The Business of Creativity Can Be Tough

 

In this stock image, 'business' is represented by a guy in a white shirt and tie while 'creativity' is represented by a lightbulb bursting with color, which is some pretty lazy creative.

About ten years ago, I wrote about what happened when a very creative micro-distillery owner got into a conflict with his investors. The company survived and thrived, and so did he, separately, so there is no reason to rehash that incident, but back then it got me thinking about what sometimes happens to creative people in business. 

Creativity is a characteristic that is valuable in any pursuit, in business or just daily life. But for some people, being creative is the job. I spent most of my career in the world of advertising and marketing communication, where 'creative' is a job title, the name of a department, and the term used to describe the work product itself, as in, "have you finished the creative for the new campaign yet?"

The person in charge of all that stuff is called the creative director.

In organizations of all kinds, managers sometimes think of employees as mere cogs in a machine, each essentially the same, easily interchangeable and replaceable. That's always a mistake, because every person is unique. Managers who think that way often do so because they are convinced it is they who make all the difference, not the people who work for them. But mostly it's a problem that happens when managers who come from one discipline are charged with managing people from a different one.

I was raised to be sensitive to this. Dad was an engineer for an appliance manufacturer. He complained often about the 'bean counters' who cared too much about cost and not enough about product quality. 'Bean counters' to dad were pretty much everyone in the offices except the engineers, so that was management, accounting, sales, and marketing. 

For me as a freelance creative working in marketing, I had to be wary of prospective clients who shop for creatives like they're shopping for a new phone. Hiring the right creatives is more about the ability to connect and communicate with that person than it is about how much they cost or even whether or not you like their past work. When it was apparent that a prospective client had no real idea what I do, I backed away. You have to, because it's bound to become a problem eventually. A client, or boss, who fundamentally doesn't understand what you do can't direct you productively or evaluate you fairly.

Sometimes it's just an irritant but it can become a nightmare.

Creatives, therefore, have to develop the ability to spot bad bosses in advance and avoid them, but in a long career you inevitably miss a few. That can amount to a serious career setback or, at the least, a real solid period of unpleasantness, but you have to be true to yourself and pay the price to get back on track. You learn from it and move on. But, for God's sake, learn from it. Examine what blinded you to the warning signs. From my experience it's usually money, or fame, or prestige, or power, or something that looks like an easy score. Some or all of these seduce you and you don't recognize what you later realize was obvious from the beginning.

But if you learn from the experience, then it's worth it.