Own Your Process
Ownership Sparks Creativity in Art & Work & Life
One key differentiator between working for the man (every night and day) and working for yourself is ownership. Working for yourself you own the beginning, the middle, and the outcome.
Especially the outcome.
Some of my favorite colleagues over the years—the very ones who advanced in whatever they worked at—found ways to own the process. These were the ones not content to follow orders. Instead they made the work their own, found their own way, employed their skill and imagination. I’ll argue that owning the work sparked their creativity to accomplish the task. And I’ll argue that ownership looked like responsibility for the outcome. So despite working for the man, they took ownership, made their own meaning and became, well, the man.
Over at Dumb Sketch Daily I’ve been producing a dumb sketch every day for the last 39 days. I was sorta proud of this dumb sketch:
Then a commenter suggested abstracting it, which I tried, given my limited art understanding and abilities (here):
You can see the result is…simple. But it is my own (not that anyone is lining up to take credit). The commenter’s comment helped me continue my odyssey toward learning to see.
My only point is that developing new skills requires a certain elasticity. We try new stuff and get it wrong again and again and again. And we keep failing until maybe, one fine day, it turns out sorta OK.
A lot happens when we take ownership for developing our own skills. And a lot of good can come from taking responsibility for our client/boss/friend’s desired outcome.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
conversation is an engine 
Reblogged this on Dumb Sketch Daily and commented:
I’m learning a bunch of life lessons from producing bad sketches every day.
kirkistan
January 8, 2015 at 12:45 pm
Appreciate this post very much. Third time today I’ve been given this kind of advice – in one form or another – and it is very timely. I do not like failing at anything, but I’m getting very good at it! Maybe there’s a breakthrough ahead 🙂
dirofpr
January 8, 2015 at 12:52 pm
Thanks, Wendi. No one of us likes to fail, but it seems like failure puts our brain in gear some times. Besides, a high-achiever like you needs a bit of failure from time to time. Thanks for stopping by.
kirkistan
January 8, 2015 at 12:55 pm
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Sam Amidon Owns His Process | conversation is an engine
January 9, 2015 at 5:46 pm
This smacks much of a spirit of existentialism, a credo I personally adore and adopt. I’ve had the privilege of catapulting from relative obscurity at a two year college in the nameless American Midwest to holding a ranking leadership position with a society boasting a quarter million members at any given time worldwide. Because much of this success was a function of the will (and of course some luck), I took this as indicative of the power we cradle in crafting the world and our position within it. That actualizing spirit of deliberateness, while not always so prominently manifested, nevertheless still spurs a certain something in me audacious enough to suppose it has the right to attempt to fashion some living creation.
Freedom is a delightful burden. I see you too understand.
The Forgetful Philosopher
January 9, 2015 at 10:50 pm