If you can find joy in the hard parts of your job, and are lucky enough to have some great partners, you inevitably learn a few things that make your work more rewarding. Below is a sampling of what I’ve picked up about craftsmanship, leadership, and the intersection of art and commerce.
• The definition of great creative work is effective creative work. So focus debates on what will make something more effective.
• Creatives should immerse themselves in the client’s business, understand the objectives and the obstacles, and make them their own. Know the people, products, customers, competitors, everything, inside out. Use, buy, experience it all.
• The job of a CD is to help other creatives do great work. Give ideas and the credit away. One of the biggest mistakes CDs make is thinking they have to be better than the creatives they work with.
• CDs can be catalysts for bigger ideas by educating peers about the creative process and involving them, especially media planners and strategists.
• The creative process is not linear, and chaos is not only okay, it’s necessary. (Just be sure to set this as an expectation so others don’t get freaked out.)
• You have to know how to say no. To clients, account people, and especially creatives. CDs owe it to creatives to kill work that’s not great. Clarity, honesty, and a little sensitivity can help ensure it doesn’t end in hard feelings.
• Just say no to hotel ballroom focus groups. But attend all the intelligent, well-run focus groups you can.
• Know when to talk and when to listen. Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know or have ideas tested.
• Don’t be afraid to be wrong. If you are, you’ll never do anything original.
• Never get angry or yell (at people).
• Be proactive. You don’t have to wait for a brief to present big ideas.
• Make stuff. Put stuff on the walls before it’s perfect or finished.
• Celebrate great work when it launches to keep the momentum going.
• Most best practices related to new technology and platforms expire in six months, so don’t be intimidated by what you haven’t done. Curiosity and flexibility will win every day.
• Decisiveness is good and important. But reflection (and having the time to do it) is critical, too.
• Internal creative teams should treat the CMO and other stakeholders the same way agencies treat clients. Take presentations seriously. Guard against laziness and complacency.
• Never forget what it was like to be a junior creative.