leadING a HIGH peRformANCE creative team
CHALLENGE
Caesars Entertainment was dealing with high turnover of mismanaged, overworked designers in their small digital group. The talent pool was fairly limited in Las Vegas, so employees felt it was easy to find work elsewhere if they were feeling dissatisfied. Additionally, Caesars was starting to focus on ecommerce as a major revenue stream for the company. They not only needed to retain talent but increase headcount to support the department's growing workload.
Solution
Pressure was building to hire the right manager to lead the team, reduce turnover, and grow the department with talented, energized, creative individuals.
Caesars needed to hire a digital Creative Director with top-notch design and management skills and with a proven background to inspire, motivate, nurture, retain, as well as grow the digital design team. Caesars also wanted this position to share in the growing workload of projects and initiatives, and lead by example.
Steps
I was offered the position and relocated to Las Vegas. Key management tools I acquired over the years proved to work well for me at Caesars.
The Plan: I came up with a Daily/Weekly/Monthly and Yearly action plan to achieve success.
Daily: I began by holding short daily stand up meetings with my team, limiting them to 15-20 minutes, to touch base on projects and challenges. As a result of those quick meetings, I could clear up any bottlenecks and keep designers designing.
Weekly: I hosted thirty minute 1:1 meetings with each direct report where they could talk about anything they wanted, confidentially. This helped build a personal rapport with each individual and worked great to get a pulse on the group. I'm compassionate to individual needs, and my team members know I "have their back" while at the same time being a strong leader for the entire group.
I made a point to send out periodic emails with creative inspiration of interesting items I ran across, anything that was design or technology newsworthy to the team.
Monthly: I coordinated design critiques where the team could present what each was working on, comment openly to help improve the design, and share in brainstorming ideas for upcoming projects. We used this time to evaluate projects, new things we saw in the industry, techniques and technology, new websites and apps, and evaluate what the competition was doing. Also, I occasionally would held team building challenges at no cost to the company and could be done onsite in a conference room.
Yearly: I held an open presentation that anyone at the company, from any department, could attend. Here, each of my designers would produce a short presentation which would walk the audience through a project from initial idea to final launch, testing, and supporting analytics. This proved to be a huge growth area for the designers and a chance for other employees to glimpse the work we had produced.
Additionally: I had junior designers and new employees shadow me or a senior designer to help situate them into the team.
I stay knowledgeable by listening to technology and leadership podcasts or audio books. To stay creatively inspired I attended design conferences and I recommended conferences suited to each team member to help them grow.
I spent time project managing and removing roadblocks so my team could keep designing without bottlenecks.
The biggest key to my success is taking a genuine interest in the well being of each team member. I adjust my management style based on the individual and what point they are at in their career. For example, I'll be more hands off for a senior-level designer who is more independent and provide more guidance and creative direction for junior level staff.
I was able to take one of the extra offices and convert it into a design think tank lounge where the team could all hang out and get inspired. It was filled with bean bags, games, toys, books, magazines, and design posters.
Result
I was not only able to retain talent, but I grew the creative team from four to 15 digital/motion designers and production artists. Some of these creatives individuals have followed me and still work for me today. Over the course of the 5 years I was employed at Caesars, I promoted and mentored several designers to become supervisors themselves.
There are over 80,000 employees and 4,000 managers company wide at Caesars Entertainment. I consistently scored in the top 15% of all management company wide on the Employee Satisfaction Survey (ESS). This survey specifically asks employees questions about the their manager, his/her leadership, involvement, style, and if they felt they were supported and growing in their careers as a result of working directly with their manager. This survey also allows for essay style feedback which gets sent back to the manager anonymously.
I used my extensive design and leadership experience to propel the group to achieve things they never thought possible. My team received several coveted awards for our team work on several projects during my time there.