So I was talking to a copper friend of mine a day or so ago and he was complaining about how much paperwork he has to do.
He said that the volume is so vast that it basically not only undermines his ability to do his job, but has major ramification on the security of the city he works in.
Now whilst I would never try to claim planning is anything like being a Policeman – let alone as important or necessary – his comment struck a nerve.
Some days I think I get paid to do pointlessness.
OK, so I’m in advertising so you could argue that is exactly what I get paid to do … however what I’m talking about is the huge amount of unneccessary meetings and presentations I am asked to attend/write.
To be honest, I push back a hell of a lot … not because I don’t want to contribute – I do – but because I don’t want to be seen as endorsing the attitde that every meeting must be followed by a 600 slide powerpoint document or that every person in a project must be in attendance or it can’t move forward, even if what is being discussed relates to areas/issues that are of no concern to you or the job you have to do.
Planning isn’t about writing documents.
Planning isn’t about attending meetings.
Sure, both those things feature in the job – but they are a byproduct of what you do, they are not and should not be the focus – and yet I see/hear more and more agencies and clients thinking that is what planners ‘do’.
To be honest, that is as much the fault of the planners who are willing to accept this attitude [or the agencies they work for endorsing it] as it is their clients ignorance – however at it’s heart, I think one of the main problems is we’ve become a society obsessed with effectiveness.
Actually that’s not quite true – I think we’ve become a society obsessed with measurability.
Whilst the term ‘effectiveness’ – at least in my industry – is ambigious to say the least [ambiguities I touch on here], at least it has a reason for existing and whilst ‘measurability’ is a key element in helping determine ‘effectiveness’, it is now being so badly used and abused that I believe it contributes more to ineffectiveness than anything else.
As I’ve said many times before, we’re seeing more and more organisations seemingly focused on the process rather than what the process delivers – and even when they get it right, too many view ‘effectiveness’ as a way to identify how they can do things cheaper or more quickly in the future.
The issue of ‘what is effectiveness’ is a major one – especially as what one person thinks is effective [ie: adland] is possibly not what someone else believes [ie: the client … or vice-versa] and this is why we’re addressing this issue in the upcoming AME conference … however at it’s heart, unless we all [agencies and clients included] get back to addressing and contributing to the real business issues rather than being preoccupied, refocused or consumed by other people’s insecurities, ego or project irrelevant KPI’s … it’s not just going to get worse, it’s going to totally fuck up the future for everyone involved in advertising or the people who hold shares in companies.
This is not about finding excuses to not get your hands dirty – besides, that’s the best part of the job – it’s about ensuring you spend your time adding ‘real value’ … which contrary to popular opinion doesn’t mean doing stuff for free, but doing stuff that makes a major positive difference to the overall outcome and everyone can and should play a part in that.
It shouldn’t be like this, but if you want it to get better, education … or re-education … is down to you.