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.
Back to work the bosses proclaim. Our economy suffers under the impact of the virus. Far too many are forced to work in spite of the danger. All in the interest of making money for people who are already rich. It’s sad, it’s sickening to the soul and the body. What do you think?
“Don’t walk with him to school.” Richard Taylor and I were in the fourth grade together. I liked walking with him. Two of us together were less likely to draw the attention, and the meanness, of the bigger boys. I’d learned to be afraid of Dad’s wrath. So I didn’t ask why. But I knew…
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…
Incomes for professional creatives have not increased in 30 years. As a result, it has become harder than ever to find economically sustainable creative work. Now with the virus, clients are putting projects on hold. Some creative employers are laying off whole groups who are not considered core to their enterprise. All this has left…
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…
Photo: Ted and his wife Robin McCoy Brooks How long have you been in the industry? My first job as a creative professional was as a design/illustrator for Boeing in 1967. I’ve been making my way as a professional creative ever since. However, my work as a creative started much earlier. I began drawing and…
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…
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