Mittwoch, 29. Januar 2014

Shut Up And Play Your Guitar. Or: Creativity Takes Over



People talk. More than ever. We have reached an era in which people redistribute other people’s thinking and build their reputation on it. Flow-heaters are called influencers now. They are running around saying super smart things like “Make is the new think” – and make nothing. It’s like talk is the new make.

Not that there is a way to underestimate the value of inspiration. But I keep wondering how much of that inspiration is actually turned into action. So when I decided to write something like a call for action, the title of a Frank Zappa album came to mind. “Shut Up And Play Your Guitar”. Zappa was always very creative when it came to album titles, and you can almost see where this one came from – auditions with guitar players who would just talk about their approach to the instrument rather than showing what they can do with it.

Should?

In advertising – and I am sure this will apply to almost any other industry – we are even worse. We sometimes don’t even bring our guitar. We just sit there, all agitated and willing, and throw around a whole lot of “we should”. Like in “we should invite inspiring people to come to our agency and learn from them.” Or in “we should think about structure, reduce rigidity, form teams based solely on project requirements.”

Sure – change is a lot harder than people think. Simply deciding to change something and expecting different results automatically is a great way to make sure that no one will ever attempt to change anything after that. Resistance to change, and the tendency of even the good-willed people to fall back into old patterns are forces that are extremely hard to overcome.

Whiteboards and foosball

As well the inability to apply. We tear off all those posters from a big wall in the agency, put up a board, and tell everyone that they will fill it with great ideas, projects, inventions. What happens? Nothing. A few juniors will put up print ad ideas, and a few seniors will look at them with scepticism. The board turns into a new place to play the same old game.

We create playgrounds, put up playstations, x-boxes, foosball tables, funky sofas and other loungy furniture. And then we’re waiting for the miraculous burst of creativity that is going to result from all of this. In the end, some of the work time is turned into game time, and as a consequence some of the free time is turned into work time. No. Increased amounts of time spent ego-shooting your way through Siberia do not pave the way to Cannes.

So even if we bring the guitar, we don’t get far beyond strumming along the old “Smoke On The Water” riff and maybe pumping a fist or two. And we don’t see that while we are calling ourselves creative agencies, we’re often just profit generating machines with a creative zoo attached.

Obviously, there are ways to do it better. Simply by understanding creativity, by respecting it, and by making sure that it has a chance to do its magic. One thing is painfully visible every day: If we don’t let creativity be the heart of our organization, its products will also not be creative.

So what does it take?

Creativity comes from loving something, and love is fragile. Creativity needs the right ecosystem. It needs commitment, trust, openness. And if you really take a look at your own organization and be truly honest about it – you probably don’t find much of that. Yes, we do have these great PowerPoint presentations that proclaim that creativity is at the heart of the organization – but that’s usually where the story ends already.

Actually, most of the time we are unable to truly work on it – especially in multinational organizations. Regional management just about has the right to proclaim and voice demand – but normally not the power to act upon it. Try to tell a local CEO how to hire and fire – he won’t be happy, and usually doesn’t follow suit. And as long as he comes up with the bottom line he is supposed to deliver, he’s pretty safe too.

Divisions divide

We keep looking at the amazing story of Apple, we marvel at their creativity, their superior design, their incredible ability to come up with products that the consumers didn’t know they wanted badly. What’s the magic? We’ve read it a thousand times. It’s commitment to creativity, and putting all resources together to work as one team. And we have also read it: At Apple, there is just one bottom line, just one P&L.

Does anyone apply? Not really. Especially not in advertising. Most of our global networks have separate corporate entities for advertising, digital, media, PR, event, etc. We behave like Sony did when they had the huge opportunity to come up with an iTunes kind of product before Apple did. They failed. The reason: Separate divisions with separate P&Ls and separate interests. Does that ring a bell?

