Building a Creative and Diverse Company

YES WE CANBuilding creative and diverse companies

MAY 2016 WOLF & WILHELMINE

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HALLO

In January 2014 we launched Wolf & Wilhelmine, a brand shop driven by our purpose of

Do Great Work, Live Great Lives.

We were first focused on building an environment for sustainable creativity - i.e. a workplace where we can do the work we love without killing ourselves.

As we’ve grown over the past two years, we’ve realized that diversity is crucial to sustainable

creativity and therefore we actively foster it.

Because to meaningfully create for the world we must understand it. And the world is a diverse place.

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At W&W, when we say “creativity” we’re not just talking about making something beautiful

(although that’s rad too).

When we use the word “creativity” we’re referring to a holistic definition: living, making and solving in inventive ways that transcend

the norm and make impact.

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Creativity is a competitive necessity. Diversity is a crucial component of creativity.

Building a shop that honors creativity and diversity means that you’re focusing on two things:

Building an ENVIRONMENT that is conducive to creativity and filling it with a rollicking mix of PEOPLE.

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We dug into what academia had to say about creativity, and learned that creativity loves nature, tough challenges, naps and sleep, time for the mind to wander, exercise, meditation, a 40-hour work week, communication, collaboration, collisions with other brains, alone time, plants and LEGOs (among other things).

Astoundingly, our “creative companies” don’t build themselves in accordance with the research. In fact, our industry norms contradict the conditions necessary for creativity. In today’s competitive environment, that seemed crazy.

The initial W&W experiment: could we build a sustaining business that is creativity sustainable?

And then diversity quickly came in…

SO FIRST WE DID OUR HOMEWORK ON BUILDING A CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT

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There are people in the world that aren’t white men. Our businesses should have those people in them

(along with white men).

Why?

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If creativity is all about inventive living, making and solving, perspectives that collide, blend with and challenge one another make that invention more robust. That’s where diversity comes in.

Diversity expands our input set. Diversity makes us think harder. Diversity pressure tests. Diversity makes our output stronger.

Diversity isn’t just a social good. Diversity is good business.

DIVERSITY SUPERCHARGES CREATIVITY

TEN THINGS I’VE LEARNED THE PAST TWO YEARS WHILE BUILDING A CREATIVE AND DIVERSE BUSINESS

PAIN & LOVE ARE YOUR FRIENDS

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After spending a decade in the industry, I went on a walkabout. And while on the walkabout, I realized there were things that I didn’t like about my career… which was affecting my work and life.

- Didn’t feel creative anymore - Rarely felt “in flow” - Working insane hours - I was tired - Whipped around by unpredictable processes - Working on unambitious projects with scared clients - Wading through the wrong project staffing - not enough

firepower and/or expertise - The best people were going freelance - demoralizing - Had to focus on advertising as output… which felt

increasingly irrelevant

W&W WAS BIRTHED FROM PAIN

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I also realized there were things that I loved about what I did:

- Brand strategy is hella interesting - Brand strategy can help companies be more powerful (if we

cleanly focus there) - Helping companies behave more powerfully, both internally and

externally, is very interesting and impactful - It’s fun working on different projects, different challenges - It’s great when you get client trust - There are some awesome people in (and out) of the industry

W&W WAS BIRTHED FROM LOVE

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Realization: I needed to build something that didn’t exactly exist yet.

For this industry People-friendly

Works with today’s tools and speed Embraces the modern workforce

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The original guiding principle of building W&W: Take on the pain points one by one

while keeping an eye on what we love.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK

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As noted before, there is a ton of research on creativity and how to create create environments and productive teams. After doing our homework, we focused on:

WE RESEARCHED CREATIVITY

The 40 hour work week exists for a reason - our

productivity and creativity drops off a cliff once we

work more. Also, we’re better creatively when we are de-

screened, have time to explore and let the brain

wander.

TIME SPENT WORKING vs NOT

The institutionalization of the industry is real and

dangerous to doing great work. We’re better creatively when we collide with other

thinkers and get challenged by fresh perspectives.

OXYGEN

It’s really hard to do great, creative thinking when the foundations of a project are

wobbly. But when the process is like butter, the

thinking has all the room to be amazing.

