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IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT
Motivation:
One of the key management functions in any business is motivation and leadership. In the context of the creative industries, the motivation that lies behind creative work is notoriously elusive. As Anthony Storr indicates, all the evidence suggests that motivation comes from within; the external rewards of artistic and cultural production remain so pitifully small and unpredictable, no other explanation seems possible (Storr, 1972). The motivating force behind creativity has been ascribed to various internal drives, including childhood trauma (Freud, 1990) or physical or mental illness (Sandblom, 1995). According to Teresa Amabile, “extrinsic” forms of motivation, whether rewards or punishments, are, in most cases, an irrelevance; offering people rewards for creative tasks may at best have a secondary, contributory impact where “intrinsic” motivation is already strong, but at worst the rewards will undermine intrinsic motivation and so defeat their own purpose (Amabile, 1990; Amabile, 1988).
Taking this emphasis on “intrinsic motivation” at face value, it would be easy to conclude that the best thing a manager can do for creativity is to do nothing, thereby reinforcing the old divisions between creativity and management. Amabile herself warns against such a conclusion; while intervening in the creative process is likely to inhibit creativity, setting “strategic targets” may well enhance creativity.One theatre producer uses the phrase “deadline magic” to describe how working within limits can intensify and quicken the creative process. A composer who produces soundtracks for television programmes argues that understanding and interpreting “the brief ” is one of the most stimulating parts of the creative process; when he attempts to compose music “for himself”, free of all constraints, he lacks this framework of suggestion and is frequently “blocked”. The key, according to Amabile, lies in clearly defining the creative goal whilst not attempting to prescribe the means (Amabile, 1999a, p. 10). Whilst acknowledging the need for “autonomy around process” Amabile appears to share Boden’s view that setting boundaries for creativity works as a stimulus, not a barrier (Boden, 1992, pp. 82–85).
Risk:
Another way of thinking of motivation is as a form of risk or investment (Sternberg et al., 1997). Here the challenge for management is to develop a more imaginative approach to risk management and resource allocation. Developing an idea, from initial concept through to completed prototype, requires a series of risks at each stage in the process. Some of these risks require the investment of material resources, particularly in the later stages as the idea goes into production; however, in the earlier conceptual stages the risk is more personal, requiring individuals to invest time and effort in an initial idea, then stake their reputations (or at least risk looking foolish) as they attempt to explain and promote their idea to other people. The capacity to take personal risks is one of the functions that sets apart the productive artist from the potential artist. In the contemporary creative industries, when we are confronted by an artist’s unmade bed, a pile of bricks or a music sample lifted off a drum machine, it is all too easy to claim “I could have done that!” The reason that these works were made by them and not by us is that somebody, or a series of people, took a risk (c.f. Bayles and Orland, 1993, p. 14).
The shift from a person-centred to a process-oriented theory of creativity requires that managers cease to think of extraordinarily motivated individuals, and focus instead on a succession of risks taken at stages in a creative process. The role of the creativity broker in this context is to provide an environment where risks can be taken and where resources can be mobilised. This managerial function applies both to personal risk and to material investment.
At a personal level, creative individuals must feel free to experiment and take risks. At one level this may mean providing a “risk space” where the creator is temporarily freed from constraints of time and resources and where the fear of failure is alleviated (Bayles and Orland, 1993, p. 19; Amabile, 1999b, p. 140). By removing some of these constraints, it is possible to see risk in terms of opportunity, not threat or failure. Here the creativity broker is in effect a permission giver, authorising the risk-taking necessary for a creative outcome and providing a “safe haven” for the creative activity.
At the same time, we have argued that creative processes need boundaries (Boden, 1994, p. 79). For freelancers the boundaries may be set out in the brief; for a creative organisation they may be determined by prevailing market conditions and organisational capacity. The task of the broker is to negotiate between these boundaries and the ideas that take place within them; the boundaries must provide a clear starting point, but must allow sufficient space for innovation and experiment. In the end as the boundaries are repeatedly crossed, the creative process may transcend them, redefining the parameters and so transforming the conceptual space (Boden, 1994, pp. 79–84).
For creative organisations, where creative production is a group enterprise not a solitary activity, a further layer of personal risk lies in the relationships between collaborators. Co-creators must be prepared to share ideas and participate in a broader system, otherwise the system and the business will stagnate. Again, such participation requires a leap of faith.
