The always-smart Seth Godin writes about the two ways to work with talent: giving the blank slate mission, where you have folks do their thing and hope for the best; or the well-baked and defined mission, which is more predictable in its output. On the results:

The strategic mission takes more preparation, more discipline and more difficult meetings internally. It involves thinking hard without knowing it when you see it.

The clean sheet of paper is amazing when it works, but involves so much waste, anxiety and pain that I have a hard time recommending it to most people. If you’re going to do this, you have an obligation to use what you get, because your choice was hiring this person, not in judging the work you got when you didn’t have the insight to give them clear direction in the first place.

Perfect. The client who wants the designer to just do their thing but doesn’t have time for frequent input is an impending disaster.