Ep 139 Career: The Hard Truth About Creativity’s Role in Business Today (and Yesterday)

In this fired-up episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates dives into the reality of the design industry today—where companies often fail to truly value creativity, even though it’s been proven to drive success. Drawing from his own experiences, Stephen reflects on the frustrations designers face as they see AI and platforms like Canva change the landscape. He challenges designers to stop being surprised by the lack of design appreciation in businesses and instead embrace this moment of disruption. It’s time to rethink the way we approach our careers, the way we connect with clients, and how we use creativity to stand out. Stephen encourages creatives to see this as an opportunity to grow, adapt, and take control of their futures, rather than just waiting for change to happen.

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Transcript

What's going on, everybody? And welcome into the 139th episode of the Crazy One Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates, and this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and a whole bunch of other stuff. That matters to creative people. Now, if you're listening to the show, as always, do me a favor, leave a review, tell a friend, do something like that. And also remember, one. We've got a YouTube page, so there's a lot of great videos and tutorials over there. And two, if you're looking for coaching, you're looking for me to do a keynote, want some help on your next designer innovation project, Give me a call because remember three years ago started my own design studio, Crazy Design. We are doing some really cool work and are always looking for really great problems. So, today, I gotta be honest, I'm feeling a little spicy. I'm feeling like I got something to say. I'm feeling kind of fired up. I feel like I kind of want to put a boot in a bunch of people's ass. And I'm not gonna shy away from that. Because... I've just had so many conversations lately that are keeping me up at night. I don't know. I'm not sure how to say it. They're not pissing me off, right? Like, that's not the wrong way to say about it, but right, but they're definitely, they're kind of under my skin, right? And I think a lot of what this is is it comes back to, I think, the state of the design industry right now, the state of creativity right now, the state of a lot of things right now, because I think that. Look, we're in what feels sort of like an unprecedented moment. We're trying to go through the waters of what is the role of designing creativity in a lot of companies, of what is You know, the impact that AI is going to have on our industry and a lot of different, you know, really sort of meaty topics. But the thing out of all of that, that I think we need to get over, and maybe this is an intervention moment, I don't know what this is, but to me it's just, I'm kind of over. Everybody being surprised at how we got here, I guess. Because I kind of feel like, again, moment of brutal honesty. If we didn't see this coming, we weren't paying attention. And maybe this is just because of where I've sat in my career or sort of the perspective or some of those sort of things. And look, what we're talking about isn't true everywhere. Nothing is ever true everywhere. All people don't do certain things. All companies don't do other things, right? So let's, let's not say that. But I think like, look, let's, let's have a little bit of a hard conversation here around sort of where I think we're at. And I think let's start with a little bit of a history lesson because So many of the conversations I've been having seem to be centered around why don't companies value design? Why don't they value creativity? Like I said in the last episode, I think for a lot of people, what we don't like is that Platforms like Canva and other things like that have given way to AI and I think we're finally seeing in black and white how many people or companies or brands or whatever it is don't value design. And to be honest, the fact that that seems to be a revelation just makes my brain cramp for a lot of different reasons. And I think if you haven't heard me say this before, listen to it now because I think you need to understand a couple basic things. One is the fact that, you know, look, it is a universal truth that almost every company, the company they idealize, embraces design. Yes, that is true. I think it was, what, ten or twelve years ago, Fortune Magazine watched our team at starred hotels and could prove That, you know, a more design savvy company and ones that invest in creativity and taking risks and doing that stuff would outperform the S&P by 212%. What was it four years ago when I was at Envision, we did the largest single study of the relationship between creativity and corporate culture that had ever been done. And the big headline from that was that 82% of the world's companies are in the middle to the bottom on sort of a five tier design maturity scale that we built. So none of what's happening is new. I think what a lot of what it is is we're being forced to Reckon with the fact that those numbers were real. We're being forced to reckon with the fact that we as designers maybe haven't done The the best job or been able to short circuit the corporate culture in the way that we wanted to to be able to show more value. And I think maybe too many of us have been stuck in thinking That our value came from our ability to execute visuals. And that right now as we're seeing what AI is doing is it's disrupting a huge part Of that sort of executional part of the business. And again, not the first time that's happened in my lifetime and in my career. I saw the entire printing industry, typesetting industry, all of that get disrupted by desktop computing. I saw a lot of, again, a whole Direct mail and print industry and a lot of other things get disrupted when email came in, right? Like this is not new. Is this a little bit of a different magnitude than what we've seen before? Absolutely. But here's the thing I need you to hear. Is that most companies, and I would argue almost every company doesn't value design and will probably never value design the way that we wish they would. Because what it comes down to at the end of the day is always almost