It was genuinely fantastic to read about AURA’s new Working Well Together (WWT) Charter – and the team at Mustard wanted to officially put our whole-hearted support for it “on the record”.
If you’re not in the know, AURA is a leading client-side research networking and events organisation in the UK. If you’re a research buyer, check out their website and try out membership for free. There are 20+ events every year, and an online knowledge hub and forum – as well as annual awards. Like most good membership organisations, you can connect with peers in similar roles to share experiences and expertise, to drive forward your skills and those of your peers, and to enhance the impact of the research and insight that you deliver – helping you to maximise the “difference-making”. More on the WWT Charter later…
What about a Mustard Charter?
The concept of the WWT charter is fantastic – six promises from requesting a proposal through to post-project feedback. In the spirit of open dialogue and working well together, we wanted to share what client side researchers can expect back from us in return. So here are six “back-at-ya” promised behaviours that we feel are unique to the Mustard experience.
- We’ll work WITH you. Collaborate. Partner. However you prefer to say it… Saying it is one thing, doing it is something else. We’ll do stuff together for better outcomes.
- We’ll flex with your business. Things change. New priorities emerge. We get the dynamics of business and design on that basis.
- We’ll get excited. Sometimes over-excited.Research is our vibe. We’re not ashamed that we get excited about projects, breakthrough insight and client success stories. We are real people who love what we do.
- We’ll make you look good. We’re not funding a makeover for you. But we’ll tell stories that resonate. We’ll not say things that make you look stoopid. We’ll be leaning on our decades of experience and our non-stop horizon scanning.
- We’ll tell it as it is. We don’t hide or shy away from bad news. Only telling you (and senior stakeholders) what you WANT to hear runs the risk of heads being buried deeper in the sand, and the fundamental problems exacerbated. We focus on what you NEED to hear.
- We’ll sweat it. We worry. That’s what makes us who we are. Our clients are everything to us, and we pull out the stops to keep them. Hence why so many of our clients have been with us for more than a decade. Testimonials from more than 80 of them are on the Mustard website.
You can easily sign up to the Mustard charter by sending a brief or a business challenge you’re facing to theteam@mustard-research.com… 😉
What is the WWT Charter?
The Working Well Together (WWT) Charter is a voluntary code open to anyone working in client-side roles – and you don’t need to be an AURA member to support it. AURA describes it as..
“…a declaration of mutual respect and empathy, co-created with our members and some of their agency partners… AURA members who sign up to the AURA Working Well Together Charter have committed to a set of standards they will live up to when you work with them. These behaviours are designed to mitigate some of the more stressful aspects of day-to-day working between people in our industry. Our work together is valuable and sometimes high pressured, by its nature, and we can’t promise to remove all of that; but the charter is a declaration of mutual respect and empathy, co-created with our members and some of their agency partners, aimed at eliminating unnecessary pressure – which will lead to better work and stronger research partnerships.”
In summary, there are six core tenets of the Charter:
- When asking for a proposal… we’ll respect your time
- When we work with you … we’ll commit to open and honest conversations
- We’ll leave you to do your best work by managing our side of things well
- We’ll treat you as an extended part of our team
- We’ll respect your right to disconnect
- We’ll commit to proper feedback
What’s not to like!?