Any in-house creative services leader knows that process is important. From how clients initiate new projects, to how the team gets work done. It’s a very important way to manage workflow, effectiveness, productivity, and frankly…order. If we have done our jobs well, things run smoothly for the most part. Clients are happy, designers are engaged and creative, things are good.

Like any business that is launching new products or services, all of the planning and development we have put into the new creative services department will have been for naught if we don’t announce the launch of new processes to our clients.

After a couple months of planning, the time has come to institute the plans that I have been developing since the day I started. I’ve built some key relationships, assessed a few situations, identified needs, designed processes, and (I hope) built some trust. Now all I need to do is stop talking about the “big plan” and start getting it going already.

While my gut tells me we need to flip a switch on Monday and have things work in a new way, my experience – and observations of human behavior – tells me that change really needs to be incremental or I’m at risk for clients getting things done the way they used to, undermining the new process and potentially compromising the company’s strategic plans.

After a few weeks on the job I have heard more airing of dirty laundry than I would have expected. Instead of getting mired in how things were though. I focus on the task at hand which is to make things better.

You’re going to learn more about the business and people in your first few weeks on the job than you may realize. Now is the time to listen more than you talk.

When running a business of any kind it’s important to remember that you, as a manager, have just three resources at your disposal – Money, People, and Information. When someone starts a new job they need one of those three things more than the others: information.