I have a lot of CEO’s, Pastors and other Leaders all over the country who receive this blog and it frequently gets forwarded, but I couldn’t help retell the story a senior copywriter shared with me the other day, hoping there won’t be a few people out there who get offended by it. But, the truth will set you free, right?
Anyone who’s ever spent time pouring out their gift, talent, passion and hours out of their life on an outside-the-box, fresh, groundbreaking idea, only to have it crushed by a committee stuck in “that’s not the way we’ve always done it”, will appreciate this. This award-winning copywriter, who had produced some brilliant national campaigns, had just returned from a presentation of a brilliant new ad campaign for a stodgy committee of a relatively small organization with a smaller mindset, with an even smaller customer base that was being obviously diluted and eroded over time. His revolutionary idea required risk, it required courage to stand up and say, “We’re ready for a change, someone will take this approach, let it be us.” Instead, of course, they killed it. Actually, they didn’t, they just took it through a series of about 22 rounds of changes so it eventually fit their box. Of course, the result was little-to-no impact on their target audience, they were largely ignored.
I asked him about how he felt, and he said he expected that to happen; after all, he said,…(drum roll please): “Committees are the place where outlandish, groundbreaking, brilliantly creative ideas are dragged through an alley, beaten, pummeled and eventually left for death.”
Gotta go. Committee meeting in 30 minutes. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
