Roger Hurni of Off Madison Ave says his creative philosophy centers largely on employees. “Individual creativity is absolutely critical. I mean, we talk all the time about how our assets walk in and out of the door every day,” says Hurni. “Without our individual employees, quite frankly, this agency doesn’t exist. It is really the combination of the brainpower of everybody that really makes this place tick.”
Just being creative, though, is not the most important aspect of an employee; it is only part of the equation. It’s their willingness to work and develop. “I would rather have somebody who is less talented and works harder than someone who has kind of an okay work ethic and is immensely talented,” says Hurni. In addition, Hurni seeks out employees who are also interested in the world outside of their work. “Yes, I want them to be talented at their task, but it’s also important for them to have talents in pursuits outside of that in order to bring those influences in the creative direction,” says Hurni. In this vein he looks for potential employees who he says can “problem solve as their creative fashion.”
Hurni relies partially on the physical space of Off Madison Ave to help foster a creative environment. During the construction of their office, Hurni wanted to tear down walls, literally. He also wanted to mix everyone together. The combination of these ideas has helped foster an open environment. But Hurni’s passion for collaboration does not end there. Every year or so, he relocates everyone to a new space in the office. “This way, you get the opportunity to experience people, who you may work with or you get to overhear conversations about accounts you may not work on,” he says.
In order to help retain creative employees within an agency structure, Hurni believes that an agency must adopt unique techniques. One way to do this is to be creative with the organizational hierarchy. “We try to keep [our organizational structure] very flat … There’s not a lot of hierarchy here as far as direct reports and, you know, there’s this chain of command if you want to get an idea here’s how it gets approved. We don’t just have an open door policy, we have a no door policy here, which goes back to the environment,” says Hurni. An open structure is not the only measure Hurni believes should be in place in order to keep employees content. Hurni believes agency workers need an immense amount of freedom in order to help them learn and progress as individuals.
With too much freedom, employees may sometimes be tempted to slack, warns Hurni. Natural human tendencies help to prevent situations from becoming too lax. “The challenge really comes a lot from peer pressure and trying to do better than everybody else and prove yourself constantly for being inventive,” he says. This peer pressure drives all employees, not just the creative department. According to Hurni’s philosophy “creativity doesn’t happen in the creative department. Creativity happens across every department inside the agency.” As a result, all employees are encouraged to contribute to the creative output of the agency.
The collective nature of the agency allows for all workers to collaborate and share idea. Diversity is important in an agency, says Hurni, but he does not mean diversity in the conventional sense. Hurni places an emphasis on diversity of perspectives. But no matter how diverse, all people are fundamentally similar. In his global travels, Hurni has learned valuable lessons about human nature. “We all talk about how different we are around the world, but I see the way parents treat their children and the way we try to get along as friends and neighbors. That’s universally the same. I haven’t seen that different anywhere in the world. And we’re a lot more alike than we’re not alike, and so travel really fuels me.” Ultimately Hurni finds inspiration in his travels, analyzing human behavior and learning from intercultural communications.