Once upon a time, I saw business as The Enemy.
As an aspiring young writer and poet, my worst nightmare was becoming a corporate zombie, sleep-walking to work in a faceless office block.
I wonder what my younger self would have made of this passage from Richard Branson’s book Business Stripped Bare?
Business is creative. It’s like painting. You start with a blank canvas. You can paint anything – anything – and there, right there, is your first problem. For every good painting you might turn out, there are a zillion bad paintings just aching to drip off your brush. You pick a colour. The next colour you choose has to work with the first colour. The third colour has to work with the first and the second…
People who bad-mouth businessmen and women in general are missing the point. People in business who succeed have swallowed their fear and have set out to create something special, something to make a difference to people’s lives.
I’d probably have read these words first with open-mouthed disbelief, then a touch of cynicism: Who is he kidding?
I’d have been fairly quick to dismiss Branson as a deluded businessman without a real understanding of creativity.
But if I’d come across these maxims from Derek Sivers, they would probably have given me a longer pause for thought.
- Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself.
- Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself.
- When you make a company, you make a utopia. It’s where you design your perfect world.
Partly, I’d have been intrigued by Sivers’ unusual take on business. But I’d also have given him more of a hearing than Branson, because Derek, like me, started out as an artist. He was a musician who started his business, CDBaby, by accident.
He never meant to found a company – he just wanted to sell his own CDs online, back in the nineties, before there was an easy way of doing it.
He figured it out with a home-made shopping cart and a merchant bank account. Which led to him selling his friends’ CDs… which led to him selling his friends’ friends’ CDs… which eventually snowballed into a $22 million dollar company.
Funny how things turn out.
And funnily enough, while I’m still very much in love with poetry, I now have a lot of time for the argument Branson and Sivers are making.
There are several ways you could make a case for business as a genuinely creative field.
An obvious one would be to look at the myriad new products and services created by companies each year.
Another one would be to look at the creative industries – TV, movies, publishing, music, computer games and so on – and point out how much money they generate from ideas.
Another one would be to consider the rise of the creative economy, in which creativity is increasingly a source of competitive advantage in all kinds of industries, not just the artistic or cultural ones.
But the argument that resonates most strongly for me is the one implicitly put forward by Branson and Sivers, when they describe their businesses in terms of the joy of creation.
When they write of their pleasure in making something, of composing it like a picture, or designing it like a utopia, they sound remarkably similar to artists.
There are plenty of differences between artists and entrepreneurs, but maybe this pleasure in creating is something they have in common.
And perhaps another thing is the desire to touch people’s lives and make a difference – maybe even make their dreams come true.
What do you think?
Can business be as creative as the arts?
Do you think it’s the same kind of creativity as in the arts, or something different?
I’ll shortly be opening the doors to a new group of students for The Creative Entrepreneur Roadmap – an in-depth course shows you how to build a creative micro-business that’s rewarding in every sense.
If you’d like to be first in line when the doors open – and to read the multimedia Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship that introduces the course – you can sign up here.
Hi Mark, for me this goes to the very heart of a very important debate. Yes, business can be creative. Every aspect of life can be creative — we are all creating all the time, sometimes consciously, more often unconsciously. That’s the first important distinction. When most people talk about creativity, they mean conscious creation. After that it comes down to intention. Like you, I respond to the joy in creating for creation’s sake that I hear from both these men. But most business is created out of the intention to make profit. That is what makes it business, not art. And in there lies the second distinction. Creativity is not necessarily art and art is, almost by definition, not business. Business must intend to create profit in order to stay in business. It is very difficult for an artist to remain true to their art when they mix it with the profit motive. So I am a little wary of this art-of-living or art-of-business notions which are so popular at the moment. Though, as always, there are the exceptions that prove any theory of creativity wrong. Thanks for the mind chew… always thought provoking!
Thanks Orna for the usual thoughtful comment.
Yes AND other intentions too. Business needs to make a profit, but that doesn’t exclude other motivations. Maybe not all business people, but certainly entrepreneurs like Branson and Sivers are clearly not motivated purely by profit.
