THE RIGHT MIX


In this issue of Destinology, we’re exploring how to encourage a creative culture with our current staff by providing volunteer opportunities, a safe environment in which to share stories and ideas, seeking teaching outlets, and developing programs for our teams to pursue personal and professional development. However much support we might develop for our teams, it’s persistently essential to keep hiring new talent to bring fresh energy and perspectives into the organization.


In 2016, PGAV Destinations has significantly grown its workforce, hiring designers, marketers, and support staff from a remarkably diverse set of backgrounds. Tese new team members are already injecting fresh perspectives and new twists on our culture, making our office a better place to work. However, it’s not about replacing the old with the new. PGAV maintains one of the highest employee retention rates in the destination design industry. Tis cultivates a remarkable sea of mentors within our walls and above our drawing boards, collaborating daily with our newest staff. Tey work seamlessly in tandem, combining unbridled enthusiasm and new lessons from the classroom with decades of varied, international experience to create invaluable teams.


While hiring proven and successful staff, or fresh graduates out of top universities, can help increase an organization’s value and venture into new horizons, it’s important to avoid hiring a lot of people who are “similarly creative.” Matt Williams, CEO of the Martin Agency, notes that “the peril is ‘creative redundancy,’ or a uniform culture where challenging points of view are simply not


present in the room. Te uniformity of the culture can be so strong that everyone you hire sees the world and solves problems the same way.


Friction is grist for the creative mill.


Creative people need an environment that encourages debate and surrounds them with others who challenge assumptions and can add to their ideas.”


Alison Quirk of State Street Corporation seconds the notion of a diverse creative team. “Diverse groups yield better solutions and a variety of perspectives, insights, and learning styles to accelerate problem-solving,” she says. “Tere’s also a term for this - the Medici Effect - which posits that a diverse team has a better chance of generating groundbreaking ideas thanks to the varying ways it approaches a problem.” When we seek out a diverse set of skilled talent – from different cities, states, and countries; non-traditional industries and educational backgrounds; different life- paths, from head-of-the-class students to global backpackers; introverts and extroverts – we create an environment bursting with a world of experience and ideas, helping generate some of the most unique and creative solutions for our own company as well as our guests and clients.


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