Kamikaze Creative: A TALE OF TWO CLASSES: Two classes, tons of talent, hard work, growth. Doreen explains Why one entire class earned A Shirts, the other earned none.

If anyone told me I’d be giving an entire class A Shirts I’d have laughed. Yet here I sit, A Shirts earned (and awarded) to my entire Summer 2015 Copy Class.

Ah, you say. Superior Creative Juices. Higher quarters, more previous classes to grow from. You went soft. Many excuses/explanations. One truth.

The entire A Shirt group pushed. Hard. Themselves, each other, me. Went from Kamikaze Copy Sins to Advanced Style Work. Experimented (at times successfully) with avant-garde grammar bending. Couldn’t scare em. Couldn’t confuse em (something I'm supposed to be very good at). Couldn't deter them from their goal.

In the end, an entire class without one late/missing assignment or revision. Most did extra work – if I asked for ten good headlines, this group sent me twenty. If I cried “Copy Sin!” once, with few really tough exceptions, I never saw it on that student’s paper again.

I offered to slow down. They pushed faster. If someone couldn’t read my comments, a classmate translated. In the end, writing at least two term levels above where they started (the minimum individual growth and the hardest requirement for the A is two terms' growth in one). No missing work. No challenges unmet, usually with multiple solutions.

Even the T-Shirt guy was shocked.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of the students in both classes. Shirt or no. Also embarrassed. Is Twenty-four As in forty months too many? Not when they work as hard, push beyond the expected as every student in this one class did.

Besides, talent, hard work, experimenting with tricks and personal innovation copy rarely considers (I don't mean cussing or disparaging language), the Miracle All Shirt class had one other powerful difference: As competitive as they are, they didn’t compete with each other. Only themselves.

So all you CDs, recruiters and ECDs reading this, take a good look at the pictures. I also have some Shirt winners from more previous groups (one or two shirts/class), even one writer who earned two (took both Beginning and Advanced Doreen). You don’t want any of these copy smart copy starts to get away. Most are getting ready for graduation. Some already working in impressive shops. Some are waiting for “The” Job.

Want their names? Call me.

The bigger question, Why then, after an all A Shirt class, did the next group earn not even one? Lots of talent. Lots of growth. Lots of hard work. A few came close – 1.5 terms’ growth’s darn good, but still half a term’s growth from the shirt.

The difference? The second class didn’t put as much into their own – and their classmates’ - work as the Shirt Class did. If I found one student really working on editing a classmate’s copy (peer edit), that classmate rarely considered what their peer editor pointed out. I didn’t hear the stories of collaboration and help the Shirt Class told.

My point? As competitive as Advertising is, it’s a team sport. What anyone else does on an assignment has not to do with what you do on yours. Genuine collaboration, however, does.

If you can’t get comfortable with student mentoring relationships among your peers, you’ll never be comfortable with mentoring relationships in The Real World. In some agencies you’ll be competing with your entire group for the “winning” concept. What other group members do still has nothing to do with your work. They may, however, be able to see the flaw, the blip, the confusion, the falling short point you miss.

Don't expect them to volunteer it. You must ask.

That All A Shirt Class? They aren’t afraid paranoid embarrassed too shy to ask their peers what they think. They took advice and collaboration, turned it into that last half-term of growth, learning from the very people they’ll be competing for jobs with.

Truth be told, I looked forward to working with both groups. Not everyone liked me. Not everyone agreed with me. Not everyone even liked me. Doreen’s door’s still open.

The moral of The Tale of Two Classes? Do whatever it takes. Ask whomever it takes. Support and be supported by your group. Competing for assignments, agencies, titles – that’s just business. Working as a team – that’s where better work than you ever thought you’d do hides. Not in furtively competing against each other, hoping Karma will take care of the rest.