The soil needs to remain fertile for the work to be great!

It is hard to brainstorm when the TV is on while you are trying to think. A bit more challenging to think through ideas at a party when everyone wants to dance and have a great time. Although the above examples are totally obvious and requires no commentary from my end, I am using this understandable situation to drive the need for an environment that activates the best ideas out of us.

The quality of the idea that comes out from marketing teams is closely linked to the environment that those ideas operate in. In a space where safe ideas are celebrated and cost cutting is seen as innovative, then the ideas by their very nature might have limited ability to stand out if what is celebrated are ideas that are modest and create as little tension as possible. If there is a sense of rule and command as a leadership style, then that philosophy will trickle down to the most parts of the organization, and will end up with the rulers that come up with the innovation and little allowance for this to happen from all levels of the organization.

As marketers, we need to constantly water the soil and build an environment that allows not only our teams to flourish, but allows all to flourish in doing better work.