PROCESSES When people feel safe and

valued, they perform better. This isn’t about coddling, but more about treating people as people, having

empathy and understanding that it’s about the people…

and the work follows.

KINDNESS

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I’m not the first person who has started a company or worked with creative talent. So I got all up on the business of wiser people who had already started businesses, both in the industry and otherwise. (I still get up in their business as much as they’ll let me)

Main questions have been around: - Systems: billing, accounting, contracts, lawyers - Building out a team - Vision for the company - Growing - Mistakes

I’M ALWAYS TALKING TO OTHER FOUNDERS

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From Harvard Business Review to Medium to Women Who Run with the Wolves, I’m constantly taking in inputs. The topics I focus on are:

- how to run a business meaningfully - creative environments and organization - burn-out - supporting a diverse workforce - supporting human beings, not just workers

I’m looking for tips, not panaceas.

My path is not yours and your path is not mine. But we can help and learn from one another.

I’M ALWAYS READING BOOKS AND ARTICLES

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I’ve spent the past two years saying “I don’t know” more than I ever have in my life. It’s allowed generosity to flow in.

In addition to talking to other founders, I’ve tapped hard into my network to help wade through issues, anywhere from equity negotiation to approaching PR.

But that means that I need to be generous in return and help that network when they need it. Karma, people.

I’M ALWAYS ASKING PEOPLE FOR HELP

THE COMPANY & THE PEOPLE HAVE TO WORK TOGETHER

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WHAT WE MEAN BY “LIVE GREAT LIVES”

Real time away from work, both physical and mental. Time for yourself. Engaging

meaningfully with the outside world.

SPACE

Getting more kick-ass at the things you care about.

PROGRESS

Mental, physical, emotional care. Feeling balanced,

powerful, fueled.

HEALTH

Connection. Taking care of one another.

LOVE

Laughter is awesome (and essential). We don’t take ourselves too seriously.

FUN

Honoring “you be you.” Building a company around

the people. Supporting people living a life of

meaning and purpose.

TRUTH

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YOU CAN’T JUST TELL PEOPLE TO CREATE SPACE IN THEIR LIVES; THE COMPANY MUST HELPPet peeve: Companies waxing on about “work/life” balance without fundamentally evolving operations to support it. Without changing the way you do business, you are putting the onus on the employees, absolving the company from doing much more than lip service (which is good PR). Reality? The company and employees must work together.

Every Monday the core team meets to talk through work

load and resources. If someone has too much on

their plate, putting them in danger of being over 40

hours, we figure out strategies together to lessen

the load.

WEEKLY POW-WOW

Coming up on year two, we completely close the

company for a week around the 4th of July. America!

SUMMER BREAK

We do blackout vacations - no email, no contact when

you're out. To help with that, we prep clients, divert

workload and have developed an ease out and

ease in system.

VACATION BLACKOUTSNo emails sent to anyone after 7pm, no Saturday

emails and Sunday emails are optional. No workloads are agreed to with clients

that would involve weekend work to get it done.

7 PM / SATURDAY RULE

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ME (to a coach about a year ago): “I don’t understand why people aren’t taking time off.”

COACH: “When’s the last time you took time off?”

ME: (silence)

When you’re leading, you need to show people that it’s okay to have a life. When you don’t, they won’t.

AND I HAVE TO SET THE EXAMPLE

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We are very straightforward with our policies around email, weekends and vacations with our clients. It is written into our proposals and our scope language and we communicate it clearly.

Creating space means that everyone has to be a part of it.

I didn’t know if clients would “tolerate” this (many people told me they wouldn’t). Learnings:

- Clients don’t like surprises, so don’t surprise them. - Clients are nice human beings if you treat them as such. - Clients are often relieved that someone is being reasonable. - If the work is good, clients are all good.

NONE OF THIS CAN BE A SECRET

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If we want to build an environment where we can support our people and be accommodating to different life situations, we must figure out the parental leave policy.

Full transparency: it’s tough. Being a small business in America and New York State at this moment and offering parental leave is not business- and profit-friendly. The system hardly helps. Especially if you’re running a business that, unlike tech, skews female.

