Jobs as Education

I recently read a good book called Free Agent Nation, about working independently. The author acknowledged that there are times, especially when you're starting out, that working independently isn't really an option and you'll need to take a job working for someone else. He suggested using this job as an education to get you ready for the day when you ARE ready to go out on your own.

Hmmmm...

Leaving aside for the moment the discussion about working independently, how about this idea of the job as a form of education? Does that have any relevance for a leader of Creatives?

Well, yeah.

Encourage your employees to see their job as an educational experience while you adopt a role as a teacher (as well as a scheduler, manager, therapist, social director, and all the other things a leader has to do).

If your employees treat the job as an educational opportunity, they'll be more inclined to keep learning about new things, improving their skills, learning more about the broader field in which you work, and so on. Guess what? Better informed and better trained employees will turn in a better performance. That may be kind of a "master of the obvious" revelation, but there are other advantages, too.

Consider that as your employees feel they're getting more out of their job, they'll be more motivated to come in and get to work. After all, they're not just giving you work in return for a paycheck...they're actually getting something beyond the ability to eat and pay rent, and that's not always the case in a job. So you'll be creating a more motivated workforce.

You'll also be helping to create the next generation of leaders for your company. Some of your employees are going to want to stay at the technical level, and that's OK for them, but some will want to advance to positions with more responsibility. Encourage them to see every day as one step in that advancement, not in a "suck up to the boss, and oh, I take cream in my coffee" kind of way, but instead, in a continuously learning sort of way.

Some of your employees are going to take that Free Agent Nation advice and leave, whether to go out on their own or to explore other companies. But you know, as much as Creative people move around between jobs, there's a good chance they'll be back someday. By helping them learn now, not only will they be more excited about coming back and working with you someday, they'll also be better at it.

This isn't just for your employees, of course. You, too, should see each job as an education. Most of us don't have formal education in leadership, so you better take it where you can find it. Frankly, if you're not learning something from your experiences, it may be time to move on try something else. Why stay someplace where you're bored??

Lifelong learning is a useful habit to get into. It can occur in formal settings, but a lot of the most useful learning takes place through daily life. But you need to stay open to it, paying attention to what's going on around you, making connections between what you see today and what you saw last week. It doesn't have to take a lot of conscious effort; after a while, it becomes second nature. Encourage your employees to take this approach so they get a lot more out of their jobs.

And encourage yourself, too.

Dressing for Success, However You Define It

For decades, American business has demanded that men wear a "uniform" consisting of suits and ties while women wear appropriate (whatever that means) clothing equivalent to a suit, all to present a professional business image.

In the past few years, American schools have started shifting to uniforms to get rid of clothing "competition" and one-upmanship, especially between kids who really can't afford that Dolce skirt. Those schools without uniforms are adopting stricter and tighter dress codes.

So with this history of, and continuing trend toward, uniformity, should you demand suits and ties in your business?

No. Unless you're a funeral home, that is.

People need to feel comfortable at work for you to get the best results from them. If they're looking forward to the time when they can get home and get out of these clothes then their mind will be on something other than producing and they're going to leave as soon as they can. So much for meeting deadlines.

When you've got creative people working for you, you need to get used to the idea that their creativity extends beyond making money for you. Creatives tend to want to express themselves in their clothes, their music, their hairstyle, their various bits of metal stuck into various parts of their bodies. If you try to limit their expression then they're liable to go work for someone else who doesn't do that. As far as creating a professional working environment goes (the biggest argument for imposing dress codes), consider that the "professional environment" you want is one where Creatives exercise their skills. In this case, a suit and tie, or even a polo shirt and khakis, would likely be inappropriate. When's the last time your hairstylist wore a suit?

So be careful about imposing dress codes on your Creatives, and consider just letting them wear what they're comfortable with. If it's inappropriate, peer pressure will often take care of it, and if not, then you can always discuss it with the individual in a way that doesn't embarrass them in front of others.

Some of your people will work closely with customers -- sales reps, for instance, or hairstylists -- and if they're good at their job they'll figure out pretty quickly what kind of attire will make the best impression on the client. And if they're not good at their job, they shouldn't be working for you in the first place.

