24. Creativity vs. Capitalism
Why dollars don't make good creative directors
When I first moved to New York after finishing grad school, I interned for a Broadway general management company. (Not the same as a theater company; a management company basically coordinates all the operational aspects of big commercial shows like the ones on Broadway.) I spent my days filing contracts, hand-ticketing the opening nights of productions—meaning assigning every single one of about 1,200 attendees to a particular seat—addressing Tony voter envelopes, delivering tickets, scripts, and files all over the worst parts of Midtown Manhattan, and running whatever random errand might pop up in the middle of the day.
The office was small. I think there were only six or eight employees total, including the two general managers/owners, neither of whom ever spoke to me directly in the five months I worked there. I enjoyed my other colleagues, who were either company managers—people who took care of the logistical needs of one particular show—or who had vague titles like “Associate” (Associate what???), and we chatted seemingly non-stop about the three to five Broadway shows the firm was managing at any given time. How was it selling? What were the box office grosses this week compared to last? How much were we discounting? How full was the house? Could we get someone famous in the cast to boost sales? Would the production recoup its investment? Would it pay out? Could we work with a marketing agency to get a sales bump?
I don’t recall anyone ever talking about whether any of our shows were good.
The commercial imperative
I’m not naive. I know that commercial theater is just that: commercial. Its financial model is designed to make money. Producers and other investors put money into a show because they expect (well, they hope—it’s theater, after all) for a return.
But it really irked me, an idealistic 23-year-old with two obscure, unmarketable degrees—BHA and MAM, any guesses?—that on this art form’s biggest (literal) stage, the quality of artistic expression was not the primary concern.
It’s entirely possible that I just wasn’t in the right rooms at the right time to hear conversations about whether or not the shows or the performers or the directors were any good. And I am quite certain that those conversations were happening amongst the artistic teams on these shows, because while producers and investors are considered successful by what lands in their bank accounts, the artists were the visible ones on trial in the court of public opinion and their peers. And they were often laboring under the constraints of said producers and investors.
We do like to pretend that Quality of Creative Idea = Monetary Success of Idea. Why? I guess it’s because it’s too existentially painful to admit otherwise. It hurts professional creatives and artists to be asked not to do what’s best but what makes money, even if that thing is schlocky, sensationalist, derivative, or gimmicky, and it also maybe sometimes hurts the people doing the asking to admit that yes, the goals really are that transparently capitalistic and un-nuanced. Because, as we’ve discussed before, we’ve cultivated an almost fanatic conviction that our work has to be deeply meaningful and fulfilling, and explicitly hustling to make faceless shareholders more money isn’t generally regarded as such.
While we might tend to think of creativity as an inherent and inherently valuable aspect of quality artistic expression, in commercial spheres like Broadway, like Hollywood, creativity can be seen as a risk. When things are novel, innovative, and unique, they are simply harder to market. Consider the number of revivals of (already successful) shows vs. new plays and musicals on Broadway. Or what about the number of movies and TV shows based on existing (already successful) intellectual property, or even straight up remakes and sequels of (already successful) ones? How about the spate of books that are basically just compilations of (already successful) blog posts by an author? And to what degree are we replacing all of these “metrics” for predictable success on how many followers an artist, performer, or writer has on social media before an institution will legitimize them?
It’s not just the arts that suffer
Ok, I know this is a lot about theater and entertainment. It might not feel relevant to knowledge work and office jobs. But I’m going to argue that most modern companies fall into this same trap, except instead of creativity being inherent to artistic expression, creativity is inherent to innovation and entrepreneurism. What company, and especially what tech company, isn’t supposedly looking to innovate? What startup isn’t trying to shine in a crowded market by being unique? Creativity is a key pillar of entrepreneurism, because if you were just trying to do exactly what someone else does, you give investors no reason to fund you and consumers no reason to buy you. You need to employ creative thinking and creative problem solving to differentiate and stand out.
But at the same time we’re all being ostensibly called toward creativity, we’re being resourced for safety and predictability. We’re asked by our employers to generate the impact of truly creative work, but we’re given the budget and creative freedom of planning a midday alcohol-free holiday party in the company break room. We are asked to create something incredible, and then the efforts are risk-managed to death. It’s easier and safer to just do exactly what we did last year. Everyone will have an ok-enough time drinking cocoa in the break room for 20 minutes, after all. Who can complain about Secret Santa?
All this makes a kind of intuitive sense. It seems smart to base new things on what already “works,” right? But it underlines just how much capitalism is allergic to risk and what we lose when our primary systems for funding creative endeavors—whether they’re art or innovations in tech or society—have a profit motive. The driving force is the pursuit of wealth accumulation and market dominance, often at the expense of other values.
There is, of course, the argument that capitalism’s built-in mechanism of competition is actually fuel for innovation. The “best” product or service will win, right? But as we’ve already established, in realms where there is no intrinsic dollar value on the thing itself, we must overlay the rubric of Best = Most Profitable. When all you have is the hammer of capitalism, everything looks like a nail. Otherwise, how do you say whose song is “best”? Whose novel is “best”? Whose performance is “best”? Whose impact is “best”? Critical consensus rarely exists. And nor should it in a rich, diverse society. But you can’t pay shareholders in societal progress and cultural enrichment.
“The cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing,” wrote Oscar Wilde in 1892.
Capitalism deals in price, not value. Creativity is priceless.
What to do?
I’ve spent long enough in the arts and in tech to be realistic about the change that’s possible when it comes to attitudes toward creativity writ large. But that doesn’t mean that being mindful of your relationship with this issue can’t be helpful and that shifts and perspective can’t happen in a grassroots way!
Different game, different rules, different win conditions. If you find yourself frustrated by the tension between what you consider creatively “best” and what’s being asked of you, remind yourself that you’re being evaluated by standards that are not your own. Your “failure” is maybe not failure at all!
Find areas of control. Where can you exercise your own personal creative practice and standards? Maybe it’s only in certain areas of your work life. Maybe it’s not at work at all! While there are definitely ways to increase your creativity at work, it’s ok not to look for that fulfillment there.
Find your people. If you feel alone on your creative island, make connections with like-minded coworkers. Commiserate, collaborate, and perhaps even dream up extracurricular ways to do something creative together!
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So go be creative because we need to stand out, but also, don't stand out too much because it's not "best practice."
But standing out could give us outsized results, but it could also make us look crazy and people don't like crazy, and, ultimately, they want familiar crazy (which isn't crazy).
We're trapped in risk management hell. Inspiration is the way out but we're too busy trying to find and sustain "best practices".
As the saying goes, best practices never produced anything extraordinary. That doesn't mean they're not needed, it's just they have limits.
It's the marketer's dilemma, and also why most CMOs don't make it past two years.
Well said! And wow that in an office of that few they never spoke to you!