The Idea Or The Execution?
Which is more important? Don't all say "both" at the same time.
I’ve been on the struggle bus with this one for months. Maybe it is unsolvable. Some would just say duh, it’s both, but I think that’s a cop out, and it deserves more investigation. In my early training in advertising, it was always, always about the big idea. You had to have a great idea, and if you did, everything would fall out of that. And maybe that’s why I’m struggling with this so much, is that I still believe that to be true. I mean, you need to sell the idea to even get to the execution of it.
But I am faltering in my belief in the idea after hearing several arguments for the execution as being more important. I watched Amy Poehler’s Masterclass (which was great fun) and she says that it’s not the idea or the execution, but the Team. That if you have a good team even a mediocre idea can end up great. And I've seen that happen before. But isn't that really just the execution?
Then there was this interview clip with Rick Owens who said it’s all the execution.
If you watch the clip, he makes a pretty damn compelling argument. And over the years in advertising, I’ve seen my share of good ideas lose at execution for a huge number of reasons, not limited to – budgets, committees, fear, time, ego.
I guess ideas are fragile things. An idea itself doesn’t really exist in tangible ways until someone makes it tangible with a concept board or by creating the thing. He's right, there are a lot of people with good ideas. But to make it a real thing, you need the right idea at the right time with the right budget and the right team and all the hundreds of right little decisions that will either make it great or kill it slowly.
Which dovetails into what i said recently about taking time and figuring out how to make an idea work before abandoning it. “Leave room for the act of production to impress.”
So, I do think a good idea is important. Who wants to execute a bad idea? But until you execute it, and bring it into existence, it's just ether. In writing this article, I’ve come around to the other side. Which is part of what I hoped writing would do for me – to help me work some concepts out. Here was a poll where Execution was the clear winner. The Other category was mostly people who said “both” or “all three” which is kinda true but really annoying and lazy.
I think this sums it up:
“Making things as a way of thinking as a way of preserving thought.” – Alex Morris
Making things, executing ideas is how we both work out those ideas in a practical way, and ultimately preserve those ideas. We make the invisible visible.