For many designers like me, we assume that the external brand mythology that creative agencies project to clients and competitors is a seamless reflection of their internal values and culture. Sometimes this is true, but often the perception and the reality could not be more different. In this article I try to uncover how and why we sometimes experience a disconnect between how a creative agency externally brands themselves and their work and how their internal values are actually made manifest by leadership, teams and individuals.

Finding out what’s behind the music

Like a great rock band, what we see as the shiny surface of the creative output of an agency and how they choose to brand themselves can be very different than the dynamic that happens behind the scenes.

Like most people, I love watching documentaries about how bands at the height of their fame crash and burn through dysfunction and infighting. Inevitably for brilliance to flourish things have to get messy.

Most creative agencies are far more tame — no trashed hotels rooms or Rolls Royce’s crashed into swimming pools—just the occasional late night at SXSW or a post holiday…