Unlocking Team Creativity: Strategies for Effective Feedback

Katie Flynn: Welcome to The Flynn Effect podcast, where we dive deep into all things culture, industry news, and history, all with the goal of helping our clients perform better. See, welcome back to the podcast.

Pete VonDerLinn: Great to be here.

Katie Flynn: Thank you, you’re our first two-time guest. So very special spot for you. And today we’re gonna be talking about creative feedback, which I’m sure is a topic that’s near and dear to your heart. And I think we’ll approach it from both the in-agency and as a client when you’re providing feedback and how best to go about that. And I know in our conversations over the years, you’ve always been a big proponent of really honest feedback, whether good or bad. So from your perspective, how important is it to hear that, all across the spectrum?

Pete VonDerLinn: Well, I mean, honest feedback is vital because you’ve gotta get to an end product and there’s always a deadline. So you wanna get the blunt, okay, here’s what’s working, here’s what isn’t working. I think the key is not making it too blunt. These, when you’re speaking especially to creative people, their ideas are their babies, right? So it’s a very personal thing for creatives to hear feedback. And when it’s good, it’s like pure elation. And when it’s bad, it’s frustration and sometimes worse. So I think it’s a vital skill to have in business and learning how to give the negative feedback is really an art and something that, and it can be taught, it can be learned. I think, and I hope it’s being taught in like business schools and in places like that. But as we experience, we have some clients that are brilliant at it and others that would struggle with it because it’s gonna be hard to give feedback that you know the team does not want to hear.

Katie Flynn: Yeah, yeah, and I mean, at the end of the day, it’s so important to help get us to the end product that is going to both work and that the client is gonna be super happy with and satisfied with their investment. I know things have changed a little bit over the years. We tend to pull the full team in now on calls so that we’re getting feedback right from clients or our main contact, whoever that might be. It used to be that most of the feedback came through the account department. So oftentimes we had that opportunity to soften in certain areas just to make sure that the delivery wasn’t something that was going to cause a ton of pain. You always wanted the spirit of the comment to truly still be there, but we would occasionally change the tone, if you will. But I’m

Pete VonDerLinn: not sure– Spare the feelings. Poor creative people.

Katie Flynn: I’m gonna say that was the best either though because at the end of the day, then we’re not getting the full effect. So in terms of delivering bad feedback or feedback that is constructive, what is it that you would say is helpful in terms of either packaging that or the tone around it or even just the audience that you’re sharing it with? Do you feel that that should be for the full team? What’s your preference?

Pete VonDerLinn: Like I like the burger. Like the good, start with some good, then get into the negative and end with something positive. I mean, it’s a little cliche, but honestly, we’re all human beings at the end of the day. And when you start straight into the negative, it can tend to put a bad tone in the meeting, just get people on their heels a little bit. It is the drama of what we do as an agency. You’re making a thing, you’re putting it out there, and then you’re hanging on those words. So when the first couple words can be something positive, even if you don’t like the work as a client, whether it’s appreciation or, hey, you really followed the brief on this and I appreciate that, let me give you a couple of things now that I think we need to work on. It just goes so much better than if it’s like, hey, I know we only have a half an hour, I’m gonna get right into what’s not working, so and so will hate this. It just, you don’t wanna start that way.

Katie Flynn: Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. And I think that that information is really helpful to know. Yeah, my boss isn’t going to like this for X, Y, and Z reasons, but to your point about appreciation, I do think that that makes a major impact. Even just acknowledging, hey, I know a lot of hard work went into this, there were a couple of elements that I really loved, but there’s some other pieces that I think we gotta work on. And that we part is really helpful too, to feel like you’re in it with the clients because we, the clients and the agency, are making whatever the end product is together at the end of the day.

Pete VonDerLinn: Yeah, you wanna let them know that there’s a partnership here. And great work only happens when there is input from the client that’s good from the beginning, agency puts their heart and soul into it, feedback is well thought out and delivered in a way to inspire the agency to go back to the next round and bring you something. And if you do it properly, it really can be inspirational, even if it’s really difficult. You can still do it in a way where they go, all right, thanks for that challenge.

Katie Flynn: Yeah.

Pete VonDerLinn: I’m gonna get it there.

Katie Flynn: Yeah, we got your back, we’re gonna make it happen.

Pete VonDerLinn: Yeah. Exactly. I honestly, I think like feedback is the number one thing that builds or erodes trust with an agency-client relationship. And if you have trust with your client and trust with your agency, you’re gonna do great work together.

