IS YOUR STRATEGY LEAVING SPACE FOR COLLECTIVE THINKING?
The Havas Lofts program is not only a professional experience it is also an incredible cultural and human experience. It is not only about following one person and being involved in her on-going projects it is about having the time to meet tons of talented people and to understand their career path, their own vision and their own perspectives within Havas.
As different as they may be, what they have in common is their enthusiasm. They have all joined Havas Chicago with a clear idea of how they could contribute and be empowered by the agency’s culture and collective capabilities. We can feel a strong entrepreneurial mind-set that keeps the agency’s going and drives it forward; certainly the result of the dominant philosophy that someone tries to sum up for us
“Leading a team is not about being a boss but it is about being supportive and helping people to grow with the company”.
Being an active listener, I had the pleasure of spending much of my time with a number of the strategy team’s members, assisting them along their diversified missions and brainstorming sessions. Managed by Ebrahim El Kalza, the team has recently enhanced its own processes to pool experience. Although analysts and strategic directors use to be dedicated to specific clients and thus split into different account teams, weekly and monthly meetings give them a new structure to collectively solve problems and share ideas.
“From a strategic standpoint we don’t need to overthink”
One of their current focuses is guided by the wish to make strategy more persuasive and straightforward. The team is working on a new style of creative briefs to avoid “strategic talks”. Restricted to its minimal form and limited to a few words, it is built around the main consumers i.e. the people they need to convince with the most compelling arguments.
This approach tries to redefine the value of the strategic team and what should be its first point of attention: the understanding of the human being, who they are, how they feel, what they like, what their needs are etc., giving a true and human interpretation of data. It also tries to handle the pressure around the search of “the insight”, better focusing on what we need to convince them about.
What I love with this approach is its human dimension. Lots of strategists will try to complete their research by spending one hour into a restaurant or a shop, observing the real people, feeling the brand and getting insights from the inside.
