Managing Creative Peoiple

[liowkc]

Are creative people more difficult to manage or totally unmanageable? How should we manage creative people to bring out the best in them while not stifling their creativity?

[Mandy Lawrence]

I am not very good at being managed. Then again, there have been times in thepast when I have really needed and asked for it and it wasn't there. So maybe it is a negative view I have based on negative experiences.

I think it is more important to find out how creative people manage themselves. Who wants someone else to manage your own creative process?

But that could just be me. Different people have different ways of managing or being managed. I only like being managed when I cant manage myself.

[Louise]

Do you think we have this preconcieved view that creative people are little eccentric, live in communes, dont think about eating or anything else apart from their art? Does this view then lend itself to say that they are unmanageable?

[Princess2008]

I think there are preconceived views on creative people that they are eccentric - especially for artists. As for managing them I cant really say. It took a long time for my partner to see how creative he was, I kept encouraging him and pushing him with his artistic talents, he finally built the confidence up to draw and then actually managed to sell all of his drawings. I wouldnt possibly be able to manage him but I can help him with his confidence and ability.

[liowkc]

I guess a lot of views we have on creative people are a bit of sterotype, but still contain grains of truth. Creative people may not be eccentric but they tend to have a free spirit that may somtimes have to be reined in.

[Louise]

I can understand Princess about the lack of confidence, my Daughter who is very creative needed constant encouragement.

[Mandy Lawrence]

I think it should depend on the individual. If someone wants their creativity to be managed then why shouldn't it be? but sometimes that can lead to conflict, when the free spirit needs to flow freely and the person managing sees deadlines or scedules. I guess it is a kind of relationship where people need to be in tune...or at least hitting most of the right notes.


I personally don't need to have my creativity managed because I am not doing it as a job. I do however, sometimes need guidance and to learn new skills but that is not about management but sharing/teaching and learning.

[Jill]

Yes I was going to say that management is different to learning new skills and being taught. I guess creative people can rebel about being managed particularly if their management is demanding they focus more on more commercial work and less on what they really like to do. But most creative people would like to learn new and improve their old skills. Having said that there is a whole category of 'outsider' art which is supposed to be by artists who are discovered who have had no formal training at all. Outsider artists, often with mental health disabilities, are said to bring fresh new original work to the mainstream artworld because they have never been managed or influenced .

[Margaret Hamilton of Slackstitches]

Do we need managed?
I know I have a huge problem with paperwork, the tax return in particular. My husband used to be a tax man but he refuses to do it for me. I am useless at book keeping and he is good at it but despite being asked he will not do it for me. This side of things I would love someone to manage for me and leave me to be creative but I suppose he is right in making me do it as if I was left on my own I would have to do it.
As for managing my creativity, I guess I am mood inspired. Some things have to be put aside part way through creation and get completed when I feel I can take it further. If I make myself finish something when not inspired to, it never turns out right.

[Jan Simpson]

Personally, I think my partner and myself are both perfectly normal people, however, it appears that most of our friends appear to think we are both totally off the wall and somewhat eccentric! Can't understand it myself! Being part of a team - my partner is an artist - I find I tend to be doing most of the managing - it has taken me nearly ten years to realise that he is definitely unmanageable - so now we have adapted - all I do is set him the deadlines, organise his meetings and do the accounts.. That way he has to go to the meetings, he has to get the work done and we do usually remember to get paid! Otherwise he would be in cloud cuckoo land most of the time. Interestingly enough, he thinks I am completely unmanageable as well - so it obviously works both ways! Both of us get very frustrated by the constraints of having to run the home, and the admin and paperwork side of the business - we secretly wish for someone to come and take it all away from us so that we can spend our whole existence in our studios creating and creating and creating. However, our secret weapon is my new business partner Vicki, who is so organised that I almost swoon with gratitude when she comes in and TIDIES UP MY WORKSHOP. She is very patient and absolutely precise.and loves to label everything - heaven. She surely knows that as soon as she is gone, I am only going to mess it up again - although I do try very hard not to, it just seems to get away from me. I only wish my house could look like hers, however, when I open my cupboards, it all just lands on top of me - how many of you long to open a drawer and see perfection, not piles of old laces, pencils and pens that don't work, along with all the keys you have ever had in your entire life as they all fall out of the usually broken drawer in the kitchen side? Oh for perfect drawers!!!

[Princess2008]

Oh Jan our partners sound very alike! I have to manage the 'secretarial' side of things and dealing with the inquiries, I can be a perfectionist at certain times but on other occasions which seems to be more recently things just pile up and things get put to one side and forgotten about! If I could have drawers that were as good as my dealing with documents and recording things it would be heaven. We get frustrated too with dealing with everything I think the problem is we have to spend so much time online that when we are offline the things need doing are sometimes overwhelming.

[princee18]

i think creative people are not unmanageable.In fact they dont need much interference.They just need recognition of their work so that they are continously encouraged for their work.