Best case scenario: growth and innovation of W&W slows. Worst case scenario: we get into financial trouble.

We’re committed to offering it and getting it right, but it’s difficult.

CURRENT “GIVING SPACE" CHALLENGE: PARENTAL LEAVE

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MAKING SPACE HELPS WITH HEALTH, BUT WE DO A FEW OTHER THINGS TOO…Meet Missy, our Health & Wellness Wolf Missy’s job is to tend to the environmental, physical and emotional needs of the Wolves… which includes sourcing on-brand toilet paper holders for the Den and other things like:

- Making sure our space is on point and a healthy environment - Helping with our weekly #mindrightmonday (optional)

meditation session - Running bi-weekly (optional) morning boot camp sessions - Managing our fitness benefit - Booking travel so we don't lose our minds - Assisting on projects - Keeping the whole ship running smoothly

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Holistic professional growth isn’t something that just happens. If I want a smarter team that is progressing in leadership, the company needs to invest in that.

WE GIVE PEOPLE TOOLS FOR PROGRESS

We regularly have coaches come into the company to

work through either holistic leadership training or specific skill needs.

COACHING

Building on Wolf School, we have a network of properly

seasoned professionals (ex-C-suite types) on call to

advise on projects and push thinking forward.

OG’s

A part of our oxygen and education philosophy, we

bring in guest teachers every two weeks to teach the Pack

something new.

WOLF SCHOOLEvery full time Wolf has an annual allotment of money

to spend on classes/books of their choosing.

EDUCATION BENEFIT

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Kim and Val taught a grad studio in Strategic Design and Management at Parsons this past semester, which meant changing project and travel schedules to accommodate their teaching schedule. All good.

AND GIVE THEM SPACE TO GROW

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About a month after most projects we do a hot wash. A hot wash is an evaluation of the project and how we did on several measures, including:

- Pitch process - Legal, finance, SOW’s - Project design - Strategic approach - Deliverables - Free-range wolves - Wolf team vibe and energy - Client relationship

These can be tough, but they spark course correction, learning and tremendous growth if done constructively.

A PART OF PROGRESS IS ADMITTING WE CAN DO BETTER

Lauren breaking it down… in a tent.

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YOU BE YOU: SUPPORTING NON-TRADITIONAL TALENT

Executive Producer Operations Producer Free-range Strategist Free-range Strategist

We look for diversity of career background to bring in collisions and perspectives. As a result, we often find awesome people that 1) don’t come from advertising and 2) we don’t know

what to do with right away. But for the right people, we train, make spaces and make it work.

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FINALLY, WE HAVE FUN AND TAKE CARE OF THE PACK

CULTURE IS A BITCH

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Yup, people have said it.

Because we didn’t have a big announcement when we started. Because we don’t have shiny offices. Because AdAge and Agency Spy doesn’t know who we are and/or care. (That’s probably because we don’t make ads) Because we work with clients differently. Because we take real vacations and take care of one another. Because we do things the way that we do.

*That’s fun*

“YOU’RE NOT A REAL COMPANY”

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Culture, our country, our city, our industry… gives so much validation to the crazed worker. If you’re not busy, what are you doing?

Sometimes, we have struggles when people start working with us or at key moments of growth. It’s like watching someone withdraw from heroin. As she rejiggers her sense of identity and worth, we have to give her space and understanding.

CUE CONFIDENCE CRISIS’

SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO SMACK DOWN

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When we started it, people resisted and broke the rule

quite a bit. It took me enforcing it and calling people out on it to get it

under control.

7 PM RULE WAS A TUSSLE

I thought people would self-police their workload and

raise her hand if overwhelmed. Ah sweet ignorance! We put the

weekly pow-wow in place to so that people had a place to

reflect on workload and speak up.

WEEKLY POW-WOW

To get people truly off of the system when on vacation, a

person isn’t eligible for bonus unless she takes at least 10 days of black-out

days a year.

VACATIONS = BONUSES

THERE HAVE BEEN MOMENTS OF TOUGH LOVEI personally hate policing. But I also realized that the things we do in our first two years will get powerfully woven into our DNA. If I don’t want W&W to turn into a sweatshop, I need to get ahead of sweatshop behaviors.

