Support is a forever thing

Or how micromanagement sets creatives up for failure

Published in

The Startup

7 min readApr 19, 2019

On the first Monday of every month, I sit down for one-on-one hybrid evaluation/check-ins with each member of the studio. As you might expect, some of my colleagues were wary that this was a way to add scrutiny, and balked at the prospect of being put under a microscope each month.

If you believe some of the lore, then you know that creatives are notoriously ‘tough to manage’, resist supervision and rules and demand autonomy.

Despite the early resistance, the monthly meetings have been a big success. But what makes this story worth telling is that our monthly meetings have revealed important blind spots, which have led to really transformative changes from relatively small adjustments.

One of the first insights to come from these meetings is that there’s fatal flaw in the prevailing wisdom about managing creative people and teams. It boils down to this:

The more autonomy a creator has, the less managerial support they get.
The less support they get, the more vulnerable they become to having that autonomy taken away.

Why is that a problem?

On the surface, this might sound like an obvious tradeoff. If autonomy is freedom, and with that freedom comes responsibility. That means less supervision.

But support and supervision are very different things. So what gives?

After six months of monthly one-on-ones, I noticed a pattern emerging: the most common complaint teammates had about their direct manager (which was me in some cases), was micromanagement. This micromanagement did not bleed over from one project to another, which I don’t quite understand. But because this was the case I was able to dig deeper into the dynamics that led to micromanagement in the first place.

Every single time, there was a ‘reason’ their managers got more involved in the work’s production. These missteps were rarely very dramatic: a designer delivered work that felt rough, or that missed the mark entirely.

I pressed a bit further (y’know, “ask why until you cry”…there’s no actual torture involved but it rhymes) and that’s is where things got interesting. The answer was that they had been struggling long before the date of delivery; with a concept, or getting access to assets or information, or having a hard time with the team or language or a skill. Invariably, it ended like this:

Me: “So why didn’t you ask for help?”
Them: …
Me: “Did you ask [direct manager] for help?”
Them: “No.”
Me: “Why not?”
Them: “Well, I didn’t want to give up yet.”

Think about it.

Asking for help when stuck was tantamount to giving up. But what’s left unsaid isn’t that they felt they were giving up on the work. The feeling makes a lot more sense when “giving up” means “giving up control”.

They’d needed support, but didn’t feel like asking for support was an option. They didn’t ask for support because it would mean losing their autonomy.

This is chiefly because the person who’d be best equipped to be a source of support also happens to be in a supervisory role; a project manager or a creative director, say. In other words, because managers do both things, managers themselves come to see support as a form of supervision when in fact it’s the other way around.

But support is a contributing factor to creative success at all levels. Granting autonomy but taking away support sets people up for failure.

Autonomy: A Refresher

Don’t need the recap? Skip to the next section.

In any profession — but especially creative work — it’s important to be diligent about removing the scaffolding of control and granting more responsibility as people’s skills improve. Otherwise the relationship becomes stifling and soon moves into the realm of micromanaging.

This means that the sense of being micromanaged can emerge as a function of stasis. And micromanaging is always toxic; it signals a loss of trust in someone’s competence. That this sensation emerges even when oversight stays the same is telling: people outgrow levels of supervision. Failing to notice a team member’s progress and react accordingly is both very common and very damaging.

Autonomy is what emerges when you clear unnecessary supervision: it is earned and it is gained, it signals trust in their skills (first) and, increasingly, in their judgment.

For people in creative roles, autonomy is a huge deal. This makes sense. Creative work requires generating new ideas rather than executing to a script. Because it’s not straightforward, keeping creative work in a constrained process kills the two things that creativity requires: a sense of safety, and the opportunity to think differently.

Ideas need space to bounce around. A naval-rigor schedule of production turns off the most valuable skill creative people have: to come up with new things. To make something out of not-something.

That’s not to say that autonomy is all fun and games — autonomy is power and control which comes with increasing responsibility. But it also lets go of the means of production, meaning the room creatives need is at their disposal.

Support 101

The first step is learning how to tell support and supervision apart.

You’re solving with supervision when you take control away from a person. Say they come to you because they’re having trouble deciding how to move forward with a design. If you make the decision for them, you’ve effectively snatched control back. Which will likely lead you to check in “just to see how it’s going”. Before long, you’re involved in the minutiae of production.

You’re solving with support by helping people clear the obstacles they need cleared on their terms. You never ever seize control. Often, support is as simple as asking pointed questions and listening to them for clues about what they might need.

Supporting creative people takes many forms:

Believing in their ability to do something, helping talk through a tough problem and ensuring you don’t meddle in the decisions themselves
Securing access to resources, or helping make do with what’s available
Coaching through a problem
Advocating on their behalf / on behalf of the work they’ve created when presenting to third parties
Making their achievements known (after clearing it with them)
Creating and maintaining a safe creative environment (that is, taking the fall when things go poorly)
Being a good advocate for their career growth goals, helping to find projects they’re interested in or work that helps them develop skills they want to develop
Strengthening the practice of autonomy by transitioning to measuring performance on metrics set by creative individuals themselves

What’s the upshot?

At In-House this is a story with a happy ending. It has eliminated the phenomenon of the “surly designer” who avoids everyone. When people are able to get the support they need without fear that they’ll be roped into something, they do. It has virtually eliminated the cycle of shame-failure-micromanagement / hostile takeover.

Overall it’s clear that there’s more trust and more goodwill in the studio. In turn, this has helped to foster a spirit of collaboration, a pride in the work and a de-escalation of unhealthy competition.

Let’s Recap:

If you manage people, develop clarity about the difference between supervision and support, and how to identify what that means in your context, company or industry.
Support is a contributing factor to creative success at all levels. Removing support with supervision sets people up for failure.
Granting more autonomy is a gesture of trust that was likely painstakingly earned. Snatching it away at the first sign of complications will erode the trust people place in you.
Learn to be an ally without taking the reins.
Remember: Support creates safety and safety is a key component of creative risk-taking.
Show your teammates that you’re there for them, that they can talk to you about concerns or come to you for help without fear of being pushed out

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