the exact same moment. And I have seen it hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. And until we're able to accept that it happens. We're all gonna continue to struggle. Now, what that moment is, is that, you know, we get an interesting problem. We get an interesting idea. We start, we launch a design sprint or a design thinking sprint or something to be able to start coming up with a great idea. And you go through and you do that work and you come up with the ideas or you do whatever it is and you kind of say, great, this is the solution we need. And inevitably, and again, I've seen it. I literally just twenty minutes ago heard a story from somebody who had this happen to them of they're running a design sprint. They get the team together. The executive walks into the room goes, I didn't ask for any of this. I don't understand what you guys are doing. Basically not basically what they'll say is I don't trust any of you with our business or with my the future of my job and I'm going to tell you what to do. And again, this is why I continue to try to harp on that. This is why corporate culture and creativity do not like to coexist because for most people they do not like being comfortable being uncomfortable. They want certainty. They want those sort of things. Now, that is far more, I think, our problem than theirs because they are the product of the system that built them. And I think for us, it is recognizing that at the end of the day, this is what we need to take on. Because again, just look at basic research. 75% of all transformation work fails. Because what you're trying to do is you're trying to change behavior, not the thinking. I don't know. I don't know how many episodes I've done on this. Because this is the problem is that at the end of the day, if we just go, you should value design and people don't, then we just kind of go, okay, well, you should. Yeah, they should, right? But look, for me, where I think so many people see the downside, I guess I am, and look, maybe I'm naive. Maybe this show's gonna date super badly. I don't know what. I think I've got a decent track record. But... Look, what I see is a moment for us to focus on the execution less, to focus on the creativity more, to focus on the storytelling more, to focus on the impact more, to be able to prove the business results that we can get whenever we do this stuff. More now, yes, we have to find the opportunities and the leadership, but then we also need to understand that we need to take it on ourselves To either look at who we engage with, how do we do that differently? What are the sort of jobs that we want to take? And again, like, look, I think that's why some of the things to think about is a lot of the conversations I've been having Have been people who don't want to necessarily work with big brands or publicly traded companies because of all the politics and BS that comes with it. They're far more interested and I've seen far more people that I know who are going into privately held companies who are going into different industries who are going into manufacturing industries or medical or other things like that because. They know whenever they get there that those are people that are probably going to be much more appreciative and likely to do something. And if I can, like for me, I've tried working on the big brands, right? Since I started my own thing. Tried working on the big brands, worked on medium to small brands. Medium to small brands, we do vastly better work. Because look, at the end of the day, I want to work with a company where the CEO knows my name because there's just there's not a shortcut to thinking that we're going to do great work if we don't have that sort of access. And again, I think that's a lot of what it is, is are we setting ourselves up to be successful? Because the other thing that I hear time and time and time again, Is, and it is a hard fought, hard learned lesson that I have learned myself multiple times over. I've done other episodes about it. But look, the thing is, at the end of the day, whenever you talk to somebody who's been laid off or to talk to somebody who is wildly unhappy in their job, What they regret most is the investment that they put into a company that didn't deserve it. What they regret most are the things that they missed, the time that they were away from their family or skipped with their friends or their kids or whatever it is. Only to be shown the door. Only to be shown that at the end of the day, the company didn't really care about them the way that they cared about it. And look, I'm not saying that you need to become some just jaded asshole who just thinks everybody's out to screw them all the time, but I think we need to open our eyes to sort of what is the actual game we are engaging in. Again, I've said this for the better part of a decade. I got laid off from Starwood with my work running globally in an Apple commercial after a run of eight consecutive Apple keynotes after getting them millions Of dollars in free PR from the work that we did with the app and with Apple Watch and everything else. None of that made a damn bit of difference whenever the board of directors decided that they want to get some more money and they were going to sell the company. I was out the door. Now, should it have been that way? No. Did it hurt me and break my heart? Absolutely it did. But I think the thing that we have to recognize, though, is that that is the reality. That as much as we would love people to play a different game as much as we would love them to be somebody they're not we need to recognize the abusive relationship we're in and see it for what it is. And that I think for so many of us, that is why people are trying to figure out what to do differently or to take control or want to go to smaller companies or startups or things like that. That are the place where they feel like there's a higher likelihood of success. And I think for me, that is while I often Not often, right? While I always embrace the aspirational side of the word crazy, I think that's where you need to recognize that continue to engage in this system and not realize it for the reality that it is That is the definition of insanity and crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Now, I know that what comes with this is a lot of being