The Unique Advantage of ‘Quiet Creatives’ — with Jeff Paris - Real Creative Leadership

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The Unique Advantage of ‘Quiet Creatives’

September 29, 2023 Career Growth Creative Agency Networking Video Production

Guest Speaker

Jeff Paris

VP and Executive Creative Director, MasterControl

Jeff Paris has been working in marketing for more than three decades. He is VP and Executive Creative Director for MasterControl, a technology company supporting life-sciences organizations. Prior to that, he worked as an SVP and Executive Creative Director for MRM/McCann where he led the creative efforts for clients including Intel, Verizon, United States Postal Service, Mastercard, and 3M Health Information Systems. He has worked with brands including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Mighty Dog, and Maybelline New York.

Before working in agencies, Jeff served for nearly a decade as the marketing director for the Utah Symphony. He is still an active participant in the arts.

‘Quiet Creatives’ are the superheroes you’ve never heard of (until now)

The line between introverts and extroverts seems rigid in almost every industry—but it turns out, it doesn’t have to be a hard line after all, especially when it comes to creative work.

In this episode of Real Creative Leadership, industry veteran Jeff Paris chats with Adam Morgan about the role of “quiet creatives” and how to leverage a team filled with more introverted folks to tell stories that surprise and connect (no matter where they fall on the MBTI scale).

mentioned in this show:

MasterControl

Adam Morgan

Creative Leader and RCL Host

The Stoke Group

Digital Marketing and Full-Service Content Agency

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REAL CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

Season: 4

Episode: 6

Episode Title: Creative Lunch and Learn with Adam Morgan

Guest Title:

Jeff Paris, Vice President and Executive Creative Director at MasterControl

Adam Morgan

Welcome to Real Creative Leadership. Now, leadership isn’t a one-size-fits-all, and neither are the members of your creative team. Some of us are extroverts with big personalities, and others are what we call “quiet creatives.” These are the introverts. And though they may be quiet, introverts bring a unique advantage to teams.

And like our guest, they make strong, influential creative leaders. Today, I am talking with Jeff Paris, Vice President and Executive Creative Director at MasterControl. Jeff leads a team of creatives largely made up of the quiet variety. So today we’re digging into how creative leaders can inspire quiet creatives and encourage them to become creative leaders themselves. Welcome to the show, Jeff.

Jeff Paris

Hey, Adam. Thanks for having me. I’m very excited to be here and I’ll try not to be too quiet.

Adam Morgan

And Jeff and I go way back—way, way back. I mean, when was it even—like, the nineties?

Jeff Paris

I think it was, yeah.

Adam Morgan

Good gravy. That makes me feel old. We’ve been around for quite a while, but, anyhow, Jeff and I worked at an agency together, partnered on many awesome projects, had many crazy adventures out doing radio recordings and TV spots and all sorts of crazy stuff. So I’m super excited to have you here on the show. I appreciate you joining us.

Jeff Paris

It’s fun to be here.

Adam Morgan

Okay, well, to start, let’s have you tell our audience about you and your relationship with creative leaders so we can get to know you.

Jeff Paris

I have been working in marketing and advertising and public relations for, I don’t know, 35 years now? So I’ve been around for a while. A big chunk of that time was working in agencies as a creative leader, as a group creative director, and as an executive creative director. I left the agency world about five years ago to move into something that seemed completely new and different. And that was going on the client side. Since then, we have built kind of an agency inside our company. We really take on that idea of the things you learn in an agency are really valuable to a company. And so we’ve really tried to make that a part of how we organize our creative teams.

I don’t know whether I gravitate toward quiet creatives or quiet creatives gravitate towards me, but it seems like much of my career, the teams and the creatives that I’ve worked with have often been in that category of “quiet creatives.” You were mentioning a scale. I think I’m somewhere on that scale. I don’t think—I’m certainly not the most extroverted creative that you’ll find, but I’m also not totally a quiet creative. But I certainly understand their perspective and really enjoy working with that type of creative.

