Creativity is being threatened by questionable work habits—here’s how to fix them

With summer suddenly behind us, back-to-school also means back-to-the-office, as companies big and small make an added push for employees to spend more time on site. Many clients are mandating four days a week, opting to leave Friday as a work-from-home day, and most agencies are easing their way toward a minimum of three days in the office—some more gracefully than others. An entire book could be written about the collateral consequences of work losing its sense of place, but our reluctant return to the office is just one of the many examples of how we’ve been lying to ourselves over the past couple of years. Our delusions turn into myths that become conventional wisdom, until bad habits emerge from convincing ourselves the world is flat. It’s time to expunge those bad habits before they kill creativity once and for all. Myth number one, of course, was the notion that we can work from anywhere, indefinitely. As the pandemic became perpetual, we kidded ourselves that we can do this forever, pretending a Zoom call was a worthy substitute for sitting across from someone and looking into their eyes, or two people talking over each other in their excitement as ideas bounce back and forth, or simply noticing the body language of a colleague or client to realize they don’t feel heard. Spontaneity is the key to creativity, but there’s nothing spontaneous about a scheduled Teams call—only structure and unwanted exposure to blue light. And the only way to replicate that hallway conversation or quick chat after a meeting is to add more one-on-one calls to your schedule, which extends a work day that hasn’t known boundaries since smart phones became our constant companions. That’s why everyone feels more burned out than ever before, though we’re supposedly saving time and feeling more relaxed by working from home. Ad Age Small Agency Awards See all of the 2023 winners Click here And don’t get me started on the lack of training for junior talent. Much like the grade-schoolers whose social development was stunted during the pandemic, young marketers are now sitting down at the table with senior clients and agency talent without knowing how to hold their fork or spoon. Their energy is great, their enthusiasm is magical, but emails are sloppy, presentations are casual and thinking isn’t structured—and yet it’s not their fault. Scientists say humans learn more by observation than instruction, so what did we expect anyone to learn from a face on a screen that’s only two inches square? Which is a nice segue to the industry’s biggest illusion: the notion that collaboration simply happens when enough people show up. Seeing more faces on a screen exacerbated this erroneous assumption, but it’s a misconception that predates the pandemic tied to bad behavior that probably started with packaged goods companies in the early days of advertising. Twenty people in the meeting, the agency presents new work, but nobody says anything until the very end. Poker faces all around, the creatives sweating under their shirts, hoping for some validation if not endorsement, while junior clients practice their stoic expressions to appear more professional. After the show is over, comments and feedback are given sequentially, from the most junior client to the most senior—or, in some cases, no feedback is given in the moment in order for “consolidated feedback” to be given the next day, in writing. Feelings are discouraged with Vulcan precision, logic is prized above all. That isn’t collaboration, it’s Kabuki theater. Everyone wearing a mask of competence to hide their insecurities. It may seem professional, but it isn’t helpful. Clients should realize their knowledge of the business and their risk tolerance are two things that only they can represent in the meeting, while an agency’s job is to throw out possibilities and provocations that may or may not fit within with those guardrails. Both roles are critical, because getting a creative narrative to align with corporate reality is tricky, just as getting consumers to care about yet another brand is no small feat. When everyone’s in sync, that’s when you get to the best work, but you can’t master that dance alone in the dark. Start talking and stop second-guessing, because nobody is a mind reader and passive-aggressive behavior only gets you watered-down work. Clients, it is your business problem, so unless you help solve it, you’ve no right to be disappointed or frustrated with the agency’s best guess. Jump in early and often, make meetings informal, and let yourself get scared at least once a week. And agencies, stop wondering and start asking. Insist that clients of every rank stay on camera, and set an expectation that gut reactions are not only welcome but necessary. After all, consumers buy with their hearts and then rationalize with their heads, so unless everyone involved in the creation of a campaign has permission to trust their feelings, the work you make will be rational, logical and utterly forgettable. Whether you work for a brand or an agency, it’s become harder to get clear direction and far easier to become an unwitting part of a virtual committee, everyone dodging responsibility for solving a problem. Nobody owns the problems of a virtual world. When everyone has to “drop for another call,” who feels truly vested in owning the outcome? Marketing is a messy business, a complicated choreography that requires intense interaction and constant iteration. That’s why most of the creative work from the last few years seems derivative, the Super Bowl feels anemic and client-agency relationships are more fragile than ever. It’s too easy to blame the distraction of data or the pestilential pressure of procurement, though those two gremlins certainly haven’t helped. As marketers, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get back in the arena, whether connecting through a screen or in person. Working remotely can be great sometimes, but only if you accept its limitations and work your ass off to overcompensate for an imperfect simulacrum of human interaction. Speak up, debate, argue and shape the clay together. The more we come together to collaborate and not just meet, the more we can create. CMOs should remember that they don’t work for their bosses any more than agencies work for their clients. You all work for the brand, and the brand works for the business. It’s that simple, and it’s that hard, so let’s get back to work. 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Creativity is being threatened by questionable work habits—here’s how to fix them

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