My last government position was in a big cubicle farm with few windows. Most of the people there were research analysts of some variety who never saw the light of day or, for that matter, anyone from outside the organization. There they sat, huddled over their desks, in their coats and ties. Many of them came to work in casual clothes then changed once they were there. Who, exactly, were they supposed to be impressing? Each other? One suggestion that was offered was to let people dress casually but keep a suit in the office in case they had to suddenly go to an unexpected meeting, but that never went anywhere.

I used to get my hair cut at Toni&Guy. Their stylists had to wear all white or all black. I didn't like the assembly-line feeling that came with a bunch of people dressed alike. And ask yourself: should hairstylists, who often work with hair coloring, be wearing white? There were many reasons that salon had a high turnover rate, and according to the stylists I talked to before I left, the dress code was among the top three.

Part of what you pay Creatives for is their creative judgement, so let them exercise it. And if you discover that someone has crappy judgement when it comes to clothes, that might tell you something about their judgement when it comes to work, too. Drop a hint (and not necessarily a subtle one) if something seems amiss, and if they can't figure it out, then consider letting them go if the bad clothing choices outweigh their contribution to the company. But stifling everyone with a dress code just because one person's an idiot is a bad idea.

Keep it Lean

I’ve spent my professional life in a large bureaucracy. The different organizations in which I’ve worked in that large bureaucracy have all been pretty fat, with a lot of “support” people. The logic behind a large support staff is that it keeps the worker’s doing the group’s primary function from spending time having to do mundane tasks, or from having to do specialized tasks that require unique skills they may not have. This makes sense…you pay your Creatives to be creative, not to configure web servers or process paychecks.

As I look down the road toward a major career change next year I’m inclined to go the independent route, and I think part of the reason is that I’ve grown tired of organizations that have grown fat with a large support structure that more often than not slows things down. I’ve realized there are things I can do myself, and even though they take up some time, in the end they’ll be done sooner and I can move on to more important things rather than waiting for someone else to “support” me. Of course, in these “fat” organizations, someone else has been given the responsibility and authority to do these things, so I’m required to wait on them.

Another option is outsourcing specific jobs rather than having in-house support. If someone is getting paid per job they have an incentive to get it done quickly (so they can move on to the next paying gig) and do it well (so they generate repeat business). If you have an in-house staff that’s going to get paid the same no matter how quickly they work, their motivation to get things done in a timely fashion is much lower.

Let me offer an example: a friend of mine is a software developer from overseas who came to the US for a few months to work. He had some immigration stuff to take care of that would lead him to spend about half a day away from the office. Rather than having him do that, his employer is sending one of their clerical workers to drop off and pick up the paperwork. So on Tuesday my friend handed his passport and paperwork to the HR person. On Wednesday the office worker headed downtown with it. Rather than picking it up again at the end of the day, she instead went back downtown on Thursday afternoon to pick it up. On Friday my friend got his passport and his employment paperwork back. During this time there were other things he needed to do – setting up a bank account, arranging the utilities for his apartment, giving some information to his apartment managers – that he couldn’t do because he was waiting for someone else for four days rather than just getting it done himself in one. Much of his “settling in” was on hold because he wasn’t able to do this simple administrative task on his own. While it was nice of the HR folks to try to spare him the hassle, and while it’s true there are plenty of people who would prefer to have someone else do such tasks for them, the truth is he would have been much happier if he’d just had the option of doing it himself.

You no doubt want to keep your Creatives focused on creative work, because that’s why you hired them. Administrivia can be a hassle and can pull them out of a creative fog just as they are about to develop a cure for cancer or come up with a slogan that gets people to buy more Red Bull. But is a bloated bureaucracy the answer?

First, consider what you as the leader can do yourself. Are there financial, personnel, or business development tasks that you can do as part of the “management” piece of your leadership job?

Second, are there things your Creatives can do themselves without spending too much time? If people know they’re responsible for something they can plan for it, minimizing the effect on their regular job performance.

Next, are there functions that can be outsourced? Things like bookkeeping, IT support, training, file management, and other functions might be better performed by an outsider who is paid by the job. It’s worth noting that if you have a full-time in-house staff performing a function that’s not needed on a continuous basis, they’re likely to come up with things to do just to keep busy, and that has the potential to slow down your operation.

Ask yourself, are all these support functions even necessary? Do you have administrative tasks that really serve no purpose? If so, get rid of them!

And finally, are there tasks that really do require in-house support? If so, then hire the right people, and make sure they do their jobs well.

