Management is not a dirty word

- Look, I get it. You, actually none of us, got into this business so we could spend our days figuring out how to cohabitate and collaborate with our left-brained peers. We just want to do the work, whether it's creating the visuals for a website, developing a new mobile app, or writing copy for a killer ad. Well, there's good news and bad news. Here's the bad news. You work in organizations at a time when the business, cultural, and technology landscape is changing so quickly that you have to work closely with your peers in other departments and disciplines in order for everyone to succeed. The good news is that, the more you do that, and the better you do that, the more time and opportunities you'll have to do what you love, with a level of freedom that you wouldn't have had otherwise. Managing the relationships you have with your fellow creators, who, let's be honest, can be sometimes a prickly bunch, is hard enough. But collaborating with those outside your group can be an even tougher gig, that requires astute interpersonal skills, keen focus, and consistent commitment. We're talking about your managers, who often are well-meaning but have no clue what you do, your clients, who would otherwise be really great people to work with, except that they have a ton of pressure on them to deliver and then are compelled to demand the same of you, and everyone else, those folks who work in other departments such as I.T., marketing and finance, who may view you as a flake, and as a result, may not be too keen on partnering with or relying on you, let alone allowing you to take the lead on a large team initiative. Bottom line, whether you like it or not, managing professional relationships is now part of your position description. Let me start out at a high level with two truisms. First, I know other folks in your company can be maddening, but if you treat your coworkers like they're the enemy, they'll be more than happy to respond in kind. You reap what you sow, so do you really want that flavor of negativity in your daily work life? Second, on the other end of the spectrum, if you embrace servitude as some work concept of service, you make yourself a doormat, and you'd better develop a taste for shoe leather. You don't just want to have relationships with others, you want to manage them in a mutually beneficial way. Please know that, somewhere in between the extremes of passive aggressive rebellion and dumb acquiescence is a place where you can coexist and even collaborate with others in your organization, in a way that forwards your, their, and your organization's best interests. One last high-level insight, before we move on to some more tactical advice. Chances are, you already possess many of the skills and acumen that will empower and enable you to forge productive working relationships with others. As I mentioned earlier, creatives generally have high emotional intelligence and empathy for others, since we've had to develop and leverage these attributes in order to execute on creative-driven tasks and projects. Unlike most business best practices, we actually learned this in school. Make sure to use them, not only when working on a job and trying to get in your audience's head. Use them when establishing and nurturing professional relationships with your coworkers. In the next few movies, I'll focus on specific tactics on how best to do that with the different groups you rub elbows with at work.