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.
When we overpromise and underdeliver, it costs us big time. “I’m so sorry, but we need another week.” “But you promised! I have ta present tomorrow!” “I know, I know, but things changed, and we need…” *** When you make a promise and don’t deliver your client feels betrayed. They can be thrown into a…
Hubris ruins negotiations. Unrestrained pride can cost you friends, employees, clients, deals and even your life. Yep, hubris is dangerous and life-threatening. And, like the common cold, we can all catch it. Yes, I’m intimately familiar with hubris. Here’s how it rolls out for me. First, I find myself striving to achieve something; then I…
I’m in the process of writing a memoir. This piece is from that effort. I’m posting it now because the Burnley School building has been torn down in the last few days. It was interview day. The street was wet with light rain. Gray sky. I’d stopped at the light just across from the school.…
We feel before we know. The car bounced a little when I hit the post. “Shit.” A quick glance and it looked like no one was around to notice. It was mid-morning, so the underground garage was full of cars but empty of people. I’d backed right into a concrete support. I didn’t want to,…
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…
“If I fuck this up, my family will hate me forever,” was the thought. And with it the project stopped cold. “Ted, we’re terrified that this whole assignment is going to blow up in our face!” This from the owner of a London package design firm. (I’ve changed details in the story to protect those…
A client shared this with me (details changed to protect my client’s privacy). I was struck by the raw emotion of the experience. A Google Doc holds my future. The email said, “A self-introduction will be required.” When I read stuff like this, I automatically go into ‘run for the hills’ mode. I know how…
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