The Interdependence of Strategy and Creativity

By Brett Rolfe, Chief Strategy Officer, Naked, Sydney

The dominant advertising agency model has been carefully crafted over the years to deliver what might best be described as ‘efficient mediocrity’.

Agencies have sought to increase productivity and predictability by applying Fordist principles like division of labour and time-motion studies. As a consequence, they have separated two of the most central aspects producing work – strategy and creativity.

Strategic thinking is characterised by ideas that ‘contribute toward an objective’, while creative thinking is all about ideas that are ‘new, unusual and original’. In reducing them to such simple definitions it is obvious that to effectively solve business problems in a context of shrinking budgets, increasing competition and more dynamic technology landscapes, solutions need to be both strategic and creative.

While the ‘left brain vs. right brain’ is an oversimplified metaphor, recent findings in neuropsychology have shown that strategic thinking and creative thinking are indeed different cognitive processes. Which means that some people will be better at one than the other, and some processes will facilitate a particular type of thinking. This means that they can be pulled apart, refined, and ‘fine tuned’ – resulting in efficient production of ideas. The problem comes when we realise that in doing so, we have greatly diminished our ability to create great work – hence the mediocrity. To agree with Leo Roberts, IMC Group Marketing Manager of Coca-Cola South Pacific, “Strategy and creativity can’t be divorced. They’re iterative, despite the fact they look linear.”

Building an agency around the integration of strategy and creativity (or ‘strategic creativity’, as we call it at Naked) means embracing change right across the business. Strategy is no longer about “a singular insight or proposition”, as Hamilton Jones, Managing Director of Deepend, puts it. It’s about “finding the right problem to solve.”

Finding those problems and exploring those directions is an inherently interdisciplinary, non-linear, collaborative process. We have to accept that non-linearity is key to success.

This approach also rejects the tendency to create homogenous, independent silos within an agency. The different perspectives that strategic and creative members of the team can bring inherently makes for better thinking. Imogen Hewitt, joint Executive Strategy Director at Havas Group puts it simply; “the more diversity you bring into the room, the better the outcome.”

Making strategic creativity happen isn’t a trivial task. It must be implemented and successfully integrated across all aspects of the business. At Naked, we believe it should be reflected among people, processes, and culture.

In terms of people, we believe in the importance of hiring ‘hybrids’ (or ‘brilliant misfits’ as we often call them; amazing generalists and T-shaped thinkers who struggle to fit in within constraining work environments). Fortunately, hybrids are not as rare as they once were. More people – more creatives – are open to working with insights derived from data. And vice versa for strategists; “more are open to being driven by instincts they can then work to prove”, observes Hewitt.

When it comes to process, we need to consciously build it into our ways of working. That’s why, at Naked, we’re such advocates for workshopping. Not the ubiquitous and agonizingly badly run brainstorm, but carefully planned opportunities to bring together agencies, clients, and external stakeholders to focus on a problem. To share, to collaborate, and to set the groundwork for the next stage.

Finally, we continually strive to foster a culture that supports this type of working. And to do that, we need to embrace a little chaos. For some agencies, and some clients, the idea of willingly introducing chaos is an anathema to everything they hold sacred. Others are enticed by the dangerous-sounding appeal of the idea. The goal is not to be titillating – the science behind it is sound.

The world is made up of systems that vary on a spectrum from highly ordered to highly chaotic. At the ordered end of the spectrum there is rigid stability, but systems become predictable and stagnant. Conversely, chaotic systems may produce novel output but are inherently unstable and struggle to maintain any consistency of focus. Somewhere in between there is a delicate place that produces ‘metastability’ – systems that have a degree of consistency and predictability while allowing the flexibility to adapt and invent. This is where complex, ‘high-level structures’ can emerge, the kind of ideas, products and experiences that make innovative companies successful. It’s in these complex, metastable environments, carefully balanced ‘at the edge of chaos’ that strategic creativity lives.

Any examination of a truly creative environment will show that strategic thinking and creative thinking are two sides of the same coin. Separating them leads at best to efficient mediocrity. Bringing them together has its own challenges – you need the right people, supported by the right processes, embedded in the right culture.

So ask yourself these important questions:

•    Who is our next creative or strategic hire? How can we make them more hybrid?

•    How can we change our process to get the right people in the room at the right time, more often?

•    What one thing could we do to our space to create a culture that encourages cross-disciplinary collaboration?

•    What’s holding us back?

For many organisations it’s not an easy journey, but in increasingly competitive, commoditised contexts, strategic creativity can make a real difference.