Projects are fun. Creative thinking is a blast. Dreaming and vision casting is always a must. But to actually make your idea come to life…that’s a whole other ball game.
Do you remember Part One where we talked about a leader needing to be more of administrator than a creative genius? This is why we placed that person as the leader. Because most creatives are absolutely horrible at timelines. It’s what we’re known for [insert “drummer or bassist is always late” joke here]. Procrastination because of perfectionism. Prolonging due to lack of creative development. Basically, we don’t get the job done because our projects are never where they’re suppose to be.
There’s a word we all need to learn to love. It’s called a timeline. Advertising agencies do this with their creatives teams. They make them turn in “tags,” which are basically creative ideas for a particular project by a certain date. This way, the Creative Administrator who is in charge can weed out the bad ideas, and let his creative geniuses get to work on the things that are going to change the world.
This is also where the humility aspect comes into play for your creative geniuses. With this type of platform, your leader can make or break a project. He leads the team by giving them timelines. And when all is said and done, you have accomplished a major task simply by handing in a turn-in date. Try this with your team. Get them engaged into your vision of the next big thing, and give them 10 days to turn in their “tags.” Try it out and see if it works!
In Part Four of CRAFT, were going to talk about how to deal with different personalities that come up in our creative work environments.
The Importance of Communication