Adam Morgan

And as we’ve talked about this before, you know, in preparing for this interview here, it’s an interesting question of like, what attracts more quiet creatives to it? Cause you know, as I thought about it, you know, I think about what I call the creative cave, which is where when we do our work, we go off into that cave, get into that flow state, and just really like we want to shut out all of the influence around us so we can really focus on the design, the writing, whatever it is, that creative act that you’re doing.

And I think many of us get used to that solitary cave as, like, a place of productivity and where we’re doing well, at least early on in our careers when we’re building up the skills. And then as we get into leadership, it gets tricky because you want to go back to that cave. So what is it in your mind, for you—what do you think makes people?

Jeff Paris

It’s interesting that you mentioned the kind of cave. I think a lot of quiet creatives do like that idea of being isolated. I also have noticed, though, that a lot of quiet creatives like being around other people. They just have to have time to really process and contemplate and think about things.

I think that quiet creatives, one of their strong suits, is that—and I know we’re going to talk a little bit about that later on—but one of their strong suits, I think, is they have this really strategic approach to creativity. They think through what they want to communicate, how they want to present ideas and concepts, and I think that’s where that kind of creative cave comes into play.

They need that time to really think through the project and what it is they want to present in a larger setting.

Adam Morgan

Yeah, that’s totally fair. It may not be—you know, someone may say, “Oh, quiet creatives are introverts,” and that’s not necessarily always the case. I’ll let you respond to that as well.

But, like, in my experience, I found some people who just, like you said, have that strategic thought; like, they just want to think it through a little bit more, whether they’re an extrovert or an introvert. And so I’ve known to like not call them out in a meeting with, “Hey, what are your thoughts?”

Because they want to absorb it and think about it. Whereas there are others who are just like— they’ll just rapid-fire tell you an answer right on the spot, Whether it’s good or bad. You know, that’s just kind of the knee jerk reaction. But do you think remote work has changed any of this? Or do you think it’s not just introvert, extrovert, Like, there’s more to it than that?

Jeff Paris

I think, first of all, I think there is more to it than just introvert and extrovert. But quiet creatives are introverted. I think COVID and remote work, a lot of Quiet Creatives appreciated that opportunity to kind of stay away from the fray. On the flip side of that, a lot of our creatives like to work with another partner or another person to kind of develop ideas and really get to something that they’re proud of.

And so I think there is still this desire on the part of quiet creatives to be around other creatives. And frequently those other creatives are quiet creatives. They’re, you know, they’re very good at stepping back and not having to have the big ideas right away. And so I think they like working together in those ways.

Adam Morgan

Yeah, that’s interesting. I wonder if—what do you think about the difference between your experience in agency versus in-house at brands? Like, is it the same thing or is it different?

Jeff Paris

It’s really been interesting for me to come on the client side. I have brought some people with me from the agency. So some of my favorite creatives now work with me here at MasterControl.

So that part is really fun for me, but I’ve also hired creative since I’ve been here and there were creatives who were here when I got here that are still here and part of my creative team. We have eight people on my creative team. And of that team, I would say that seven of them lean more towards that kind of quiet side of creativity.

And then we have one who is really that, you know, extrovert—kind of loud, fun, brings a lot of excitement to the opportunity. So for me, I haven’t seen the difference, but I think part of that between agency and client side, I think part of that has to do with the fact that I came from the agency world, and so I have just organized my life around an agency type attitude and I brought those quiet creatives with me because I like working with them and I tend to hire that type of creative.

So I really haven’t noticed a difference. I think on the agency side, you really do get to see a lot of different creative leadership styles on client sides. And I’m not sure; sometimes I think there is a big difference between an agency and the client side. But for the most part I haven’t noticed that difference as I’ve made the move.

