Creative Yin &Yang

The Yin And Yang Of Creative Management

All humans have an internal struggle between the ideas of good and those of evil, light and darkness. In some terms we could even look at the forces between creativity and business as being forces that tug and fight with each other. Many with a creative Zeitgeist see business as a drab ‘process’ of churning out widgets and all about profit, whilst ‘the suits’ look at creative types with concern and uncertainty. They see passion, creativity, expression and wonder, “how can we control this?”

In the end, successful businesses require chaos and order, creativity and profitability, process and open expression to grow, thrive and succeed. This tug of war creates great things, both to the bottom line and to the creative spirit of an individual’s life. The trick is to find the narrow, thin-line to walk, as a creative business owner and leader, to allow the balance to take place – yet not create a schizophrenic organization.

"Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, by going off the main road, by trying the untried."

- Frank Tyger

In The Beginning: Many creative companies come into existence because of a single person or a close team of players from an existing agency that decide it is time to ‘establish their own environment to operate from’. Usually this creative individual has a strong client base that they take with them and in short order they are opening the doors to their own business.

The desire to establish their own business comes from the need to establish an environment where their creativity and their business vision can come to life. It is also the drive to see the direct connection between their ideas and the financial success that comes from these ideas - their creativity and vision.

It begins with a set of beliefs and experiences tied to either a single person or a small group. Over time, as the business becomes more successful, it is necessary to grow the infrastructure; to add people and costs – and then the cycle begins. More clients to feed the cost demands and in time the vision become less about the single vision of creative expression and grows into one of managing a fully-fledged business. The ideals, vision and passions now need to be translated through layers of people and processes. Creative businesses begin to seek the ‘holy grail’ of how to keep the specific creative vision, the true specific values of the founder and/or founders alive? When the organization consisted of 10 people it was easy to look each and every one of them in the eye and say, “I believe in you and what you are doing.” It was a big creative living room of friends working together towards a common vision.

Then growth happens. Can size impede the ability to connect each and every person to a common vision? Is what the creative leader in an organization saying and believing the same as everyone else? Can the 50 people, 100 people, 1,000 people hold the same focused and connected direction? At the same time, the processes of managing 100 people and the business infrastructure grow exponentially. No longer can an owner turn to someone and say, “Hey, could you throw together a rough design of…” without paperwork, concern over the impact on prioritization, etc.

"When you are completely absorbed or caught up in something, you become oblivious to things around you, or to the passage of time.

It is this absorption in what you are doing that frees your unconscious and releases your creative imagination."

- Dr. Rollo May

In many ways, as a creative organization grows, the leadership migrates away from the actual workers within their business. They become an outward symbol and ambassador of their vision and their ideas to their clients, the industry and the media. Spending less and less time just ‘creating the vision’ and ‘the focusing inwards toward the team’ or to efforts of keeping the vision new and fresh. The stewardship of the business is turned over more and more to others. The specific functionality of operating a business leads to fragmentation and specialization. Financial teams, analysis teams, account management and sales, creative management, design, production, technology etc. These all lead to a tugging of resources, focus and vision.

In the end it is possible for the cohesiveness of a creative organization to begin to erode and the original vision, the passions of why and how it all began seem to drift away. It is important then to stop from time to time and reassess where you are personally and where your organization is at. Do the results of the efforts of your business match what you feel they should be, both financially and spiritually? Is the work going out the door matching what you see as the quality and value you feel it should be?

Managing a creative origination, either as a stand-alone business or as an integrated part of a larger beast/corporation is different from managing any other business. It is about building a vision, a spirit and soul that others want to belong to. It is the act of creating a cause to sign onto. It is the act of managing fire, lighting and egos – getting them aimed at the right moments, actions and generating results for others (the nasty old client). The leadership of a creative organization is about creating an environment that other creative's want to be a part of - allowing the chaos to exist, yet generating business results.

While some believe it is in the conflict, the internal competition that creativity will flow I would challenge this thinking. I believe it flows form an place of trust, of collaboration and clear understanding of goals and desired results.

Finding A Path: So where can a creative manager (a leader of an organization dedicated to creating) find a way to grow beyond the original founders and the chaos associated with creative expression? There are a few tools and guide posts to keep in mind.

Keeping The Vision Alive & Building Spirit: This is all about staying in touch with each and every person within an organization. It means walking the floors, sitting in meetings, and telling stories. Yes, telling stories. The best way to show creative organization ‘the way to think’ is by sharing experiences. Not in an over powering way, but in a way where the stories fit into the moment. Where they give a clear example of the hows and whys of a situation. Vision is all about wrapping an organization in a blanket of sincerity and connective-ness. It is less about hammering the heck out of it.

