THE GROOVE ISSUE 11 - WHY YOU NEED A DEADLINE IF YOU WANT TO BE CREATIVE

The Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo Buonarotti who was under a deadline to finish the ceiling, and years later, to complete The Last Judgment, the fresco on the whole altar wall.

As we enter the last month of a year that will always be remembered as the one that changed and challenged us in ways we never thought possible, it is also a time to reflect upon the things we did accomplish and those we are pushing to be completed in 2021.

Decades ago, when I was an attorney, I hated artificially imposed deadlines: those that called for me and my colleagues to draft millions of boring documents in billion-dollar deals that I couldn’t have cared less about. But since I opened my company 12 years ago with a renewed sense of purpose, I’ve never loved anything more than a deadline: seeing the completion of a project, witnessing the materialization of a dream, watching the creative process unfold under constraints, and being there to experience the happiness of my clients when the work gets done ahead of time. These deadlines feel more like a milepost, there is the right amount of time to get the work done. But depending on what and who is asking, my deadlines could also be really tight, bordering on the unreasonable. They could be imposed by a client or by myself. Regardless of the type of deadline, I’ve always found that having one leads to some of my best work.

Your Fuel for Creativity and Innovation

So what do deadlines have to do with creativity? How many times have I heard from artists and from non-artists: “I’m always working! I don’t have time to be creative!” Well, recent studies conducted by Johns Hopkins Business School and published in the Journal of Consumer Report, show that people will choose to do tasks with short deadlines over those with longer deadlines, even though the latter may be easier or more rewarding. Likewise, another research paper published in the Journal of Management shows that endeavors toward creativity and innovation increase when surrounded by constraints such as rules and regulations, deadlines, and scarce resources. Being forced to come up with something within a solid timeframe is always much better for creativity than allowing for an infinite period of time to incubate and give birth to an idea.

Even Old Masters Needed Deadlines

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel measures 134 ft. long and 46 ft. wide and rises 44 ft. above the main floor of the chapel. Pope Julius II gave Michelangelo a deadline and even threatened to throw him from the scaffolding if he didn’t finish it “quickly”.

Giorgio Vasari, the OG of art history, wrote in his book The Lives of The Artists that when Michelangelo was painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Pope Julius II came and asked him when he planned to complete the job. Michelangelo answered, “when it satisfies me in its artistic details.” But the pope wasn’t having it and replied, “And we want you to satisfy us in our desire to see it done quickly.” He then threatened to throw Michelangelo from the scaffolding if he didn’t work faster.

Michelangelo wasn’t thrilled but he had to get the job done. And twenty months after this encounter with the pope, the Sistine Chapel was finished and unveiled in 1512 during the All Saints Day mass. Besides Michelangelo’s undeniable talent and enormous creativity, this deadline and the pope’s threats served humanity, because there is nothing in the world like the Sistine Chapel.

When Deadlines Breed Global Movements

Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange: ROCI MEXICO exhibition, Museo Rufino Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo Internacional, Mexico City, Mexico, circa May 1985. Photograph Collection. Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York

In 1984, the great pop artist Robert Rauschenberg created and self-funded a not-for-profit entity called Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI). ROCI’s objective was to travel the world to places where artistic experimentation had been suppressed, with the purpose of sparking a dialogue and achieving a mutual understanding through the creative process. Between 1985 and 1990, the project was realized and Rauschenberg created new art and presented exhibitions in ten countries: Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, China, Tibet, Japan, Cuba, the Soviet Union, Germany, and Malaysia, with a final exhibition held in 1991 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Each country hosted a ROCI exhibition in a large museum and if you stop to think for a second what this means in terms of labor, coordination, and speed, you know Rauschenberg meant business. Believe it or not, I went to see his show in Caracas at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in 1985 (I was nine in case you are wondering).

Rauschenberg knew this was a crazy thing to do when his career was at his highest point and he was busy making art for gallery shows, private commissions, collaborations and performances. Jack Cowart, who was then the National Art Gallery curator, wrote in the catalogue of the final exhibition that “testing himself during his last middle age to make deadline art in fresh circumstances… under such pressures [Rauschenberg’s] artistic instinct and rich associative memory had to play a crucial role…”

Robert Rauschenberg taking photographs and Terry Van Brunt videotaping during ROCI research trip, Kota Bharu, Malaysia, September 1989. Photograph Collection. Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York.

It was the commitment first, as once he had created, announced and funded ROCI, there was no stopping it. And then there was the willingness of Rauschenberg to do something that had never been done before and which carried enormous meaning to him. Not only did ROCI and Rauschenberg’s work engage more than 2 million people all over the world during those five years - decades before the advent of social media - but they also made an entry into art history and initiated a global movement of socially and community-engaged art that continues to thrive today.

How To Do the Impossible

Obviously, deadlines not only benefit artists but are crucial for businesses and any ambitious entrepreneur will tell you the same. Elon Musk is notorious for putting his team under insane deadlines. But you can’t run Tesla and send people to outer space through SpaceX if you don’t have people operate under certain constraints. His engineers have said that Musk guides them into taking ownership of their own delivery dates. He doesn’t say, “You have to do this by Friday at 2:00 pm.” He says, “I need the impossible done by Friday at 2:00 pm. Can you do it?” Just like that, he shifts the center of control from him to his employees. Because when the engineers say “yes,” then it is about them, and not about Musk’s unreasonable demands.

When these situations happen (and they happen a lot in Musk’s world), the engineers start moving at a faster pace and come up with more creative ideas until they get the project done, realizing that the “impossible” wasn’t such. Backing this up, popular economist Danny Kahneman said in an episode of Freakonomics Radio: “If you realistically present to people what can be achieved to solve a problem, they will find that uninteresting.”

And so, with 30 days left in 2020, will you push yourself to do the impossible?

THE EXTRA GROOVE

Read:

The Mere Deadline Effect: Why More Time Might Sabotage Goal Pursuit

Creativity and Innovation Under Constraints: A Cross-Disciplinary Integrative Review

The Lives of The Artists by Giorgio Vasari

Michelangelo by William E. Wallace

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance

Watch:

Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI) travelogue of Chile, Mexico, Tibet, Venezuela

Michelangelo Matter and Spirit. A documentary directed by Maurizio Gregorini

Listen:

Freakonomics Radio: How to Launch a Behavior-Change Revolution