Adam Morgan

Yeah. And as you talk about that, it makes me think about environments also having—I did nineteen years of agency life before, you know, the last decade at an in-house brand. But there was always something about an agency that had that energy where it’s like everyone wanted to sit by the creative department because there was this… this…I don’t know, intangible energy that you’d get. And I think it’s even in in-house, like when we have our brand and creative team, you know, you understand that people want to be by it, but it’s not necessarily that it’s a bunch of extroverts out there partying, right? Like, I wonder if there’s more to it, of like, that energy that people are getting from the creative department.

Jeff Paris

And it tends to be kind of meticulous and they like to have things done in a certain way. And I think a lot of groups in, um, companies in particular agencies that might be a little different, a lot of teams in the marketing group, um, don’t really have that. That training or that ideology of creating ideas and figuring out how to make them come to life.

And so, I think there is something about that draws everyone in the marketing department to the creative team. And in our case, everyone in the company. It’s surprising to me how much our executives love working with the creative team, and how much other organizations in the company like working with the creative team. I think it does bring a kind of a new idea of what innovation and creativity looks like.

Adam Morgan

I guess that’s totally fair. Even now when we’re mostly remote, I imagine for a lot of the people listening here that it’s like the things that attract both us as creatives and also people to the creative department are the ideas, the designs, the stories. You know, it’s like it lights up your brain and it makes you excited and makes you want to think about things and see things and feel things. So I’m sure that’s the energy, not that it’s like a bunch of extroverts partying, you know, in the creative department.

Jeff Paris

Yeah, totally agree with you on that.

Adam Morgan

Yeah, that’s interesting. Well, so, you started to get into it in the beginning, but what are the other advantages of being a quiet creative?

Jeff Paris

Yeah, so first of all, I think quiet creatives have an opportunity for surprise that sometimes more boisterous creatives don’t have. I find that when you are the extrovert[ed] creative person, those ideas are always just kind of coming out and, you know, they’re big and they’re fun and they’re exciting. But I think when you’re a quiet creative and you suddenly lay out your idea and your vision for what you want to try and accomplish, people get really excited. They’re like, “I didn’t see that coming from this particular person.” And so I think there’s an element of surprise that people—that people really appreciate when quiet creatives start to enter the conversation. It’s, you know, it’s that concept of surprise and delight. And I think a lot of quiet creatives are really good at doing those two things.

So I think that’s a big benefit. I mentioned that I think a lot of quiet creatives are minimalistic or are drawn to minimalist ideas. If you come to our office and look at the desks of our quiet creatives, there’s almost nothing. In fact, in some of them, it is nothing but their monitors and their computer.

And I think that’s because they really want to focus everything on their idea. So even if the idea is louder and bigger and bolder, they still want to make sure it’s the idea that is core to what they are hoping to accomplish with any project. And for me, that idea of focusing on the idea and honing in on it and really kind of filtering out things to make it as strong as possible is a big benefit of quiet creatives.

The other thing that I think is interesting about quiet creatives is they’re incredible listeners. Like, they want to hear what the strategy team is saying. The demand gen team is saying they want to develop things that respond to what they’re hearing from the organization, from other people in the organization. And I think that ability to listen and then to take that and turn it into ideas that are unexpected and interesting is a real value that quiet creatives have.

Adam Morgan

Yeah, that’s awesome. All right. For those quiet creatives out there, you see your benefits that add the value you bring to a team. Now I want to switch a little bit because you had mentioned that whatever it was—seven out of eight on your team—were quiet creatives. And now let’s focus more of, like, from a leadership perspective. So let’s say you’re a creative leader and you have a team and you have a bunch of quiet creative. So what is some advice that you can get? What’s advice you can give us on how to keep that type of personality engaged—like, are there unique tricks that you’ve seen over your years of experience to help develop those teams?

