So the secret's out on why agencies are built the way they are. For many years when people in other industries walked through good ad agencies and design firms an interesting discussion would typically follow about the space itself... Why is it built so differently than other offices?
But the NY Times shed light on why this is the other day in a beautifully written piece.
There are three things that can impede creative thinking at work. And a creative company is constructed--from the building to the culture to the day-to-day processes--to help navigate them. The better these impediments are managed, the greater the odds of creative success.
Finding the Moment of Insight.
Gladwell wrote once that insight seekers need to determine if they're solving a puzzle or a mystery. The difference? A puzzle is a business problem with missing pieces (e.g. go field more research) where a mystery has all the information there it just needs to be looked at from a renewed perspective. Agencies solve both but mysteries are more frequent.
It's worth mentioning that mysteries are often the most difficult creative problems to solve because at first they seem impossible. How will it be different this time? But a moment of insight changes all of that. Like the moment a 3M engineer figured out the use of an extremely weak glue (while sitting in church) which led to the production of Post-It Notes.
Insights often come in the strangest places, don't they? In the shower, walking the dog, making breakfast in the morning. Basically doing things that aren't related to a job description. Why does that work? The answer apparently lies in science. The moment before an insight appears a part of our brain, called the superior anterior temporal gyrus (or the "aSTG"), exhibits a spike in activity and this region in the right hemisphere excels at drawing together distantly related information. And it turns out there are certain things that make people more likely to have an insight...
One study found exposure to non-related humorous videos increased insight success rates by 20%. Another study found that alcohol consumption actually helped with solving complex word problems.
What's going on? From the the article:
What explains the creative benefits of relaxation and booze? The answer involves the surprising advantage of not paying attention. Although we live in an age that worships focus—we are always forcing ourselves to concentrate—this approach can inhibit the imagination.
And this is why relaxation helps: It isn't until we're soothed in the shower or distracted by the stand-up comic that we're able to turn the spotlight of attention inward, eavesdropping on all those random associations unfolding in the far reaches of the brain's right hemisphere. When we need an insight, those associations are often the source of the answer.
So why do places like Deutsch offer pool tables and Google have ping pong? (Aside from creating a more fun work environment.) For just this reason.
Keep On Going.
It's hard to find more passion than someone who keeps turning and churning creative ideas in search of the answer. Sometimes one has to watch the hours--you're intensely working on a solution on Tuesday afternoon and suddenly it's 7:30 at night. (Boston Consulting Group has set up alerts that when employees consistently hit over 60 hours/week their managers are alerted to help avoid burn out.)
But creative people know when they're close to the answer... They just may not know how close. Einstein famously remarked that "it's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." Creative companies have to feed this ability. Part of this is having a safe place to work late into the night without worry. Another part is allotting enough time and alertness to do the creative necessary justice. Drake Cooper keeps the now-famous Red Bull fridge stocked for us all.
And then there's fear. As legendary creative Harvey Gabor says midway through his Re:Brief ad: "The fear will make you work harder because you've gotta present stuff to the client... the neurotic parts (of the job) make you work much harder."
It's that sort of mentality that often leads to greatness. There's the famous example of Milton Glaser whose original cursive "I Love New York" slogan was approved and ready to print but he just wasn't satisfied. So one day he drew this:
And then of course there's Helmut Krone who would toil in his office for hours and hours at DDB to produce beautiful, unmatched art direction during his time:
When you're close to greatness, always keep going. It has a funny way of not being there again in the morning.
New Raw Materials.
"Creativity is just connecting things." That was Steve Jobs' approach. It's true--the best ideas often come from far off, otherwise unrelated things.
In 2010, Newsweek produced an excellent piece on creativity in which they said:
The accepted definition of creativity is production of something original and useful. There is never one right answer. To be creative requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result).
They're right. And to succeed creative companies have to be the ultimate space of openness and convergence. All thought is allowed and you have to let those raw materials inside, like what DTAC has done in their Thailand office:
And like Melbourne's ANZ Centre:
It certainly doesn't need to look that pretty but the more we associate ourselves with things outside of our immediate area of specialty the more innovative we become. This probably seems intuitive but it's backed up by research. Consider a recent study of 766 Stanford MBA graduates turned entrepreneurs--those with the most diverse friendships scored three times higher on metrics of innovation.
These three types of creativity--Finding Moments of Insight, Keep On Going and New Raw Materials--all live and thrive at creative companies.
And now, since we're at it and all, there's a final thing not in the article that must be included:
Teamwork & Collaboration.
In July of last year, the same author of the NY Times piece wrote a post surrounding The Auteur Myth--the idea that true creative greatness is rarely done alone:
I certainly don’t mean to disparage the genius of Hitchcock or Steve Jobs or to defend uninspired data driven design. But it’s also important to remember that nobody creates Vertigo or the iPad by themselves; even auteurs need the support of a vast system. When you look closely at auteurs, what you often find is that their real genius is for the assembly of creative teams, trusting the right people with the right tasks at the right time. Sure, they make the final decisions, but they are choosing between alternatives created by others. When we frame auteurs as engaging in the opposite of collaboration, when we obsess over Hitchcock’s narrative flair but neglect Lehman’s script, or think about Jobs’ aesthetic but not Ive’s design (or the design of those working for Ives), we are indulging in a romantic vision of creativity that rarely exists. Even geniuses need a little help.
There it is. Four things to foster creativity.
So now everyone knows why good agencies are built the way they are.