The Importance of Thanking Your Creative Team

Everyone wants to be validated.

Having someone recognize your contributions gives you a glow that can last well beyond the daily grind, regardless of your role. A few words of gratitude costs absolutely nothing but can be instrumental in building a better work environment.

While we all could be more appreciative of our coworkers efforts, it's absolutely crucial to be empathetic toward your creative team. It's inherent to their role that their creativity and ideas are criticized, prodded, and occasionally eviscerated. It stings to have someone tell you that your ideas are bad, but it comes with the territory. 

Creatives willingly endure this pain. 

They are driven on a personal level to produce work that makes them proud. Their portfolio is not just their livelihood but a demonstration of how they think. It's more important than a resume, as most agencies care more about what creatives have done rather than where they did it.

Unfortunately, most of their creative output never sees the light of day. Agencies are perpetually pitching for new business, and countless brilliant concepts go unsold, disappearing into the ether. While nobody likes losing a pitch, it can be especially deflating for a creative, as it's their personal creativity on the line.

This can be even more depressing in a high-volume RFP environment, such as publishers. With long sales cycles, creatives churn out ideas and often never receive any feedback on new business pitches. They're left pondering, "Were my ideas good enough?" "Should I have done something different?" or even worse "Does it even matter?"

Their work must matter.

When creatives don't see the value in their own work, they begin to treat creative requests as simple business transactions, devoid of pride and inspiration. Why deal with all of the pain and insecurity of pushing yourself creatively if nobody cares?

That's why it's crucial for you to recognize that their efforts are valued. You don't need to get on your knees and adulate their brilliance, but try to be a bit more descriptive than "thanks": 

• "Thanks for putting this together so quickly!"
• "Thanks for knocking out the site copy!"
• "Thanks for working late on this!"
• "Thanks for the ideas- the client will love these!"

Share the love.

When creatives see you as someone who empathizes and appreciative of their work, they're reminded that we're all part of a team that's working toward a common goal. They're going to be exponentially more enthusiastic about their job and be inspired to push themselves to do better work.

And that's ultimately going to make your job a heck of a lot easier.