Professionals who provide a service — such as lawyers, doctors and designers — often receive feedback from their clients, patients and customers. But what impact does this feedback have on the integrity and autonomy of a professional’s work?

Researchers Siyin Chen, a former Rotman PhD student and an assistant professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s School of Business and Management, and Rotman professors Marlys Christianson and Chen-Bo Zhong, explored this question in a study published in Administrative Science Quarterly.

The study looked at porcelain artists in the city of Jing De Zhen, known as the porcelain capital of China. While the artists previously worked with agents and distributors to sell their art, in 2014, the government pushed to make the country’s cultural and creative industries more accessible to the general public. That led to the opening of street markets and night markets where customers could interact with and purchase goods directly from artists. “Overnight, porcelain artists were pushed from insulated galleries into street markets flooded with tourists,” Chen says. “I wanted to understand: How do experts preserve their identity when clients gain power? It’s a tension every professional feels today.”

Government reform made for an ideal scenario for the researchers to learn more about how exposure to more critical feedback from clientele who are largely uneducated in the artist’s medium impacts their work. Chen conducted a qualitative study, following 67 porcelain artists between 2017 and 2019. She visited their studios, interviewed both artists and clients and observed interactions between artists and clients to see what patterns emerged.

The researchers discovered that artists feel a conflict between the purity of their art and the need to make a profit from it. “This led to tension between their own vision of what their art is and should be, versus what customers demanded,” says Zhong. “Maybe the shape is not practical or the colour is not popular. [Artists] have a choice of whether and how to incorporate this feedback."

Artists who successfully navigated this tension balanced artistic integrity with market demands, the research found. First, successful artists “decomposed” their work into distinct components to determine which core elements defined their artistry. For example, one might be known for the thinness of his porcelain or another for her unique glazing technique. Then, artists could differentiate the core elements of their work from peripheral aspects (Chen calls this step “distilling expertise”). For example, perhaps the artist is less attached to the size or shape of a vase or teapot that they make.

The end result, according to the study, is that artists translate client feedback and incorporate it into their work to complement, rather than compromise, the outcome. “This allows artists to maintain the integrity of their artistic vision,” Zhong says. “But they’re able to modify their product to heed the demand of customers.” Artists who offer context about the core elements of their skilled work also found greater success. For example, a customer who complains about cracks in the glaze might be told about how the cracks are intentional and derived from a technique dating to the Song dynasty.

Chen also observed that artists who struggled to incorporate client feedback might undergo a “decoupling” of their original work to create a separate identity for themselves, which caters more to market demands. For example, an artist may develop a new brand or name for their commercial work to protect the reputation of their “real art.”

“This lets them survive financially but risks what the artists themselves called ‘schizophrenia,’” says Chen. “One artist confessed: ‘I feel like a sellout in the day, an artist at night.’"

While the study is focused on porcelain artists, the lessons are applicable to most client-provider professions, Chen says. For example, physicians decompose their expertise into core elements (such as diagnostic accuracy, treatment efficacy and patient safety) versus peripheral aspects (like tone when discussing sensitive topics or their approach to handling patient anxieties). “They let patients steer the latter while guarding the former,” Chen says.

For artists and other professionals struggling with incorporating client feedback, the researchers offers a few tips. Clear communication with clients makes a difference — for example, identifying and naming non-negotiables early. “Artists who articulated: ‘this technique defines me’ gained client respect,” Chen says. Professionals can also explain why the core elements of their work are important. “Clients complied more when given context,” says Chen.

Lastly, Chen encourages artists to reframe the idea of “selling out.” Instead, it can be viewed as a collaborative process that results in creative solutions. For example, one artist who painted flowers on a colour-rich but toxic glaze, had a client request for smaller, more practical items. Teacups would pose a safety concern, but painting on a lighter glaze would compromise the artist’s work. So the artist instead designed chopsticks with their signature motif on the upper half and bamboo on the lower half for food safety. “The artist transformed client feedback into ideas that resonated with both his artistry and the client’s desires,” Chen explained in her paper. “[Professionals can] see client-collaborative works as derivatives, not compromises.”

Liked what you read? Subscribe to the Rotman Insights Hub to get more HR best practices delivered straight to your inbox every other week.