Jeff Paris

Yeah, I think the first thing you have to really work on developing is trust; quiet creatives really have to trust you because frequently they’re not really that concerned about whether they’re presenting the creative and, in fact, a lot of times they don’t necessarily want to present creative.

They want to develop the creative and help their leaders sell the ideas. And so, if you don’t have trust and they don’t believe that you are going to give their creative ideas the kind of credit that it deserves, that for me becomes a problem. You really have to try and develop that trust.

So how do you do that? I meet with all of my creatives on a very regular basis and those meetings are frequently just a check in. It’s not like we have a serious agenda or we’re trying to figure things out. It’s just an opportunity to talk with the creatives and by doing that and developing that trust relationship, They become more willing to tell you about things that maybe they don’t like or things they really would like to pursue that type of thing because a lot of times they don’t like to talk to you about what’s really on their mind. And so I think you have to develop that trust.

That’s a really important part of working with quiet creatives. I also think you have to notice when a quiet creative is really proud of their work. They tend to not care about what they contribute to the organization, but I find that frequently they have things that they’re really proud of. And they will not tell you the things that they’re really proud of. You kind of have to start to get the clues from them of what things they’re really excited about. It’s really important that you acknowledge that pride and that excitement, and that you share that with other people in the organization.

So, that for me is another thing that helps keep quiet creatives motivated—to make sure you’re celebrating them for the things they are really proud of. There are things that they work on that—it’s good work, they like doing it, but it’s not the thing that they’re really most proud of. Figuring out the things that quiet creatives are super proud of and then celebrating those things is a great way to keep them motivated.

And obviously projects. Shen I worked in the agency world, a lot of times it’s easy for the more extroverted creatives to be assigned projects. The, you know, big flashy projects. With quiet creatives, I think you have to say, “No, they have a skill set that would be really valuable on this project.” And so you kind of have to watch to make sure you’re not just throwing the big flashy projects to the more extroverted creatives on your team.

Adam Morgan

Yeah. It’s almost like creating space for them. Creating opportunities for them is where, probably where you build more of that trust you were talking about.

Jeff Paris

Yeah, absolutely.

Adam Morgan

So that’s good advice for leaders. Now, what about, let’s say, you’ve got a quiet creative moving up the ranks. How do you convince them to jump into leadership? Because it’s not a natural fit sometimes for many of them.

Jeff Paris

Yeah, and, and that is totally something that I am thinking about right now.And the reason I say that is obviously I’m old enough that I’m starting to think about the end of my career and how do I start to look at not having all of the leadership responsibility in the creative department. And so I am working right now with quiet creatives to bring them into leadership roles.

And a little bit, you kind of have to push them off a cliff, because they will be uncomfortable and awkward. And frequently they will tell you that, “I don’t want a leadership role. I’m perfectly happy being a great designer or a great writer.” But I also find that once you push them off the cliff, they start to say, “I think I can do this”.

And I find that quiet creative leaders frequently become partners in ways that some other creative leaders don’t. And so I think they’re really valuable from that standpoint. And if you can start to build those partnerships with other people on the team, whether it’s your project management team, whether it’s, you know, your events team, whoever it is—if you can start to build those partnerships with quiet creatives and just send them off on their own, that’s a little bit of the push them off the cliff.

Say, “You gotta get this project done. You’re in charge. You get to make all the decisions.” Those types of things. It starts to build confidence. And like I say, I’m right in the middle of that right now. And it can be challenging, but at the same time, it’s also really fun. And it’s fun to see people step up in their careers and start to do things that maybe they haven’t done in the past.

I will say this: even when they become leaders, they don’t want the leadership to interfere with their creative opportunities. And so sometimes it’s hard to get them to work with another designer or another writer to get a project done rather than doing it themselves. They really want to kind of take on those projects themselves.

And so it can sometimes be a little bit hard to get them to be that leader that is guiding other creatives rather than just doing the work themselves. It comes back to that idea of they like to, you know, sit back with no one around and figure out a creative challenge.And so that’s—that I think is something that’s difficult to do with quiet creatives.