Yes AND most artists also have some kind of profit motive, as well as their artistic motives. Even if there’s not money at stake, there are other extrinsic rewards on offer – status, fame, critical reputation etc. And it’s a very rare artist who never thinks of any of these. 🙂
Me too!
I agree with Orna. The first intention of business is making profit, all comes next. I have seen many artists who have hard time wether take an assignment for profit or drop it since they won’t stay true to their art if accept it.
You can be a creative business man or women, but being an original artist, enjoy creating for sake of creation, and still be a good business w/man, not easy at all.
I have always viewed myself as a creative entrepreneur, making up my business as times goes on.
It’s one of the most exciting (and scary) things about having your own business: creating new ideas, new products, new ways to get your value out into the world.
So Yes, business is very creative. I’m creating new things every day!
Ah yes, I know your business is very creative. 🙂
“exciting (and scary)” – one more thing artists and entrepreneurs have in common.
If creativity is using divergent thinking to come up with novel and adaptive ideas and then to present those to the world or some subset of it, I think one would find creativity in business, in government, and in leadership as well as in science and the arts.
Some creative work will have greater social value, however, either in the moment or over time than others. Someone may be highly creative in generating income for himself without generating great benefit to others, in which case one might thing of it more like transfering within a pie rather than expanding a pie. Sometimes creatively dividing a pie more equitably has great social benefit.
It can be useful to hold apart the questions of creativity and social value.
I absolutely am not saying that creativity in business has less social value than creativity in the arts. Some business innovations have improved the quality of life more than many paintings or poems.
I just am suggesting we keep the two concepts of creativity and social value separate.
Thanks Fritzie. One of the classic definitions of creativity = novelty + value. So I guess we could include different types of value – financial, aesthetic, social etc.
I think quite a few ‘financial innovations’ would fall under this heading!
In speaking my mind I have to be frank. You can not define creativity. Period. It’s like trying to define the universe or life. So if you want to tie it to something e.g business you can tie it to anything. Let’s start with business then. Who is to say creating a totalitarian state isn’t creative? Big business! If you want to go deeper and explore with me sub-modes of creativity such as intention, spontaneity and improvising – all part of creativity, and not business, go here http://enablecreation.com/2011/11/07/storytelling-vs-blogging/. Best wishes. Cheers Mark.
Thanks Jonny.
You could easily argue that it is creative. Not a good idea, but creative.
Are you sure? I’d say there’s quite a lot of improvising going on in most businesses – whether it’s part of the official version of events or not…
I meant discuss with me those things not business…my grammar!
I suppose you could say my argument is pedantic and down to definitions. It’s a big argument and we’ve no need to upturn tables… Though I don’t agree that ever artist is a business entrepreneur. For a start you have to define art and in global terms please! It’s just too easy and dangerously individualist to support the modern myth that everyone is a creative genius if you look deep enough. Sure we all have a soul and, I believe, of divine origin…. Then go and study Chartres Cathedral or any of the Middle Eastern ancient architecture and ask why the builders remain anonymous and even died in their selfless, devotional creativity…
Ah, I see, I misread that sentence! My bad. 🙂
Actually I think we probably agree on quite a lot here.
I don’t think every artist is an entrepreneur. (Nor vice versa.)
And I don’t believe everyone is a creative genius. I don’t even believe the acknowledged ‘geniuses’ were geniuses in the sense of natural-born talents. It took hard work and dedication – or in your terms, devotion.
Chartres is my favourite building, and one of my favourite creativity examples. As you know, the cathedral had no architect, just a team of master builders who worked together in what we would call a craft tradition – but in those days there was no distinction between craftsmen and artists.
The idea of the individualistic artistic genius came later, with the likes of Michelangelo, and had more to do with marketing than creativity.
“..more to do with marketing than creativity.”
That’s it.
Although, yet again, you can say ‘creative marketing / money making / business…’.
The true meanings of creating, destroying and even business are out there somewhere! And perhaps not even in English!
Probably way too deep a conversation for this humble blog though eh Mark?!
Been a pleasure : )
Whose blog are you calling humble?!!
