AM's & PM's are usually at the pointy end of the pencil. Front-facing and the first person the client dials to share feedback, brief new work or have a little whingey poo. It's on the project manager to be the master collaborator and keep the wheels greased.
It's also true that the project manager should be steering the ship and leading the process with confidence. But these two skills sometimes belt heads and mastering these crafts simultaneously can lead to much stronger client love & retention for the agency.
To collab or to lead?
Here's the deal. You've just walked into a creative review meeting with the client and they are laying down feedback on a brand concept. You flat out disagree with what they are saying but you hold your tongue because the collaborator in you wants to be helpful, agreeable and importantly you want to been seen as mediator of sort, finding a way through.
Meanwhile, the leader in you is pushing to the front of the thought line inside your brain. You so badly want to tell them that you've been here 1000 times and if they just follow your lead, they will get a killer result. You want to show strength, experience, knowledge and vision but your fear that you'll come across too strong, you might offend the client or an awkward silence might develop.
Worst still, the client might see you as argumentative, unhelpful and decides to walk away from the project. Your mind darts back to collaborator mode but you instinctively know it's a trap. If you are too agreeable or you make concessions that you don't vibe with, you've just lost the expert practitioner status and it's likely you'll set the tone of being walked all over for the rest of the project.
Balancing project leadership and client collabs is entirely possible with a bit of practice and some know how. Before we get into the main dish, it's worth defining what it means to 'lead a client' and some of the more important skills you will need to add to your swag.
How deep and far ranging your leadership responsibilities reach is dependent on the type of creative agency you work in and how long you've been in the hot seat. That aside, let's look at what 'leading the process' should look like;
It's all about confidence. Without a decent amount of C running through your system it's gonna be tough to feel comfortable leading a project. Confidence will help you speak up when others won't or dust yourself off when things are not going well. Confidence is infectious, both to your team and the client. There's lots of things you can do to build confidence, search the internet right now if that's what you need!
Authentic enthusiasm. Turns out humans are pretty good at spotting a fake, and genuine enthusiasm in leadership is a pretty critical factor. If you are psyched about your role, the project, and the clients business, it's going to be very hard for everyone around you to resist your good vibes.
You do what's right. Integrity is your ability to give props when they are due or putting your hand up if your team has made a mistake. On the rare occasion that may mean you have to sacrifice some job profit or redo work for free if your team missed badly for the greater good of the relationship.
You are more organised than the client. Good leaders tend to be organised people who think ahead of time and get ahead of the clients needs. Be it scheduling, booking in meetings, setting up to do's, explaining the process or laying down key milestones, an organised AM/PM reeks of leadership potential.
Your comms are on-point. The best project leaders tend to be the best communicators. Be it on email, over the phone or in person, you know how to lay things down clearly and consciously. Getting your message across without fluff is greatly appreciated on the client-side but it's also a killer skill when doing internal meetings, so that everyone walks away crystal clear on what needs to happen next.
You don't daly on decisions. AM/PM life is full of decisions that need to be made. You can't really afford to sit on the fence when it comes to making decisions. It's important that you have the confidence to make good decisions wherever possible
Okay, so that's project leadership. What about the the in's and outs of a master collabs? Collaboration really comes down to one thing: your ability to work with other humans to produce good outcomes. Without collaboration it's almost impossible to do anything great and when a project goes south you can normally trace it back to a lack of collabs along the way.
Collaboration really comes down to one thing: your ability to work with other humans to produce good outcomes.
When I first started in project management, I thought being a good collaborator was about being able to 'talk well' to the client and being polite. But it turns out, there's a lot more to it and it's a skill you need to understand, learn & apply to the work of managing projects or clients;
Being generous. A few years ago I read an incredible book by Adam Grant (Wharton’s top-rated professor for 7 straight years) called Give & Take. It can be summarised to this: There are givers, takers and matchers in work and life. 'Givers' fair way better in terms of career success. If you only do one thing to become a better person of collabs, be a giver.
Two ears, one mouth. My trusty Dad used to say this to me a lot growing up. By asking more questions and listening carefully rather than trying to get your word count up, you will learn a lot from the other person and you'll gain R.E.S.P.E.C.T along the way.
Get to the root issue with curiosity. Good collaborators tend to have an ability to ask the right questions to get to the bottom of a problem. They don't interrogate but follow their curiosity to understand and help fix tricky situations.
Dot connector. Being skilled up in connecting dots comes largely down to your working knowledge and depth of understanding of creative work. Knowing how to put the pieces of a project together and bringing the right people to the table is an essential.
Expert with humans. This one goes without saying but you need to excel in relationships to be a weapon in collaboration. Take interest in your clients beyond the work boundaries, find out what makes them tick, what they do for fun on the weekends. Be empathetic. Build trust. And do the same for your internal team.
Client collaborator or Sargent in charge? Why combing these skills is your ticket to career growth.
Baking this collaboration/ leadership cake is about taking all the ingredients and starting to spoon the mix together. You might have noticed that the 'good leadership' list didn't include telling people what to do or being tough with words. It's about delivering your message with enthusiasm, clarity and confidence, drawing on your experience. And then you layer in the elements of listening, generosity and curiosity to bring the collabs to the relationship.
Let's harmonise leadership and collaboration in a working an example;
A new project has just kicked off and you've got the first workshop booked with the client. As great collaborator, you've already been on several calls with the project lead client side to work through details for the workshop. You've sent off all the pre-meeting prep and homework for the client at least a week before kickoff (organisation). It's meeting day and before your clients have arrived, you've figured out what coffee they drink and it arrives within the first 15 mins of the meeting (generosity) plus you've catered the whole day, including variant dietary requirements.
The meeting starts and it's your job to lay out the agenda for the day which you deliver with confidence and your enthusiastic for what can be achieved and how you'll play a role in transforming the clients business (leadership qualities). As the day progresses, the client has done 80% of the talking because you've spent many hours prepping the structure of the day, the exercises and questions you'll ask at each step because you are both (curious) and employ (listening) as a collaborative skill.
As the day gets long, your client team are starting to fade plus they are starting to disagree with each other. You instinctively jump in and help the the arguing parties clarify what they are trying to say and suggest a break might be a good idea (expert with humans). After the break you come back to the table and the client informs you that the project needs to be completed 3 weeks earlier than agreed. You respond by saying that you'll do what you can but there's no promises and you don't want to short change the process that works. You deploy (confidence) and you (make a decision) on the spot to stick to your guns because you know based on experience that a project under time pressure will not yield the great results the client has hired you for.
There you go. You've just nailed it.