Katie Flynn: Yeah, and to that point, I think then in the input round and before we even get started, it’s really important for clients to feel comfortable giving really in-depth direction if they do have something in mind, right? I think sometimes people misunderstand creatives and that thinking that a blank sheet of paper is going to be what excites them the most, but sometimes starting from a totally blank sheet of paper is more difficult than starting from within a certain box, right?

Pete VonDerLinn: Yeah, 100%. I mean, that’s the purpose of the brief and the tighter the brief, then the broader the playground is for the creatives to go play in.

Katie Flynn: Sure.

Pete VonDerLinn: There has to be some direction to build off of. Hopefully there’s some good insight in that brief that really gets the wheels turning of the agency and the team, but you’ve gotta give them some focus to build on or else you’re gonna go through a lot of rounds of creative. If it’s just like, “Hey, we need to create awareness and go.”

Katie Flynn: Yeah, right. That makes complete sense. In terms of bad feedback, that’s been received over the years. Whether that be in the content or the delivery, I suppose, can you tell us a little bit about your experience there?

Pete VonDerLinn: Well, certainly I’ve had those meetings where you walk out very deflated because it’s like you totally missed it. Fortunately, that’s more the exception than the rule, but it does happen sometimes. I think the clients that I’ve worked with are best when there is a tough meeting like that. They are the ones that are not being so prescriptive. I think that would be the number one tip I would give is, if you’re on the side of the table and saying, “This work is just not achieving what we need to achieve,” start to make it about things that are about the business and not making it personal. So an example I would give, there’s good things to say, are like, “Let’s go back to the brief.” Sure. Like what we talked about doing in the brief from this objective or the strategy or this insight, I’m not seeing that in the work. That’s really constructive feedback. And especially I would say this for younger clients, if you really wanna earn respect with the grade and senior team, just bring up the brief. It’s amazing how many times we get into creative reviews and everyone wants to just leap right into the work. Sometimes it’s like, “Oh, we only have a half an hour and we’ve got three ideas and we’ve gotta jump.” And that’s the exciting thing is seeing the work. But if someone’s like, “Let’s just ground ourselves again.” Three weeks ago, we talked about these objectives, this strategy. Maybe we had this great thought starter together. Then you’re really, you’re wearing your marketing hat into the meeting and it’s about the objectives and the business and it’s not a personal thing. The other thing I will tell you that creatives just go bananas when they hear is the common phrase of, “It’s not working for me.” If you really wanna put creatives on the ceiling, like utter those words. I have probably said that a time or two. And I think we’re probably all guilty of it. I probably uttered it as well in creative reviews. You don’t wanna say that because it’s not about the audience, right? Like the creative team, the agency is working so hard to affect change in the target audience. And if the client isn’t that target audience, you’re so far away from what you really should be talking about, right? So if it’s kind of couched in, “Hey guys, I’m speaking as a client. I live and breathe this audience, we have a lot of research. I really just don’t see the dialogue being authentic to how that audience would be relating to each other.” Something that’s rooted in the audience, “Okay, great, that’s awesome feedback.” And if the team has missed that, they’re gonna do better in the next round.

Katie Flynn: Yeah, I think that’s a really great point, right? There’s always gonna be some objective pieces and some subjective pieces to creative because especially with copy and tone and visuals, like there is some of that that’s just personal taste and preference. But I do think that when we’re working with clients or even when I’m giving feedback to the team, trying to have the majority of that being objective, related to the brief and the audience and the ask and the objectives is much more helpful than going to the majority of it being on the subjective side.

Pete VonDerLinn: Yeah, because a lot of what we do is, there’s a science to what we do, there’s a roadmap to what we do in the brief. So there’s a lot of objectivity you can bring where you’re kind of comparing that to what the work is and saying, “There are parts of this that are nailing it.” And again, the burger’s great. Like, “Hey, these three parts of the brief, you guys nailed it.” These two parts, we gotta work on. Here’s why. The specificity is huge.

Katie Flynn: Yep, I think that makes total sense. And I’m actually gonna bring something up that I think you taught me a number of years ago, which is basically the concept of, if you’re gonna make a big deal about something, save it for when you really need to make a big deal about something.

Pete VonDerLinn: Don’t get mad often, but when you get mad, get really mad.

