David Meikle on Creative Control

How can we manage people who are doing creative work? On the one hand, letting someone do what they want feels incredibly risky. On the other hand, creativity requires a degree of freedom, experimentation and agency.

That’s a particular problem in the creative fields, but it’s also a broader challenge. In the 21st century, the jobs people are doing are increasingly ones that require some element of creativity.

Creativity is that it doesn’t always lend itself to being managed in traditional ways. Unlike setting someone a task where they slavishly need to follow instructions, creative tasks require a different form of supervision. The challenge with that is that as organisations try to mitigate the risk of creative activities, it’s very easy to end up in situations where responsibility is transferred for the creative task, but the requisite amount of control to deliver it isn’t.

My guest is David Meikle. He’s a consultant to the advertising market, where he helps companies to be more effective at hiring and managing advertising agencies. To learn more about David and his books visit https://tuningup.co.uk/

Links to topics we discuss:
The podcast where Jon Evans interviews Dr Ian McGilchriest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY89D1UC9Dw

Iain’s website: https://channelmcgilchrist.com/

The Hamlet cigar advertisements (14:55) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJqN7RNeitw

The Sainsbury’s Mog The Cat advertisement (18:15): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuRn2S7iPNU

The Cadbury gorilla advertisement (18:18): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La7B8mBnTXs

The Ocean Spray advertisement (19:28): https://www.thedrum.com/news/2020/10/07/ocean-spray-finally-reacts-viral-skateboarding-tiktok

Orlando Wood of System One Group: https://system1group.com/team/orlando-wood

Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Confidential_(book)

Blair Enn’s Win Without Pitching Manifesto: https://www.winwithoutpitching.com/the-manifesto/