Discover Top Posts Tagged with #creative authority

The New Year Didn’t Change Me — I Changed the Standards.

Here’s a little secret about elevation that nobody posts on vision boards: The higher you go, the less you explain.

This new year didn’t suddenly make things happen. Decisions did. Boundaries did. Clarity did.

Real growth doesn’t announce itself with noise; it moves with precision. It upgrades systems. It edits access. It chooses alignment over applause.

And yes, the energy is still warm. Still joyful. Still gracious. But make no mistake, this joy is disciplined.

✨ Peace is protected. ✨ Vision is prioritized. ✨ Time is treated like currency.

This isn’t a season of hustle-for-validation. It’s a season of executing the vision with confidence. Of building things that last. Of moving like someone who knows the future is already working in their favor.

So, if it feels like the room got quieter...Good. That’s what happens when elevation replaces noise with intention.

Welcome to the new year. Same heart. Higher standards. Clearer vision. Unmistakable direction.

— Telby Fae

#new year elevation #visionary leadership #telby fae #creative authority #next level mindset #aligned ambition #builders energy #quiet power

Being the creative authority...

You have to embody a certain confidence. Not intensity... more of being at ease with yourself and your decisions. More being at ease with yourself and your decision-making process, your creative process, when circumstances aren't as clear or convenient as you'd like.

As top of the food chain, you have the ability to make choices stick. Which is less a cause to be aggressive with others than it is the reason to be at peace with yourself.

Like I said before, how you exercise your authority, how you manage personalities is important. It's just not paramount.

At the end of the day, it's not your responsibility to figure out how to work with others, it's their responsibility to figure out how to work with you.

Don't get me wrong. I don't say that from being a hard-ass when I'm in charge. I like to think I create an environment that's filled with energy, fun and collaborative.

But.

I'm still being paid not only to deliver a great product... I've also gotta hit a deadline. So all through our production process, what I say goes when I say it goes. And I've been fortunate to work with professionals who can creatively excel in that environment.

Which brings me to my different approach. Because rather than diving deep into wrangling collaboration from people who aren't inclined to take your word as gospel... how about knowing the kind of people you're looking for in the first place?

The right people.

The ones who are expert in their specialty, who are fantastic at collaboration and, when it's time to do what they've gotta do, they handle it like pros.

Because they can do what they're directed to do but.

They also add a whole lot more on top.

And they can do all that within their professional scope on a production. Every time.

Plus...

They can fully throw themselves into their work and simultaneously have fun with the experience. Which is very cool.

That's what works for me, is what I'm saying. It's not just skill level I'm looking at. It’s a constellation of skills and attributes.

You... may have other ideas but my point is figure out what those are first. And hire or recruit toward those personal and professional characteristics.

My career definitely grew wildly from working with the right people whether that was intentional or purely by accident and circumstance.

But.

It makes a difference. The right people make the difference. In fact, they makes all the difference. Because my professional career experience was never ruined for me... and I kept reaching for higher accomplishments. Because the bulk of my professional experience exceeded my expectations in only good ways. Because years, decades even, since the day I stepped into my professional career...

God help me I still love it.

And that's.

What working with the right people, the best people...

Buys you.

😁😁😁

#professional #creative authority #the right people #collaboration #growing career #professional ability #professional character #skill #attributes

For the last coupla days, I danced around the question of how does my daughter fulfill the role of having full authority in those circumstances where she has that authority.

How does she willingly run the risk of stepping on toes, hurting feelings, and/or pissing people off?

How does she make the call that is hers to make...

And make it stick?

There's no question, based on conversations I've had over the years with directors and producers that there's a certain amount of managing personalities that goes on during productions.

However.

At the end of the day, if you're the person vested with the experience, vision, and responsibility for a project... then you best fully embrace that authority or else.

Or else, at the very least, your vision will become derailed by someone else's uninformed impulses.

At most, however, your experience and vision will be replaced by someone else's (or a group of someone else's) but.

But.

You...

Will be stuck with the responsibility for what they've imposed.

So exercising authority is a matter of necessity.

Otherwise, why are you even trying to create something in the first place if not to serve your vision?

Hmmm?

Of course, how you exercise your authority, how you manage personalities, naturally, is important. But not paramount.

Because at the end of the day, everyone's efforts serve your vision. Even when you’re working together.

That’s rule number 1. The only rule on the list, actually. The one you, as creative authority, must embody. To preserve your vision, yes. You have to embody your position as the top Creative. You have to assume it. Take it on faith, if you have to.

You don’t have to be a dick about it... but know in your bones.

The call is yours to make.

No one else’s.

That’s where you start.

Now, while I have ideas and, perhaps, a tip or two on how to wrangle collaboration from people who are not naturally inclined to take your word as gospel, I do have a better approach that completely bypasses that kind of challenge.

And I will get to that...

