Recently, amidst countless industry rumors, I accidentally opened a PDF file circulating that a Creative team at an agency used to issue a "warning" to the Planning team for 3 improper behaviors, one of which was "Personal attacks and acts of defamation."
To summarize: The Creative team felt insulted and disrespected because a Planner repeatedly used aggressive language and personal attacks during the work process, with two sentences screenshotted as evidence:
"Think from the root of the product, don't just write randomly," and "Then don't send this message 'Creative will not accept any more feedback, everyone' unless our side is already perfect."
If you were the Creative, how would you feel?
When reading the two feedback sentences above, my friends split into two camps: one thought it was normal, while the other was, of course, extremely annoyed. The funny thing is, my Creative friend said he didn't feel the Planner's words were oppressive at all, understood the frustration of working with messy creatives, and even sympathized, then wondered if he was just used to suffering.
So, the answer depends on the context. That PDF file doesn't fully show the background, such as the company culture, workflow, or specific previous conflicts that were the final straw.
Ignoring the context, I invite you to spend 1 minute looking at this funny, decade-old meme about the relationship between agency teams, which I personally find quite accurate, so much so that I've included it in the slides for my first class session.
You can immediately see that the EGO of the Creative and the Planner is the biggest: the Planner has the mindset of wanting to be the smartest person and expects everyone to follow the direction they set, while the Creative wants to sell their idea at all costs, believing their idea must be the coolest.
Add to that the fact that an agency is a creative service company, so emotion is an essential part of the work.
Therefore, when you've poured all your mind and emotion into an idea and a Planner/Account tells you that you "wrote randomly," can you handle that? Or when a Planner spends so much effort thinking, surveying, interviewing, and refining the wording to create a creative brief, and a Creative/Account tells you "this is meaningless," how do you feel? (Without even considering the quality).
That's the core issue: two out-of-control egos, leading to extreme words and actions, which are magnified exponentially in an emotionally charged environment.
There have been many training sessions for agency staff on how to give and receive feedback constructively, but that's just scratching the surface. Everything will revert to the beginning if the amount of drama and rumors remains as high as it is now.
I don't know how to fix this systemic flaw, so I dedicate an entire class session to sharing this topic with my students to foster a healthier professional mindset, which is what led me to write this post.
I hope any agency professionals reading this remember that we are in the 'creative service' business to solve client problems, so our ego can afford to matter a little less.
