Trust Me I’m A… Creative!
Some of my greatest ideas, projects, stories and creative outbursts came at a time when I worked with a team who trusted me.
My managers knew what they signed up for when they hired me and they simply allowed me to do my job. 100%. Not only did they get out of my way, but they supported me. Having back up when presenting a brief or being encouraged to pursue a brain burp with potential, is beyond important for creatives.
If there were any criticisms or questions on my work, I was given space to offer context and explain my why. I was also challenged and pushed to flip, reverse and elevate my thinking. Once the feedback, debates and 80s power ballad interludes came to a close, we would settle on the following: As long as I hit the brief, I could own my decisions and nobody cried… then my team had my back all day long.
We were bold, we were eager and we genuinely wanted to disrupt the status quo. Yet often with change, comes discomfort.
The thing is… I always want to create the kind of content that grabs you in a headlock and French kisses you at the same time. But with that comes a level of acceptance that to some, my work will have the irritability factor of a sock sliding down in your shoe! I was fortunate to work with a gang who agreed that if we pissed off a couple of people on the way to changing hearts and minds, it was always worth it.
But then suddenly my team of renegade leaders who I adored exited the company and I was left with nervous, non creative people with ALL the unsolicited advice on how to do my job.
I was made to strip back and dilute everything about my creativity. What was once my super power, was now being policed and restrained.
The last straw was an article I wrote about white privilege titled ‘Dear White People’ taken from the popular US Netflix show. It was a DEI piece to highlight the inequalities of Black people in the workplace as well as a call for allyship and checking one’s privilege.
The senior leadership team, which consisted of all white individuals, had a meeting about my article. It was decided that the title was too confronting, it wouldn’t land with our US clients and was somehow racist towards… white people.
Throughout this deliberation amongst the powers that be, nobody invited me into the conversation. Nobody asked me for the context. Nobody asked for my opinion. And nobody told me that the article had already been removed.
I only found out by accident a few months later that there was a problem. I asked why I wasn’t consulted. The response consisted of stuttering, blame shifting and panic.
The irony of a bunch white folk sitting in a room deciding the fate of an article written by a Black woman about racial discrimination and white privilege at work… was completely lost on them.
The veil was finally lifted. And I had nobody fighting my corner.
Kevin Lynch the ex Creative Director at Oatley said the following when asked for tips on a successful business:
“Trusting your creatives and dismantling processes that lead to mediocrity. Understanding that sometimes, the road to greatness isn’t step by step; it requires a leap. Knowing your biggest competition isn’t other brands in the category; it’s indifference. And realizing that criticism is just a form of caring. These lessons aren’t only common sense; they’re also easily duplicatable. And yet, few organizations will learn them.”
If companies want to get the best results from their creatives… My advice to leaders is thus:
TRUST THE PROCESS and… be our hype man!
This doesn’t mean love bomb the crap outta us with sycophantic ‘reply all’ emails. It means trust, respect, inspire and support us… as well as calling us out on our shit! Coz ya know we’re still chaotic AF!
Allow for experimentation and mistakes.
THIS is where true innovation lives and that is where you’ll get the very best out of your creative team.
