Content Leadership and Creative Tension: A Plea

“We have to admit that content design will never be fully staffed.”
“It’s not realistic to expect a 1:1 ratio with designers.”
“Don’t ask for headcount. Prove your value first.”

Having worked in content for 25 years now, I know we face challenges. Tech companies are founded by engineers who think that design is done by one person: the designer. They’ve never heard the terms “content designer” or “UX writer.” They don’t understand that design should be done by a team. So the content professionals—you and I—are only hired once the designer has lost patience for drafting “strings,” typically after accruing many years of content debt.

The lone content designer hired onto this team is up against a lot. Not only does she need to learn all the usual new-job stuff—the acronyms, who does what, the business model, the company culture—most dauntingly, she has to explain to everyone what she does and convince them to include her in their process so she can do her job. 

I feel like most other jobs don’t require this level of education and politicking just to be able to do your job. I’m not an engineer, but I feel like new engineers are invited to the meetings about their projects. Same with product managers. Not content designers, though. When you ask for Edit access to the Figma file, or to be included in the designer’s one-on-one with the product manager, you get pushback. Why would you need those things? Don’t worry, the designer will let you know when he’s ready for content. 

And so it goes. Sometimes, this situation persists for years. The lone content designer eventually gets to hire a content team. But the team’s underwater, with each content designer supporting as many as 10 projects each.

Meanwhile, the content leader knows that the best way to design a digital product is in a cognitively diverse team that includes people with varying skills like visual design, content, and research. She knows that content design improves the product all the way to its core, and that the product delivers more value in its role as a communication vehicle than it does in its visual aesthetic. 

And yet, as content leaders we find ourselves saying, “We’ll never be fully staffed. It’s not realistic. We might as well get used to it.” We tell new content leaders not to bother asking for headcount—they won’t get it. We tell the PM we’ll get them the string by Friday without even asking to be invited to the project meetings.

Why do we do this? 

It’s because of what strategist and author Peter Serge calls creative tension:

People often have great difficulty talking about their visions, even when the visions are clear. Why? Because we are acutely aware of the gaps between our vision and reality. These gaps can make a vision seem unrealistic or fanciful. They can discourage us or make us feel hopeless. But the gap between vision and current reality is also a source of energy. If there were no gap, there would be no need for any action to move toward the vision. Indeed, the gap is the source of creative energy. We call this gap creative tension.

Imagine a rubber band, stretched between your vision and current reality. When stretched, the rubber band creates tension, representing the tension between vision and current reality. What does tension seek? Resolution or release. There are only two possible ways for the tension to resolve itself: pull reality toward the vision—or pull the vision toward reality. Which occurs depends on whether we hold steady to the vision.

Creative tension doesn’t feel any particular way. It is the force that comes to play at the moment when we acknowledge a vision is at odds with current reality.

Still, creative tension often leads to feelings or emotions associated with anxiety, such as sadness, discouragement, hopelessness, or worry. This happens so often that people easily confuse these emotions with creative tension. People come to think that the creative tension process is all about being in a state of anxiety. But it is important to realize that these “negative” emotions that may arise when there is creative tension are not creative tension itself. These emotions are what we call emotional tension.

If we fail to distinguish emotional tension from creative tension, we predispose ourselves to lowering our vision. If we feel deeply discouraged about a vision that is not happening, we may have a strong urge to lighten the load of that discouragement. There is one immediate remedy: lower the vision! Emotional tension can always be relieved by adjusting the one pole of the creative tension that is completely under our control at all times—the vision. The feelings that we dislike go away because the creative tension that was their source is reduced. Our goals are now much closer to our current reality. Escaping emotional tension is easy – the only price we pay is abandoning what we truly want, our vision.

—Senge, Peter. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, 150

Every content leader can relate. We dream of the holy grail of content design: a 1:1 ratio with designers. In this ideal world, each content designer on the team has full partnership in the design process, input to the product roadmap, and an invite to the kickoff. 

It’s so different from our current reality. It makes us uncomfortable. We feel hopeless. 

Content leaders, I plead with you: don’t give in to hopelessness. Don’t give up the vision. Our design and product leaders don’t understand that there’s a better way—it’s our job to tell them.

It’s painful. But if we don’t carry the vision forward, who will? What’s the use of a leader with no vision? Or even worse, a leader who knows the way design ought to be done, but is so resigned to the status quo that they can’t even bring themselves to talk about it?

Let’s keep talking about it. No, I’m not saying you should unload headcount requests on your manager in every one-on-one. But your manager should know your point of view and your rationale. You should be able to discuss the constraints that are keeping you from getting there. 

Remember, “the gap between vision and current reality is also a source of energy. If there were no gap, there would be no need for any action to move toward the vision. Indeed, the gap is the source of creative energy.”

The content design discipline needs more leaders who are principled, patient, and charged with the creative energy that comes from fearlessly holding a vision, even though it’s uncomfortable. Let’s all aspire to be this type of leader.