Adam Morgan

The allure of the cave is so strong. It is so strong. I’m even just listening to you. You said, “I’m in the middle of this.” You’ve been leading for decades. You’re far beyond the cliff and yet you’re still feeling that like, “Maybe I don’t want that. Maybe I want to go back to that cave.”

And it’s tricky. I think that’s a tricky thing because, one, if you feel that drawn, you’ve got to be careful. You’re not micromanaging and trying to do it yourself and making the team do it your way. Like, you get very, very cautious of that. And then number two, you just need to, like, understand a good thing of leadership.

It’s really hard to delegate. It really is. And to let others do it and trust them to. So It’s hard. It’s hard to do both sides of trust your leadership and also build that trust without being like, “No, here’s how you do it. Here’s how I’m going to the cave.”

Jeff Paris

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s absolutely true. And I also think quiet creatives tend to have a hard time giving feedback. Like, they don’t feel the need to tell someone else what to do. And so getting them to change that mindset. As a leader, that is your job, to tell people how to make their work better, tell people how to,, you know, meet the needs of the creative brief in a more meaningful way, how to change things.

And I’ve noticed that about quiet creatives, I’ve actually had, um, a writer just recently tell me, I don’t want to have to tell another writer [what to do]. And that’s someone who I know is going to be a great, great creative leader eventually. But that’s one of the things that we kind of have to work on is, “No, you do kind of have to tell people how to make their writing better or how to make their idea more relevant to the project that we’re working on.” I think that desire to back away and to your point, head to the cave is a real thing that quiet creatives have to deal with.

Adam Morgan

Oh, it is so true. The other thing that’s interesting is that this is the conversation I’ve had many, many times now. Yes, this is great. If you’re going to become a creative leader, that’s your job. You have to guide the work. You have to show vision. You don’t have to micromanage, but you do have to direct, right? Right. But also if someone doesn’t want to do that, I also want to give the caveat here that you don’t have to become a creative leader if you want to stay in the cave and you absorb it. Stay there and that’s totally fine. You can be a very well-paid senior creative just doing that and that is totally a great choice.

Jeff Paris

I absolutely agree with that statement and I think a lot of quiet creatives are struggling with that; they feel like, “Well if I’m gonna succeed in my career, I have to keep moving into new roles and moving up the chain,” but let’s face it—in organizations, in agencies, in companies like ours, creative ideas will always be as valuable as a leadership skill.

If you are a really great creative and can consistently bring Interesting ideas and can consistently get those ideas produced, that is an unbelievably valuable skill to organizations and to agencies. So it’s true. You don’t have to feel like you need to move up into leadership. It’s one of the conversations I’ve had a lot with some of the people that I’m working with right now, to say, “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. So let’s talk through that.” And some people point-blank told me, “I don’t want to tell other people what to do. I just want to do my work.”

Adam Morgan

If you want to be a leader, you have to get past that. You’ve got to work.

Jeff Paris

If you want to be a leader, that has to change a little bit.

Adam Morgan

Let me just zag a little bit. We talked about, you know, what we can do as leaders for our teams or what, you know, the quiet creatives need to do to become leaders. But what about other parts of the organization? How do you get, you know, reaching beyond the creative department? How do you get other marketers or business leaders or developers or web people or whatever else it is to understand the value of quiet creatives and to build a broader, more inclusive culture and teams by including them in it?

Jeff Paris

That’s a really interesting question. When I saw that on the outline of questions that we were talking about, I was really fascinated by that. And this is one area where I think there is a difference between the agency world, at least in my experience with coming to MasterControl, in agency worlds.

I think quiet creatives can get lost a little bit when it comes to their presence in the larger scope of things. Here at MasterControl, for me, it’s been a lot easier to introduce creatives to our executive team, for example, who then start to find out they like these people; that when you get a little bit of a chance to talk to them, they’re interesting, they generally have really great kind of, dry senses of humor.

