Essays on creative leadership,
culture, and the human side of work.
Becoming
These are personal essays about growing up as a fostered, then adopted child — and about what that does to a person over the course of a life and career. The passivity you develop to survive. The shame that shows up uninvited in elevators and conference rooms decades later. The moment you finally recognize the bully pattern, in a boss, in a father, in yourself.
The most-read piece opens with a meat cleaver. My wife, coming down the hall. Me, curled under the covers at thirty years old, having just been fired and not yet told her. It’s not a comfortable essay. But by the end, it explains — more directly than anything else I’ve written — why I understand what happens to people when they’re made to feel small at work, and why that understanding is the foundation of everything I do professionally.
These essays aren’t separate from my advisory work. They are the source of it.
Advisory Notes
These are essays about the emotional realities of creative professional life — the anxiety of leadership, the psychology of negotiation, the particular ways creative people get in their own way, and the particular ways organizations let them down.
One of the most-read pieces, “Why Creative Firms Break Differently,” argues that creative firms don’t fail from bad strategy — they unravel from the inside, through fatigue, misalignment, and a gradual loss of trust no one can quite name. That piece captures what all of these essays are reaching toward.
I write from four decades of experience inside creative firms, but I write the way I talk: directly, without jargon, with stories. Each piece includes one of my own illustrations. If you work in a creative firm and ever feel like the game is rigged against you, this series is for you.
Sometimes avoidance, is key to survival. Just like home. I’d arrived. Twenty-one and a newly hired design illustrator at Boeing. Newly married and fully escaped from my adoptive family. I was now part of a group supporting management’s effort to sell Boeing’s whole Turbine Division to another company. Our little creative group — seven of…
When an unexpected blow opens up possibilities “…and I’m reducing your salary 25%.” I could see that he was extremely uncomfortable. He spoke in a voice that didn’t sound like him. It was lower in tone, almost as if his throat was restricted. I knew it was nerves. I knew things weren’t going well when…
“Now, honey, I’m sure we can find a way to reduce the rent.” It was late. Maybe around ten, my boss’s voice drifted back through the empty office. I was alone and finishing my work when I overheard his half of the conversation. All ears now thinking that it must be sex he was expecting.…
This evening a grade school classmate of mine arranged a Zoom reunion call. Thirteen of the eighty-five of us who graduated from Maple School have signed up for the call. A good turnout considering our graduation was in 1958. We’re all in our seventies, and seventeen of us are dead. My first memory of those…
This is the epic story of the birth of the brand NED, which stands for Not Entirely Dead, a brand inspired by Eason Yang’s personal cancer treatment experience. Doctors use the term NED when all symptoms of cancer are gone –– which, in their terms, means “No Evidence of Disease.” Once Eason reached that status,…
Sometimes negotiations reach an impasse. The big guns are facing you on Zoom. What now? What do you do when you realize that you’re dealing with a heavy? When smiles and a warm cup of joe isn’t going to help? When friendly banter and talk of shared goals are out of the question? Both Jessica…
Another black man dead under a white cop’s weight. Riots in the streets. Militarized police. Pandemic. 110,000 dead, and more to come. Votes not counted. The middle class shrinks. Incomes shrink. Wall Street rallies. The rich prosper. My thoughts trail off as I escape into sleep… Startled, he turns his head when I enter the…
New essays, every week.
With an illustration.
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Also available on Substack.
You never cease to amaze me with your willingness to make your life an open book — especially the more hurtful parts. And I'm amazed by the lessons you draw from all of it.
— Larry Coffman, PublisherYour writing has revealed some very intimate, powerful lessons. You are a source of inspiration both professionally and, increasingly, on a personal level.
— Rick GoreWe can discuss the ugly, uncomfortable truths while always circling back to what matters: the people, the underdogs, the work we get to do, and the magical existence we get to share as creatives.
— Sarah EskandarpourI loved your article about how clients' emotions affect briefs. It's a huge part of the creative industry and it's always good to see somebody so knowledgeable write about it.
— Vuk Bojovic, JKR Account Director, Singapore