Advice - On Creative Directors

My CD is killing me. His creative direction is unintelligible, he can’t sell concepts and he’s out the door before the clock hits six every day – leaving us to fend for ourselves. Morale is shot. Got any advice for the weary?
– Steve

Steve,
You sound a little like the last guy who wrote in—only without the dream job.

I’m glad you wrote in, because I’m pretty sure I know exactly what’s going on here. However, before I tell you what I believe the situation to be, I have a few questions that I need you to ask yourself about your Creative Director:

1. How is his appearance? Does he dress like someone far younger than his age—but not in a cool way, more like an uncomfortable and sad way?

2. Does he seem to be hanging out with new friends? For example, has he stopped IMing the Art Director he brought along from his last job in favor of a recent award-winning copywriter brought in to help on a couple of new projects?

3. Has he taken exceptional creative work and made reckless changes to it for no evident reason?

4. Do the deceptions in his messaging seem to be unnecessarily misrepresentative or outright fraudulent?

5. Have you noticed that he has a new and expensive cell phone, laptop, or bluetooth earpiece every time you see him? Does he appear to have an unlimited budget for extravagant personal items?

6. Are his eyes filled with streaks of PMS 186 and/or are they dull and unfocused like an uncoated sheet of cheap house stock? Is his skin a warm gray 1?

7. Does he regularly direct verbal hostility and hopeless frustration towards his creative staff, but none towards the client?

8. Does he often change creative direction in the middle of a project with no adjustments to the creative brief or explanation of the new direction?

9. Does he ignore feedback from you and others on your team and make his own haphazard decisions—usually at the last minute?

10. Does he mysteriously disappear in the middle of the day without giving anyone any indication of where he’s gone or when he’ll be back?

Now, if your answer to most of these questions was “yes,” I can safely confirm that my original assessment of your situation was accurate: this is clearly your first creative job. Welcome to the business, Steve.

Denver, I’m here to help,

Speedball