Biggest learning: get my leadership team involved and personally responsible for all of us adhering to the rules. Make sure everyone is educated on how we roll. This can’t just be a top-down situation.

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Working at W&W is like dating an older woman. Some people are ready for it, others aren’t. And that’s okay.

It takes maturity, self-awareness, a comfort with risk, time management skills, a love of collaboration, the strength to ask for help and the insight of knowing when to take care of the work and when to take care of yourself.

My initial mantra of W&W was: “If W&W ever turns into a sweatshop, I’m closing it down.”

My new mantra is: “If W&W ever turns into a sweat-shop, I’m going to remove the people that are making it a sweat shop…with love.”

BUT ALSO REALIZING THIS ISN’T FOR EVERYONE

THE SYSTEM REINFORCES ITSELF

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THE W&W OXYGEN PHILOSOPHY IS ALL ABOUT DIVERSE PERSPECTIVESWe built the company for collision.

The company operates like a blob with a spine. The spine are the people that are in the company day in and day out. They know the W&W way and standards. They keep our output consistent and premium.

But for every project we bring in people from our network, aka the blob. Crafting bespoke teams using this mix of talent ensures that each project has exactly the talent needed to powerfully solve the problem and it also guards the spine from institutionalization.

Diversity of perspective? Check.

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GENDER AND RACIAL DIVERSITY? WE ARE TOTES KILLING IT.

CORE TEAM (aka the DIRE WOLVES)

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GENDER AND RACIAL DIVERSITY? WE ARE TOTES KILLING IT.

CORE TEAM (aka the DIRE WOLVES)

FREERANGE WOLVES

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Our first three interns? White, male, privileged, connected.

(My bad)

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If you want a different system, a more competitive system, you have to be a part of building it. The system isn’t going to just change on its own.

MY OH SHIT REALIZATIONS

I grew up middle class and figuring out money for

summer internships was up to me. I couldn’t have afforded to do a W&W

internship as they were originally structured.

REINFORCING THE BUBBLE

If it weren’t for minority internship programs,

Kim and Val might not be the Wolf Pack Alphas that

they are.

YOUNG KIM & VALThe guys that got the

internships were good guys. But they had connected,

well-off families who intro’ed them to me and then

supported them once they were in. We were all

participating in a well-off bubble reinforcing itself.

YOUNG HEIDI

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If we want a more diverse industry, we have to build the pipeline.

Strategy change: our summer interns this year are coming from the same intern programs that Val and Kim came up through (MAIP and Prep for Prep respectively).

In addition for doing work with the White House on their upcoming Women’s Summit, we also started doing pro bono work with the Lower East Side Girls Club, a local org that is all about breaking the cycle of local poverty by training the next generation of ethical, entrepreneurial and environmental leaders.

Diversity isn’t difficult to support. It does take being more thoughtful about where we support and how we bring people into the company.

DIVERSITY TAKES WORK

YOU CAN’T TALK TOO MUCH

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If you don’t create a narrative for your company and your people, they will get scared and create their own. Their narratives are accurate about 1% of the time and worst case scenario about 99% of the time. Therefore, we spend a lot of time communicating in the company.

MANAGING A TEAM? OVER-COMMUNICATE. BUILDING SOMETHING UNKNOWN? OVER-COMMUNICATE.

In addition to the core team weekly pow wow, every week, each wolf has a 30 minute 1:1 with their supervisor.

WEEKLY 1:1’s

Every six months, the core team does an off-site. We report back our first week

back in office to the broader Pack about what was

discussed and decided.

BI-ANNUAL OFFSITES

Every two weeks, we gather up and do an All Hands. The

core team takes turns leading that.

ALL HANDS

SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE

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I’m pretty confident we don’t make the $$/hour off of our people that other shops do. Our hard revenue per person probably doesn’t align with industry standards because we just don’t book people out at the same capacities/percentages. Sorell would be disappointed. But…

Our work is kick-ass, always premium and the talent is sustained.

Yes, everyone has their days - mine happened to be a total breakdown in a rural Wyoming airport (it happens) - but people don’t feel fundamentally frayed.

In two years we’ve had one person quit. The core team is still intact. Churn isn’t something that is a problem for us right now.

