Trust in Creative Collaboration: A Given, Not a Goal?

Working in creative production, between clients and agencies or even within internal teams, trust is often positioned as something to be earned. We speak about “building” trust through reliability, transparency, and consistent results. Also frequently highlighted as a key factor listed in long-lasting client/agency relationships.

Yet the more I think, the more I wonder if we’ve got it backward? What if trust isn’t something that needs to be won, but something that should be expected from your partners, or even presumed, from the outset, and only lost through mismanagement, failure to perform, or at the extreme, dishonesty?

Trust as a Working Baseline

When a client hires an agency, or when a producer assembles a creative team, let’s work on the basis that the starting point should be that everyone involved is competent, professional, and joined together in their intent to create something great. This doesn’t mean blind faith, but does recognise that trust is the default operating mode for collaboration.

Likewise, within any creative team, the best work happens when each member can be confident that the others will deliver their part, without a constant need for validation.

The Cost of Distrust

If trust is something to be “earned,” then surely every interaction begins with some form of scepticism. This leads to:

• Over-explanation & micromanagement – Clients hesitant to trust their agency’s expertise demand excessive justifications, slowing down progress.

• Hesitation & second-guessing – Teams spend more time proving their worth than actually creating.

• Transactional relationships – Without a foundation of trust, collaboration becomes rigid, focused more on process than outcome.

In contrast, working together based on trust from the very start allows for creative freedom. It shifts the focus from proving competence to demonstrating it through bold ideas, iterative risk-taking, and meaningful collaboration.

Trust Is There to Lose - Not to Earn

The reality is, when you enter into a professional relationship, trust is already granted. The very act of hiring a team, an agency, or a freelancer is an act of trust, usually based on their brand, marketing or recommendation. What follows isn’t a process of building trust - it’s a test of whether it will remain intact.

So, instead of asking, "How do we build trust?" the better question might be an open one between both client and agency:

• "What must we each do to keep the trust that we already have?"

A shift in mindset from earning to maintaining trust changes the nature of collaboration. It allows an understanding between both client and agency, holding each other accountable. It removes unnecessary barriers, creates an expectation of good faith, and allows creative professionals to do what they do best: create.

Trust isn’t a reward. It’s the foundation.

If we treat Trust as something to be won, which I feel is the current approach, then the project, or creative solution becomes secondary - either just a strategic opportunity to play the long game to get more work for the agency, or an insurance to safe-guard your investment incase things go bad for the client!

However if every project is based on a base level of Trust - trust to communicate, to listen, to perform, to collaborate, to deliver - then this allows both client and agency teams to work more effectively, with greater freedom, with braver creative ambition and improved measurable results.

It’s these positive results that ultimately keep professional relationships strong and ongoing.

I'm a Creative Producer that acts as the bridge between client goals and the agency team that are commited to develop and deliver a creative solution! So if you're a business looking to benefit from winning communication results - or an agency needing resource or project management support - then get in touch today to talk through what you're looking to achieve in your business and how to hit your goals!