already met our revenue targets and smashed our KPIs just two weeks into the quarter.
This experience taught me to encourage my team to prove me wrong. I now try to create an environment where people feel comfortable sharing ideas, even if they're different from what we usually do.
I also make it clear that I don't know everything just because I'm older. I tell my team, "You probably know better than me. Tell me how you think we should do this, and then we'll make sure it works for our audience."
How can we encourage our team members to keep sharing new and bold ideas, even if some ideas don't work out?
Eddy: We've talked about removing emotions from decision-making and encouraging team members to share ideas. But what happens if someone's idea fails? How do we make sure our team members stay confident and keep bringing us new, bold ideas?
How can we handle situations where ideas don't work out, so that our team members feel safe to keep sharing their thoughts?
Farin: I think new managers often struggle with rejecting ideas. They don't want to be the "bad guy" or disappoint their team. Everyone might be excited about an idea, and the manager doesn't want to crush that enthusiasm.
But as a leader, you need to use your experience to spot which ideas might work. You have to make tough decisions based on what you know.
Sometimes, there's a risk an idea might fail, but you decide to try it anyway because you think it has a good chance of success. You need to be able to make these judgment calls.
It's about finding a balance. You want people to feel their ideas are valued, but you also need to explain why some ideas might not work. The key is to help your team understand your reasoning.
Neha: I'd like to add to that. As leaders, we need to act like watchdogs. It's our job to spot potential problems and ask important questions. This helps our team think about backup plans.
We should ask things like: Could this cause any PR problems? Might we have trouble delivering on this? Is the customer's experience smooth? It's crucial to have a checklist of these questions. This way, we can support our teams by making sure we've thought everything through.
We need to make sure the good points of an idea outweigh any downsides before we all agree on it. This careful checking is a key part of our job as leaders, no matter what kind of team we're managing.
Jonathan: Let me add something. Ideas are great, but as leaders, we need to connect them to goals. These can be personal, team, or company goals.
Setting good goals is really important. It helps make ideas more realistic. I think a good goal should be exciting for the person working on it.
The goal should make them feel good because it's about something they like. It should also be important for the company. We should ask: Does it help with our main targets? Lastly, the goal should be a bit scary. If it's too easy, it's not challenging enough.
I believe real growth happens when you set a goal and you're not sure how to reach it at first. You have to come up with ideas and figure things out as you go. That's where the real learning and improvement happens.
What’s your go-to move for building a work environment where creativity thrives and fresh ideas flow?
Eddy: Leaders need to connect ideas to important goals. This brings us to our next question: What's your best method for creating a workplace where creativity and new ideas can grow?
You mentioned linking ideas to goals, which is like having a structure for trying ideas. I'm curious, besides connecting ideas to goals, are there other ways to build an environment that supports creativity?
Jonathan: I know this might sound like advice from a TikTok life coach, but I'll say it anyway. I believe psychological safety is crucial for people to share new ideas without fear of judgment.
Psychological safety comes from trust. Without trust, people won't engage in discussions or commit to decisions. We need to make decisions as a team and stick to them. We also need to hold each other accountable.
Everyone in the team, including me, needs to trust that we all value high standards and work hard to meet them.
To make this practical, I'll share two easy ways to build psychological safety. The first is having structured one-on-one meetings.
By structured, I mean understanding that different one-on-one meetings serve different purposes. For example, your first meeting with someone will be different from your weekly catch-ups. Weekly meetings might focus more on day-to-day work and support.
Monthly one-on-one meetings often focus on reflecting and discussing long-term goals. These structured meetings are incredibly valuable. However, we often see them as time-consuming and taking up too much of our week.
While they do take time, as leaders, we need to recognize that the 30 minutes we spend with someone is crucial. It helps them feel safe with you and within the team. Another great tool is personal user manuals.
I haven't seen these in many companies, but they're very useful. A personal user manual is a document you keep updated with information about yourself. It answers questions like: Who are your best work partners? What do you need to do great work? How do you prefer to receive feedback? How do you react to stress?
In our company, it's required for everyone to create their own user manual and read others' manuals. This helps people understand each other better and reduces friction between team members. It makes everything work more smoothly.
