The Creative Team: Notes on Design and Operation of Creative Organizations

by Andrew Carlson, Megan Bednarczyk (Illustrator)

Creative work is poor preparation for creative leadership. While writers, designers, editors and other creative professionals spend years learning and refining creative craft skills, those skills do nothing to prepare us for the human, organizational and operational challenges that come with promotions to leadership. And as your responsibility grows, it’s those organizational and leadership skills and not your creativity that will hold you and your team back. Even if you’re lucky and have had great role models along the way, leading a team of creative professionals is a daunting experience. You shouldn’t have to figure it out alone. Author Andrew Carlson has spent over twenty years as a professional advertising creative in New York City. He has held the roles of Chief Creative Officer for Digitas North America and Chief Experience Officer for the Organic Agency, building and leading large, diverse and distributed teams of creative professionals in pitch and award winning work. This book is the missing manual for all the things you need to know when you stop being an individual contributor and start leading a creative team of your own.

149 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 27, 2023

Reviews

[Matthew Spaur · Rating 5 out of 5]

I narrated the audio book version. I loved Carlson's insights as well as his simple storytelling. I recommend this book to anyone interested in working in creative roles.

[Danny Rosenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you haven’t had the pleasure of working with or for Andrew, you’re in luck – now you can still learn from him! Disappointed I wasn’t name-dropped in the Acknowledgements… but I’ll still give this five stars.

[Steve Swanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. Great how to manual from someone I respect greatly. Must read for those within a creative organization.

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a succinct, no bullshit approach to your first proper promotion in the creative field. Definitely leans a bit agency-centric, but much of this is applicable to anyone in the field

I love the short chapters. No repetitive dumbed down reiterations or nonsensical hypotheticals. For that reason, I don’t think this is the best first book to read in a professional educational journey, but it’s definitely a worthy one.

2 chief complaints
1. I think this is self published so the lack of an editor is glaring. Lazy typos and punctuation stuff that drives me insane. Good thing neither myself nor the author are copywriters.
2. The sports analogies also skew this read a bit “bro-y”. I would have appreciated some variety in the parallels beyond college football and soccer. Maybe I just don’t give a fuck about sports!

A lovely no fuss approach only a creative leader could have written. Kudos.

[Theresa Rowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creating, developing, and retaining a quality creative team is a challenge. This book presents real-life experience leading teams in digitally-led advertising agencies and developing creative work. In my leadership background and experience, much of this book also works for IT teams and IT product development. Some sections are pragmatic and so real I had to laugh, especially the sections on seating and on job descriptions. Other sections are inspiring, making the reader consider how they want to lead. Leading from strength and compassion is under all sections of the book. Worthy read with many take-aways that can inspire a new or early career leader. Also a good read for an experienced leader seeking a fresh updated perspective.

[Alexandra Kasper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. Solid, practical advice given with humor.