Getting the right people performing your support functions can keep your organization lean, which in the end can reduce costs, improve efficiency, and increase overall effectiveness. If you’re going to hire a support staff, make sure it’s because you really need them, not just because you assume you do.

Recruiting Creatives

As the fall semester winds down and soon-to-be graduates get ready for a final push in the job search, it's a good time to reflect on your recruiting practices. How do you plan to bring new Creatives into your company? Obviously, you need employees, fresh ones and maybe some experienced ones to replace the folks you lose. Deciding WHO you want to recruit is a discussion for another time, but once you've figured that out, do you know how you're going to bring them in? The ideas below may be too involved for, say, a 4-person firm that doesn't really need a lot of people, but even they want to take advantage of talent that comes along. So there may be some good food for thought for everyone.

One thing you need to do is find a good way to get your message out. As you search for people with technical skills you'll want to look at schools where you can recruit, and not just colleges, but high schools and community colleges as well, unless there's some real requirement for a bachelor's degree in your line of work. Do some networking with career counselors at the schools as well as instructors in the fields you're interested in. You don't need an intense relationship with them, but from the career folks you can find out how recruiting works there and from the instructors you might get leads on promising students. "It's not what you know, it's who you know" often works for the bosses as well as the employees.

Go beyond schools, though. If you're in an artistic field, take a look at local exhibits and see if any artists catch your eye. If it's an interior designer you want, visit some high-end furniture stores and see who really knows what they're doing -- many aspiring designers start out in furniture stores to develop their skills. If you need hairstylists, stop someone whose hair you really like and ask them who did it. You need to get out and look at people's results, not just their transcripts.

Make sure your virtual recruiting booth is out there. You've probably got something up on Monster.com, but how about on Craigslist? More and more people are looking for jobs on Craigslist and Elance and such sites, and your competitors are probably trolling for them there, so you should be too. And even though you've probably got a website up, that's pretty passive...how are you drawing people to it? In a Web 2.0 world you are looking for people who can interact, so make sure your firm has a social network presence, with a group on Facebook or something like that which provides info about your company and encourages people -- recruits as well as potential clients -- to take a closer look.

Reaching recruits with your message is important, but more important is having a message worth broadcasting. You need to give some real thought to what you're offering potential employees. Of course, you need to be offering a pretty good job in the first place...no matter how much you pretty up something that sucks, it still sucks.

You either need to offer compensation that is comparable with others in your industry, or else offer benefits that make up for lower pay. One shift that seems to have happened is the idea of deferred compensation, whereby people work for low pay up front but gain ownership in the company so that someday (not too far away) they'll be rich beyond their wildest dreams. The dot-com bubble burst, though, as well as an increasing degree of turnover in the workforce, means many people would prefer to just get paid now, thank you very much, without worrying about ownership in a firm that might not be here -- or might be around without them -- in a couple years.

Today's Creatives want a chance to contribute something. They want to know that what they're doing adds to the company and isn't just make-work or administrivia. This was the basis for the US Army's Army of One recruiting campaign that has since gone away. Many people in the Army hated it because they thought it was emphasizing individualism instead of teamwork. But the beauty behind it was that it was saying "Hey, you...you can make a difference. We need YOU and what you offer, not just anyone." It basically told people they weren't going to be a mere cog in a huge green machine but instead would be contributors, and that's what the people whom the Army really needed wanted to hear. Tell people they'll be allowed to make a difference and the people who raise their hands are the motivated people you want working for you.

Another thing Creatives are looking for is the opportunity to grow professionally and personally, and develop their skills. As the line between home and work gets blurrier and blurrier, personal development is coming at work and professional development is continuing on personal time. you need to be able to show people that they're going to grow in your firm, not just by advancing up an organizational chart but by really developing themselves.

Many of your older workers, especially those with families, might be more attracted to a job with some stability, which they don't pan to leave because of family and financial commitments. For them you might want a dual-track system, one that focuses on developing the individual and one that develops managers and leaders. A small firm may not have this option, or may not want people who stick around, but larger firms should consider it.

The two key elements to recruiting are to have something people want and then get the word to them. In a way, you're selling the job to potential recruits, and if you think about it that way, you're liable to find the way to reach the ones you want.

Can Bureaucracies Be Creative?

Can bureaucracies be creative? Yes.

Will they? Well, that's another matter...