Tomorrow.

🙂

#creative authority #creativity #experience #vision #responsibility #authority #wielding authority #preserving your vision

There are always people who will tell you what you should do. And how you should do it.

That's especially true in performing arts.

For example, all the way back to my daughter's Jr. High performing arts days there were always people, students mostly, who tried telling her what she should do and how she should do it. And so I instilled in her the blunt truth that she's obligated to one person and one person only:

The director.

Everyone else can take a seat.

Their "advice" is one hundred percent irrelevant. Because the director's.

Is the only voice.

That matters.

Even as late as her senior year of high school there were students telling her how she should perform a role after she and the choreographer had already settled on her performance.

Somebody always thinks they know better than choral directors, orchestral directors, directors of drama, musical directors and choreographers.

Somebody (lots of somebody's, actually) always believes they know better and therefore have no problem ignoring the people with the experience, vision, and responsibility for these productions. They'll walk right up to you filled with their abundant ignorance and tell you how things should be.

So over and over and over again I've said ignore them. Their voices are irrelevant.

They do not, do not...

Matter.

Full stop.

Now.

Is that cold? Is it aggressive? Is it mean?

Well, sure. You can look at it that way.

But don't.

Performing arts may be a collective effort... but it's a directed one. The result of a singular vision.

And the implication is this: only one person has the authoritative say. Only one voice matters as far as what's it gonna be and how it's gonna be.

The director. The choreographer. The composer. Whoever's at the top of the particular performing arts food chain.

And trust me. There's always someone at the top of a performing arts food chain. There's always someone on whose shoulders rests the experience, vision, and responsibility of the production, however big or small it might be.

There's always someone who's holding the reins.

Now yesterday I danced around the question of how does my daughter fulfill the role of having full authority in those circumstances where she has that authority?

How does she willingly run the risk of stepping on toes, hurting feelings, and/or.pissing people off?

How does she make the final call...

And make it stick?

I'm guessing at this point the answer won't surprise you. I just spent some time teeing it up.

But, sorry to say (especially since it seems a little bait and switchy)...

We have to finish up tomorrow. :-(

#performing arts #creative authority #director #producer #choreographer #composer #vision #responsibility #experience

One of the themes running through the conversations I have with my daughter is professionalism. Not how to be a professional. But understanding that you are one. And acting with the confidence and full authority that implies.

Now, my career as an editor and composer has always been set a few rungs down from the top. My efforts always serve the vision of others. And while that absolutely means I don't have the final say... that doesn't mean I don't have specific expertise in what I do.

I'm a specialist who helps manifest the intentions of producers… with a little something extra thrown in. Always always always, though, with their go-ahead. Because while I don't wield the authority to have my own way creatively, I do have the authority to convince producers that I may have a better approach. I have the authority to state my case. To persuade.

And then it's in their hands. Because the final say is theirs.

Full stop.

Linzy's situation is different becauase while there are any number of circumstances in which she's working for someone else and is bound by the same obligations as I am... there are circumstances in which she, in fact, does have the final word.

And, in general, the conversations we have about understanding yourself as a professional focus on being young and having spent most of life answerable to someone else and then working for someone else. So stepping into the role of the person in charge might not come easy. Or, if it does come easy, embodying the authority vested in that role might feel tricky. Especially when the final word can seem aggressive or mean.

For me, now that I think of it, my confidence as an editor clicked into place when I was promoted to that position years ago after working in production and then serving as an assistant editor. I was promoted to editor at this one company... and then I was known and hired as an editor forever after that.

I don't know how else to put it: I just became that guy. Because I was given his shoes.

Recently, a friend of mine, a producer, needed a little consulting on a sound recording issue and I referred her to Linzy. Not as my daughter but as a music producer and engineer. Because this is an area in which she wields expertise and my friend treated her accordingly. And then sang her praises to me afterward when everything worked according to Linzy's advice.

A little later, Linzy composed a score for string quartet to be performed live. During rehearsals, one of the performers made their case to the conductor for a change and, after a quick conversation with Linzy, the conductor let the performer know "the composer has decided this is the direction they want to pursue."

Or words to that effect.

But definitely starting with "the composer has decided".

The composer.

Has decided.

Where I’m going with this is that while I don't think we all step into our professional selves the same way and that I’m sure there are ways and ways and ways of accomplishing that transformation... what's interesting to me is that Linzy's stepping into her role, her professional self, in kinda sorta the same way I did a long time ago: she's being treated as that person.

Which leaves open the question of how does she fulfill the role of having full authority?

How does she make the call...

And make it stick?

I'll take a stab at that question...

Tomorrow.

#professional self #professional #fulfilling a role #creative authority #creativity #collaboration #vision

578. Shedding the Past and Creating the New Or sharing some of the process involved in giving myself authority to create the new version of me that I can be proud of living in…