Goood morning!
This morning I got all curled up over a big cup of Assam tea in a queen-sized blanket and a long hooded sweatshirt, with my little wall-unit heater generously turned up to the second notch. It’s still a bit chilly in the morning here.
Today, I’m reflecting about just how much of creative life involves things that do not feel creative at all.
Logging receipts and expenses.
Making lists and going through them.
Planning a project schedule and estimating deliverable timelines.
Communicating parameters back and forth with others.
Putting things into folders, naming layers.
Send emails with instructions.
Going through exhaustive data line by line to report on your quarterly results effectively.
These are the kind of things that are actually VITAL to keeping a team alive, but they don’t sound or look sexy — and maybe don’t sound like “what a creative director” does.
All the creative ideas in the world will get you exactly diddly-squat if you can’t communicate them effectively to others.
Your team or agency won’t exist for long if you can’t deliver things consistently within a certain timeframe and budget.
Yes, you can delegate a lot of these tasks to other people, but where things seem to go wrong is folks assuming that they don’t need to learn these skills to begin with. That such skills are important but are somehow "beneath them". I’m sure you have run into that type of leader.
There isn’t some magical lily pad where you never have to think about any of the practical details.
And creative directors who stand out know how to do battle with all manner of logistical details in order to realize a cohesive vision. (Or they know how to guide others to do so).
So don’t believe the types who think that managers should always be above doing “the work”. In my experience…sooner or later acting “above it” means you’re out of it.
-Cathy