How the act of briefing is best understood as delegation
You won’t be doing the work (you can’t). Act accordingly.
Many have written about the art and science of the brief.
I now like to sum-it up this way: empowering someone — more capable than you — to achieve something you can’t on your own.
Or in other words: to delegate.
You might’ve heard this one before: the (romanced) story of Pope Julius II tasking Michelangelo with painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
He could’ve briefed the creative genius in various uninspiring, overly functional or directive ways like:
- ‘Please paint the ceiling’;
- ‘Try to cover all the cracks’, or;
- ‘Please paint biblical scenes on the ceiling incorporating some or all of the following: God, Adam, Angels, Cupids devils and saints’.
Thankfully, he did not. His words (according to the story):
‘Please paint our ceiling for the greater glory of God and as an inspiration and lesson to his people’
This very effective analogy, first coined by the British — of course he is — account planner Damien O’Malley, is often used to convince of the critical-value of an inspiring brief…
“Words are little bombs: the right ones can explode inside us demanding an original and exciting solution instead of a mediocre pedestrian one.” — John Griffiths
The first takeaway here is quite simple, yet profound: words matter.
Now, planners tend to obsess over “the brief”.
Its a fact. And the noise in our corner of the industry doesn’t always help:
Planning heads rewrite the agency’s templates; Clients want to see it and approve every word in it; Thought-pieces are written about how to better write them. Etc.
While creatives make ads, and account folks make teams, presentations, timelines, budgets, estimates and everything in between, planners are seemingly faced with the realization that their output IS the creative brief.
I know I’ve thought so in the past.
Frankly, I still have to shake it off from time to time. Why? Because seeing the brief as planning’s primary output is what leads planners to become protective of them: defending the integrity of their work rather than contributing to the creative output it’s meant to generate.
Forgetting to see the brief as mean to an end rather than an end in itself.
A few months ago, a colleague and I were asked to run a session for a large CPG client’s entire national marketing team as part of their annual offsite-meeting. The topic: “how to get to great work”.
My colleague’s very thoroughly presented various frameworks to help better understand the consumer in order to create effective “brand experiences”.
As a typically do, I took a more philosophical route and discussed the fundamental question of problem definition, stealing Thomas Wedell-Wedellsbor’s famous “slow elevator” analogy to drive home the point that “meeting our business KPI’s” isn’t a proper objective.
In challenging them to “find the best problem to solve”, my invitation was to see the brief as a journey: an opportunity to iterate with their creative partners (us) rather than as a document to fill and/or a meeting to have.
Not only did this opportunity allowed me to better understand my clients’ reality — which was the expected outcome, it also helped me reflect on how I can better work with MY creative partners.
Now, I’ve always preferred to see the brief as an action: a process through which strategic intent is imprinted, and becomes the creative intent.
- Bouncing off early strategic options with the creative team to get their input and get a sense of their creative potential (or lack thereof);
- I personally go a step further: straight-up using their own words rather than mine in crafting the briefs.
I find it — the iteration AND the appropriation of vocabulary — makes for a brief the creatives typically feel shared-ownership over.
That’s the part I knew and already applied.
But as part of the preparation for my aforementioned client presentation, I investigated the military briefing process, and came across the Student Handout on Military briefing from the US Marines Corps training program. Interestingly, most of the document is about the brief’s format, with entire sections about things like “the use of media”, “the use of notes”, “the use of visual aids” and “the use of pointers”. Two full pages (out of only 14) are dedicated to “Brief delivery”: volume, grammar, articulation, etc.
Most impressing to me was the severity of it all: the rigour and intensity, the minute details Marines are taught to care about, from having a clear narrative and accurate information, to the proper pronunciation of words.
The “WHY” became obvious as I pondered about it: their actions have deadly consequences. Therefore, an officers’ ability to “communicate a complete, realistic, and tactically sound plan that accomplishes the mission” is literally a matter of life or death, especially for the unit being briefed.
As marketers, we (still) have so much to learn from the military world…
Adopting the posture of the creative partner being briefed (by the client in this case) allowed me to further empathize with those tasked to execute off a given brief: if agencies were armies, then creatives would be the marines sent on the frontline to carry out the deadliest tasks.
Frankly, that’s when I started to see the brief as the act of delegation.
It suddenly became clear to me why the best briefs I’ve ever been a part of — meaning those that generated the best creative energy — were questions to answer rather than solutions.
That’s because the role of the brief is not to offer a solution, but to remove ambiguity — as much as possible — about what needs to be achieved (and what are the mission-critical no-go’s).
A liberating notion.
Also, a clear case for more collaboration between disciplines, (including the client). For valuing (and seeking) the contribution of others to augment your work. Recognizing that the whole is greater than the sum its parts.
Not using collaboration as an excuse to let others figure out what you should.
But as George Tannenbaum’s so eloquently warned us in one of his latest blog, avoid the trap of wanting “people to work the way you want them to work”.
You won’t do the work (you can’t). So be clear on what we’re trying to accomplish, what is mission critical and what isn’t, give suggestions (sure) but don’t get attached to them.
In short: delegate.
ABOUT THIS COLUMN
I need to excel at two things to be a better strategic planner: FORMULATING and COMMUNICATING provocative thinking. I challenge myself on Medium to take a thought and commit it to “paper”… IN ONE SITTING. #SoBareWithMe
The more I do this, the better I’ll get.
In the process, I’d be honoured to deserve a comment, a clap (or a few), a share and even (dare I say) a follow from you. Many thanks in advance!
