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.
Most the creatives I know and work with have little property but plenty of debt, and are only able to survive by servicing the needs of the high earners. Our world has been in a massive state of change for a while, with a seemingly unimaginable damaging impact on our lives. And it just got…
The concern for the economy over people is deeply disturbing. The profiteering from the virus is horrible. The misleading advice for political gain is disgusting. Depriving healthcare and other workers from the gear they need to stay alive. To stay healthy is appalling. I don’t know how to contribute other than helping my community adjust…
A free Overture Creative Cooperative Zoom workshop Join us Tuesday April 7th 10-11:30 AM Pacific for help with… 1 What to do to get new work 2 How to hang on to existing work and 3 How to build relationships virtually The workshop includes: -A presentation on the survival questions above -A Q&A session that…
A small creative service firm with four working partners as owners. Their conversation… “We own the building! Well, we own part of it with the bank. We can use the equity to pay our staff – or at least partially pay our staff – through this pandemic…” “But, That’s our retirement plan. The building’s our…
Brie completed the introduction. Elizabeth stood and walked briskly to the front of the room. She paused. The entire Overture team and a group from Circle City filled the room. They waited quietly for her to begin. “To understand what has happened, it’s important to recognize that slow-moving changes have more social weight than fast…
Angry that my creative energy has been used to build, sell and enable things that don’t make the world better. Angry that we helped create an idealized reality that isn’t sustainable. Angry that I and all creatives have been getting an increasingly smaller and smaller portion of the wealth this economic system provides. Angry at…
Hierarchical System We live in a hierarchical system, where we’ve been trained from birth to respect those who are in charge. To be deferential. To respect authority. To do as the authority tells us to do. To be afraid to not do as we’re told. Pleasurable work We love the work that we do. In…
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