Room 214 Core Value: We Pursue Excellence

In this series, we’re going in-depth on our core values—how we developed them, what they mean to us, and how they help us create coherence in our studio. This week, we’ll focus on who we are. 

WE PURSUE EXCELLENCE:

We aim to make the best thing better than the last. Our creative problem-solving and driving curiosity keeps our work fresh and relevant as we navigate uncertainty. We apply insights, great communication, and best practices, regardless of the constraints. We respectfully agitate to improve the work and thoughtfully experiment to uncover novel ideas.

We’ve been working on our process, The Coherence Method, for several years, and have undertaken a major effort to document and refine the core processes we abide by in doing and delivering work. For us, there is no end-point to this pursuit—excellence is an ongoing process we always strive for. It’s all about asking ourselves, “How can we make this better?”

The pursuit of excellence requires an awareness of the shadow side of our mantra, Creating Valuable Relationships. Complacency hides in the shadow of relationships as excellence can slowly deteriorate with time and familiarity, especially as we build stronger personal ties with our clients. Without vigilance in pursuing excellence, it can be a gradual slope toward “this is what we do for our longest client, so it should be enough for the next one.” A great way to check for this is with fresh perspectives from team members who aren’t in the day-to-day on such accounts.

As creative service providers, we can’t help but take our work personally. In that comes a desire to keep pushing, to learn from our mistakes, to elevate our thinking, and to remain in a state of curiosity. We look at larger consumer, industry, and economic trends to see where we fit in; to separate what is truly relevant from the hype; to glean insights we can apply to evolving our work.

Now without the confines of a physical office during the pandemic, we made the decision to hire nationally to invest in team members who will elevate our work. And we will continue to do so. Though all-remote work has its challenges, we see it as an opportunity to focus on our pursuit of excellence by bringing on the brightest talent in our home state of Colorado and beyond. 

Recently in working with a long-time client, circumstances arose that led us to realize we could no longer provide the level and quality of service they needed to achieve their goals. Instead of muddling through and crossing our fingers when it came time to renew the contract, we told them honestly. It was not an easy decision, but ending our working relationship made sense for us and our client. 

Similar to our other values of leading with humility and acting out of love, not fear, pursuing excellence is just that—an ongoing pursuit, but one that motivates us to push ourselves and each other to evolve every day. How do you think about the work you deliver? And how does that come through in your core values?