Kuh-lab-uh-reyt (or perish): Cooperation among roster agencies is easier said than achieved

Col·lab·o·rate  [kuh-lab-uh-reyt]:

1. Two or more people working together in pursuit of a shared, collective, bounded goal
2. To cooperate, usually willingly, with an enemy nation

Dictionary.com provides the two definitions above for the word ‘collaborate’. And while most clients would prefer the former when applying it to their agency roster, the reality is usually the latter.

Unbundling and fragmentation has resulted in marketers now managing an expansive roster of communications agencies. To date, effort has primarily focused on ensuring the unification of messaging, while managing the agendas, egos, needs, cultures, and financial requirements of these often disparate entities. This has masked the true value of these ‘best in class’ partnerships.

Why is collaboration so hard to achieve?

The primary reason is that agencies are ‘output’ focused. They have historically been rewarded based on the volume of their output, in terms of execution. And they fight hard to protect, and grow, their share of this. Which makes agencies naturally competitive, even when on the same client roster.

Short of consolidating all activity with one agency group, the challenge is to affect organisational, cultural, and behavioural change amongst the roster, allowing clients to tap into a synergetic talent pool for the greater good of their business.

Easier said, than done, if our experience is anything to go by. But not impossible.

The first step in achieving collaboration is gaining clarity on what it is. We’ve developed a working definition of collaboration: The harnessing of the collective energy, creativity, diversity of thinking, and expertise of a client’s marketing communications providers to generate measurably more effective results. 

And based on the work we have done in this area, here are some basic principles that have been successful for our clients.

Quarantine ‘output’

This is arguably the most important step in enabling collaborative behaviour. Protecting each agency’s ‘output’ allows them the opportunity to ‘input’ freely, without risk of losing projects to another agency.  This begets an environment of trust, communication and sharing. However, it puts an enormous onus on you as a client. Before you can quarantine output, you must first dissect and identify each agency’s competencies, capabilities, and capacities against your needs; and then define, and communicate, each agency’s roles and responsibilities. This analysis is critical to achieving success.

Align around a common goal and purpose: Yours!

Your agencies exist to help you achieve business goals. Period. And organisational psychologists will tell you that to achieve alignment, there are a few basic tenets. Clear, concise communication.  Specificity. Setting of targets. And measurement of results. Your agencies must understand that the only competitors on your horizon are your competitors, not theirs.

Establish the rules of engagement jointly

One client once told us, “We never start without knowing what the finishing line looks like.” And that is certainly sound advice here. But the best success we have had is when the group creates the “finishing line” and the path to get there, rather than having it forced upon them unwillingly by the client. There will also have to be clear internal rules of engagement, to ensure that your teams contribute positively to this new way of working, avoiding bad practises like ‘double briefing’ agencies. And typically these rules of engagement will require constant review and revision to overcome the bumps along the way.

Measure

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. This is particularly important for anyone embarking on the path of increasing collaboration, as it is important to know which of your agencies can, and do, collaborate well, and which don’t—before you start. Here, importantly, data trumps intuition. And measuring progress ensures that all parties know that this is a part of the new working protocol, not just a whim that will soon pass.

Manage actively

Make no mistake, Clients have to be active, not passive, drivers of this process. It will undoubtedly require new briefing protocols; add, not save, time, at least initially; test your communication skills; and most importantly, require you to become an expert in conflict management and resolution. The person vested with being the client lead for collaboration should be carefully profiled to ensure they possess the interpersonal, organisational, process, and leadership skills required for the job. For more on this, download “The Skill Set of the Successful Collaborator” from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.

Reward collectively, not just individually

Many clients have performance-based incentives written into their contracts with their agencies, and a betting man would wager that most of these are based on individual agency achievement of results.  Few, if any, tier their incentives to reward collectively as well as individually. Our clients that have incentivised collectively have seen an immediate shift in agency attitudes toward collaboration.

With ‘lead idea’ replacing ‘lead agency’, collaboration should no longer be seen as desirable, it must be seen as a requisite behaviour.