Creativity brokers can help reduce exposure to risk by removing the stigma of failure between collaborators and by building mutual trust, as when theatre directors use “trust games” to encourage actors to drop their defences and risk making fools of themselves. Once this point is reached, the cast will feel freer to experiment and test their own limits. Some creative organisations use meetings or retreats to create a similar “open-minded space” (Walzer, 1986) where staff are temporarily freed from operational roles and invited to share ideas. One design agency uses this method to respond to a brief; every member of staff (including the finance director, receptionist, and sales team) is apprised of the brief beforehand, given some time to think about it, and invited to a meeting to contribute their ideas. No ideas are dismissed outright until one idea is overtaken by a better one. The temporary shift in roles and relationships removes some of the personal anxieties and invisible hierarchies that might otherwise constrain the flow of ideas.
Relative failure is itself seen by Amabile as a part of the creative process, since initial mistakes will eventually allow for an improved outcome (Amabile, 1999b). The acceptance of failure, as much as the reward for success, offers an incentive for innovation and risk and creativity brokers can create a climate where failure is tolerated, even encouraged. James Dyson, the British entrepreneur and inventor whose company acquired a reputation for designing and producing innovative products such as the bagless vacuum cleaner, appears to have fostered such a “risk culture”. According to his business partner, Mark Bickerstaffe: “James lets you run with it and make mistakes. He’s the first to say as long as we’ve learned something it’s not disastrous. He gives people vision, the capability to do anything”.
At the level of resource allocation, creativity brokering serves the function of mobilising “risk capital” within the business and ensuring that resources are directed to ideas at the critical stage in their development. At Jubilee Arts in Birmingham, Sylvia King uses overheads from projects and commissions to create an “adventure capital” fund which can be used to support risky, experimental and less marketable projects. This system requires close collaboration and good communication between the organisation’s core management and individual project workers, together with a degree of mutual trust; in a larger, more hierarchical organisation such a relationship between director and co-workers might not be sustainable.Within a hierarchical system, managers are more likely to stand outside the creative process until the results emerge at the other end. This cautious approach is partly following the logic of “intrinsic motivation” in creative individuals which supports a “laissez-faire” approach to management. In order to avoid risk, resources are held back until after the idea has been tested and developed; yet, paradoxically, without resources new ideas cannot be developed into prototypes. Creativity brokers can play an important role in solving this impasse by connecting ideas and resources, allowing resources to be mobilised at an earlier stage in the creative process (Kantor, 1988); literary agents and talent scouts in the music industry are able to undertake this function by standing at arm’s length from the “risk-averse” corporate culture of the industries in which they operate.
Productivity:
Managers are judged by their results. In the creative industries, it is not enough to have good ideas; it is also necessary to exploit those ideas and turn them into revenue streams. The distinction between creative potential and creative productivity can be traced back to the different stages and types of thinking involved in the creative process; creative ideas must not only be innovative, they must also have value.
The distinction between potential and productivity is reflected in the basic terms of intellectual property law. Intellectual property rights apply to ideas which are “original” (innovative) and which are expressed in “tangible form”; within this formula it is possible to trace two distinct stages in a creative process, the point of origination or “illumination” and the point of realisation or “verification”. Ideas in their pure, intangible form are not protected under copyright; the author must turn that idea into something; a book, a picture, a recording. Not only does the tangible form provide legal proof of the idea’s existence, it also demonstrates that the author was sufficiently convinced of its value to develop that mental prototype both intellectually and materially, turning it into a completed artefact. In order for a creative process to produce something of “value”, it is not sufficient simply to have an idea; in an age of free content and aesthetic saturation, ideas are cheap. The creator must translate the “innovative” idea into the finished article; only then does it have value and consequently become a
marketable commodity. This transition from potential to product requires an investment of time and resources; the creativity broker, whether they are the idea’s originator or not, deals in such investments.
At a time when management theorists are attempting to move beyond “command and control” models of leadership and management, the “creativity brokering” analogy resonates with the participatory, flexible style of management being advocated for a new knowledge-based economy which is dependent on the flow of ideas, information and “human capital”. Management, if these theorists are to be believed, is becoming quite “creative”. In fact, if they are doing their jobs properly, the artist and the manager are not so far removed as they at first appear. Both are manipulating and exploiting ideas; the process through which value is added is no longer by way of the linear “value chain” but by creating a space within which individual talents, experiences and perceptions can collide in interesting ways. If there is a distinction to be made between managers and artists, it is primarily one of scale; while artists tend to broker these exchanges internally, within their own thought process, managers broker the external relationships between artists, audiences and investors. Within the creative industries, the functions of management and cultural production blur together; the creativity broker emerges as the key figure, engineering the relationships within and between different individuals and types of thinking within the creative process.