Creative (Playset) Strategy

We spent the past weekend assembling a playset for the kids. There were several of us and even with lots of help it took us two twelve-hour days to get it into the form of anything even resembling the picture on the front of the manual.

A few thoughts about this:
1. We had a precise image of where we were headed.
2. We had many capable people available to do the job.
3. We had step-by-step instructions for finishing the project.
4. We had a very limited time-frame for completion.

As we were building the playset, we were constantly in the situation of trusting the instructions, ("the rails"), even when they didn’t seem to make sense. We were constantly re-evaluating roles and responsibilities and shifting tasks as we each gained experience. We even developed certain areas of expertise, (I was the "hardware" guy…), and had to trust the others in the group to get their job done so we could complete our task.

As we baked in the ninety degree heat, I took pause on several occasions to reflect on how similar this playset-building process was to many creative projects I’ve been involved in. We needed a strong creative strategy (call that the picture on the front - the compelling image of where we’re headed), we needed the right talent (or at least enough strong guys), we needed process and roles (the manual and specialization/collaboration) and we needed to know what success would look like (time frame for our create-on-demand project.) 

 Strategy + Talent + Process/Roles + Success Criteria

All too often we are lacking one or more of these in the project brief. If we don’t have a Creative Strategy (the translation of the Client Strategy into workable "rails"), the project will lack momentum. If we don’t have the right talent in the room, everyone will be forced to absorb more than their share of the workload. If we don’t have the right process and roles, fear, paranoia and self-preservation will creep into the organization. If we don’t understand Success Criteria, we cannot expect the best of our people.

These four components must be a part of any leader’s evaluation at the beginning of a project. Having them in place ensures that adequate space will be created for creatives to do their best work in a healthy way. 

10 Things Creatives Wish Managers Knew

It is a reality that managers and creatives often speak different languages. Each has a different set of responsibilities and perspectives they are bringing to a project, and often the collision of these forces is enough to create massive waves within the organization. With that in mind, here is a list of statements that could begin to spark dialogue between organizational leaders and creatives.

10 Things Creatives Wish Their Managers Knew:
1. You cannot separate PROCESS and PRODUCT.

2.  It’s not about the money. (most creatives are in the biz for more than the money…otherwise we’d all be lawyers, no?)

3. It IS about the money. (organizations need to develop ways of rewarding people within their bandwidth of competancy rather than promoting them beyond their level of competancy.)

4. Design is an ethic, not an afterthought.

5. Fear is not a motivator. Neither is scarcity.

6. We want the organization to succeed.

7. We want to follow you, we just need to know where you’re going.

8. We need stable ground. (client strategy must be nailed down and guarded by leadership so that the landscape isn’t shifting in mid-project.)

9. We need rhythm.

10. We need conversation. And a translator, perhaps.
 
What’s missing from this list?

Some Things Never Change

"But where organizing an effort is concerned it is sometimes better to have mediocre talent than a bunch of creative individuals who disturb the situation by questioning everything. In terms of performance, if you have a slow but sure operation, mediocre personnel, including your nephews, can carry it out beautifully. In planning, mediocrity has and still does hurt the company."

Alan Harrington, "Life In The Crystal Palace" (1959) - an account of his experience within a large American corporation 

Organization: Friend or Foe?

Q: Organization: Friend or Foe?

A: Yes.

Depending on our perspective, organizations can either be the life-sucking entities that bring us eternal woe or the life and resource giving entities that facilitate our creative growth. Organizations are about the BOTTOM LINE, whether it’s financial (usually), humanitarian (rarely) or spiritual (hardly ever). And guess what - they SHOULD be. That’s why they exist. Organizations exist to serve themselves. They are set up for maximum efficiency and profitability, not for creative brilliance or health. (Of course, one could argue, as we often do, that better creative equals a bigger bottom line, but that’s a topic for another rant.)