Likewise, a pleasure. 🙂
Yes, for sure, business should be all about creativity, imho. You said, “there are plenty of differences between artists and entrepreneurs.” Actually, there are also many similarities. Many great entrepreneurs and design engineers have what Steve Jobs coined in his biography, an appreciation for the humanities. Jobs said something like (paraphrasing), that some of the best members on his product team were poets, or artists in their spare time.
Every artist is an entrepreneur!
Peace.
I just started the Jobs biography, you’re right there’s a passage in there where the biographer points out that some of the most creative people at present are the ones with a grasp of humanities and technology.
And good to know Apple are keeping a few poets of the streets. 😉
Yes, “every artist is an entrepreneur” is a bit strong. I should have know better, for one of my personal quotes is, “never say never in life” and the same applies in business and the arts. Yet I do think that many creatives are entrepreneurs at heart and most entrepreneurs are creative in thinking if not also in their nature.
OK, I’ll give you ‘many’. 😉
I think that business people CAN be just as creative as the arts. But, generally, only if they’re doing it to satisfy some personally, deeply-held passion. There are so many businesses where the only passion is making money, don’t you think? Nothing very creative in that!
Yes Daphne, I think often the greed is in the way for many business people, especially those trading publicly with share holder demands to attend to. Yet I fall back to what I learned in Steve Jobs biography. Steve Wozniak (The Woz), Job’s partner and real engineering genius behind the first Apple computers, would have been making this stuff for free. Jobs stressed the need to place a price tag and market it. Yet Jobs was never after the money in and of itself. He lived relatively frugal and had no couch in his living room for years and years and almost no furniture. I actually know many business owners like this. I also know a few who will do anything for a sale, no matters how shady. We should reward business’ which embrace the journey, not the pot of gold at the end.
“The Journey Is the Reward” – Steve Jobs
“We don’t make these pictures to make money. We make money so that we can make more pictures.” ~ Walt Disney
Creativity is everything. Life is art.
In every moment, we are creating something ‘negative’ or ‘positive’.
Is creating a sustainable business part of life? Then it’s creative.
Is creating beautiful systems for managing money or teams part of life? Then it’s creative.
Simply ask yourself:
“What has someone created here?”
This applies to every field, left-brained or right.
Those are beautiful thoughts Jason. My only hesitation is that if creativity is everything, creativity is nothing.
I know there’s a deep philosophical point in there. 😉
A pleasure Mark, I love what you’re about. (hats off).
You’re spot on, creativity IS everything AND nothing.
This is easy to grasp, on an intellectual or emotional level, but first we have to admit to ourselves that All Is Illusion.
More clearly:
All is personal, subjective, illusion.
*It gets a little more interesting when 2 people share an experience. 😉
Creativity is life.
This is a great post and something I struggle with constantly—I am an artist and writer and also I have a business where I sell my art. I really love Branson’s description of business as being like a painting. I agree with many of the other commenters that business is creative and anything can be creative – life is a creative adventure if you make it that. I also agree that it can be (or feel like) a struggle though to want to stay true to your creative impulse in what you’re making and also have a viable business, as a successful business seems to live at the intersection of what you like to make and what other people want to buy or experience, and that may not always align. Or perhaps it will always align and it is just a matter of finding the right people. Finding the people I often think is the biggest struggle – I think many artists (like me) aren’t inherently outward individuals – we like to spend time in our own minds and quietly making. Thanks so much for this post! I am adding Branson and Sivers to my reading list right now!
Ah yes, the perennial struggle between what the creator wants to do and what other people are prepared to pay him/her to do. 🙂
Getting the two to align is the Holy Grail, and the internet gives us a better chance than ever of finding the right people.
Another approach is to accept that it won’t always align, but you can balance the two sides out over time. E.g. If you spend a few days on something that pays well but doesn’t blow your mind creatively, you get to spend a few days on the ‘wild but uncommercial’ stuff you’ve been itching to work on…
I love being here, and love all the amazing conversation on art + success.
This ‘perennial struggle’ thing has never sat very well with me, and I feel it’s important to speak out.
