Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky, productivity expert and founder and CEO of Behance, is a guide to developing execution skills on an individual and organizational level. The book is in large part about how to use design principles to organize projects. While PMP is the standard for approaching project management in the United States, the reality is that often times the smaller scope of projects for companies with under 50 workers and start-ups don’t require someone with this specialization. Furthermore, the reality is that creative environments are no conducive to such organizational demands for specific procedures, restrictions and processes. The creative worker’s generalized rebellion against these is part of their recognition that there is no one best process for developing ideas. This does not, however, mean that chaos should reign but that other methods must be developed.
The book begins with a discussion of the Action Method, which is a set of general principles and means for organizing workflow such that there is a bias towards action rather than reaction. According to Belsky: “The state of reactionary workflow occurs when you get stuck simply reacting to whatever flows into the top of an inbox. Instead of focusing on what is most important and actionable you spend too much time just trying to stay afloat. Reactionary workflow prevents you from being more proactive with your energy. The act of processing requires discipline and imposing some blockages around your focus.”
In order to prevent this, he provides a number of techniques – such as breaking processes into elementary, actionable steps; maintaining a backburner of low-priority items; and keeping up a daily practice of journaling to ensure that there is as little as possible that is interiorized and thus likely to be forgotten about or causing sub-optimal work due to stress.
There are a large number of actionable insights from the first third of the book as it relates to personal workspace within a company as well as hiring and managerial practices. Some of the takeaways can be summarized as such:
- Generate ideas in moderation (more is not always better).
- Act without conviction to keep momentum and rapidly refine ideas.
- Encourage productive conflict within your teams to refine ideas.
- Seek competition; it will boost accountability and strengthen your approach.
- Reduce bulky projects to just three primary elements.
The second part of the book focuses on the social, community elements within which creative enterprises occurs. The section on Dreamers, Doers and Incrementalist posits that there are three archetypes for those within the creative business world. The Dreamer is the one that is full of ideas and able to come up with solutions from a wide range of knowledge. These are the people that relish in ideas, but have trouble managing clients, staying organized or accountable, etc. The Doer is the inverse of this. They are able to help Dreamers translate the ideas through a series of specific processes and steps, as well as ensuring that the stakeholders are informed of what is going on and that the bills are paid. Belsky cites a number of famous businesses where such pairs were able to lead their companies to great success. Tim Cook & Steve Jobs of Apple; Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight of Nike; Barry Schwarz and Calvin Klein are some examples of these. The Incrementalist archetype is the combination of Dreamer and Doers. These are rare people that because of their independent attitude and capabilities must learn to work together – as the Doers and Dreamers seem naturally inclined to do – lest their projects falter due to being overwhelmed by the fact that they don’t trust other enough to help them.
The third part of the book covers how to be a respected and effective leader of creative teams.
Incorporating fun into projects whenever possible to keep minds fresh is one of the many pieces of advice that he gives. Citing his interview with Ji Lee, the creative director of Google’s Creative Lab, he illustrates how it is that a number of his personal projects have seen themselves applied in various ways into the professional field – which explains why it is that the company famously allows for 20% of the projects worked on by their workers to be personal projects. After an excessive focus on trying to solve problems, after all, an intellectual plateau can be reached – which is damaging to a creative enterprise.
Additional insight includes picking an appropriately balanced creative team. While it’s understandable that those with a “creative background” would be chosen, the variety of insights gained from having informed perspectives that are vastly different in their composition is also important. This is also why it’s suggested to involved potential end-users of products and services into the development process – something which many companies’s now practice.
Sharing appreciation is also important for managers. Most of the creative workers surveyed cite their rationale for departing a particular enterprise as stemming from a poor work environment wherein compliments towards good work is rare. Belsky cites an instance of going to a storytelling workshop in order to see how it is that merely focusing on the positives within a first edit/prototype story can lead to changes that are encouraging rather than covertly critical.
The section on self-leadership I found to be particularly engaging. In my interactions with a number of team leaders, I’ve frequently seen people acting in emotionally detached, mechanistic manner. Many of them did not seem to have psychologically developed themselves enough to direct their emotions as it relates to work situations in a positive manner, and so did not make the sort of decisions or communicate in a manner with their employees such that it garnered respect and confidence in them.