In his excellent book, “Orbiting the Giant Hairball ”, Gordon MacKenzie suggests that creatives should treat the organization as…well…a giant hairball. Each time a new rule or procedure is implemented, it adds another hair to the hairball until it’s simply a big messy bunch of rules and bureaucracy. When this happens, creatives get stuck in the hairball and find it difficult to innovate.

What MacKenzie recommends is that creatives “orbit” the hairball drawing resources from it when necessary, but not getting stuck by its limitations. This enables the creative to have the best of both worlds - the resources of the organization without its limiting short-sidedness.

Orbiting is mostly a mindset. Few of us have the freedom of time and place to avoid organizational chaos, but we can implement some mental disciplines to help us find freedom within the organization.

Here are a few AC principles we teach to help creatives find freedom from the organization:

1. Be certain that you are defining your work, not being defined by it. See your work as a subset of your greater purpose in the world, not the sum total of it.
2. Resist the victim mindset. It opposes the creative process. It will suck you dry and spit you out. Victimhood is inward-focused whereas creativity is inherently outward-seeking. If you become all about yourself, you are limited to your small subset of experience rather than drawing from everything.
3. Cut your organization some slack. Organizations are made up of people. People are {GASP!} not perfect. We screw up. We inflict pain. But at the end of the day, we all wrestle with the same concerns. (Did I do right today? Could I have done something better?) Whether you’re on the giving end or receiving end within an org, cut some slack to others. Yes, your boss might be incompetent. So what? You can still choose to engage.
4. Beware of competition. Competition makes us do weird things like going after jobs we don’t really want just because they’re perceived as “important”. Know what you’re about in the world and go after it. Celebrate others’ success. There’s more than enough to go around.

Robbing Peter Brady To Pay Pauly Shore

My recent interview with Seth Godin spurred me to re-read, (actually re-listen ), to his book Small Is The New Big . Last night I came across a riff that hit me squarely between the eyes.

Seth was recounting the story of a colleague who was trying to secure a deal. She was rebuffed, so she wrote up a contract that esentially said that the company was saying "no" to her offer and that she was free to take her offer to another company.

They refused to sign it.

Seth hypothesized that this was because ANY decision at that point was a risk. The only "non-risk" was to do nothing. Forcing their hand was forcing risk.

And here’s the killer line: they were willing to get the big things wrong in order to avoid making small mistakes now. 

Wow. How often do we live in "NTG" mode (nose-to-grindstone) and spend more energy protecting our rear than in trying to take big swipes? How many decisions are made everyday in the effort to survive another round rather than in the attempt to re-define the playing field? How many people go to their grave having NEVER attempted ANYTHING of significant consequence out of fear of the loss of reputation? 

I want to have the courage to make little mistakes and have people think that I’m off-kilter because I’m working toward something of consequence. I want to focus more on changing the game rather than fitting in.

Cover bands don’t change the world.

Shooting for the “3″

In past podcasts and ramblings I’ve discussed the phenomenon that I call "shooting for the 3." This term relates to my experience with market research in the music industry and how the goal of releasing a radio single is "mediocrity". (Ever wonder why pop music is bland?) This is because things that evoke a strong response in research, (a "5"), tend to be polarizing. Either you love them or you hate them. Therefore the goal is to be "just good enough" that a listener won’t change the radio station, but not so good that the song is polarizing. You’re "shooting for the 3."

Once this formula is set, "hits are born", and the entire industry re-orients itself against producing that result. In other words, the same producers, musicians, writers, etc. are hired to manufacture more of the same stuff. The new standard becomes mediocrity. Everyone is "shooting for the 3." This becomes the new standard of excellence. Innovation is out the window.

Think this phenomenon is limited to the music industry? Think again. I’m sure if you examine your industry hard enough you’ll find plenty of examples of the same thing. If you’re a REAL glutton for punishment, examine your own life and work and find the places where this is playing out. We can’t ALWAYS shoot for the "5", but we need a good mix of risky, challenging projects in our portfolio of work.

{mos_ri}

Two Types of Innovators

There are two types of innovators.  There are "Game Players", and there are "Game Changers."

