This is Part 2 of our series on "The creative industry's relationship with time". If you missed it, read part 1 here.
“The naked truth is always better than the best-dressed lie.”
Ann Landers
If you were running a business it would be strange to ask the people who work for you to lie to you every day. I mean, wouldn’t it?
Yet, so often that’s exactly what is happening in creative businesses worldwide. It’s literally in the quest of creating the best-dressed lie. The perfect project. A project that hits all of its goals – on paper. On-time, on-budget, everyone working a perfect 7.5 hours every day.
Is feeling better, better than being truthful?
Lies can make us feel good about ourselves, but the hit is short-lived, as there’s a much bigger hit just around the corner – and that one lands more like a square-on punch to the face. Because it’s usually followed by conversations about how you’re going to make payroll next month, or what payment plan you’re going to negotiate with the tax-man.
At end-of-month or end-of-financial year meetings, these number-lies can look fantastic. Your business can look like a slick, well-oiled machine, on paper (or more likely, screen).
The problem is, that in walking around the studio, checking in on one-on-ones, and taking the temperature of the private Slack messages, it’s likely the truth is something ten times more turbulent. People sharing advice on how to game the system, directing data to be put into different places. People looking burnt out, acting burnt out. Clients questioning the quality of output or why their projects are delayed. People leaving in search of greener-grass and sweat-shop rumours permeating small communities, or worse the industry.
The more lies we tell, the more we believe them – and it’s not healthy – or sustainable.
"Honesty is the best policy; the only way out is deeper in: a candid confrontation with existence is dizzying, liberating."
David Shields
Embrace the truth
The power of the truth is exponentially greater than the power of the lie if we get it right. Truth gives us meaning and insight. Lies will give us false hope and a more traumatic end.
If you find your business showing symptoms of any of the above scenarios, the only way out is to uncover the truth. Ask your team to be honest with absolutely everything. Log all the time used on all the right jobs. Track all the expenses incurred at all the right cost rates. Don’t hide the freelancers, the extra presentations for just one more member of the client’s executive leadership team. Don’t mark billable as unbillable. The truth of the data is the only way for you to secure the insight and knowledge to fix what’s happening in your business.
It’s not all time data of course. It’s employee feedback, client feedback, pitch feedback, accountant feedback. And if you don’t ask, you won’t get. Imagine, walking around thinking everything is ok, when all around you people are questioning how well you’re doing and how much longer they can stick with you. Unfortunately, there’s only one way forward and that’s in facing it head-on.
Sure, the truth is confronting, but it’s nothing when compared to the reality of failure. The absurdity is in letting failure go unseen for so long that it’s irreparable.
The truth will set you free. But first it will make you miserable.
– James A. Garfield.
Prepare yourself for the truth.
It’s not as simple as just asking for the truth. You need to ready yourself for hearing things that you didn’t previously want to hear or know. A good way to do this is to spend some time making predictions. It’s highly unlikely that you have no idea what’s going on. Sometimes lies just help us to shy away from the truth.
So predict what you think may be happening. By doing this exercise you’ll be in a position to make a number of hypotheses that data (and the truth) can help you to prove or disprove.
Here are some example hypotheses that might be relevant right now, or spark some ideas relevant for your own situation.
- Account management is unprofitable.
- Too much time is spent on unbillable work
- Profit margins are dropping when we seem busier than ever
- Projects that go longer than planned mean we lose money
- 1 or 2 clients account for the majority of profitability for our agency
If you’re running an agency, there’s a good chance that you should be able to find the data to prove or disprove these hypotheses – hopefully! You’ve got to collect the data to interpret it, of course. The above examples are likely to be common, if not now, then you’ve probably experienced them at some point.
True lies (yes, 90’s movie reference)
Indeed, I’ve witnessed many times, account managers writing themselves out of proposals in order to give time for the creative and to reach the clients budgets – only to then log their time on the job and be reprimanded for spending too long, or quoting incorrectly (stuck between a rock and a hard place, much?!).
Is the problem, account management inefficiency or a fundamental breakdown in the communication of value to the client? I once won a retainer from another agency because the client complained their existing agency didn’t give them any strategic guidance. The issue? Their current agency retainer was made up of days and days of account management for meetings and calls, with 2-3 days a month of a ‘planner.’ The solution, fewer meetings and calls, more retainer hours for strategists. If the client wanted more meetings and calls they’d pay for them as they’re scheduled.
The problem, of course, could also be cultural. Just recently, in a meeting with an agency accounts team, I heard first-hand of hiding time and effort on a job so as not to incur the wrath of leadership for a job that was going over budget.
Hardly rocket science!
And that’s how it works. Once you start telling yourself the truth and ask others to do the same, you can see past the lies and get to the bottom of a more efficient and thriving business.
Sure, time’s not the only thing that gets lied about, but it’s arguably the easiest one to turn into the truth.
More to come.
