I believe that advertising is full of misfits. The industry welcomes them with open arms because, more often than not, they are the ones with radical thinking. These misfits, in most cases, are also clay to begin with. Just like most people reading this article would remember themselves to be. The tricky part of advertising is that most people don’t handle the clay well. All because they were not treated well when they started. If you stay in advertising long enough, this comes full circle. What went wrong never gets corrected, and we create monsters we hate when they become seniors. We need to stop repeating history and start training our people in the way they would grow and be happy. Not how we were treated.
Sometimes when I think about it, maybe this needs to change from just what we say to them. In my experience, the following statements are the most commonly used ones, and if we stop using these, a lot will eventually change.
1. When we were juniors, we had to face worse than this.
Just because the problem existed ten years ago doesn’t mean that it should continue to exist ten years from now, either. We’re sorry you had it worse, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be better, right? Some of us use this as an excuse for insane working hours and bad creative culture. This casually uses fear for motivation, but we must realize that fear-induced productivity is the worst form of work. The job might get delivered, but the end doesn’t justify the means. It is safe to assume that you wouldn’t have enjoyed it when you had it this bad. Just remember that feeling and assume that no one will like it when you are dishing it out.
2. Our boss made us do a hundred versions before he approved something.
I feel this is not a badge of honour. I think it shows that our seniors were unsure of what they wanted and were figuring it out while looking at the work. Post a clear ask, if the work is a better version of the first version, forget a hundred, a thousand versions are worth it. But if it keeps changing completely with every round, then there might be some confusion about what will be delivered. Sometimes, it is fine, but if that was the way of working then it was surely a lot to handle. I hated it when it was done because, apart from the frustration, I didn’t know what I was learning apart from hard labour. There is no reason to believe the team will love it now if this repeats itself.
3. We used to work for multiple nights without sleeping.
All of us have done it, and the work was delivered. It was often appreciated and awarded too, but did that help our health? Did it make us stronger, better or healthier? I, for one, have had a lot of these, but I also have wounds on my health from that battle. That led to smoking and me putting on weight and loads of lifestyle issues. One delivery was done, but I had to miss several because I was down for the count for some days. The sheer scale of the urgency of delivery might have asked for it sometimes, but if that was our boss’s habit, we used to hate it. At least, I used to.
4. Just concentrate on awards. Brand work doesn’t change anything.
Winning awards is what will get you noticed. Your work on brands is what will help you grow. It is often portrayed as a shortcut. The ones who have won will advocate it, and those who haven’t will criticize it. In both cases, training people to choose is wrong training. For the record, winning awards takes work. I have won some, and I know that it is not easy. It is in no way a shortcut. It is just a way to channel your energy. We need people who do both today because both are equally important. And, if you crack something on the brand you work on, the feeling is highly satisfying. We don’t need to choose. The industry doesn’t need people who do only one. We wouldn’t want them in our teams too. So, let’s stop creating more people who do only one. We need people who do both.
5. This needs to be more exciting. Go, create something exciting.
Giving vague feedback and shooting in the dark to crack something was something I hated. Either explain the problem well or solve it yourself. Both cases were fine with me because I learned from my seniors. If we continue giving vague feedback, forget understanding what to do, there will be a whole breed of seniors tomorrow who won’t know how to provide feedback. That’s scary because the work will never get done. That’s just planting the seeds for a box of troubles.
A lot of the things here are the things that I didn’t like. It is safe to assume that some of us wouldn’t have hated them as much as I did when they were juniors. And, that’s exactly where the unsafe part of advertising leadership lies today. Let’s fix it one team member at a time.
The writer is the chief creative officer and founder of tgthr. Views expressed are personal.