The "Game Player" is someone who finds new ways of playing the game. They play the game better than most others, and they stretch each rule to its max in order to find their competitive advantage. This kind of innovation is also called "incrementalism." They are often fighting to gain the top spot in a highly competitive space.

Then there are the "Game Changers." They create the game. They redefine the conversation and shift the marketplace. They invent new categories and create room for others to converse in their newly created space. 

At some point, we all must decide what we want to be about. Do we want to devote our life, our energy, our creativity to playing the game in a highly competitive space, or do we want to be a part of changing the conversation?  

Do we want to be a cover band (pretty safe), or do we want to make our own music and face all of the risks, ridicule and speculative criticism that comes with speaking about things that don’t yet exist? 

The most common criticism of this type of talk is that it’s "pie-in-the-sky" or "impractical" or "philisophical BS." I won’t bore you with all of the ridiculous quotes from critics past about innovative ideas that have long sinced become a part of everyday conversation, but I will say that going your own way requires thick skin. At some point, however, the compulsion to be about something remarkable is impossible to suppress and becomes more unbearable than any criticism.  In the (paraphrased) words of Rilke, staring into yourself at night you realize that you cannot keep from getting what’s inside of you out. 

So…are you playing the game or changing it? Your call. 

1+1 = [(27/3)/3]-1

Are you making things needlessly complicated in your life? If so, you are creating potential for dissonance to creep in.

With each purposeless complication in our systems, lives, etc., we are creating more friction in the machine. More places for something to go wrong. More places for things to not "add up" right. More chances for mistakes we’ll pay for in mental energy and focus.

Dissonance in music is when two notes are played simultaneously that don’t resolve. When we hear them, our minds want resolution SO bad that we will often subconsciously resolve them. If not, then our minds will continue to try to resolve them, (solve the problem), until there is an appropriate solution.

The same thing happens in our lives. When there are things that don’t add up, our minds go about trying to solve the problem even when we’re unaware. This is wasted creative (problem solving) energy.

Strive for simplicity in your systems, communications, processes, etc. As Einstein is so over-quoted for saying, "Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler." 

Simple = Good. That’s an equation I can live with. 

I’m Afraid of Greatness

And the number one opponent of creative greatness, Ladies and Gentlemen? Drumroll PLEASE…

Paranoia.

We don’t know what we don’t know, but we think we know what we DO know. And it seems to be working - for now, at least. But when we become paranoid about peoples’ motives (are they trying to encroach on my turf?), ideas (what if this isn’t comfortable for me?), and vision (I can’t see that far…are there monsters?), we are slamming the door on possibility. Worse, we are teaching everyone around us to stuff their ideas, look backward and conform to some intangible and undefined "greater ideal". If we want to do great work and we want great people to engage in that work with us, we need to learn to be uncomfortable. As we’ve said before around here, if you want to be on the cutting edge, you must be willing to bleed a little. 

I don’t want the spine of my biography to read, "It Could Have Been Great, But We Settled Because We Were Scared of Breaking It". 

If it’s truly great, you’re not going to break it. You might hurt it for a while, but greatness rises from the ashes. Stop being scared of greatness and embrace it. 

‘Til Death Do Us Part

How do you know when a project or idea should simply be…well…terminated? LifeHacker has started a discussion about  when to simply give up on something that’s not working.

This is certainly one of the more difficult decisions any creative will make. Abandoning or killing off your project is like leaving your baby on someone’s doorstep. However, there comes a time when further energy and effort do nothing but damage. 

Everyone loves a "comeback" story - the one in which, against all odds, the lowly underachiever suddenly rises to the top and proves everyone wrong. We love the idea of "The Pursuit of Happyness" and how one individual with dogged determination can stand up in the face of adversity and say, "I refuse to quit!" I think that these emotions can sometimes overtake our logical thinking skills. We are sometimes limited more by what we hold onto unnecessarily than by our skills or abilities. We need to decide whether something is WORTH holding onto, or whether we are simply continuing out of pride or stubbornness.