And no, we don’t really trust creativity. We trust the numbers. We deliver money, not greatness. And how many people have said it: Let’s come up with great ideas, the money will follow. The only ones that have proclaimed this and are still in business are the ones that never meant it.

Space and joy

Creativity needs the right environment, it needs space. I don’t know how many office buildings I have visited that simply don’t offer any space for people that want to sit together and dig for greatness. It’s mindblowing. And even if there are spaces, they are connected to endless bureaucracy. Come back later, your ideas have to wait.

Without joy, without happiness, without playing around, there is no creativity. If you don’t have space, you can’t play. If you have to fear the consequences of saying something stupid, you can’t talk about ideas. If you don’t have the freedom to explore, to be stupid, to be outrageous, to think the unthinkable, you will always be stuck with the ordinary.

Do they really know?

Another thing we think and claim to have learned from Apple is that it doesn’t help to ask the consumers what they want. It doesn’t help to walk around and do tons of market research, trying to minimize the risk of doing something. It leads directly to mediocrity. And no, it’s not really Steve Jobs that taught us this. Henry Ford was just as smart plenty of decades earlier when he said that if he had asked the people what they wanted, they would have said “faster horses.”

It’s not new. But again, we don’t apply. We don’t trust our instincts, we suppress gut feeling, we kill intuition. We have unlearned to use everything we know, everything we have learned, and connect it with what we feel is right – and then make a decision. We still think that if we do that we are taking a monstrous risk, and instead ask the only people that are guaranteed to NOT have the right answer – and then put our money on that.

Risk aversion is risky

That’s why our organizations are full of people who don’t do anything great, but also don’t really fuck up on anything. Risk averse, defensive, bottom line improving tight people. Creative people can’t manage, they say, they are unreasonable, don’t know anything about business. And then they go back to their computers and add “creative thinking” to their impressive list of abilities on LinkedIn, and boldly twitter stuff like “fail harder”.

And as much as this may sound like something illogical – creativity needs process, and structure. But usually not the kind of structure that is implemented. If we look at the most creative organizations on this planet, we can clearly see that their way of working, their process, their structure, their approach to project responsibility and accountability has nothing to do with the way other organizations are set up, including advertising agencies.

And what can be done?

Obviously, you can’t turn an organization around to incorporate all of these aspects just like that. After all – you also need the right people to do this. It takes years to build a creative organization, or to transform one to be creative.

Actually, it’s really easy to come up with a lot of “But” on every single aspect. There are always reasons why things are difficult, why people think they can’t be done. There are endless numbers of people who will happily block every change initiative that moves an organization towards a more creative culture.

Still, no organization will be able to think, decide, and implement on any of these points without difficulties. The answer to facing these difficulties is simple: Be creative. Finding ways to change things in your company is clearly the very first test of the creative abilities of that organization.

Step by step

Don’t tackle them all at once. Define change projects, read your John P. Kotter, and get going. You can’t turn your six P&Ls into one? Well, that’s just the way it is. The question is – what can you do to minimize the adverse effects this has on the creative powers in your company. Can you find a way to work around them? Look at process, structure, reporting lines, personnel. There is a solution. For sure.

You would love to create more space for your people, but you can’t, because your headquarter would kill you for exceeding the square meters per employee limit? Again – there will be an alternative to renting additional space.

And culture?

One thing you won’t be able to simply improve with a change project is your corporate culture. You can’t build trust, accountability, passion, and loyalty with change management. But you don’t have to. If you work your way towards an organization that supports creativity, you will alter your corporate culture as a consequence of it. Much of that transformation is a direct result of simply deciding to take that direction.

After years of cutting cost and personnel, and endless projects that increased efficiency, creativity is one of the few areas that will give an organization a chance to compete successfully, and leave the competition behind.

There is no alternative to being a lot more creative in the future – on all levels of your organization. And don’t tell anyone you can’t. Because you can. For sure. So shut up and play your guitar. Play it well.

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