We have to remember that bureaucracies aren't designed to be creative. Instead, they exist to make sure that repetitive tasks that need to be done the same way each time get done repetitively, the same way each time. This is why creative people often avoid working in bureaucracies.

But even bureaucracies sometimes need evolutionary and revolutionary change. Evolutionary change, as the name implies, happens over time as the organization adapts to small-scale things. This might include changing some internal processes because of budget reductions, or meeting new legal requirements ("Yeah, did you get that memo about the new cover sheets for the TPS reports?"). Often times this can be handled by the bureaucrats themselves, though suggestion programs or "empowering" the employees.

Revolutionary change, on the other hand, comes about when a massive shift in your environment (usually external to the organization, and usually out of your control) takes place. In that case, the whole reason for your organization's existence may change, and your priorities and values may need to shift quickly as well. A private company may face extinction if it doesn't change, and even government agencies may face irrelevance and accompanying budget cuts, even if they're safe from going out of "business." When the shift from mainframes and workstations toward desktop computers started picking up steam, IBM was faced with a need to change its focus. When the Cold War ended, the US military needed to find a new role and claimed it was undergoing a "revolution in military affairs."

In this case, the repetitive-minded folks who are buried in your bureaucracy might not be in a position to see the need for change -- very often, all they see is their own little piece of the world. You need someone else to look at your group's role in the broader world and see what needs to change. You need someone educated, someone open-minded, someone interested in doing great work without worrying too much about exactly what that work is...you need a Creative.

And preferably, more than one.

Smart bureaucracies have these people. They might call them "Strategic Planners" or a "Red Team," or some other term to show they have a different role than the rank-and-file. They aren't better, they just have a different function. And it's a necessary one.

The organizational culture of bureaucracies is naturally resistant to change, so leading Creatives in a bureaucracy presents some unique challenges in terms of communication of new ideas within the organization and defining your vision for the future, as well as in terms of morale when your Creatives feel nobody's listening to them.

Still, while there are challenges to overcome, overcome them you must. A large company needs its Creatives to help them adapt to the little changes and survive in the face of the big ones. A government bureaucracy needs Creatives to help it understand how it's role changes so it can serve the public's needs. Creativity in a bureaucracy can be tough, but at times, it's vital. And with the right people, it's possible.

About 10 years ago, when I was working in a government agency, a friend complained about how hard it was to get new ideas through the system. Our boss said, "You're frustrated because you know you're doing work, yet it's hard to get it approved. But think about this: what if you were stupid...and it was EASY to get things approved?" We agreed that would be worse, but that still didn't make him feel better.

Visual Illiteracy

Do you see what's going on around you?

The environment in which you and your Creatives operate is dynamic and has many aspects to it. You need to identify these aspects and understand how they relate to one another. The reality of the world around you, though, is often clouded by your education, professional history, cultural background, and other experiences and biases you've picked up over time. What's obvious to you may be invisible to others, and vice versa. Something could be happening right in front of you and you might not be able to grasp the significance that others think is common sense. Even if you have perfect vision, you may not be able to understand what you see.

This visual illiteracy hurts your ability to plan for the future or respond to changes in the present. The term "visual illiteracy" usually refers to your physical ability to understand concepts presented visually. For me, though, I think it nicely describes the inability to understand the concepts surrounding us in our operating environment.

What causes visual illiteracy? Some of the problem comes from things you did. The history of your firm ("that's the way we've always done things") can be a big factor. Unique aspects of your cultural upbringing, such as a concept of lifetime employment, could color your views on personnel matters. And of course, your education plays a big role. A friend was telling me how Microsoft poses some intriguing questions in interviews just to see if you can think creatively. He told me one of them was "How would you move Mt Fuji?" There are probably all sorts of answers that can be derived from engineering, physics, or geology, but I studied public policy...my response, almost immediately, was "I'd change the name of the mountain to something else, and rename a different mountain 'Mount Fuji.' The names of mountains are arbitrary, and so now Mount Fuji would be somewhere else." Not a bad idea, if I do say so myself, but it points to the fact that I never considered anything buy a public policy response because I wasn't really trained in anything else.

But does this matter? I mean, as long as you come up with an answer to your problems, does visual illiteracy really have an effect?

