Creativity – a buzzword in Singapore, a successful city-state well-known for its efficiency and ambition to punch above its weight. While the arts scene is relatively vibrant, it is often regarded as co-curricular rather than a core. This can be seen in the distribution of its graduates where, not surprisingly, the practice of business and administration dominates undergraduates’ course choices at 32.9%, while fine and applied arts occupies a meagre 1.6%.
Despite an unparalleled education system that has achieved a literacy rate of 96.5% in 2013, Singapore has been the centre of debate for its conformist and rigid structure, often believed by the more vocal ones to be the root of non-creativity among its people. Is Singapore’s talent misaligned with the requirements of the creative industry? What does it take to excel in the creative industry? One misconception to correct here is that not everyone who is in the creative industry needs to be as creative as Picasso, look like Don Draper or wear black.
Rather, you need these following traits to survive:
1. ‘Thick skin’
A street fight in Singapore is often ignored by indifferent passersby. In a professional context, if you have attended a seminar or conference in Singapore, one can’t help but notice how Q&A sessions are often confronted with silence from the floor. Why so?
We may be able to relate this with educational practices in most local schools where little emphasis is placed on stimulating students’ critical thinking skills. In a learning environment, teachers provide theory-based answers that students are expected to concur with, not criticise. Such a practice carries these students through their professional path, where one’s thinking skills are put to the test. Yet, these young professionals then refrain from speaking out for fear of wrongful behaviour, or criticism or simply “losing face”.
Versatility is an important trait of the creative industry. In a client-servicing environment, constructive feedback and rejection is valuable for the process of continuous improvement. However if talent do not have ‘thick enough skin’ to speak up and accept criticism, how do they better themselves?
2. Curiosity
Across all factors used to measure standard of living: infrastructure, accessibility to resources, quality of education, healthcare – Singapore is a great place to live. So much so that many foreigners want to be here and most locals never hate it enough to look outside of their comfort zone.
The creative industry is not just about doing what is told of you, but also examining why things are done in a specific manner and how to improve them for varying needs and purposes. Without this natural propensity to implore, people become robots. Without curiosity to take you out of the comfort zone, we won’t challenge the status quo and create game changers.
3. Resilience
Like most of Asia, the culture in Singapore places a huge emphasis on education. Higher education is believed to be the roadmap to a great career that will eventually lead one to success. This contributes to unrealistic expectations among fresh graduates who are, by this time, exhausted, debt-ridden and desperate for immediate payoff. The resilience that helped them weather one of the toughest education system in the world seem to burn out quite quickly upon graduation.
Education has become such an overhyped focus that fresh talent do not realise that in this ever-changing world, the syllabus they have just studied a year ago could possibly be outdated in the industry today. They begin to question the value of their degree and if it had been worth all the time and investment. If you tell them now that they should continue to invest in personal development – they flip.
As with every other industry, the creative industry is dynamic, and sometimes short-term. Just because you didn’t meet with a good boss the first time it doe’t mean you’re in the wrong trade; or just because your agency didn’t get the business for a pitch you worked on it doesn’t mean you aren’t good enough – back to point one, it is all a part of learning.
While clients are an important determinant of a company’s bottom line, senior management and CMOs must also recognise that talent is an important stakeholder and that an organisation is only as good as the ideas behind its people. In an ever-changing global market and industry, there should be closer relationships between institutions, industry associations and training providers to plan and develop the right course material to equip today’s creative talent with the right set of skills to emerge as winners in this challenging, yet exciting industry. Don’t just rely on your company to invest in you.
Goh Shu Fen is principal and co-founder of R3, a global marketing management consultancy for advertisers and their agencies, as well as president of the IAS.
Source: Marketing-Interactive
