Abstract
The main aim of my paper is to find out the most sufficient and effective way to manage creative people in the art fields. In order to find the answer to that I will try to define creativity and how can you recognize creative people. Then I am going to analyze the most common problems that artists and their managers face, in order to understand if there is a need for a specific approach when it comes to artists. Lastly, I plan on creating a how-to guide that I can refer back too with the most important rules and the most effective ways when it comes to managing artists.
Introduction
What is Creativity?
In order for us to come to a conclusion about what the most efficient way to manage creative people, we need to define creativity and the characteristics of a creative person. There are many definitions of creativity through the years. All of these definitions can be divided into three groups. The first one states that creativity is the generation of new ideas that can lead to a brand-new result. The second one claims that creativity could be a new approach and a new combination of already known information. The third and the last one advocates that for a procedure to be creative, it is not enough to be innovative or combining know information but to have value as well (Sefertzi, 2000).
Combining these three groups we can come to the following conclusion: Creativity is the manufacture of new ideas or the combination of known information in order to create something innovative while at the same time giving value to the end result (Zambetakis, 2005).
What are the characteristics of creative people?
Now that we defined creativity it is essential to find a way to recognize creative people. That way we will be able to know exactly when and where we need to apply a different way of managing.
Creative people have a wide spectrum of characteristics. Most of them are directly linked with personality traits that kids have, while most non-creative adults lost that connection. These characteristics are the following:
Sensibility. Most creative people tend to be more bias when it comes to music, literary or artistic experiences.
Asymmetric thinking. Creative people are able of handling chaos and anarchy, they can find order in chaos and they can create in their mind an organized system that to non-creatives it would seem impossible to understand.
Curiosity. A creative person or an artist never stops searching and discovering. They usually doubt everything that comes in their way no matter how concrete it is.
Conception and Perception of time. Creative people are known for losing track of time. In addition, they don’t follow schedules or deadlines, they might need years to finish a project or even decades to find a solution to their problems.
Braveness. Creative people like taking risks are not scared of failing, or not know what their future holds. For them, the most important thing is the value of the result and they are driven by that (Piperopoulos, 2003),(Zambetakis, 2005),(Gregoire and Kaufman, 2016).
In addition, there are many other personality traits that are common among creatives. For example, they can indecent and sometimes they can be introverts. At the same time, they are known for having an open mind to new and different things, they like complexity and innovation, and follow with a passion their own ideas and beliefs no matter how unconditional they are. They are observant and optimistic, adventurous and independent (Warner, 2011). The most common problems when managing creative types.
With artists having such a unique, independent and some time introvert personalities it comes as no surprise that there are roadblocks when managing creatives. Most people recognize bad communication between the creative people and the people that manage them as the most common and important problem (Coleman, 2012) but that doesn’t mean it is the only one.
Most of the creative people are afraid of having someone evaluate their skills and work, or check on them all the time. As we said before, artists and creatives like feeling free and these tend to have an impact on their creativity level. They also tend to lose their passion when people give them plenty of limits such as a deadline or do’s and don’t’s when it comes to their work. Last but not least, creatives lose connection with their work when there is a competitive character to it or a tangible prize. They love their work and they don’t value it based on money or prizes but by the value or the result itself.
Defining a target market, articulating a truly unique value proposition (Rea, 2014) Rules for managing creative people
Now that we have addressed both the meaning of creativity and the most common characteristics of creative people and we talked about the most common problems that the artists and their managers face, we need to state some of the most efficient rules when it comes to managing creatives in an efficient way.
References
Bujor, A. and Avasilcai, S. (2016). The Creative Entrepreneur: A Framework of Analysis. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 221, pp.21-28.
Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2017). Seven Rules for Managing Creative-But-Difficult People. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2013/04/seven-rules-for-managing-creat [Accessed 1 Oct. 2017].
Rea, A. (2014). SELL YOUR ART without Selling Out, 101 rules. United States: Artists Who THRIVE, pp.8-14.
E-book or pdf
Coleman, B. (2012). MANAGING CREATIVITY.CREATIVE LEADERS SHARE TIPS AND INSIGHTS ON HOW TO INSPIRE BIG IDEAS. [ebook] Available at: https://www.ideapaint.com/wp-content/uploads/managing_creativity.pdf [Accessed 1 Oct. 2017].
Sefertzi, E. (2000). CREATIVITY. [ebook] INNOREGIO project. Available at: http://www.adi.pt/docs/innoregio_creativity-en.pdf [Accessed 5 Oct. 2017].
Zambetakis, L. (2005). Επιχειρηματικότητα και Περιβάλλον (In Greek). [ebook] Heraklion. Available at: http://www.lib.teiher.gr/webnotes/sdo/Epixeirimatikotita/notes2.pdf [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017].
Book
Warner, C. (2011). Media selling. 4th ed. Malden, Mass. [u.a.]: Wiley-Blackwell, p.Appendix E.
Journal
Collins, T. (2008). 10 Tips to successfully manage creative people. Design Journal, [online] (106). Available at: https://www.snd.org/pdf/Manage_Creatives.pdf [Accessed 1 Oct. 2017].
Piperopoulos, G. (2003). Το ταλαντο της δημιουργικοτητας. Ιατρικα θεματα, [online] (27-28), pp.15-18. Available at: http://www.isth.gr/images/uploads/talanto.pdf [Accessed 11 Oct. 2017].
Website
Gregoire, C. and Kaufman, S. (2016). Creative people’s brains really do work differently. [online] Quartz. Available at: https://qz.com/584850/creative-peoples-brains-really-do-work-differently/ [Accessed 11 Oct. 2017].