Result? Without the distraction of churn, we can always move forward.

WE’RE A WPP NIGHTMARE

GROWTH ONLY KILLS IT IF YOU LET IT

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The path to House of Pain - An agency starts with ambitions of doing great work and treating

their people right. They PR the hell out of how they’re going to be the first to do it differently.

- They do that for awhile. They get a cultural hit or two. - Bigger clients come sniffing, wanting some of their juice. - Bigger clients mean a bigger agency team to accommodate. They

accommodate. - The agency is suddenly big and cumbersome with painful

processes and decent work. Their reel leans heavily on year one and two.

- The churn begins.

I don’t want W&W to become a House of Pain, so I thought holding back a commitment to our future was the way to do it.

UP UNTIL SIX MONTHS AGO I WAS ANTI-GROWTH

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Common Heidi Year One refrain: “I don’t know if we’ll be around in a year.

We’ll see where this goes.”

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Yes, I was being realistic that young companies often fail.

But more than that, I wouldn’t think meaningfully about growth because I thought that growth = sweatshop = failure.

Having a “wait and see” mentality made growth decisions something that happened to W&W, distancing me from culpability. (Yes, writing this I realize how stupid that sounds).

The braver path, which a coach helped me see, is to own our growth path and the ramifications of it. To create a vision where growth ≠ sweatshop ≠ failure.

MY LACK OF COMMITMENT CAME FROM FEAR

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The first two years we talked about W&W as an experiment. We now talk about W&W as an idea. And we teach that idea to everyone that works with us.

We have a way of working that we enforce. We stopped hedging about that or being scared of that. We started writing policies around it. We pointedly expect that to be in the Pack you need to be a part of that. And we opened more lines of communication so people feel supported in executing on it.

We have more work and people now than we’ve ever had. And yet it still doesn’t feel like a sweatshop, because everyone knows the W&W way and lives it.

STEP ONE: OWN WHAT YOU ARE

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We have no aspirations of having hundreds of people, getting bought or having a car account.

Success to us is about doing kick-ass work with a curated collection of kick-ass people. Success is treating people right. Success is staying nimble and highly responsive to clients. Success is believing in people, training them and then giving them autonomy to make it happen.

I’ve been told that 50 people is where a company goes from nimble to heavy. We’re going to play it safe - the plan now is to cap at 25 people.

And then grow in other ways. Which is another conversation for another talk.

WE ARE JUSTICE LEAGUE

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

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When you’re in leading the Pack, there really are few excuses.

Can we recruit interns from a different place? Yes. Can we build teams to drive healthy collision? Yes. Can we train someone with high potential? Yes. Can we say no to this contract? (gulp) Yes.

It really is up to you how you want a company to be. And that’s a lot of pressure. It take a lot of thought. It takes energy.

THE BUCK STOPS HERE

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The first couple of years of W&W I took vacations and didn’t work after 7 pm, but I wasn’t deeply being good to me.

It might be a part of getting older, but I know I need to do the basic stuff like see friends, eat well, meditate, exercise, drink a lot of water and then do the not so basic stuff like get on my motorcycle and disappear into nature for stretches of time.

We have this story of founders - of killing themselves to be successful. Of the obsession, the hours, the constant stress. I get it. A company grips hard.

But I’m learning to have moments of deeply letting go or else this isn’t sustainable.

TO DO THAT, I’VE LEARNED I NEED TO TAKE CARE

ONE LAST THOUGHT…

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W&W is not the company that it was two years ago. In two years, it will probably be

a different company.

Knowing isn’t the most important thing.

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The most important thing has been making the space to find the truth of the where we should generally be going. And

then taking the first step with an open heart about where it can go.

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If you keep that space to think and listen and learn… the answers more often than not come.

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PAIN & LOVE ARE YOUR FRIENDS DO YOUR HOMEWORK THE COMPANY & THE PEOPLE HAVE TO WORK TOGETHER CULTURE IS A BITCH SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO SMACK DOWN THE SYSTEM REINFORCES ITSELF YOU CAN’T TALK TOO MUCH SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE GROWTH ONLY KILLS IT IF YOU LET IT TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

QUESTIONS?

THANK YOU