I remember a situation where the CEO of a company wanted a marketing communications organization to act less ‘wacky’ and more like an accounting group. He hammered and yelled at the creative management. “Stop them from coming into work in denim, stop them from playing football in the halls, stop them from…” He had a vision of the organization that had no room for the creative. In the end, he had the opposite result. It just angered the creative spirit of those in the communications organization. They rebelled big time.

What was needed was an honest and open sharing of the vision and values the CEO was looking for. Even letting the creative's see a weakness or creating empathy for the desired based on the fact the CEO was getting pushed by all the other business units screaming at him “not fair, why do they get to do whatever they want???”

If he had woven a story that the creative organization could relate to, then a compromise could have been reached. Instead, there was 98% turn over in the organization, causing disruption and un-budgeted costs. In the end, the CEO and management team got what they wanted – but at what cost in time, effort and spirit? Remember, not a hammer but a velvet embrace!

Trust That The Team Will Do The Right Thing: It is a hard thing to be involved but not demand the steps to an end result. Many times a creative manager has the hard task of showing the path – but not forcing the people on their team to ‘walk a certain way; think a certain way...’

It needs clear, defined requirements and an end result to be given to a creative organization – BUT you cannot force a pre-determined end result. I have seen this time and time again. In twenty years of working with and within creative organizations, I have seen a brilliant creative individual made the head of a group of creative. The first mistake, is that this person now thinks that everyone on their team should act, be, think and generate results totally within their style and approach. They want to create a group of mini-me’s.

I once took over the management of a catalog design and production group. Thirty creative souls trapped in design and management purgatory. The work was, OK, dated and dry. So I met one-on-one with everyone on the team. About 10% of the team were ‘happy just having a job’ – and their work was the minimum of output and creativity. The remaining 90% said over and over again, “they didn’t feel trusted, that their ideas were never even discussed let alone taken into account.” In the end I found that everyone from the clerks, the creative directors, the artists, the photographers – everyone BUT the leader felt trapped.

When I sat down with the head of the group to review my findings, my main goal was to get him to trust his people. When the conversations began, he became very defensive. He said, over and over again, that he knew what they needed to do. They should just keep their mouths shut and do exactly as he said. His proof was the fact that the owner of the business sent him a letter every year saying, “You did another outstanding job.” What he didn’t appreciate was the fact the owner was not the customer. The people receiving the 2,000-item catalog were the clients and sales were down 60%. After a five-hour conversation, he realized that he needed to let his people try new things, become part of the process or they would all lose their jobs.

So over the next 16 weeks I talked with him daily, to see how it was going. I walked the floor, sat with the creative and listened. It took a constant, “remember trust them, let them learn from doing, not yelling” – and results began to come to the surface. The designs were fresh, the costs were reduced by 40% via new ideas and approaches and most importantly the people on the team began to buy in to what they were doing. Work became an expression of their creativity. The end result was a change from the past and instead of a form letter from a 60-year-old CEO there were sales and client letters. Customer service was hearing from the catalog users “I love the design, it’s easier to use, more of what I like…”

Was the effort greater than just demanding a path? Yes. Was the result market-ably different? Yes and no. Were the people involved more committed? A screaming yes (even the slugs were trying harder). Remember, trust that the creative team will do the best they can – even if it doesn’t look just like you want it to.

Creating A Process That Allows Business To Flow AND Creativity To Flourish: Project Management at first glance can be seen as a four-letter word to designers and creative directors, mainly because it represents the necessity of bringing ‘non-creative’ and the darn client into the creative process. Project management has a perception of process, paperwork, tracking, budgeting and deadlines, which are perceived as the complete opposite to the creative process.

In a past life, I had the opportunity to work for a Fortune 200 company in the advertising and product communications area. I'll never forget the meeting where my boss told myself and the creative design team - "Be as creative as you like, get wild, push the market and dump the old look!" Everyone in the room sat up and started smiling. As the big-cheese walked out of the room, he turned and said. "Oh, and it needs to be green, fit in a number ten envelope and cost no more than 15 cents a unit..." The whole team just crumbled.

But this was a great learning curve for me regarding why project management belongs in a creative process, as much as in the building of a nuclear power plant. What project management does is allow the requirements gathering to take place, the ‘what you want to do and with what result’ before the creative team gets going. It sets up a mindset of getting all the facts before the fun starts.

What project management can mean, in it's simplest terms to a creative organization, is fully understanding the requirements and desired outcomes a client is looking for - beyond the old ‘knock their socks off’ talk. It allows a creative organization to understand the budget issues, the timings, the level of creativity, how and where it fits in with everything else the client is doing. Then as the project rolls out, Project Management allows the creative team to talk regularly with the client to make sure everything is on track and things haven't changed. Project management in a creative environment is about clarity of direction and results. It is about deadlines and surpassing the client’s expectations.

