Some of us will enforce the above rules of collaboration as policies and others will view them merely as helpful guidelines. For many of us, considering adopting policies is akin to a claustrophobic person considering entering a coal mine. One of the costs of creativity is the abhorrence of routine—the dislike of systematic ways of thinking and behaving. This characteristic of our hardwiring that contributes to our creative problem-solving abilities keeps us from establishing policies on how we work. It causes us to perpetuate the process void, that by implication, we invite the client to fill.

While we dislike routine, the client—and ultimately, any consistency of success—demands it. We must, therefore, reconcile ourselves with the fact that routine will be imposed. Once we accept this we can face the question, “Would we prefer to have routine imposed on us, or would we prefer to be the ones who take the lead and define the rules of the engagement?”

There will come a day when we are happy to hear from the client, “Ahhh, of course!” instead of the previously desired, “Oh—I love it!” On that day we will know that we have been working collaboratively and we will know that our addiction is behind us. Then we can work on removing the presentation from the buying cycle, taking us one step closer to eliminating the pitch.