Empathy in Action: How Creative Confidence Drives Our Process

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Our team compresses the wisdom and actionable inspiration gleaned from a variety of professional and creative books into bite-sized chunks as they pertain to the business, marketing, and communication challenges our colleagues and clients face.

There are a myriad of gems in the book Creative Confidence for those of us who lead creative projects and are in the business of selling the creative process (can I say commoditizing creativity). And for most in a position like mine — Creative Director — reading this later in my career, many of the approaches outlined are likely second nature by now, serving more as a fresh articulation of what we already know as creative confidence.

I genuinely believe that everyone falls somewhere on the creative spectrum, even “CEOs, lawyers, and doctors,” as Tom and David of IDEO reflect upon — careers that arguably require a lot of creativity and confidence.

“What is creative confidence,” you might ask? It’s the belief in your or your team’s ability to be creative, followed by finding the right approach to unlock that creativity and confidently guiding it toward innovative results. I know this sounds lofty, but we have each figured this out as individuals already, whether through how we plan our gardens (maximum sun and proximity to the hose), optimize the process of grocery shopping (a shared Google doc, app, or the shortest path in our local grocery store), or how we plan to watch binge-worthy content (but not when they drop it a day early!).

“Empathy is the foundation of effective human-centered design. It enables us to create solutions that are deeply meaningful.”

One of the core themes of IDEO’s practice, and thus a constant theme throughout this book, is approaching problem-solving [or being creative] with empathy. Some people characterize this empathetic approach as user-centered design, design thinking, service design, inclusive design, user experience design, etc. Contextual design resonates with me deeply (maybe because I say context like 1,000 times a day). Researching and providing context is a critical part of what we do at Fifteen4 when performing a range of creative services for our clients. Truly and fully understanding where customers engage with your brand, in whatever medium it happens to be, allows us to come up with more than a headline. It enables us to service customers’ needs in the space, mindset, and context they engage with your brand.

“You can’t plan for every contingency, but you can build the confidence and resilience to navigate whatever comes your way.“

Our team has a combined 150 years of experience in the creative industry. Our unique superpowers, lessons learned (or the Adage coverage of others’ lessons learned), and experiences have built the agency’s creative confidence. This confidence, combined with a deep respect for employing empathy, allows us to deliver solutions that keep our clients partnering with us for years.

We have operationalized how we unleash the creative potential within our clients, how they engage with our process, and the confidence they have in the work that often they are a linchpin in developing.

If you are interested in putting your creativity to action (and we encourage you all to do so if nothing else than to validate that you are, in fact, creative, maybe even confidently so), then check out one of the following activities we love that are showcased in the book (chapter 7, page 211):

• Mind mapping (here is a handy downloadable PDF)
• Customer Journey Mapping (a PDF template of the standard customer lifecycle)

Contact us if you want to participate in the creative process with partners who lead with empathy and have developed a barometer for creative confidence. 

Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All

by Tom Kelley and David Kelley of IDEO

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