Shane Lukas is the Owner/Creative Strategist at A Great Idea, bringing more than 25 years of award-winning brand strategy, graphic design, and development. He is also a public speaker and lifelong harm reduction advocate for social justice through community organizing and education.
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Running a small creative agency means wearing a lot of hats. Some days, I’m deep in brand strategy and proposals. Other days, I’m reviewing logo concepts and revising reports. Balancing the need to land the next project while delivering excellent work can be a lot for me and my team.
Ten years ago, I started A Great Idea (AGI) with the belief that good work can do great things. In other words, design that speaks to communities and builds connection. This mission has stayed with us and become one of our biggest differentiators in an industry that can be deeply competitive and chaotic.
What’s made AGI’s growth sustainable this last decade is our values. When I say values, I don’t mean bullet points on a proposal; I mean values as a lived, daily practice. Literally. We begin every weekly team meeting by reading our values out loud.
It may seem small, but by continually grounding ourselves in our values, we make sure the work we do stays purpose-driven and that we keep showing up for what matters.
Leading with values is a powerful business advantages. It keeps us a sustainable business. It attracts incredible, mission-driven collaborators. And it makes all the work we do meaningful for us, our partners, and the creative communities we serve.
Why Values Matter
I get it. When you’re running a small or mid-sized creative agency, it’s easy to put your “values” on the website and focus on the more urgent stuff: serving clients, hitting deadlines, paying invoices.
But in my experience, when you don’t have a clear framework for what matters to you, you end up conducting business from a reactive place that can get messy or overwhelming easily. Having clearly-articulated values has helped us avoid that. Here’s how:
Decision Making:
Our values serve as our compass. As mentioned, we ground into our four values — “Together, We Will Do Great Things,” “Good Is a Great Start,” “Greatness Lives in Every Body,” and “Create with Great-itude”—at the start of our weekly team meeting.
We do this not because we like rituals (okay, maybe a little), but because they help us make easier, faster decisions. When we’re unsure how to move forward on a project, our values cut through the noise and help us stay aligned.
Service Quality:
Our values keep our work excellent. We serve a mix of for-profit and non-profit groups working with all kinds of budgets. No matter the project, we prioritize quality service provision. Values like “Good Is a Great Start” hold us accountable to this standard. This means that when, for example, a nonprofit has a small budget or needs pro-bono support, we give them the same level of care and creative energy we would give a national for-profit brand.
This is important because bold, professional creative solutions can be a powerful force for community mobilization. Our mission-driven partners who are out there doing incredible work deserve dignified, high-quality creative solutions.
Team Cohesion:
Clearly-articulated values keep our team passionate and cohesive. By being up front about our beliefs, we attract people who are on the same page. I find this to be true across employees, contractors, and clients. This alignment minimizes turnover and burnout. AGI’s team knows why we’re here, what matters, and how our work contributes to something bigger.
Client Selection:
Similarly, centering our values helps us be intentional about our collaborators. We work with clients whose values resonate with our own, making the work joyful, more impactful, and more collaborative. Some of AGI’s clients have been with us for the entire decade we’ve been in business — and that’s not a coincidence.
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Ten years into running AGI, I can say with certainty that leading with our values has made us a more strategic, impactful, and sustainable business.
These values set the tone of our partnerships. They build trust in our work. They provide clarity in moments of uncertainty. In a creative industry whose practices often create burnout and client churn, our values keep us steady. They’ve helped us build some of our longest, most impactful partnerships and show up with integrity across all projects.
As we celebrate this milestone year, we didn’t get here by accident. We got here by staying aligned with our values, choosing purpose over panic, and designing a business that reflects what we actually believe.
