Week 4: Solving Problems/Improving Leadership

As I completed the fourth week of my internship at Six One, there are a couple of new takeaways that I have in regards to overall organizational and structural effectiveness within the agency. Up until this point in my internship, I’ve felt that everything that I’ve been exposed to and worked on has been streamlined and well thought out. However, this week another intern and I were tasked with organizing and updating the agency’s massive database of media, entertainment, PR, and business contacts. As soon as we started, it was evident that the database was completely unorganized and hadn’t been updated/sorted through in quite some time. We followed the directions we were given by the account executives directing us, and completed the task. Upon completion, we were asked to present to the agency and show them the updates that we had made. Immediately, the founder of the agency stated that the database was still extremely out of sorts. She was clearly upset with the state of the database, as she admitted she had assumed the rest of the team had been taking care of it, as was their responsibility. This was the first time I had experienced any kind of operational issue of this sort during my time at Six One, and I was interested to see how the issue was handled. 

The founder, Kilee, handled the issue in a very effective manner. Rather than trying to redirect myself and the other intern, she started with a top-to-bottom approach. She knew that the miscommunication and confusion regarding the database started with the senior execs and trickled down to the interns, so she tasked the senior execs with leading the rest of the team in a complete overhaul of the database. With that, throughout the week the entire team dedicated 2 hours at the end of each day to work through the task together. Not only was this extremely effective, but we all worked at the same time via zoom with our cameras off, so we were able to call out and make comments or ask questions at any time. It was a great team exercise, and the situation that felt like a crisis at the beginning of the week felt more like a team bonding activity by the end of it as a result of how it was handled by the agency’s leaders. 

Aside from this operational issue, another issue that is nearly unavoidable in any partially remote work is that of collaboration. The bonds and quick communication that you’re able to have in an office aren’t nearly the same over slack and zoom, which can negatively impact the overall work environment. As Six One is bicoastal, everyone was feeling that it was difficult for the entire team to have time to really bond and get to know each other. After thinking about it a bit on my own, I think that the team could benefit from participating in more simultaneous work sessions (such as the one I mentioned above) on a regular basis to get more of that in-office feel while working. Another idea I had to promote team bonding that we’ve done a couple of times in the past is to do a virtual team lunch during which we all eat and do ice-breaker activities. Although this can be uncomfortable and awkward at first, they always leave everyone feeling closer and happier in the end.