These two simple tools - structured one-on-ones and personal user manuals - help build psychological safety. This, in turn, encourages creativity and helps ideas flow more freely in the team.
Farin: We believe it's important to keep our teams inspired, so we often take them out of the office. This helps them stay fresh and creative.
Sometimes, we work from a beach bar on Fridays. Team members can work by the pool, which gives them a change from the usual office setting.
This isn't just working from home. It gives people a new perspective and helps them escape their daily stresses. We've even done creative workshops in Bali for a week or weekend.
Getting out of the everyday office environment really helps refresh our team. We also encourage them to attend festivals.
As marketers and leaders, it's important to experience new things. You can find a lot online, but it's different when you experience it firsthand.
Being out in the sun, seeing new trends, and letting the team experience things for themselves helps inspire creativity and encourages new ideas.
We can tell when someone's feeling uninspired. They might be working late nights or dealing with a difficult client or project. As leaders, it's important to notice this and talk to them. Having a one-on-one chat or even just lunch together can help us connect and understand what's going on.
If you're managing a company with resources, you might set aside some money for more senior team members.
This could be for something like attending the Cannes Lions festival. It gives them a goal to work towards.
But there are many ways to inspire the team. It could be a trip to Bali, France, or a design event in Tokyo. Even a weekend in a Singapore villa can help. The key is to talk with your team and understand what motivates them.
Neha: I'd like to add to what Jonathan and Brian said. From my experience working with different young teams, the key is to be human first.
Some team members value the flexibility to pick up their kids from preschool. Others prefer to work independently and might send you an excellent presentation at 3 AM. It's about adapting to each person's work style. Trust your team to do their best work - that's why you hired them.
This approach has helped me lead high-performing teams. I've found that having open talks about what motivates people in their work and personal lives is very helpful. It's similar to the personal manual Jonathan mentioned, but it focuses more on understanding each person's motivations. As a leader, you should adjust your management style to fit each team member, because everyone is different and works in their own way. The important thing is to really understand each person on your team.
Jonathan: I'd like to add to what Farine said about inspiration. I believe our main job as leaders is to inspire our team to identify and solve the right problems.
As leaders, we shouldn't be the ones doing all the work or solving every problem ourselves. We also shouldn't always be the ones partnering with others to find solutions.
Instead, we want our team to figure out which problems are important and how to solve them. Our role is to inspire them and help them understand which issues matter most. We should support them in working with other teams, departments, and on various tasks to address these important problems.
Do you have any tips or methods you use to understand what motivates someone and how it relates to their job?
Eddy: When you're trying to understand what motivates your team members, do you have a go-to question you like to ask? For example, one of my favorite questions for new people joining NewCampus is:
Imagine NewCampus can help you reach a big personal goal. How would you use NewCampus to achieve your own goals? This helps me learn more about what they want.
I think it's really important to connect someone's personal goals with their work at NewCampus. I want to know how we can help them achieve their personal goals through their job here. Do you have any tips or methods you use to understand what motivates someone and how it relates to their job?
Farin: We don't really use a specific motivational question. Instead, we have something we call the "Tao of Awesome." It's based on the idea that happy employees are the most productive.
We want our team members to be happy and enjoy their work. To check this, we ask them a few questions that help us measure their happiness.
One question we ask is, "If you had to apply for your current job again, would you?" This helps us understand how happy they are with their role and the company.
We also ask, "What should we do more of, less of, or keep doing?" These simple questions tell us what's working well for our team and what isn't. It also shows us how we can help them achieve their goals.
These questions help us understand how we can work together to reach our shared goals.
Jonathan: It's not easy to answer with just one question. What we're trying to understand is quite complex. The three conversations I mentioned before - about life story, dreams, and 18-month plans - can help us understand who someone is and what they want.
If I had to give one question, I'd ask: "We know you won't stay at our company forever. So, what's your ideal next job title, and at what kind of company?"
For example, if someone says they want to be head of product marketing at Spotify, that's very helpful. We now know where they are and where they want to go. Our job is to help plan their journey to that goal.
If they're not managing a team yet, we need to help them become a team leader. We should help them improve their leadership skills. Our goal is to help them meet all the requirements for the job they want, so companies like Spotify would seriously consider them as a candidate.
