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.
Cars. An endless stream of them. All doing 40 or more, on a street marked 25. A street built for two lanes, now filled with four lanes of bumper-to-bumper cars. Most drivers already wearing their masks. Men and women desperate to get to their jobs on time, so they could maintain the life depicted in…
This is the last episode of the Overture serial fantasy… The path to the future is unclear. Back in Seattle, I shook out my umbrella and dropped it in the stand. It’s been raining more in the last few years. More rain. Bigger drops. More intense wind. All a part of the change, they’ve told…
“250 million died.” Jessica turned and asked Sara what she was talking about. “Sorry. The last outbreak of COVID. I got a call from Rosa, our Circle City LA director, early this morning. They had three deaths last night. Testing this morning showed it was a new form of COVID.” Jessica, Tommy and Sara were…
The campaign was on… Corporate coffers to be filled An election to be won And Sleepy Joe without a clue. The White House told us so. -Anonymous It was over now. It seemed running was the only choice. Just then, the clouds let go. They were getting wet fast. The Overture group started walking. Brie…
This serial is a fantasy about the Overture Creative Cooperative, set in the near future. However, Overture is a real organization that provides creative services. You can learn more about the real Overture at Overture.coop. Looked through the paper Makes you want to cry Nobody cares if the people Live or die -Leonard Cohen “You’ve…
“We’re out of masks.” “We’re out of hand sanitizer.” “We’re almost out of aspirin.” “Generic and brand?” “Yep.” Tommy remembered it well. The conversation happened just as he was walking into the Tell’s executive conference room. He was about to present the plan assembled by the Overture team to the Tell’s board and senior executives.…
Billionaires. Got the money, wanna keep it. Tommy left his seat and began walking up the aisle as the train slowed. Living in a police state. Amazing how quickly things changed. Stock market continuously going up. Unemployment shrinking to almost nothing. And yet, 40% of us living below the poverty line, real wages shrinking, thousands…
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