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Title inflation. If you have no direct reports and you’re not solely responsible for a piece of business, you’re a cd in name only.
Sounds like you’re doing the right things. Long term, you’ll be fine. But yeah, the sooner you can get hands on with nurturing your own teams and stuff like that, the better you’ll be. Good luck out there!
I’m a CD and have direct reports. But I don’t work with any of them. It’s the weirdest thing.
At review time, I’m regurgitating what others have said about them. And I have no idea if (or why) they’re struggling or flourishing.
And the people I DO manage on projects and work with on a daily basis report to others.
So I don’t have a direct line of sight into their overall workloads and availability. I don’t have control over their promotions or opportunities.
The org chart is nutty. And I don’t think it makes for a streamlined department.
Coach
And then we wonder why the ad world is going to shit…
Coach
IDK what agencies y’all work at. I’ve had to manage people since I was a senior.
If you’re a CD and you’re writing the work, with no teams working into you, then you’re just a creative.
I worked at Wieden and the structure was so good.
ECDs - 1 or 2 leaders of the place.
CDs - didn’t write work, just guided the teams.
Creatives.
None of this ACD business. Now they have CCOs there and the whole system seems to be similar to other agencies now. Shame.
I mean I do write the work with no teams under me. But I also decide what gets presented, when, how. I deal with all of the clients, and our agency partners present work to me (PR, Experiential, Social and media agencies.)
Coach
As agencies have gotten leaner many have also gotten flatter. I didn’t have true direct reports until ECD.
That is insane
Depends on the agency… it’s more common than you think in US agencies. I used to work at a pretty big agency at the CD level ten years ago and I had zero reports because the GCDs were power hungry / paranoid so flattened the structure under them,
This still happens with these types of ECDs or GCDs even when CDs have direct reports. The CDs and direct reports are miserable as a result because it adds a stupid amount of churn because the CD now has to lead and do the work and can hardly empower their creative teams as a result.
a lot of agencies I’ve worked at I’ve seen CDs without any direct reports
That’s not a Creative Director
Im a CD and only the AD reports directly to me. The entire rest of the team reports to the AD. Which is AAD and designers of all levels.
I managed projects and the people working on it, but we never had a dedicated report. Our team got real top heavy to make people happy. Every creative was CD level talent, but not in the traditional role.