Katie Flynn: Right, exactly. And I think that happens with clients sometimes too. And there are times where we’ve tried something a couple of times and it’s just not clicking and a client has to say, “Hey, time out. This just ain’t working. Let’s go back to the drawing board here.” But when that happens every time that can, I think, erode at morale from a team perspective, and I mean every time with the same client. And we don’t really have a lot of that anyways, but saving those bigger moments of, “Hey, I’m disappointed with this one.” There’s nothing worse, at least from an account perspective of hearing, like, “I just felt disappointed with this,” or “I was really surprised in a negative way.” That kills us as an agency. It’s so not what we’re in the business of producing. But making sure that you have those smaller and specific pieces of feedback as you go and save the ace for when you really need it.

Pete VonDerLinn: Yeah, and I mean, that doesn’t happen that often, which is good. And I think that is a time where, as creatives, we do want someone to go and take that call on their own and then come back and say, “Okay, guys, we really gotta probably work the weekend on this one.” Sure. But if you’re the deliverer of that, I would say it’s still on you to be specific about what’s not working. And if you’re having that kind of super strong reaction to this work is so not what I’m hoping for, then obviously there’s a lot of things that are missing. So my coaching would be, take a half an hour before you call the AE, really map out these five or six things or just not there, I’ve said this three times and I’m not hearing it, and that’s totally fair to get upset if that’s happening, but really be specific about, “In the next round, I need to see this and here’s why,” and then you’ll get it.

Katie Flynn: Sure, yeah, which to your point, I don’t think I’ve had a phone call like that more than maybe once in the last eight years, but I think you just made a really good point. Sharing the why goes such a far way with the team. So instead of just the, “Hey, can you change this thing to this other thing?” Saying, “Hey, this isn’t working because we know this thing about our audience or we know this thing about our brand and here’s something that is super meaningful or it’s not gonna help us achieve our goal.” That is so, so helpful because I think sometimes we share, you don’t always have to tell us what to do or how to achieve something, just tell us what you want to achieve.

Pete VonDerLinn: That’s a great subject. I’m glad you brought that up because I do think that’s where that trust erodes too. Sure. And it can be, this is a real art, I think, for clients to learn or really any of us to learn because we’re giving feedback in our personal lives to people all the time to get what we want is to not be so specific about telling the professional on the other side, here’s how you should do it, right? Because we’ve hired that professional because they have that background and that skill set that we do not have. But it’s communicating what’s missing for you or what’s missing for the audience in the brief or the objective of what the project is and then saying, “This is the end product I want to get to, get me there.” The other tip that I would give is, the best clients I’ve had have been really good at just expressing the audience takeaway

Katie Flynn: that they want.

Pete VonDerLinn: And so if it’s not there to say, I’ll give an example of like, say it’s like a very direct kind of thing. And it’s like, “Hey, we have a call to action, we want a specific one of them pick up a phone and dial number and buy this thing.” I’m feeling like they’re not gonna do that. And I’m feeling like we gotta somehow energize the audience to do that or inspire them to do that. You’re not telling them what, how to inspire or energize, but you’re saying that’s what’s missing from my side that’s gonna get that action that the brief is saying it’s mandatory.

Katie Flynn: Yeah, I think that’s great advice. And when you manage people too, right? So even if it’s not a creative feedback perspective, it’s helped me a lot with my teams to be able to say, “Okay, here’s what I want to achieve. Here’s where I think this thing is falling down.” Try it and let me know how you think we can get there. Somebody had given me a piece of advice along the way of, when you’re giving feedback to teams you manage, is it wrong or is it just not how you would do it? And there’s a fine line there. And I think that should be weighed when we’re working on creative stuff as well. Because there are times when you’re like, “Oh, my instinct is to just take over and change this thing or say, well, I want it this way.” But sometimes if you just say, “Here’s what I need it to do,” you can get so many great and more creative solutions brought back to you than you would have even thought of.

Pete VonDerLinn: 100%.

Katie Flynn: Awesome. Well, I think we covered everything. Pete, is there anything else from a feedback perspective that you would be interested in our audience knowing?

Pete VonDerLinn: I will give one other pro tip that I think is important in the age that we live in when there are so many different channels that feedback can come in on is have a feedback consolidator. So if you’re a client and you’re gonna have several stakeholders, make sure you’re getting input from those five or six or seven stakeholders and then inputting the agency and then just putting them one place. Because we’ve got email, we’ve got teams, we’ve got texts. And from a creative standpoint, it’s everything you can do just to put out a good piece of work. It’s so hard, but just having it in one place that they can look at instead of scattered is a huge time and budget saver.

Katie Flynn: Awesome. I think that’s great advice. Well, thank you again, Pete. I appreciate your time.

Pete VonDerLinn: Great to be here.