Good project management is about communications between different areas. It removes ‘disconnects’ from the creative process. How many times has a creative organization done a super job up front with a client, and missed the boat at the production point? Many times one area - let's say the account management function within a creative organization - has a ton of up-front and on-going communications with the client. Then the creative directors, the designers, the production artists, the traffic managers, etc. have lessening degrees of communications. And by the time the deliverable is at the printers, there could be a total connection to the client and the desired outcome.

Solid project management within a creative environment allows for not one-time or limited communications, but a constant and undiluted communications line between the client and all the touch points in the creative process. Project management in a creative environment is about continual communications. It is less about ‘free style writing’ and more like a sonnet. Structure to creativity - a target for the results.

How do you keep your firm from managing your life?: It is important to realize that most agencies come into existence, based on a single person's (or a small groups) vision or ability and it is this vision and passion that makes the agency valuable to the client. What happens though, is the business and the individual become one, with no way to separate the two.

The place to start, is by beginning to build a personal life that is separate and as/or more important. 100 hours a week at work leaves little time for family and other interests. You must work at building a "persona shell" that is you outside the firm. Define it, craft it and defend it like you would your most valuable and important client account.

"If there is anything in the world that can really be called an individuals’ property, it is surely that which is the result of their mental activity."

- Schopenhauer

This simple act of saying "I will have a personal life" is the first step. The next is sticking with the building of a separate life. A few simple questions:

• How many family or personal activities (birthdays, holidays, trips, school awards, dance recitals) have you missed in the past month? Three months? Six months?
• Have you been with a family member, a friend or at a fun activity and the whole time all you can think about is ‘that burning issues at the firm?’
• When asked to talk about whom you are, do you answer first and foremost, your job, your company and your business accomplishment?

If you answer yes to any of these, then you are a firm freak-azoid. You are addicted to what you do. It is what you are. While this is great for building a successful creative agency, in the end your creation will not be able to grow past you - beyond your abilities. Your life span and energy level will be that of the firms. Never more and most likely less.

It is also important to surround yourself with key players that are more talented, creative and capable then yourself. A team is more powerful than a stand-alone person. Also it allows individuals within the team to have time off, personal space and a separation of church and state (personal and firm) when necessary.

"Hey, you got creative in my technology!" / "Hey, you got technology in my creative!": Advancing technology will affect creative services firms and the people within them. Do you remember the ad for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups? The point being two separate elements coming together to create something new. Technology has changed many things about the creative services world. First and foremost it is a compression agent. Technology has compressed the service agencies provide, it has compressed the time frames to delivery and it is compressing the pre-conceived costs to deliver.

What this means is that with media buying, creative design, account management, production traffic, client billing, concepting, approvals, results tracking, list management, etc. all compressing to a tight delivery window to the client - blurring the distinctions becomes inevitable. Clients are demanding more seamless and integrated services.

This means that creative service firms can no longer ‘create from a single prospective...’ Design and technology are one - how does the design function, can you capture data, track results? Can you target the exact buyer? Strategy and creative are being compressed with the introduction of new technologies. Coming at a clients need via one-approach levels the agency flat and unresponsive to the bigger picture. The same holds true for the agency that comes at the problem based 100% on technology. Success will be in: Team Environment - Creative Technology Solutions - Market Savvy and design that hits the market (not over or under).

The demands of the future will be on dealing with the compression factor, of time and creative demands. How to meet the needs of the client base, while keeping the organization functioning at a level that is not killing it. Miracles can happen within a creative environment, but how many and how often before you burn out a person, a team or the creative spark?

The future roll of a leader within a creative services firm will be that of interior. One that can take many different demands, many different people and skill sets and bring them together as one focused response and voice to a client’s needs.
A few months back I had the opportunity to witness two different groups get together and talk about a client’s needs.

The first was the current re-incarnation of the ‘creative type’ the ‘big cheese whiz’ creative leader. Pony-tail, earrings and attitude out the wahzoo. As he was introduced as a new age ‘design God’ - with the ability to take creative to the new technologies, etc. On the other side of the table was a classic shorthaired, glasses, and paper pad carrying technology leader. Shy, with no attitude, he was a published programming guru.

Two totally different worlds coming together. And while in the first few moments they began to speak they realized they had some ability to understand each other, when it came to technology - almost like those that took Spanish in High School who go to Mexico can kind-of understand the high-level jist of the conversation. But once you get into local dialects and meanings they are lost.

