Big Little ThingsThe wisdom of conventional wisdom
Most of us ‘creative types’ think we’re better than everyone else. Hell, we think we’re better than each other.
We’re always rejecting conventional wisdom and getting away with it. We flaunt it because we think it proves that we’re more creative than anyone else. And lucky for us, the world is full of suckers in suits who believe us. That’s how we pay the bills.
We’ve been doing this for so long that we started to believe that different is always better, even when it isn’t.
Here’s what I mean:
When it was time to hire our first staff, we were so focused on being different, and provocative, and, yeah, unconventional, that we ignored the wisdom of the time-tested hiring process. We didn’t ask for resumes because we don’t think they really help you know a person. We didn’t ask for portfolios because we weren’t interested in hiring someone to do work they’d done before. And we didn’t check references because we were lazy.
And so we wound up hiring (and firing) a sociopath who went berserk in the studio, tried to recruit our friends for revenge, and stalked us for a week and a half.
So yeah, maybe that wasn’t so smart.
Next time, we’ll give the suits a little more credit.
