Success comes from growth, growth comes from innovation, innovation comes from the Creatives you have in your workforce. If you want to succeed, you need to manage Creatives effectively. Here are five proven methods for ensuring your Creatives give your organization the innovative edge for years to come.
1. Pretend you care about their trivial bullshit. Hey, Creatives may be addle-pated zonkos, but they aren't stupid. They understand that you couldn't care less about whatever dopey tribal thing has got their Tardis in a twist. All they want you to do is to pretend to care. It's as simple as not being immediately dismissive by saying fickwad things like, "Looks like somebody has too much time on his hands." Instead, say something like, "Wow, that looks really engaging. Any chance we could make some of that rub off on that deadline you missed?"
2. Pay for unnecessary crap. No, another set of brushes or even more fonts isn't going to do a damned thing toward changing the underlying nature of the tasks. What they WILL do, though, is keep your Creative more enthusiastic about working on those tasks. When you get a request for something stupid from ThinkGeek, you're not buying cubicle art. You're plugging the meter on your Creative's Magic Fingers!
3. Buy good coffee. If everybody in the office had access to decent coffee instead of that burnt asbestos stuff the lowest-bid vendor supplies, the general morale boost would be most evident in your Creatives. Why? Because the accountants, shipping and receiving clerks, sales drones, middle managers, and other replaceables would be marginally less irritating to the Creatives. Take care of the talent first, right?
4. Always refer to Creatives with a capital "C". The fact is, every Creative on your team (as well as any Creative you might replace them with) has an ego the size of the Pacific Basin. It doesn't cost anything to change the standard boilerplate so it refers to Creatives instead of staff writers, staff artists, engineering, etc. It makes them feel special, and feeling special makes their little Creative hearts pitter-pat and pump out the goods for you.
5. Get rid of the damned firewall. You know what would be more effective that the firewall? A printed monthly memo from the IT guys listing what websites your Creative visited and how long he/she spent at each one. Send it in a sealed envelope marked PRIVATE, but circle a couple of the worst ones (porn, animé, Facebook, etc.) in red sharpie and do an initialed, "Pls clarify? Are you OK? See me if need to?" note in the margin. Make sure it's ambiguous. That way the uncertainty, fear of exposure and shame will spur your Creative on to tremendous efforts.
Follow these simple methods and your Creatives will position you for success!
||| Comments are welcome |||
Help keep the words flowing.
1. Pretend you care about their trivial bullshit. Hey, Creatives may be addle-pated zonkos, but they aren't stupid. They understand that you couldn't care less about whatever dopey tribal thing has got their Tardis in a twist. All they want you to do is to pretend to care. It's as simple as not being immediately dismissive by saying fickwad things like, "Looks like somebody has too much time on his hands." Instead, say something like, "Wow, that looks really engaging. Any chance we could make some of that rub off on that deadline you missed?"
2. Pay for unnecessary crap. No, another set of brushes or even more fonts isn't going to do a damned thing toward changing the underlying nature of the tasks. What they WILL do, though, is keep your Creative more enthusiastic about working on those tasks. When you get a request for something stupid from ThinkGeek, you're not buying cubicle art. You're plugging the meter on your Creative's Magic Fingers!
3. Buy good coffee. If everybody in the office had access to decent coffee instead of that burnt asbestos stuff the lowest-bid vendor supplies, the general morale boost would be most evident in your Creatives. Why? Because the accountants, shipping and receiving clerks, sales drones, middle managers, and other replaceables would be marginally less irritating to the Creatives. Take care of the talent first, right?
4. Always refer to Creatives with a capital "C". The fact is, every Creative on your team (as well as any Creative you might replace them with) has an ego the size of the Pacific Basin. It doesn't cost anything to change the standard boilerplate so it refers to Creatives instead of staff writers, staff artists, engineering, etc. It makes them feel special, and feeling special makes their little Creative hearts pitter-pat and pump out the goods for you.
5. Get rid of the damned firewall. You know what would be more effective that the firewall? A printed monthly memo from the IT guys listing what websites your Creative visited and how long he/she spent at each one. Send it in a sealed envelope marked PRIVATE, but circle a couple of the worst ones (porn, animé, Facebook, etc.) in red sharpie and do an initialed, "Pls clarify? Are you OK? See me if need to?" note in the margin. Make sure it's ambiguous. That way the uncertainty, fear of exposure and shame will spur your Creative on to tremendous efforts.
Follow these simple methods and your Creatives will position you for success!
||| Comments are welcome |||
Help keep the words flowing.
That's just evil. Probably effective, but still evil.
ReplyDeleteas to "...varying opinion of this particular matter with intriquing, notable and sound content..." - that sounds very creative. :)
Done right, it would be quite effective. 8-)
Deletenumber 3 and 5 would actually work, imo.
ReplyDeleteThose would be a good start.
Delete"The fact is, every Creative on your team (as well as any Creative you might replace them with) has an ego the size of the Pacific Basin."
ReplyDeleteThat's not TRUE! I'm a creative and my ego is only as half as large as the Marianas Trench! So there! :P
;)