The one thing that resonates ever more deeply every day for me is power. Entrenched power, systemic bias designed to prevent access to authentic power. The influence of money and status on conferred power. The idea that misuse and abuse of power creates motivations against self-interest. Such is the status quo, tribalism and hegemony.
The tropes are all there: Power corrupts. It is all a power struggle. Own your power. Be powerful.
For most of us though, the idea of power is sticky. Some of us see power as an entitlement (even today), a zero-sum game with specific winners and losers. Others believe in collaboration, communal, shared power where everyone wins and loses together. Almost never do we think about power neutrally – as a force that just is. Inevitably, we bring our own idiosyncrasies, biases, worldviews and connotations to the party. Today, we need to examine those idiosyncrasies, biases, worldview and connotations more than ever and ask ourselves to what end other? What would be the opportunity if we resolved to be appreciative of power yet removed from it.
One example, “Defund The Police” “Abolish The Police”. Actually, really amazing ideas and a call to contemplation as to whether we can tear it down to build it far better. Of course we can. Yet, the words themselves are about taking, upending, forcing; about power. So now we are in a fight where the entrenched will lose and the disenfranchised will gain. Even if it has to be that way (and it does), does it have to perceived that way — winners and losers? We never use the words “defund” or “abolish” when speaking about parts of our creative businesses yet that is exactly what is happening every day in search of a better tomorrow. Words matter.
To your creative business in this backdrop: Your approach to power and all that it means to you underlies everything in your creative business. To find success, you have to know what your relationship to power is, how you intend to wield it when you have it and what you do when you do not.
Of course, the discussion begins with your own sense of internal power, confidence and willingness to stand tall for your art and creative business. For purposes of this post, however, I am taking this as a given. Huge assumption, I know, but go with me. Instead, my question is where you, your art and your creative business fall on the zero-sum to collaboration spectrum, the take it or earn it scale.
If you think power is ugly, you might find yourself running from it today while at the same time grabbing it. This is my fifty percent deposit example. Unless you are selling a specific product like an existing dress or a chair, the very notion of taking a fifty percent deposit for an item that will require a process to create and produce is hyper-aggressive. You have not done a thing to earn the deposit and your reputation and/or referrals are not worth that much. You want the power but are afraid it will disappear, so you take it. With fifty percent of a client’s money, they are not going anywhere without a lot of pain. No judgment here, just perspective that you will have power you have not yet earned. Inevitably, how you then wield that power will be a response, and not in itself generative. Whether it is a “trust me, I know what I am doing”, let me go overboard to show you how you made the right choice, or somewhere in between, you are living in the idea that you just took something.
Compare those that see power as immutable and transferable for a purpose. They want a client to decide to give power as validation of the request. The client likes your idea so they pay with their power (and money) for you to continue. Then again, those on the collaboration side of the spectrum can take it too far and one pot of power becomes an unmanageable mess. Leadership is required and if you are constitutionally against taking it if need be, you may never get done. Leadership is required, even if leadership constantly shifts. If there is a bigger lesson as we contemplate our role as people, artists and creative business owners given the state of our world, I do not know of one.
To take it out of client relationship, think about the continuing evolution of corporate structure. The digital age has hampered the very notion of the traditional pyramid, especially for creative businesses. The Coronavirus has blown to shreds the industrial model of going to an office to get work done. Just ask Twitter and Square. Interconnectivity makes it very hard to have defined groups with power layers both within the group and the organization as a whole as the sole operating structure. Bob reports to Sally in accounting and Sally reports to Fred, the Chief Operating Officer, who reports to Jane, the CEO is mostly a function of a time when talking to everyone at the same time was not possible.
Instead, the idea of the organization as an atom is now ever possible. There are defined roles as neutrons and electrons, but freedom to move about the nucleus within those roles. Today, all of us, Millenials leading the way, wriggle against the pyramid and thrive in an atom. Everyone has a voice meant to be heard equally in its area of expertise. Underlying the worldview is perspectives on power.
The work today has to be to identify where we all are in relation to power and most definitely change that perception so that we can undo the system of suppression we have created. We have to simultaneously appreciate how our understanding of power shapes us, even dictates the direction and structure of our art and creative business. From there we can all evolve our own place on the spectrum and see where that can take us. Better tomorrow than today. You cannot begin to clean up the mess until you appreciate its depth in your worldview and your business. The choice to change is yours, of course, but you will only attempt the effort if you can find conviction in its benefit.
