Why Communication is Important for Creatives and Artists?

Art has always been a way for creatives and artists to communicate and express their inner thoughts to the world. But communication is different in contexts outside of visual art. When they need to put themselves out there, especially in a working environment, approaches would differ. But let's circle back to how communication is a skill that can benefit artists in the long run, in the setting of project management.

Various factors and essential skills contribute to what makes project management effective, but today, we’ll be covering one important topic: Communication. This is the third installation of our mini-series—for the skills of Time Management and Planning, refer to previous parts!

What does Communication in Project Management Refer to?

Communication in project management refers to the sharing of ideas, opinions, progress updates, and feedback between members of a team. When members of your team are aligned on the same page, it ensures that individuals working on the project are aware of expectations. Moreover, it prevents mistakes from snowballing into something bigger.

3 Factors Needed for Collaborative Communication with Creative Team

Skill #1: Collaborative Communication

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Collaborative communication refers to the seamless exchange of information as a creative team to achieve a common goal. It’s important to communicate—but how you do it is just as crucial.

This can be especially important to artists and creatives. Create an environment that promotes collaborative and creative communication to learn from one another. Putting multiple heads together allows for art to be enriched with multiple perspectives, styles, and cultures. Your creative projects can only benefit from this!

How we can practice collaborative communication:

• Centralise information and communication: In communicating effectively, you can leverage the advancement of technology. Choose an application or platform that can help you and your team create an all-in-one collaborative space or dashboard. This will support the retrieval of related information, documents, and discussions that might have been overlooked or missed. Together, your team can address any issues, thus promoting transparency. For example, with TESSR, you can leave your episodes, scenes, renditions, and feedback on the Project Directory.

• Engage in tasks concurrently: Work collaboratively by tending to tasks, documents, or files at the same time. This boosts transparency, cultivating trust and clear communication, which are essential to cohesive teamwork. If you create an environment that encourages a culture of projecting positivity in teamwork through freely exchanging ideas and opinions, bonds and team harmony will strengthen.

Skill #2: Candid Feedback

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Feedback is really important to ongoing projects, especially within a team setting. It improves the quality of your art, while strengthening teamwork and communication. Giving and receiving feedback is also a form of acknowledgement. It shows that you are paying attention and gives parties the opportunity to alleviate misunderstandings, which is crucial to effective and successful communication.

This form of two-way communication doesn’t just help with your project management needs but can also promote creative growth. Learning is a large part of art, and this process could be aided when you’re in an environment that appreciates and understands good feedback. Having external criticism allows for a fresh pair of eyes to view your work from perspectives other than your own, which can enrich the whole work.

How to give feedback effectively:

• Understand your environmental influences: Online communication is often limiting; the lack of body language, tone of voice, eye contact, and facial expression might lead to misunderstanding and miscommunication. As artists who express our thoughts through art, take advantage of communicator tools provided by platforms to deliver your feedback with more than just words. For instance, with TESSR Review from TESSR collaboration tools, you can leave feedback through comments, voice messages, and annotations. Handwriting your comments, adding uplifting emojis, or recording your appreciation are all covered!

• Be sure to give constructive criticism: For feedback to be absorbed, the recipients should be informed of: what the error is, why it should have been done differently, what are the proposed solutions and suggestions, and how much room for improvement there is moving forward. Besides that, try to stay positive during the feedback process, as being overly negative while giving vague criticism tends to confuse and demotivate your team members. So, avoid this to establish reliability and prevent wasted time.

Skill #3: Emotional Intelligence

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Emotional Intelligence (EQ) refers to the capability to understand emotions of your own and others, and how you manage them—but to be more specific, there are five main components of high emotional intelligence:

• Self-management

• Self-awareness

• Empathy

• Self-motivation

• Social skills 

But how are these relevant to effective communication within project management? Your emotions can fuel the way you respond and react to things—people with high EQ may avoid team conflict, de-escalate conflict, and relay feedback without offending. It’s hard to keep emotions out of work, and if mismanaged, they can pose a setback to you and your team members. When you communicate with high EQ, you are also improving your communication skills.

EQ can also positively impact your art. The better you understand your own feelings and those around you, the more sources you have to pull inspiration from. Emotions are centric to art, after all. Taking human experiences and translating them onto a canvas, digital or not, allows you to further connect with your audience.

How to improve emotional intelligence:

• Ask yourself more questions: Examine why you or someone else feels a certain way towards something. Consider how someone may react to one thing and how someone else could respond to that same thing. To put it simply, put conscious practice into empathy, and it may become second nature to you soon enough.

  
  

• Active listening: Observe and pay attention to verbal and non-verbal cues while showing the other party that you’re listening. When you put a conscious effort into being active in a conversation, you’re practising your social skills—a key factor of emotional intelligence. 

Best Communication Tips with Creative Team as a Manager

Managing a team is no easy task, from juggling a lot of tasks that involve problem-solving to delegating tasks and overseeing the entire process. But one thing that is often overlooked is how to communicate effectively with the creative team as a manager. Here are some tips to ensure smooth and collaborative communication:

Clear Guidelines to Work Within

Set clear boundaries to give your creative team a framework to work within. Unlimited freedom can actually be overwhelming and frustrating, while well-defined limits help boost creativity and keep the project on track.

When Giving Inspiration or Direction, Be Specific

Never let your team members work on something vague or very generic inspiration from clients. Not only this lack of clarity but also it will lead to confusion and inefficiency. Instead, prepare a detailed brief with detailed inspirations, references, or demonstrations to communicate what clients and you envision.

Regular check-ins with the team

Never wait until the end of the project to give a long list of feedback. If you’re acting as the bridge between the client and the creative team, relay feedback to the team regularly. However, at the same time, you also need to monitor the changes in the client’s direction to avoid confusion in your team. Also, establish a firm stance on the aesthetic agreement to ensure alignment between all parties.

Conclusion

Effective communication can significantly impact your creative projects, and it can become a habit if you intentionally incorporate these factors into your team interactions. Like many other things, you will reap the rewards of your efforts over time.

Author Bio

From Malaysia, Leia Emeera is a writer at TESSR, and a published author. She has been putting pen to paper ever since she learned how to, and has an anthology to her name, titled 'Ten'. Leia loves music, games, and her beloved Labrador retriever, George. She aims to further her studies in English Literature and Creative Writing the moment her gap year ends. 'Till then, you will find her sitting behind a desk, writing with TESSR.

Connect with her on LinkedIn: Leia Emeera