First, a premise I feel is self-evident: You get what you focus on.
And what do most artists focus on? (and this includes the almighty Hugh MacLeod :P)…
They focus on how “a consistent balance of fulfilling creative work that pays you fulfillingly is a Pipe Dream”.
They can’t go one comment or one blog, without mentioning this ‘pain’, it seems.
And here I am, mentioning it too. 😛 – I’m using it as springboard though.
For a world of dreamers, how many of us focus on the dream of consistent, sustainable, varied, financially and spiritually fulfilling creative work?
Because I do. That’s my focus, I live it. That’s what I’m about, and what I’ve always been about. It’s what I teach. It’s what I do. Period.
Thanks for listening on this hot-button topic 😉
I don’t find it self evident that “you get what you focus on.”
I like the approach Mark mentions. There is no logical reason that a person can always expect to be paid handsomely for what he would most like to do. There is, however, an excellent possibility of being able to pursue some interests for which one is paid adequately and others for which one is perhaps not paid handsomely but for which there is an intrinsic reward, either alone or as a supplement to modest monetary compensation, that makes the activity worthwhile in any case.
That`s cool Fritzie, I was not unprepared for such a view 🙂
It’s one I’ve heard many, many times. It’s almost to the point where I may have to skip the posts where people say this, as I feel it is a powerful but subtle form of failure.
I won’t elaborate on You Get What You Focus On, as it is something human beings learn through experience, over time, but perhaps you’ll remember it and remember I shared it, down the road.
In the meantime, see if this adds any clarity.
To me, these two concepts are parallel:
“It takes violence to solve violence.”
“It takes compromising your [creative] freedom, to gain [financial] freedom.”
You can’t build peace, on war, and you can’t build freedom on sacrifice and compromise.
Either way, I’ll leave my contribution at that, it’s as clear as I feel like making my perspective.
Words don’t teach, life does 😀
I think Fritzie summarizes the issue very well, and for the record I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to have to make choices like that.
You’re entitled to your opinion of course, but I’d ask you not to dismiss other commenters’ views as a ‘form of failure’. I’m sure you mean well, but it comes across as patronising.
As you wish 🙂
My message is summarized by… “focus on the dream.”
If someone truly desires creative + financial freedom together, let’s focus on that.
Hi Mark,
great article!! Congratulations!!
Anyway, Richard Branson also said:
“A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.”
Source: http://sivers.org/book/RichardBranson
Hence: if a person loves what he does and makes decent money, that person is a good businessman!!
For example, you are a very good businessman!!
According to this very wise definition of good business,a trader in the City is not a good businessman because a person like that is mainly driven by money and he doesn’t add any value to society, just money from pure speculation which doesn’t make the world a better place to live!!
Todo Depende!!
Ciao!
Fab, greetings from Italy
Wouldn’t it be nice if Branson’s attitude were more widely adopted?
Hi Mark,
I agree 100%, it would be marvellous!!
Unfortunately, western countries are still focused on performances and western education systems don’t stimulate creative instincts of the students!!
Anyway, a situation like that is ideal for your creative coaching!!!!
“Fill in the empty spaces of the market” by Richard Branson
Here is another example ( apart from you ) of a wise and original entrepreneur:
http://www.coffeehouseinvestor.com/secret-of-success/
http://www.toms.com/blakes-bio
His business story is very, vey inspiring!!
All the best!
Fab
This is quite complicated matter. Of course, everyone can be creative even a businessman, but this shouldn’t be compared to the art creation. Creativity is received from the right hemisphere of our brains, while business ability lies in the left side. Not only that. Art is a visual form that comes from the depth of the artist’s subconscious mind. This is often confused with good thinking, which comes from the conscious mind. A good thought is interpreted as a good idea and that is considered “creativity”. Art and business are two huge contradictions, so is the process of creativity and thinking between the businessman and artist. I am referring to the born artists, the true ones.
I agree with Orna and Sayeh. The true artist rather lives on the edge of poverty than to let his creation being ruined for the sake of better materialistic life. But there are not many of those.