Making Creativity Work

When you’re in the business of ideas, you have to find a way to mix genius with discipline. Here’s how.

By: James M. Citrin Business 2.0

You hear a lot about why creativity is so vital in business today — for inspiring breakthrough innovations, accomplishing more with limited resources, and stimulating employees’ deep-seated talents and motivations in a highly uncertain world. But what about when a company’s product is creativity itself? Whether the firm in question is an advertising agency, design outfit, software company, or entertainment studio, success is determined by the quality, freshness, and relevance of ideas. Is there anything special about the kind of leadership that is required to manage a creative enterprise?

To find out, Tom Seclow, one of my Spencer Stuart partners based in San Francisco, who specializes in working with media and marketing communications companies, interviewed a cross section of highly regarded leaders of creative organizations. The list included Jeff Goodby, co-chairman of advertising agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners; John Riccitiello, president and chief operating officer of interactive entertainment company Electronic Arts (ERTS); Mark Sanders, chairman of Pinnacle Systems, which makes video-editing software and hardware; and Clay Timon, chairman and chief executive officer of brand-identity consulting firm Landor Associates.

The bottom line? There is a fundamental need to balance two things that are often in conflict: the need to nurture artistic talent, and the day-to-day requirements of instilling sound, disciplined management processes. Leaders of creative enterprises must foster the right environment to fuel a hothouse for ideas while making sure the trains run on time and on budget. There are three distinct ways to make this happen: understand how creative talent thinks; nurture and reward this talent; and structure the organization to leverage your assets while maintaining appropriate development processes and financial controls.

Understanding Creative People

The best creative people possess extremely high standards and place intense pressure on themselves to achieve these standards. Leaders of creative enterprises must be keenly aware of this self-imposed motivation. According to Jeff Goodby, the ultimate goal of most creative people is to do something that no one else has done before, to pull something out of themselves that others simply cannot. Further, he points out that employees with the word "creative" in their titles (such as chief creative officer or member of the creative services department) feel that they have only themselves to blame if their ideas fail, which imposes enormous pressure on the individuals involved.

Another key to understanding creative people is to understand the creative process itself. "Real creativity takes major leaps, as opposed to the process of continual refinement that is found in most other types of business," says Mark Sanders. A onetime engineer, Sanders adds that when attempting to break new ground, creative people will approach their work in different ways than professionals in more traditional functions. For most creatives, the process is informal and sometimes irreverent, with periods of intense concentration offset by moments of intense relaxation. To understand creative talent, management needs to focus on individuals’ product or output, not the procedure for getting there.

But ironically, perhaps, when it comes to the product, most successful creative people actually measure their own success by commercial results — contrary to the popular belief that they are searching only for self-expression or an artistic outlet. Movie producers and film directors analyze the box office results from opening weekend as intensely as the finance and marketing departments do. Creative directors and developers consider the advertisements they produce truly brilliant, or the videogames they develop truly cool, only if they inspire a purchase. John Riccitiello says that for EA’s creative production talent, "nothing is more satisfying than sales success. The bigger the hit, the more successful the product, the bigger the win — that’s the ultimate reward."

Nurturing and Rewarding Creative Talent

Besides traditional monetary rewards, recognition is the essential motivational tool for creative talent. Successful leaders of creative organizations understand that these people need to be credited more perceptibly than others in the company. At Goodby Silverstein, regularly rewarding creative talent is an inherent part of the management philosophy. This acknowledgment can be anything from a formal announcement at a company staff meeting to an impromptu compliment within earshot of the deserving star.

Pinnacle has created an organizational way to reward talent. The company employs a "dual career ladder" for its creative staff (in Pinnacle’s case, the technical professionals) and other functions. For engineers, having a successful career at the company is not synonymous with moving into corporate management, where their talents are often miscast. Rather, they earn recognition via titles and compensation that are on par with those corporate managers.

In addition, leaders who were once creatives themselves need to be especially sensitive to their impact on the development process. The key here is to appreciate the creative product and offer constructive criticism — highly motivating — without yielding to temptation and getting too hands-on — highly de-motivating. For Goodby, who earned his own reputation as one of the best creative minds in advertising, this has been a particular challenge. It took him some time to be able to deliver constructive input without trying to make his teams’ ideas his own. "Maintaining the team’s enthusiasm while being brutally honest is key," he says. "But I will also make a contribution from time to time when I know it will make an improvement."

The care and feeding of creative talent is in some ways an art in and of itself. But a successful leader must add a little science to the mix too, to organize and align that talent with the other needs of the business.

Building the Right Organizational Structure

No matter how well you understand and reward talent, if business is to thrive, a creative company’s organizational structure needs to be designed to support creative people.

According to Clay Timon, the organization of a creative enterprise differs greatly from that of a traditional company. In a manufacturing or product-driven culture, the organizational chart is typically constructed according to the functional needs of the company, and people move through the "boxes" on the chart. The best creative-driven enterprises, however, are organized around the talent. As a result, the org charts of such firms often lack symmetry, and virtually no two agencies have the same structure.

EA has found an organizational way to complement the unstructured creative process with the highly structured product rollout and marketing process. Riccitiello’s management team at the videogame maker determined that it can ensure success by closely supporting its creative producers throughout the development and launch process and by integrating them as much as possible into the downstream business activities. He made a point of aligning the company’s marketing group — both organizationally and physically — alongside its creative producers. This structure allows the producers to remain an integral component through the marketing launch of the game and to see how the product interacts with marketing, promotion, and sales. And by fostering teamwork rather than an adversarial relationship between the departments, management succeeds in making the producers less resistant to working with disciplined budgets and tight release timelines than they might be otherwise.

In addition to properly aligning company functions, leaders of creative enterprises have found that pairing diverse talents can produce a creative home run. Often, the most spectacular solutions are born from internal disagreements between different artistic groups. For some organizations, this might mean ensuring that the talent pool enjoys a mix of ages, genders, and personalities. Sanders suggests that "a broom-and-shovel type paired with an eccentric type can result in an unexpected solution."

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With a deep respect and appreciation for talent and the creative process, and an ability to structure the organization to let creativity soar without breaking the bank, the best leaders of creative organizations feel comfortable with the ambiguity necessary to let good work happen.

"I’ve always been an admirer of innovative work, especially great interactive games," Riccitiello says, echoing the culture of EA. "That’s not something you can fake. Either we take the time to understand and appreciate creative ideas, or we don’t. Those who don’t just don’t survive in this business."

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