Too Busy To Innovate

The boss wants innovation. Big ideas. To make the agency famous.

 

The CMO wants thought leadership. To make clients and prospects feel we offer an advantage.

 

The CFO wants me to do my time sheets.

 

The client wants me to revise the PowerPoint and send it over by EOD.

 

The PM wants me to stay within budget do time sheets too.

 

The wife wants me home by 6 so we can make the dinner with friends.

 

The body wants a cup of coffee even though it knows caffeine and sleep don’t play well together.

 

It’s a never-ending, somewhat vicious cycle of want, expectations, and realities. Idealism vs. pragmatism. Reality.

 

Okay, I’m tired. My brain hurts. But I know, in the end, I’ll be measured by the difference between keeping up and staying ahead. The difference between meeting deadlines and providing thought leadership. I have to find a way…

 

I’m not alone.

 

These days, clients, and the business-at-large, want—even demand—that their agency (me) give them ideas that are newsworthy and ‘game changing’ while largely ignoring the realities of how agencies make money. Innovation is the expectation while the bottom line is the noose that most often chokes proactive thinking.

 

Trust me, I’d rather be making ideas than generating quotes and approving project plans but the latter takes up more of my time. I’m just too busy generating revenue to find the time to sit and think.

 

But no excuses…I am paid to make ideas that work, not documents that take work. I have to balance the two demands while finding more time to focus on the focus—ideas.

 

The good news is human nature drives me to do what makes me feel good so I do my busy work during the day and do what I love before and after—think, ideate, invent, explore, challenge, play, dream, envision… Luckily I have a passion to think different. Or just think. Innovative ideas don't happen 9-5 so if one hopes to do well in this business, accept the fact it's as much a calling as a job. More so. And I love it.

"You can manage passion but you can't create it" has always been my litmus test in hiring creatives. If passion isn't there the time sheets will get done but the ideas won't happen. So the answer to the problem is passion. Which leads to a drive that surpasses being too busy to innovate.

 

Now, gotta do those time sheets so I can get back to making ideas that work.

Posted via email from Stephen Speaks's posterous