The Great Waste: Creativity as Problem‑Solver

Fewer slides, more substance: “The Great Waste” is Roland Rudolf’s invitation to put creativity back where it belongs—at the root of the problem. The wob CCO explains what that means for product, service, and business model.

This article grew out of a good discussion with my former colleague Lars Backes. I hope it clarifies how I think about our industry and creativity. ;-)

My wife and I had a once‑in‑a‑lifetime chance to travel the world with a mobile home. Southern Russia, Kalmykia—the only Buddhist oblast in Europe. In spring 2020 it was one of our stops, and it stayed with me. We stood in front of Kalmyk yurts. Round tents, unchanged for centuries. These Western Mongol Oirats came from Central Asia to the Volga in the early 17th century, searching for new pastures. Not because yurts look nice, but because they enable survival. Wind, steppe climate, quick assembly—everything accounted for. And inside, space is organized around the family’s energy, rituals, life. That is pure functionality. No designer conceived this form, no architect planned it. It emerged because it works. That is creativity in its original form.

The systematic thinking error of the 1960s.

1960s: The advertising industry institutionalizes creativity. Creative Directors, Art Directors, Copywriters. An entire industry turns a basic cognitive function into an organizational unit. The problem wasn’t the institutionalization. The problem was how output was defined. Agencies defined themselves by discrete deliverables: strategy, campaigns, creation, advertising, websites, etc. Yet even then they were problem‑solvers—especially the creatively thinking disciplines.

Why that so rarely happens.

Creativity is the ability to view a problem from an unusual angle, open new solution spaces, and arrive at answers no one had on the agenda. That is intuitive strategy work—the opposite of over‑intellectualized analysis. Still, it rarely happens. Three thinking errors block both sides:

Error 1: Optimizing for the known. Dashboards show what was, not what could be. If you only look at performance data, you don’t see opportunities—you see supposed safety.

Error 2: Risk minimization. Systems reward the safe harbor. But breakthroughs happen where others aren’t looking—where it gets uncomfortable. If you never fail, you’re likely not trying anything that matters.

Error 3: Outdated expectations. Agencies still sell a corset of strategy and communication assets instead of solutions. Companies still buy PowerPoint decks and creative output instead of transformation. Both think in old categories. And we keep walking the same well‑trodden paths.

The untapped agency advantage.

Agencies have a structural edge: cross‑industry experience. They see patterns in plain sight that in‑house teams miss. Solutions from Industry A for problems in Industry B. Talents used to ramping into new problem spaces quickly, drawing on immense experience. A real asset for companies. But we need to offer the right services:

• Product development instead of just product communication
• Service design instead of just performance media and ads
• Business model innovation instead of just brand positioning
• Strategic problem‑solving instead of just creative execution

What we urgently need to change.

Sell creativity as strategic problem‑solving, not as aesthetic expression. Sell cross‑industry experience based on value, not give it away. That means building systems that reward unconventional thinking instead of punishing it; teams that intentionally add diverse perspectives; processes that allow experimental loops.

The core insight

The more standardized everyone else becomes, the more valuable the unexpected gets. AI optimizes for probabilities. It perfects the expected. The surprising remains human. But do we have the courage to break the vicious cycle?

The Kalmyks would laugh at this. For them, it’s obvious: you solve problems with whatever you have. Maybe that’s the most important job title: problem‑solver.

It appears in no job posting. It should.

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