The paradox of strategic harmony

Pema Chödrön, in her infinite wisdom, once said:

“There is no cultivation of patience when your pattern is to just try to seek harmony and smooth everything out.”

As a perennial conflict avoider, this feels like a worthwhile thought to stay with. Harmony feels useful until you realise it may mean you're avoiding the hard conversations. And sometimes arguably most of our conscious time, those hard conversations happen internally too.

While sitting with uncomfortable feelings and recognising them for what they are is good mental training. It's the same with a relationship with a creative team, for instance. You want there to be harmony, yes, but also a healthy degree of friction where you keep pushing each other.

It takes time, and experience, and self-confidence, but I actually look forward to CDs challenging my briefs now. Of course, there's challenging with respect, and there's being a prick. But when done well, chances are they will approach it with a level of simplicity that elevates the thinking.

It may be a 10% incremental contribution, but it's 10% that can unlock an incremental 50-60% creativity. And those odds, as unscientific as they are, feel like a worthwhile sacrifice of my ego ‘getting it right’ or ‘being smart’.

I still do the best I can, and have a high bar for the quality of briefs and briefing I bring to creative teams. But that can co-exist with productive challenges and healthy discussion on how to improve the thinking.

Seeking harmony is not an excuse to not try and do the right thing, for your, your teams' or your clients' needs. It’s hard to do this when you’re a people pleaser (HELLO!), but that’s precisely why it’s a muscle to train.