It is said that history doesn’t repeat itself, I beg to differ. In the space of a couple of months I was presented with the same dilemma by two different clients. They both thought what they had created was ready to be released to the world, the problem was that in both cases it wasn’t.
There are two ways you can consider your role when asked to do something creative, just do what you are asked, shut your mouth and take the line of least resistance. This is easy, do what the client asks for take their money and move on. I can understand why people would do that, who wants to rock the boat, if they are happy then why suggest it could be better?
The downside is you do what the client wants, ignore the elephant in the room, take the money and ship something that could have been better than it is.
If you take the line of least resistance then it’s what happens next that’s the problem; either the thing bombs or at best the world judges it and thinks it’s OK, but nothing life changing and certainly not something that’s going to go down in history as great.
Let me ask you this? Do you want to be known for being involved in great stuff, or average stuff? Stuff that turns heads and sets the world talking, or stuff that is barely noticed? It’s a rhetorical question, of course we all want to be known for doing great stuff… but that costs.
It costs you the chance of people thinking you are being difficult, if they had gone with X they would have just done the work and taken the money. It might even cross some people’s minds to think that what the client doesn’t know can’t hurt them.
If you want things to be great then at times you need to be the person in the room saying ‘this isn’t good enough, it can be better.’ It may cost you the gig or the client, it takes courage. I was reading the musings of a well known producer/engineer who was telling the story of the time he was in the studio engineering for, at that time, a big named artist. The artist had left the room and the guitarist was asking the engineer what he thought of the parts. He responded with honesty saying he thought they could be better. At that point the artist arrived back in the control room and asked them what they were talking about, so the guitarist said. The artist told the engineer he wasn’t paying him to think and to get back on with his work. On one level the artist was right, but on another level the least he could have done was to have the decency to be respectful to the engineer, even if he didn’t agree with him.
If you think something could be better you may not be able to say it directly to the artist, but perhaps to your boss. I’ve been in situations when there’s a runner in the room with a lot of opinions but little experience, in many cases it’s right they keep their mouth shut in the room. However, I’m not talking about those situations, there are people being paid to have opinions but not expressing them, that’s a real shame.
Let me ask you this? Do you want to be known for being involved in great stuff, or average stuff? Stuff that turns heads and sets the world talking, or stuff that is barely noticed?
I recall one occasion when I took the line of least resistance, I saw something wasn’t up to par but the client was so in love with the idea I said nothing. A few weeks later the project hadn’t gone to plan and I said I didn’t think the idea had been a good one at the time, my client was really upset with me and said he wished I had said something and told me never to keep quiet again.
However you get to say it, avoid the line of least resistance, it’s a cop out and leads to average at best and failure at worst. ‘Good enough’ is an expression that shouldn't pass our lips if we are trying to do great things.
Just this week I was working on a project and the same silly creative mistakes kept coming back up from the same person. I spoke with his boss about it and he said he had raised it with him, his response; “every one makes mistakes.” I told him to tell the guy to do the world a favour and never become a pilot or surgeon. The guy working on the project was capable, which led me to one conclusion, he just didn’t care enough about doing it right. In a nutshell, he didn't give a shit about the project.
Back to the two clients at the start of the story. One of them ignored me, in fact they cancelled the project and did it themselves. I’m guessing they won’t work with me again, in fact I’m certain, given the last call I had from them was a tirade that included the comment “we don’t care what you think!” It was, in effect a case of, “just shut up and do the f*cking work.” On that basis I’ll pass thanks.
The second client has listened and the project is delayed so we can get it right. It’s taking a ton more work, but at least we know that when the world gets to see it we’ll all know we did our best and didn’t settle for good enough.
I’ve been reflecting this week on some of the projects I’ve had a hand in and that’s where the idea for this article came from. As I considered what linked all the projects that made a real impact and that people think of as truly great, one thing links them all. At some point we stopped and said “this isn’t good enough, we can do better”. On one project it took us three years to get it right, but knowing how it turned out, the time was worth it.
Better takes courage, it takes pain, it takes money, it takes time.
Making great stuff is as much about the choices we make during the process and it does the talent we have in the room.
When someone in the room says, this isn’t good enough, we can do better… then sometimes the magic happens.