After ten minutes it was obvious that neither side was going to be able to make the bridge. As the classic technology gear head kept saying, "I don’t understand where he (the creative guy) is coming from..." Quickly it became obvious that someone needed to act as the translator - the interpreter of the meaning, goals and issues of the two separate groups. These interactions will continue to grow. What one needs to realize is, the equation creative services firms will be operating under is:

Creativity X Technology
Freedom Discipline

While these might seem to be at odds with each other the fact is, once a creative agency has grasped a sense of where it's strengths are and where it's weakness are, it can manage them and correct them with this formula. The next 20 years will be about the challenge of keeping up with technology costs and changes - converting them into profitable client business. It will also be about how to stay creative and connected to the client and the client’s end-users.

It will also be important to bring creative team members into direct contact with clients and client IT. Yes, a scary thought to some - but technology and speed require shortening the distance between the client and the creative.

Technology will become an integral part of the creative process. Beyond design technologies and growth into CRM and company wide technologies – where a client can actually track back to the specific results from a campaign – hard metrics – not soft feelings.

Best way to keep your best employees?: First and foremost give them the training they need. Teach them, as they want to be taught. Grow their skills and knowledge. While most people think. "Yeah, I train them and they walk..." the fact is, that if an employee is going to bolt - there is little you can do to stop them. But if you build loyalty via training and care about the employee growing in self worth - they will stick around a little longer.

To also help in the retention game, offer your best creative the ability to do more than "burn out on one account!" So many times a specific talent is brought in to add value to a given "beer account" or "car account" - but in time they want to try something new. The creative mind is about learning and growing, that's why you hired them. Now make sure you keep this alive within them so they don't burn and walk.

Keeping your best also requires taking the time to tell them how and why their work is important, how it fits into the bigger picture. It's less to do with awards and more to do with ‘value to the firm and the culture’ - your best want to be the best. If this isn't true they begin to look elsewhere for the buzz of belonging. Creative people do not fit a cookie cutter approach to rewards, retention and motivation.

"If I were starting life over again, I am inclined to think that I would go into the advertising business in preference to almost any other. The general raising of standards of modern civilization among all groups of people during the past half-century would have been impossible without that spreading of the knowledge of higher standards by means of advertising."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt

What is the biggest business challenge for creative services firms in the new millennium? : Profitability - with the challenges in the market over the past 10 years and the fact that many creative agencies aggressively went after the big spending new technology businesses, and in some ways leaving many of the older/ bricks & mortar clients to lesser creative attention. The newer clients and companies had bigger, faster spending budgets. What took six months to spend in the past was happening in weeks.

So creative companies staffed up, hiring ‘the best’ at bigger salaries, etc. Then the shift happened in the marketplace and the dot.com budgets shrunk or went away. What is left is a changed landscape. Creative businesses now need to contend with new players (dot.com technology strategy and creative businesses that began to shift towards the more traditional arena of creative agencies). Creative businesses now need to have a technology brain and a creative brain. And at the core of it all is the growing need to drive profit, whilst maintaining a creative edge that is less about profit and more about ideas.

The next 20 years of the creative services industry will bring about more and more technology, more and more services, more access, more segmentation, more defined and track-able results that are creative, fresh and new - all at a fair price, yet profitable to the agency's bottom line.

Copy of the full white paper: The Yin & Yang of Creative Management

Extra Thought:

Thought Point: We have all seen the 1969 movie classic “Agony & The Ecstasy” with Charlton Heston and Rex Harrison. It in a way sums up how many creative projects begin. A client commissions a creative organization to take on their vision, their need, and their issue. The sales and management of that creative organization then need to convert those needs into the minds and souls of their creative.

Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II della Rovere in 1508, he was to paint the Twelve Apostles and a few ornaments on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He, who had always insisted that he was a sculptor, was thus to learn the art of fresco painting, and practice it on a vault decorated by fifteenth-century artists as a starry sky. However, as he began work on the project, Michelangelo conceived grander designs for the decoration of the ceiling. He spent the time between then and the 31st of October 1512 painting more than 300 figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

In the beginning, Michelangelo fought the direction and even the project. Not until he felt inspired, not until he conceived it as something greater than what the “client” had asked for could he even imagine doing the work. In the end, he was driven by the spirit to create something that was bigger than the ideas of the original request, only then could he start and ultimately complete his commission.

Here we see the struggle between creative genius and creative results. The client, and or manager attempting to jam their vision and ideas down the creative individuals brain and force a result. Not until the ideas were internalized and where taken as the creative geniuses own could the work even begin. Ultimately, the result was something beyond the money paid, the vision of the client. It was a masterpiece that has stood as a testament to the creative ability of individuals. A sculptor made into a painter. A chapel made into a temple to art.