uncomfortable, a lot of being vulnerable, a lot of other things that are not necessarily fun, right? It's easier to be comfortable. But I think that we have to recognize the toxic relationship between comfort and where we are with a lot of our careers and those sort of things that. Again, that it can be good and it can pay the bills and I'm not trying to dismiss or be some sort of naive Pollyanna around what the realities of the world are, but. I think if we can see it for the opportunity, if we can see that this is a moment of like, look, I continue to argue that the reason why I think NFTs and crypto and so many other things did not do well is because there weren't any creatives in the room. Yes, AI is riddled with ethical problems and legal problems and copyright problems and that there's a lot that needs to get figured out. But I also don't think we can all just sort of sit there with our fingers in our ears going like, well, look, it's I don't want to learn it. It's not going to affect things because it is. Right? Jobs are getting cut. Industries look different. Roles look different. That's true across creative. It's true across engineering. It's true across so many different industries. Things are gonna look different. And I guess for me, it's just, I don't know that I just have the energy to sit around and just talk about how I wish things were. I'd rather be somebody that's in there trying to make a difference, trying to make things that are different, seeing this as a possibility, seeing this as something that I think we can lean into to be a part of, to learn some different skills, to do something different. And like, again, I know that some of this is driven out. Like, look, I know that the work that I've talked about with AI has gotten more trolls and more hate than anything I've done in my career. Hurts, pisses me off, don't love it, don't understand it. Doesn't mean I'm going to change because I still see the path forward that I see but I just think we've got to get over Being surprised by this, we've got to get over how we wish things were and really start to deal with and look at what is the value that we as an industry that we as a group need to reestablish. Because I think so much of it is about now. Again, talked about last episode. Didn't listen to it. Go back and listen to it because I'm not going to repeat it all here. But look, I think that we're in that area of there to be a lot of people that are copycats and then the people that can tell a story or put together a strategy or affect people or connect with them are not just do cookie cutter work that all looks the same because everybody wants to chat GPT like people are losing the ability to think. And strategize at a staggering rate when I talk to them. And that is going to affect bottom lines and come back to business. There's going to be a shift and the people that embrace what that is and are waiting for that shift are going to be the ones that are successful and everybody else is going to be playing catch up. But I think that's the thing is like, where do you want to be on this and where do you want to spend your energy? Because if you are frustrated, if you're out of work, if you are looking for something that is a soul sucking siege on your sanity and humanity. And that is hard enough to be able to deal with. But I think on top of that to just sort of want, you know, what things to be different or what that is, is just such. I think it's just it's putting a lot of people in a really tough place. And I just, I guess, lately wanted to respond or to do something or to, you know, kind of make my thoughts on this, I guess, out there because I just. I think there's a different road here. I think that, you know, in these moments of inflection, we've got to find a different way forward. That, you know, yeah, look, LinkedIn is screwed up. You know, applying there doesn't work. I think even I'm tired of talking about all of that because it's just not new. But I believe in us. I believe in you. I believe in our ability to figure this out, to find a way forward, to be creative, to do what we've always done. Is it going to look different than it was before? Absolutely. Can we do it? Absolutely. But like now, like look, if ever there's a time to take a risk or to be weird or do whatever it is or to go out to try something different, pivot to a different part of your career, try something different, experiment, be loud about who you are. That's the moment that I see. The moment to stand out, to finally get to that place of like, look, what you always thought should have been different, go do that. Because I think, for me, that's the one thing that still does cut through is authenticity, is emotion, is somebody who believes in something, right? Like, does it cut through the way that it should? No. But can it? Yes. I just, I want us to try to see the hope in where this can go. And I know it's more work. I know hope is more work, right? Again, I'm not delusional and I'm not dumb. But I just think we have to figure out how do we start building and embracing and moving to take control of what this is instead of just waiting for it to inflict whatever it's going to on us. And I think maybe that that for me at my core is sort of what I'm struggling with is that I just. I, we spent so long with what this is and we sort of arrived at a moment that I guess I thought a lot of us should have seen coming for ten or fifteen years and now that we're here. I don't want us to just kind of wilt under the moment, I guess. I guess I still, I don't know. I just, we can be more. We can be better. And I think that I'm not sure what it looks like, but I'm damn sure going to work to figure it out every single day. And I hope you do too. But again, I. Take this for whatever it is, right? Let it be a battle cry. Let it get it motivated. Let it get you get pissed off. Let it, whatever it is. But I think just let it do something to help kind of move us forward and to find what's the next path and a better way forward. I'll climb down off my soapbox now because I, like I said, I think that just, it's something that's been eating me for a little while and I think, yeah, this is why I did the shorter show format and that sort of stuff, but um. Yeah, just think it over. See what's your role in this going to be. And yeah, as always, stay crazy.