Module Two: What does the king think?

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 “When we are attuned to the expectations of the boss or the corporate culture rather than to the soul’s imperatives, we cannot co-create anything of truth and beauty.” – Parker Palmer

Another way to say it is like this: When we think only about the audience, when we intend to move before first being moved ourselves, what we make simply won’t ring as true. When we think of pleasing our boss without any care for ourselves and our own hearts, we can’t create true and meaningful work.

Describe a time when you created something where you thought only about what your boss or client would think.

How did that make you feel?

  • Robert Felker

    This issue is particularly poignant for me. I am in a large corporation and the work we do is highly scrutinized. There are many stakeholders (clients) that each have positions and agendas and all of them affect the outcome of the products we design. I also have a “long-distance boss” in NY who has not been happy with my performance for several years (though my clients seem to be). I’ve received poor reviews the last two years and this year she even suggested I consider moving on — that perhaps it was a role mismatch. We hardly have any communication, she doesn’t respond to emails unless they affect her budget, so this relationship, or lack of it, is really difficult for me. It greatly affects the work my team and I do. I have this sense of dread every time we present something to her and when I’m speaking to the work, or even simply giving her a status update on current projects, I become hyper self-conscious and have a lot of difficulty slowing down enough to speak clearly and confidently. When the presentation is done, she may give a few props, or poo-poo certain things, but the feeling afterwards is usually great relief that it’s over. Which seems like a good feeling, but is more like dodging a bullet, it’s not rewarding or satisfying, it’s just escaping in tact — surviving.

    Conversely, I see the value in taking on side projects that interest me. One I did recently was an album cover for an artist whose music I really love and who is also a close friend. I offered to collaborate with him on it and tried to make sure he didn’t feel obligated to use me, or anything I contributed to his project. The collaboration was fun, bouncing ideas off each other and finally arriving at a concept that I executed. I really gave a lot of time to this project and even though I lost sleep and neglected other responsibilities at times, the work was satisfying and came more from a desire to help a friend. I’m sure I had other, more selfish reasons too, but mostly, my intentions were pure. He was also very interested in my process and suggested I document it, which I did and put together a little interview/time-lapse thing. So, the question I would pose is: How does one find balance between doing projects that feed the soul, but don’t put bread on the table and continuing to do work that’s unfulfilling, but pays the bills?

    Here’s the video we made if you’re interested: https://vimeo.com/86135729

  • Unfortunately my daytime job doesn’t really allow for me to be creative, however I have and am currently suffering from a lack of autonomy in my role. To me it always feels pretty horrible, brings up feelings that I’m doing a bad job, or that I’m not good at what I do – despite being told otherwise. It’s highly frustrating! I try and counteract this with my mini online business which I do solo. I love that I get to make all the decisions with this, from the name of my business, the colours and fonts I use, what I make and how I run it. It’s also based around something I love, and as such my actions surrounding my business are ‘easy’ in comparison to my day job. I get excited about it, and dedicate hours of my spare time (which is very little) into it, get to chat to people with similar interests, meet new people, open new doors and give back to a cause I love – Its awesome to know I did that all by myself too.

  • As an in-house designer for several years, I have hundreds of these moments. I eventually felt used, used-up, and wasted. The hard part was as much as I wanted to blame them, I knew the problem was with me. Once I earned some trust, I was afforded a level of freedom that I was afraid to use.

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