That’s true. And so executives tend to kind of warm up to them and are interested in hearing what they think and how, for us, our executives frequently are working with the creatives for presentations and that sort of thing. And they really start to rely on the creative team for advice and guidance.

And so that for me is a great way to start to get the rest of the organization to think about it. I do think you have to protect your quiet creatives. They don’t want to be in every meeting. They don’t want to have to deal with the business side of things. There are a lot of things that are—that they just aren’t interested in. On the flip side, and frequently, they don’t even necessarily—I mentioned this before—they don’t even necessarily want to present their own creative; they would just as soon say, “Here’s what we have.”

It’s your job to go sell the word. But on the flip side of that, I also find that if they are in the meeting, even if I end up presenting creative that they’ve worked on. When they are in the meeting and you acknowledge that you’re presenting their work, they will start to open up during the course of the presentation, and they will add color commentary, and they’ll suggest things, and they’ll point out nuances in what’s happening in the creative—that sort of thing. And that, for me, is a great way to start to build confidence and courage in quiet creatives so that in the future, they will want to present their own work and stand up in front of a group and really showcase what they’re doing.

Adam Morgan

Those are two great ideas. Thank you. And I guess let’s just end here as we’re coming to a close.

What advice do you have for someone who’s new to creative leadership? Like, what should they work on? What should they try? What should they do for themselves? Not like they need their boss to do anything, but just on their own, how they can grow a little bit and be ready for leadership?

Jeff Paris

Yeah. The first thing I would say is make sure you understand the business side of the equation.

I think as creatives, it’s easy for us to not have to focus on that. And I still don’t think it has to be your primary focus as a leader, but you have to understand the business side of the creative equation. So really, being engaged in those meetings that are frequently painful and boring and that you don’t want to be engaged in, really being engaged in those meetings and trying to understand where everyone’s coming from a business perspective, so that you can relate creative activities and efforts to the larger business concern. The other thing I will say that I think has benefited me in my career is trying to understand the newest, latest, and greatest technologies, but never losing sight of the fact that old-fashioned storytelling is what makes great creative.

So, we all have to. I mean, I started in the marketing world when, you know, you sent out for type, and everything got pasted up in a layout, and then you sent your paste ups out to the printer. You know, that’s so outdated at this point that you can’t even do that anymore. And now as we move into AI and generative AI—those types of things—I think it’s important that we all understand how those types of technologies are going to change our lives as we move forward. But when you do that, it’s easy to forget that creatives, at their core, are the storytellers of our society. And that’s just as important in marketing as it is in any other creative endeavor.

And so I think managing those two ideas: of never losing sight of what makes a great story and how you tell a great story is the core, but also being able to tell those great stories using new technologies. You don’t always have to use those new technologies, but you should definitely be aware of what’s happening in the world of creativity.

Adam Miller

That’s great. Thank you. This has been such a great discussion. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today on Real Creative Leadership. It’s been a pleasure to talk about this topic and learn a little bit more about it.

Jeff Paris

Thanks for having me.

Adam Miller

So, as closing, Jeff, how can our viewers follow you or connect with you or learn more about you? Websites, or things you want to share.

Jeff Paris

You can always follow me on LinkedIn, but I invite people to follow me on Instagram. My personal account is at art lobster, but I also have a—there’s a story right there. There is a story right there. I also have a personal creative project that I’ve been working on for several years called Meanwhile Park, and so you can follow me on Instagram @meanwhilepark and see the— it’s kind of a lifestyle brand that we’re developing, so it’s been really fun to work on that project.

Adam Miller

Well, this has been such a pleasure, Jeff, to have you here on the show. What amazing advice, what a great conversation. I really really truly appreciate it. Thanks for joining us.

Jeff Paris

It’s been really great to be here. Thanks for having me.