A Leadership & Culture Case Study
When I stepped into leading the full Creative Services team, one of the first things I did was listen. We surveyed the team and the scores reflected what I suspected — a team with real talent that lacked the structure, clarity, and support to do their best work. Rather than making assumptions from the top down, I went hands-on. I attended shoots, sat in on day-to-day work, and dug into the friction points firsthand. Approaching everything objectively is key. There are two sides to every story so not only did i deeply engage with my team, I worked closely with requestors and stakeholders at all levels of marketing to understand how to best support both my team and theirs.
From there we made meaningful changes: hired a dedicated project manager, introduced sprint-based workflows and re-launched how we used Jira for workload visibility and accountability, built a mid-level management layer to provide direct personal and professional development support, restructured reporting lines to reduce overload at the top, and introduced a revised one-on-one rhythm that gave every team member a consistent space to be heard. We surveyed the team three times over 18 months — August 2024, February 2025, and August 2025 — tracking progress and continuing to refine along the way.
Grew team engagement from 60% to 88% across three survey cycles over 18 months
Introduced sprint methodology and Jira-based workflow that increased visibility, accountability, and cross-team collaboration
Built a trusted mid-level management layer, reducing direct reports at the leadership level and creating more focused team support
Implemented structured one-on-one cadence that improved team morale, clarity, and professional development
Qualtrics data visualizations available showing score progression across all three survey cycles
In Their Own Words
"The new Jira and Sprint system has been a game changer. It's given me clear visibility into what I should be working on, when, and how to prioritize true high-value work over just the loudest requests. This has eliminated the stress of Monday meetings where everyone was competing for priority."
"The Creative Leadership Team are open to change, communicate clearly, and lead by example. That openness trickles down, and the rest of the team follows suit. It's created an environment where we can adapt quickly, support each other, and still deliver high-quality work."
"Over the past six months, I've seen a lot of positive changes... Our updated team structure is also working well. Having clearer lines of responsibility and fewer people reporting directly to Chris has made things more manageable, efficient, and hopefully far less stressful for leadership."
"The team has approached each change with a positive, solutions-focused mindset. There have been bumps along the way, but everyone has handled them with grace and professionalism, which is something I think is really special."
