Episode Summary
You built a content machine. Now leadership wants magic.
In-house creative teams were designed to move fast and save money—but today’s business leaders want more.
They expect:
- bold brand-building
- cultural relevance
- strategic insight
…from teams still treated like internal vendors.
So what separates in-house teams that thrive from the ones that get quietly downsized?
According to Pete and Juan Carlos, it all comes down to culture.
In this episode, they pull back the curtain on the rituals, truths, and team dynamics that unlock trust, talent, and transformative work.
From unspoken disabilities & superpowers to under-measured impact, this is the playbook for making your team irreplaceable.
Key Takeaways
- You can’t process your way to magic. Culture is the real operating system of creative teams.
- Creative “problems” often signal cultural misalignment—not lack of talent or effort.
- Superpowers and struggles both matter. Great teams make space for the whole human.
- Conversation isn’t overhead. It’s where clarity, courage, and creativity begin.
- When CMOs and creative leaders align, in-house teams stop surviving—and start leading.
Passive Listening to Active Thinking
Use these prompts to reflect solo—or spark deep conversations with your team:
- What does your team optimize for—volume, speed, or belief?
- Where is your team using process to avoid conversation?
- What’s one unspoken “disability” on your team—and what would it look like to support it?
- Are your current metrics proving value—or hiding it?
- If you left tomorrow, what would be missing: deliverables or culture?
Pete Johnson & Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, Co-Founders at LOVE+RESPECT
Pete and Juan Carlos have led iconic creative teams at LEGO, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Saatchi & Saatchi. Now, through LOVE+RESPECT, they help brands transform their in-house teams into culture-driven, business-moving creative engines. With a mix of radical candor and real-world experience, they bring humanity, honesty, and high performance into the heart of creative operations.
🔗 Links & Resources
What is CreativeOps Podcast?
The Creative Ops Podcast, hosted by a respected leader in the industry since 2014, Nish Patel, explores the ever-changing world of creative operations. Each week, immerse yourself in candid, enlightening, and curiosity-driven conversations with creative operations leaders as they share stories of challenges, solutions, and insights on both prevailing and emerging topics.
Central to these conversations are the foundational pillars of Creative Ops: People, Process, and Tech and the disruption and opportunity of AI (artificial intelligence) on individuals, organizations and the entire industry.
Whether you're tuning in for an insightful interview with an industry leader or Nish's conversation-provoking perspective on key issues, the CreativeOps Podcast is the essential water cooler for the creative ops community.
Listen in to navigate your challenges differently, ask the questions that allow you to discover new possibilities and equip yourself with invaluable insights to unleash your potential and flourish in the dynamic world of creative operations.