How to Manage Creative People

Leadership is an art, and when it comes to managing people most of us can attest to needing a variety of techniques in order to effectively manage different types of people. When it comes to managing creative people; however, most of us get stuck in some way. It can be because creatives are so much more different than the rest of our team, or in many cases, they’re wildly different from the others (kinda the point though, right?).

So, when it comes to managing creative people within your organization there are a handful of techniques you can use to keep them motivated and happy, while also not blocking them within their own creative process. That being said, there are top tips for managing creative people!

Take an Inventory of Your Talent

The first piece of advice is to take an inventory of the talent that you have on the team. Then map that creative inventory against what you need within your portfolio, so at the very least there’s a one for one mapping between what you need and what you have.

It can also very likely be the case that with a little bit of healthy competition (meaning more than a one for one mapping of talent to need) your creatives will become more productive, but just keep in mind that many times creative people I struggle when collaborating with other creative people, and instead begin to internalize their thoughts and ideas rather than communicate them to everyone else in the group. So, to help prevent this it’s generally a good idea to surround very creative people with semi-creative people, and by providing this little micro-ecosystem you enable your creatives to work within their own process and brainstorm, while still being able to be the rockstar, and yet you’ll also give them a sounding board to better their ideas. 

Just also keep in mind, that if this architecture of providing a very creative person a small group of semi-creative people to work with sounds over burdensome and expensive, it doesn’t have to be. You can just as easily give multiple creative people the same group of semi creatives, and even more to the point by doing this you’ll enable cross-pollination of ideas across your super-creative population, without blocking them in the process. Then with a little bit of coaching your semi-creatives can be enablers without also turning your portfolio into a cookie-cutter firm.

Get Your Hands Dirty

One of the most important things you can do for your team is to be an active participant within the creative process and delivery. That’s not to say that you need to micromanage or be a blocker for anyone within their own creative process, but it’s a great way to discover what’s going well within your organization as well as what’s not going well. Then by being an active participant within your teams you can help them feel appreciated while also being the guiding light for your overall strategic goals.  

A great way to implement this is by checking in with your teammates on a regular basis in one-on-one meetings to have the opportunity to review their work and progress or collaborate on an idea together. During this time, you can also get caught up with what’s going on with them personally, and most importantly talk to them about how their place on the team directly contributes to bettering the personal and professional lives of their teammates or even fanbase.

Millennials especially find value in knowing how their place in the world contributes to other people’s success, and they want to feel important and valuable. So if you tell them how they directly contribute to the bigger picture, while focusing on the emotional side of their contributions to others, you’re going to directly impact and motivate them in some very positive ways.

Add in Variety

There a few things as destructive to the creative process as boredom. If anything, this is probably one of the leading causes of writer’s block and frustration. So as counterproductive as it may seem at first, you can actually introduce a little bit of chaos into your organization and your team members’ lives, to mix things up and add a little variety to their day. (Don’t be a psychopath though)

Some great examples of this include, but certainly aren’t limited to; swapping out team members, reassigning their tasks and projects, or (if we’re talking about internal team members) you can consider resigning them to different clients or accounts altogether.

Just don’t do any of these things too frequently or without a sense of the second and third-order effects of making the changes. You should NOT go about this with a sense of joy as you create pandemonium and chaos throughout your organization, but rather you should use this as a surgical tool with the express goal being to incite variety and new creative opportunity.

Enable an “Off-mode”

Less of a problem than being bored is constantly in “go mode” and not having enough quality downtime to be able to process and reflect on where you’ve come from versus where you are today.

The cure to this is to have an “off switch”, and ensure that everyone on your team periodically flips it. That’s not to say that they should be bored and you should enable boredom. What you absolutely need to do however is enable everyone on your team, and within your portfolio, to be able to totally disconnect from their everyday world on occasion. Going on vacation, trips, or even just having new experiences is a great way to have their creative minds still thinking and processing their work and projects, but just in the background or from a completely different context.

This is going to have wildly profound and positive implications! So, if you’re not enabling an “off switch” for your creatives and team members it should definitely be on your to-do list for next week.

Keep Everyone Producing

They say idle hands do the devil’s work and while sometimes the devil does creative things, it’s generally not a good outcome for all involved. So, making sure that your creative folks are continuously producing means you’ll need to have a few things in place. The first is that they need to be enabled to be able to continuously produce. If your people don’t have the tools, space, and process to be produced that needs to come first. Then secondly, if they’re not motivated or have the drive to want to complete the work, you’ll need to think of ways to incentivize them so their heart stays in the game and they keep showing up, ready for more!

How We Fit Into the Picture

Where do we fit into the picture? At Mirada Media, we help you have a process and framework to manage your creative materials and people in as an effective way as possible, and at scale!

With our catalog management tools and royalty calculation support you’ll be enabled to support your team and portfolio, helping them be as productive and creative as possible, all because you and your organization won’t also be bogged down trying to manage your digital assets or portfolio. 

So, if you’d like a demo please reach out! We’re looking forward to helping you succeed, grow, and manage your creative work effectively.