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JAMIE CLAIRE KISER, from page 9

If you do these things for your marketing staff, it makes it easier for them to believe that you will be sympathetic if and when they begin to suffer burn-out symptoms. If they believe you will understand, they are more likely to ask you to shift some assignments to prevent that burn-out. “Accommodating your staff is less expensive than losing someone who already knows how you like the work done and what the company expects of its marketing products. And it’s much less expensive than having to go through a search, hire, onboard, and training process for a replacement.” Accommodating your staff is less expensive than losing someone who already knows how you like the work done and what the company expects of its marketing products. And it’s much less expensive than having to go through a search, hire, onboard, and training process for a replacement. BERNIE SIBEN, CPSM, is owner and principal consultant with the Siben Consult, LLC, an independent A/E marketing and strategic consultancy located in Austin, Texas. He can be reached at 559.901.9596 or at siben@sibenconsult.com. about making the community better. Employees in a firm with a strong sense of purpose feel like their work matters. They put in the extra hours because they are making the world a better place, a safer place, a more efficient place, etc. ❚ ❚ The mantra: Treat me like my work matters on a deeper level, and I’ll produce work with that in mind. ❚ ❚ The trade-off: Over-focus on purpose can obscure the fact that the business also needs to make money to operate. Dif- ficult to find a balance and we risk vilifying profitable work. The question – which one is better – is not the right question. The real question is this: How do we balance these three “why” rationales? Generally, I have an aversion to analogies like the “three-legged stool” or silly Venn diagrams, and consider them to be consultant BS (my current favorite: HBO’s Silicon Valley has a great “conjoined triangles of success” paradigm). The answer to this question is specific to each individual firm. We work with firms with fantastic cultures that focus heavily on any one of the other whys listed here, or a combination of two or even all three of them. The three whys, then, may ultimately be less important than the firm’s underlying reason for its existence, and its commitment to articulating this in a clear, succinct message. JAMIE CLAIRE KISER is Zweig Group’s director of consulting. Contact her at jkiser@zweiggroup.com.

They may mean that their culture supports their hobbies or their family life and that they get flexibility. Maybe we have summer hours and dogs in the office and we all hang out after work together. The culture determines how happy people are to spend most of their waking day wear- ing the branded polo shirt and designing for your clients. Why here? Because we celebrate the wins and work hard to make every individual better. ❚ ❚ The mantra: Treat me better than any firm I could work for, and I’ll be the first to tell my friends to work here. ❚ ❚ The trade-off: We have to buckle down and get to work, and we have to respect that our clients may not respect our cul- ture (example: they may not have summer hours!). THE PURPOSE. You may or may not be surprised that compa- nies that have a reason for existing and that promote that mission internally often develop a strong retention base of individuals who “get” the mission. The mission of the firm is the soul of the operation, and that isn’t as ethereal a statement as it may appear. Your purpose could be exper- tise and thought leadership. For some firms, the purpose is “The question – which one is better – is not the right question. The real question is this: How do we balance these three ‘why’ rationales?”

BERNIE SIBEN, from page 11

and as little of what they hated as could be balanced, while still getting everything done. ❚ ❚ Acknowledgment. In one Dallas firm, I once worked seven consecutive weekends and cancelled an Austin trip five times. The senior principal thanked me publicly for my commitment and privately put a $100 bill in my hand. In another engage- ment, when the president recognized a department head for a specific large proposal win, he told the assembled Dallas staff, “Bernie did most of the work.” ❚ ❚ Avoid boredom. When a marketer spends all day, every day, on the same task, he/she develops a level of boredom that is difficult to overcome. If a marketer has a few concurrent as- signments of different types, he/she always has something else on the desk when it is necessary to get some distance from their main assignment. If the assignments are sufficiently different from each other, this distance can help mitigate the level of boredom. Just make sure the deadlines are not too close together, or that some assigned tasks are ongoing, with no specific deadlines. Updating database files based on proposal revisions is a very useful task that falls into this “no deadline” category. ❚ ❚ Demonstrate their importance. In one engagement, I came up with a way to acknowledge a staff member’s value during performance reviews and other meetings. When they arrived at my office, I hung a “please do not disturb” sign on the door. Once they were seated across the desk from me, I reached over and unplugged my phone. This told the person that, for the next little while, they had my undivided attention. One person actually thanked me for unplugging before the conver- sation started.

THE ZWEIG LETTER August 28, 2017, ISSUE 1214

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