Personality key to fostering creative teams, shares Vogue Singapore Foundation

Fostering a culture of connected coaching and empowering through personalities, are becoming the key to unlocking people power in creative organisations, revealed the Vogue Singapore Foundation (VSF) in a locally based workshop co-hosted with Principles US. The session (which took place on June 27) focused on international investor and entrepreneur Ray Dalio’s best-selling book ‘Principles’, curated by the management practices utilised at his company Bridgewater Associates.

The VSF (which was founded post the 2020 pandemic) partnered with the group as part of their purpose to champion the discovery and representation of creatives in the country. The foundation’s other initiatives include building relationships with local universities and fashion bodies to recruit and identify the best creative talents in Singapore, as well as their annual Vogue Singapore Talent Prize, which gives young creatives a chance to showcase their unique art forms, in a chance to win coveted prizes – including cash for their creative ideas.

“The Vogue Singapore Foundation aims to provide education and support to those in the creative industry. We are therefore thrilled to have been able to partner with the globally renowned Principles team to provide an exclusive opportunity for Singapore's community of entrepreneurs, leaders, and teams to learn more about how to optimise their strengths to drive success for themselves and their business,” shared Petra Sekhar, programme director of the foundation.

Natasha Damodaran, managing director of Media Publishares (parent company of VSF) added: “It’s becoming increasingly important to create nurturing spaces for creatives in Singapore, and to encourage and foster new and existing talent to grow. The challenge to inspire, motivate and tap into this creativity requires support both from inside and outside the industry. We hope through spotlighting these challenges and opportunities and providing a wider range of support, we can enable a wider cultural shift in embracing all that creatives have to offer in Singapore and Asia.”

The 90-minute workshop was hosted by Zachary Wieder, CEO of Principles Tools based in Brooklyn, New York. Wieder iterated that the impetus for creative organisations has evolved over recent years: shifting purely from generating purpose-led work, to developing a culture of purpose-driven people who are then in turn, motivated to generate meaningful and impactful outcomes. 

Wieder also discussed how a variety of researched workplace behaviours including enhanced trust and openness are key to growth in creative teams, where employees can openly raise issues and work through them productively. Also imperative to growth: investment in individuals’ career goals and development by organisations, so challenges and growth journeys can be undertaken in a safe and supportive environment.

Campaign shares five key takeaways from the Principles methodology shared, to help you foster more effective and creative teams:

Understand the formula: What you and those you work with are like + how you are with each other = your success

In other words, through understanding your personality and that of those who work with you, then tailoring your communications, engagement, and workplace behaviour to best suit these insights, you can unlock success. There's a variety of tools on the market that can help, from the likes of Principles that outlines your personal and team archetypes or even Myers-Briggs personality tests available for free online. Once completed, compare your findings to those in your team, and note the ways in which they are best motivated, receive feedback and plan tasks. Use personality-oriented methodology to generate creative goals and set individual benchmarks – in lieu of expecting all team members to display the same workplace behaviours and outputs.

Put interpersonal connection at the core of your culture

To cultivate an environment where authentic creativity can flow, it’s critical to have a culture that fosters an open exchange of ideas and thoughts, as well as a supportive unit of team members willing to listen. Prioritise interpersonal connections in a meaningful way, by assimilating them into the daily activities and goals. This way, you create cohesive teams that rely on one another’s strengths to generate creative value. By proactively embedding interpersonal KPIs into your performance processes and assigning leaders in the organisation with a responsibility to meet more than just tangible output benchmarks, you can create a culture that emphasises success as more than just a great piece of client work, but also a contribution back to the company and people itself.

Connect the dots

Utilise your people as coaches to unlock a hub-and-spoke of positive creativity across all levels in the organisation through creating programs of mentorship and coaching that go beyond the traditional manager-and-employee relationship. Open connectedness across hierarchies, so that every member of the organisation is seen as influential. Not only will this enable greater diversity of thought and provide a platform to those who may not otherwise feel structurally empowered to speak up, it also gives merit to the notion of healthy conflict within creative environments – especially ones where ideas are being scrutinised and debated daily. The opportunities for higher-quality feedback also increase across levels, allowing the best solutions to surface, not just the ones told through key people’s lenses.

Empower and encourage ongoing self-discovery

Whilst most organisations (particularly creatives ones) will always seek to attract the best talent, the key to harnessing it without stagnation is rooted in ongoing growth. Through providing tools that enable self-discovery and continuous improvement, you build more reflective and self-aware employees, that in turn produce better work. In line with understanding personality as mentioned above, focus on two key factors: ego and blind spots. Empower a culture where both facets can be discussed openly and without judgement with trusted mentors, ensuring you have time and space to reflect on areas for improvement or focus. This requires ‘radical open-mindedness’ – including the ability to accept the reality of people, what they bring to the table and how to deal with it accordingly.

Don’t be afraid to set ‘audacious goals’

Part of the creative experience is very much focused on achieving ideas that may seem impossible, but following through on them anyway. Don’t be afraid to set ambitious goals that strive for completion outside the confines of the expected, especially when they inspire or motivate your teams. Through setting goals that may seem unobtainable at first, then iteratively revising and adapting them throughout the delivery journey, you can also empower creatives to better embrace failure as part of the process that leads to success. Fostering a culture of ‘audacity’ also allows for teams to think big and opt for innovation in creativity – especially in tandem with supportive practices and environments that allow for balanced risk-taking.