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Objectives for Advertising Agency:
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Increase consensus among the account team members
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Strengthen commitment to team responsibilities and the agency
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Bring clarity to the team's unique story, i.e., its contributions
to the agency
Suits In Pursuit of Support
It looks glamorous, but being a "suit" is a tough job. The account
executive in an advertising agency, the suit is the person who meets with clients
to sell the agency's services, translates the client's goals to the creative
team, and then presents the creative concepts for client approval. The suit
often is caught in the middle. The creative team may love their concept for
an advertising campaign, but the client may not like it at all, or worse yet,
believe that it totally misses the mark in fulfilling the goals. Each side
usually holds the account executive responsible for the gap.
The Account Service team at the Seattle office of one of the
world's largest advertising/public relations firms was experiencing extremely
high turnover. To address the situation, two senior vice presidents kicked
off a retreat with a Corporate Storytelling session. The challenge
was to overcome the intense frustration of continual communication gaps with
the creative team.
The customized Storytelling session was focused on: 1) gaining
long-term commitment to the team, 2) developing
the foundation of an effective team story that would win support
and enhance the perceived value of the Account Service contribution to the
agency's success.
By working together to create their story, the Account Services
team experienced power of teamwork and achieved a transformation.
By sharing their stories of the past, present and shared future, a
team of 13, which included only three people with tenure of more
than
one year, became a cohesive unit.
A group who had started the day with extremely low morale became
excited about telling their corporate story because they gained
The two senior vice presidents, who participated in the session,
described Corporate Storytelling as the ideal launch pad for a successful
retreat, and both enthusiastically endorse the Corporate Storytelling system
for other work groups.
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