The partnership between John Lewis and Adam&EveDDB was a match worthy of Hollywood legends. A relationship where it appeared both parties were thriving, and between them, creating something beautiful. Therefore it is now a surprise that the retailer’s decision to pitch its creative account sent a few shock waves across the industry.

But once you take out the awards, headline grabbing creative and results ultimately like all of life’s great partnerships these decisions often boil down to navigating relationships. At some point what was once a match made in heaven, is now over because one party (or both) lost trust in the relationship. And even when things aren’t going as well as you would hope, if you have trust in your partner, you can work through it together. So how do you build that trust? 

Having clear communication is about going beyond weekly status updates and taking the time to have real and honest conversations. The key to these meaningful discussions is relentlessly pushing for Radical Candor. Sounds simple, but I think we all know that it’s not. 

Numerous studies into human behaviour show people would rather avoid ‘conflict’ than lean into difficult conversations. According to a recent survey from leadership training company VitalSmarts shows that  over 80 percent of employees procrastinate on necessary yet difficult discussions. Forty percent admitted to even putting off these tough conversations for six months. 

Embracing the power of Radical Candor: A four step guide to honest, productive relationships 

So how do you get past this state? The trick is to create a communication framework, which allows all ‘levels’ to feel ‘safe’ and empowered to have honest conversations. 

1. Know what you want to achieve together

To evaluate the relationship, you first need to know what you are evaluating it against, so establishing your shared vision as a client and agency is key. This can be established at any point in the relationship but will create the guardrails necessary for identifying success or tricky conversations. If you feel either party is going off course, you have this joint commitment to fall back on.

2. Scheduled partnership sessions

Every month or quarter with the client aimed around evaluating where you are on that shared vision, with a strict agenda of reviewing the latest work, commercials, celebrating wins but also flagging any issues, no matter how small and being prepared to work through solutions. This meeting should be elevated and include senior representation from both sides. In each of these sessions you should track the status against those solutions – holding both sides to account for progress and not letting anything be swept under the carpet.

3. Ensure there are C-Suite/Exec level quarterly check-ins

This responsibility hits every level, including the tippy top, as you often find especially client side the lead most senior client is so removed from the day to day and that relationship - but often where the BIG decisions are made.

4. Prioritise supporting and empowering teams

This is vital to ensuring they actually tell you what’s going on without the fear of reprisal. Secondly this ensures that leaders not only know when to step in, but that broader teams trust you to act on potential friction points. 

Once you have created this safe space, which demonstrates you care, every party feels much more at ease with Radical Candor and that’s where the real magic starts. 

Radical Candor is what happens when you show someone that you care Personally while you challenge directly, without being aggressive or insincere. It really just means saying what you think while also giving a damn about the person you're saying it to. This isn’t always easy and reflecting on my relationships with some of my clients over the past 15 years, Radical Candor hasn’t always happened. You can have a great relationship with most of your day-to-day clients, yet fear can mean you never really lean into the conversations that matter. 

Embracing Radical Candor matters because it is not just good for business it is vital to staff morale. Research shows that conflict avoidance can wreak havoc on an individual’s mental health too. Repressing actual thoughts and feelings in exchange for pleasantry and superficiality can not only render relationships weak but can also escalate small disagreements and disputes into long-running sources of anxiety.

This underlying anxiety has definitely been true of client relationships I've experienced in the past. Especially when it has got to the point of re-pitching for the work. We have had the framework in place, but we were only alluding to problems and not ‘challenging directly’ on root causes with the day-to-day team or senior leadership, for fear that we could lose the re-pitch as we would be seen not to be able to work with certain people.

As Kim Malone Scott the author of Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, explains: ‘The essence of leadership is not to get overwhelmed by circumstances.’ The truth is that as agencies fighting to save an account, I am sure we have all been guilty of succumbing to that overwhelm at points in our careers.  It is difficult not to when the ramifications of losing the business can feel so significant. 

As a team, anxiety can grow and the process will take its toll on everyone involved – but by this time it is often too late. If we are honest with ourselves, the problems could have all been addressed much earlier if we had used Radical Candor to actually put them on the agenda in the first place. 

Professional relationships will always end and there is no shame in that and agencies should take pride in what their partnerships achieve. Yet practising regular open and transparent conversations and consistently tracking feedback will stop both parties from second guessing whether they have done the right thing.

And all is never lost. Like any failed relationship the hard lessons learned can blossom into brilliant new starts and fledgling relationships can turn to long-term impactful partnerships. 

Yet it's just as much about people as it is about process. Ultimately it all boils down to navigating human connections. It is about how we have worked on ourselves, how we are clearer about why we are the way we are. Finally it is about carving out space to move beyond the fear of saying the wrong thing and instead to not be afraid to ‘challenge directly’. Ultimately regularly practised Radical Candor between agency and client is about showing that we really care about delivering on that joint promise to one another.