Camp + King’s Jamie King Talks “Fighting It Out” in Ad Age
March 21, 2024
Camp + King Partner Jamie King is featured in Ad Age discussing how fighting it out can benefit organizations, their people, and the products they make.
“Lincoln had his team of rivals. John and Paul had their creative differences in the Beatles. Record producer Rick Rubin has worked with various strange bedfellows who share differing cultural views. And we’ve all come to learn how Oppenheimer harnessed divergent perspectives to build an innovative team that changed the world.
A dynamic at the core of these partnerships is proactive disagreement, the practice of constructively pitting differing points of view against each other to inspire enhanced creativity.
Agencies, too, contain integrated teams that bring different skill sets to the table, including data analytics, consumer insights and creative ideas that move and persuade people. When presented with a client brief, an agency collectively attacks it from different angles, often differing on the approach and disagreeing on the solution. There is tension and dissension—and that’s healthy. Few muscles, including creative ones, are strengthened without some form of discomfort.
What follows such proactive disagreements are creative sparks and surprising solutions. Yet organizations and people often want more immediate consensus. They seek to find a unifying ground that moves the project forward comfortably. But therein lies the danger because once you have consensus, thinking stops. And once the thinking stops, ideas stagnate.
Creative organizations can benefit from—and need to foster—an environment of proactive disagreement so they may harness its benefits. The intersection between intellectual and creative minds at an agency and the tension it creates is where unexpected, yet effective ideas are born. The beauty of the creative mind is that it isn’t indoctrinated. It approaches things from a naive place of curiosity, wonder and possibility. The intellectual mind is informed, calculated and filled with insight.”
Read more in Ad Age!