FIRST IN LAST OUT
BUILDING A FOUNDATION OF TRUST | Todd Elliott
The creative process is like any good story. There is a beginning, middle and an end. There is hope. There is tension. Some conflict. Hopefully there is resolution. And everyone lives happily ever after. Right?
In many of the creative processes I have been a part of, it basically starts with hope and ends with tension. Getting to resolution was rarely accomplished, and happily ever after only happened in the movies, to other people.
On one hand, I used to think this was normal. The process is difficult, and I just need to get used to it. As the person that generally needed to figure out how to make someone else’ s idea happen, I felt like that was my job, so just get on with it. I viewed my role as simply a support to the people with the ideas. Being in a supportive role is not a bad thing, but for the creative process to really excel, it needs to be more of a partnership between the idea people and the technical people and not simply one group telling the other what to do and then the other just doing it.
And a partnership doesn’ t happen without having a good deal of trust in each other. Which can be difficult to achieve.
On the surface, the two halves of our equation couldn’ t be more different. We think differently. We respond differently. We come at the challenges of pulling off services from very different directions. With us being so unlike each other, this can oftentimes feel like we don’ t get along.
In reality, this giant difference is why there is so much potential in executing creativity. Those of you with the original ideas generally have a difficult time imagining how to actually get it done. For those of you good at troubleshooting and executing on an idea, you are more than happy to let someone else figure out what we’ re doing exactly … you want to help figure out how to make it a reality.
The combination of our two sides can be unstoppable. To have people who can focus on what they’ re designed for, developing new
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