The Pitch

While on my unplanned and unannounced vacation (sorry!), I happened across a tv show I really found interesting. It's called 'The Pitch' and the premise is two different ad agencies in the final selection process for a client. I'd heard about it before, but thought it was more geared towards public relations. It's not.

So I managed to watch two episodes, and I found some strong similarities in the way ad agencies work. And then some other things, like the way the roles of communication impact teamwork. You could see which agencies felt the freedom to truly create, and which ones had locked down who could communicate and when. I noticed a funny thing, too. The ones that locked down who could communicate and when struggled more with their creative.

That may seem odd, but to me it didn't. If you have no real feel for what the potential client wants, and even if you do, but you have no freedom to explore an idea through to the end before having it shot down, I don't think you get the best creative. It just seems like a really bad idea to me. 

In the one episode, there was a young woman, moderately new to the agency, who came up with a great idea. It was the idea chosen to present, too, which was great. Then there was a long discussion about whether she should participate in the pitch to the client. What? One of the essential elements of persuasive communication, which is what an agency pitch to a potential client is, basically, is that the person who truly believes in the idea and owns the idea, is there to act as the idea's champion. Only that person can be so persuasive and so passionate because they know how they got from point A to point B, and the logic it took to get there. Someone who is just presenting the idea may well feel just as passionately about the idea, but if they didn't come up with it themselves, they may not understand some of the logic leaps.

The other episode I saw was fairly interesting from a communication stand point. The first agency brain stormed through the client's needs and came up with an idea they loved. It was great, but unfortunately already done for the same type of client. Instead of shutting down the creative, they went back to the drawing board as a team and came up with another idea. I was pretty impressed with the way they worked. It was clear they were accustomed to working with each other and had honed their interpersonal communication to optimize their results while reducing time on ideas they didn't want to pursue.

In that episode the other agency had a creative team come up with the idea and present it to the creative director and the rest of the decision making team. It seems like a difficult way to achieve the end result, but there were opportunities to explain the thought process. I'm sure large agencies don't have the time to work creative together, but going back to my earlier point, the most persuasive person to pitch the client is the person who owns it. Birthed the idea, if you will.  

You just have to let the creativity and communication shine through sometimes, and that makes persuasive communication the key to any great presentation or a winning pitch.

Aggressiveness in Business

I read recently a PR Daily article about whether you have to be ruthless to get ahead, and the article focused mostly on how it applies to women. It also found a recent trend for women who have been turned off by the behavior of contestants who believe that business is ruthless on tv shows.

I found it very interesting the image they chose to use was from the movie The Devil Wears Prada. I've worked for people who communicate in much the same ways as Meryl Streep's character, Miranda Priestly. You're lucky if you haven't. The one positive thing I can about that character is she expected perfection because she herself was a perfectionist. Unfortunately, she is one of those people who expect you to know everything and understand exactly what she's talking about without the benefit of all the years of experience.

That's just it, though, right? To Miranda, the communication was crystal clear. To everyone else around her, it was a puzzle. And most of the time they worked it out, so there was no reason Miranda would think her communication was at all unclear. It happens a lot in communication. How many times have you tried to tell someone something, only to find they don't have the same base of knowledge you have? It adjusts your perception of their abilities, underlined by your personal or professional bias, that same bias that allows you to say things like 'who doesn't know that'.

The benefit to working with someone like Miranda is that you pretty quickly discover you are on your own without any help from your boss, but the communication, to them, is crystal clear. If you can figure out the code consistently, you're probably going to be in good shape with your boss.So what happens when it's true ruthlessness at work?

By that I mean, when your boss needs to feel better than you, and will actively use passive/aggressive communication to make sure you don't succeed and feel defeated. I've always hated these types of communicators. It's really just awful. You think they're helping you out by explaining something, only to find in the meeting they have only explained half of what you needed to know and they make an excuse for you, in public, along the lines of 'We did discuss this something, and I was sure he/she understood, but clearly they we'll have to address this topic at a later date when we're more prepared'.

It sounds kind of nice, doesn't it? Your boss using the word we? Even though you look like an unprepared jackass to the others at the meeting. This is pretty aggressive behavior, and your boss is using your perceived lack of preparedness or knowledge to make themselves look better. Ruthless. but with a coat of sugar on it. So what can you do when you encounter someone who consistently says they are helping and providing necessary information for you to do your job, or live your life, well? Address it.

I was reading a post at Tiny Buddha about it, and while a handy overview about how to communicate clearly about what you need, don't expect to get it from a passive/aggressive boss. It's different when you are able to communicate as an equal, like you can with your parents, siblings, life partner or friends, than when you have to communicate with your boss, who can fire you. I did find an interesting tidbit in the article about anger and negativity. it makes sense. Anyone so angry at their life or their work, or so negative about the outcome of a particular project, is very likely to engage in passive/aggressive behavior to make them right. Which won't make them any happier, just so you know.

Your best bet here is to look to others on the project to clarify project deliverables and key project goals for you. By finding other, more trusted, routes of communication that help you rather than hurt you, you will likely succeed despite the lack of clear communication. Don't think that's going to make your boss any less ruthless, though, and the passive/aggressive communication isn't going to change. You'll just have to find workplace partners in crime who communicate clearly and are involved, even peripherally on projects you're working on.