8 OCTOBER 2024

The Three Cs to Client Engagement

At Alluvus, curiosity, collaboration and creativity serve as the foundation to our approach to client engagement. It’s the spark that drives us to ask, “What if we could do anything?”

Curiosity, in its purest form, is about openness, exploration, and a willingness to entertain all possibilities. It’s something we believe every team member and client can tap into, regardless of experience or expertise. After all, curiosity doesn’t require any special skills—it just requires an open mind and a shared commitment to exploring every avenue.

And collaboration, well, that’s how we get the work done. True partnerships are what we’re all about, and a belief that when we work together we all succeed.

Our third “C,” Creativity is how we then push ourselves. Maya Angelou sums it up well: “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” It’s such an inviting way for Alluvus to work with a team to embrace creativity. There is no better than. There is no bad idea.

In this blog I’ll share more about how our three Cs approach comes to life, and how you can utilize this same thinking in your own work.

Curiosity.

When we bring curiosity to the table, something powerful happens. We shake things up, look beyond the obvious, and uncover opportunities that might have otherwise been overlooked. This isn’t just about finding answers; it’s about creating a collaborative environment where every voice is heard, and where creativity flows freely.

Curiosity is the starting point for a journey that leads to innovative solutions – because when curiosity leads the way, there’s no telling how far we can go.

Curiosity requires no special talents (just ask Albert Einstein) and serves simply as a gentle reminder for all of us to enter into any engagement with an open mind. Being curious is something we celebrate and encourage at Alluvus because when we ask our clients and ourselves to be curious, we create opportunities to level-set as we begin the journey. Passionate curiosity ensures that we work together to create passionate outcomes.

Prior to any kick-off meeting, we usually ask our clients to simply slide all of those files, reports and memos into a folder (or box) and send it to us. No organization needed. We relish receiving this gold mine of information because the mess that’s inside looks and feels like opportunity. All we ask at Alluvus is for team members to unpack the information with intention and care as they sort through what’s inside. We carefully examine all that’s contained with a commitment to create structure and avoid leaving anything out.

Curiosity ensures that when each box is opened, we take time to honor the moment and consider the potential of answering a simple question, “What possibilities lie inside?”

Collaboration.

Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager (which perhaps has now been displaced by “ask Siri”), is the source for this quote which sums up the importance and value of collaboration. “We can’t do it alone.”

Our second “C”, Collaboration, is in service to the first “C,” Curiosity. If anything, by beginning our journey with the simple request to be curious, we establish an equal footing and begin the journey together, as collaborators. “Be curious” goes hand in hand with the question, “What can we do, together?”

It really does take all of us collaborating together and working in partnership to examine how we can tap our collective curiosity to figure it out. Collaboration creates shared commitment and results in an outcome that is a result of everyone involved – client, agency, expert. Collaboration fosters an environment that ensures we are comfortable with each other. When we trust each other, we help each other get to where we all want to be.

Creativity.

There is only opportunity when it comes to being creative. Being curious ensures that we will be creative. As we work with our clients to consider everything, we find that we can connect each and every creative outcome with the journey that came before. It’s easy to demonstrate how every idea links back to the formative stage of an engagement: “Remember when we wondered if…”

We’re not talking about pie in the sky mindsets here; and we’re not advocating for creativity for creativity’s sake. We’re not trying to be cute. When we’re working with clients, we understand that there is a lot at stake. Budgets. Reputations. Jobs. But isn’t that the obvious point? We know we have to work together to deliver an outcome and we know that any outcome needs to demonstrate an ROI.

“What does success look like?” is the organizing question that ensures any investment results in value. The CFO is out there somewhere.

And we’ll get to where they want us to be. However, as we work together to do so, Alluvus knows that the journey becomes so much more rewarding when we embrace the three Cs of Curiosity, Collaboration and Creativity – which exist in all of us. These three C’s result in meaningful and measurable outcomes and bring us together to celebrate what we have in common. (A couple more “Cs” there, but who’s counting?)