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.
This post was inspired by a conversation I had with a client a few weeks ago just as Seattle began to get serious about Covid-19. We were having coffee and talking about the effects of the virus on freelance work. It dawned on me that an easy to use action plan would be a great…
“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…
“‘Son, notice that man.’ “Dad was referring to the carpenter, who was within earshot. ‘That man takes orders from me. He works with his hands.’ I looked from my father to the carpenter. His name was Steve. I really liked Steve. Then Dad said, ‘I work with my mind.’” Relaxed and reflective, knowing Jamal was…
“Why are we at war all the time? Has it always been like this?” Brie was on the line with Elizabeth, Purple Morn’s resident historian. “Not always, Brie,” she said with a sigh. “There’s now strong evidence that we sapiens lived without war for something like 3,000 years in the Fertile Crescent, just before ag…
The entrepreneurial experience… My feet touch the ground with a light tap-tap-tapping sound. I love that feeling I get when I run. It’s a lightness. I’m alive, moving myself through the air, passing walkers and some runners. I’m running for the joy of it. The balls of my feet tap-tap-tapping my body along. Breathing deep,…
Brie’s dreams all played to her fears. Only partially awake, Brie could feel the fear. Taste it, actually. That metallic taste. “I’m doing the right thing.” And again: “I’m doing… I mean, we’re doing the right thing.” Brie facing it now. Knowing the fear. Thinking through the risk. “We’re living in a time where we…
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