Well, sure. In the first place, you might not even notice when a problem is emerging, until the effects become so obvious you can't help but see it, and by then it's likely too late. You might also end up ignoring some very worthwhile courses of action because they simply wouldn't occur to you, or you might turn down an employee's suggestion because you don't see how it could work when in fact it might be perfect. So yeah, you should assume this can hurt you.

So what do you do about it? Well, it's tough for an individual to get rid of all their biases, but you can try to break some of them. First, accept the fact that just because you've always done something a certain way doesn't mean it's still appropriate -- if you can really embrace that idea, you'll be ahead of the game. Try to broaden your mind by introducing yourself to new fields, whether in school or informally. If you write software, take an art class. If you're a graphic designer, subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. Read a book. Basically, do something that helps you think in different ways.

If you can't wipe your slate clean and start with a completely fresh outlook, that's OK...no one can really do that. Rather than ignoring what you know, complement it by surrounding yourself with people who think differently. This is one advantage of the team approach to problem-solving, but you blow that advantage if you surround yourself with a group of people with similar backgrounds. Shake it up a little bit, get a little diversity in your think tank, and remember that if you're going to work with other people, it's probably a good idea to listen to what they say, too.

Visual illiteracy is a bad thing for a leader. When you're responsible for long-range planning or for responding to emerging opportunities, you can't afford to miss things just because of your biases. Do your best to improve your understanding of the world around you, and while you're at it, take a few extra steps to mitigate the biases that remain. We all know that "the blind leading the blind" is a bad thing, so do what you can to improve your vision.

Two Types of Leaders

There are two types of leaders in this world.

OK, I'll bet there are a lot more than two, but for our purposes, let's say there are two.

When someone comes forward with a new idea, some new opportunity that has some benefit to the firm or to your field of interest or to society in general, and it's something outside the norm, then there ARE two types of leaders: those who figure out why you CAN'T do something, and those who figure out why you CAN.

If we've surrounded ourselves with Creatives, we need to consider that they're going to be, you know, creative. So every now and then they're going to come up with ideas that are different from what you've done in the past. That's the nature of a creative industry. If you want things done the same every day, you need a bureaucratic structure and you need to avoid hiring Creatives. If that's what you need, then go for it, but if you've agreed your industry demands creativity, then that's what you'll get.

When employees bring you something new to try, you've got a decision to make. Ideally, you have a lot of experience, know the history of your firm and the industry, understand the laws, are familiar with corporate polices, and in general, are omniscient (remember, we said "ideally"). Given that knowledge and understanding you can decide whether to proceed.

There are many leaders -- too many -- who will go through that knowledge and look through the policies and come up with plenty of reasons why it can't work. Some of them may be based solely on opinion, others may be in black and white in corporate manuals. They are specifically looking for a reason why it can't be done. Maybe they're just covering their asses or maybe they think they're protecting the company or maybe they're just too lazy to do anything else. After all, if they let you try something, it might increase their workload. Or, someone above them might not like it, so the easiest solution is to just say no.

But there are other leaders who recognize the worth of that suggestion and who will find a way to make it happen. They, too, can look through the books and find a reason they can't do something. But they'll go a step further and find a justification for why they can. Very often corporate policies may conflict, with one section allowing something and another disallowing it. The trick for this kind of leader is to actually do the research and do some thinking about how something can work...chances are that this leader will make something positive happen.

This sort of thing is common in the military. With so many regulations out there it's inevitable that there'll be some overlap, with Army Regulation XXX.XX saying you can't do something and Army Regulation YYY.YY providing an opportunity. The military is a bureaucracy, of course, at least in peacetime, and when you're controlling hundreds of thousands of people and using taxpayer money, perhaps you should err on the side of commonality.

But a business can't afford that, because if you say "no," chances are one of your competitors is saying "yes," and they won't just steal your customers, they may just steal your employee, too. Sure , maybe the answer has to be "no," but don't go into it with that as your goal. See if it's possible to say "yes" before turning someone down.

Larry Page was interviewed earlier this year in Fortune magazine and he bemoaned the fact that so many people just seem naturally resistant to change. Larry is not resistant to change. He's also a co-founder of Google, which hasn't done too badly. So he might be worth listening to.

None of this is meant to suggest you should say "yes" to stupid ideas, or to something illegal. But it IS meant to suggest you shouldn't say "no" simply because of some arbitrary rule that might be contradicted by something else. If an idea sounds worthwhile, pursue it, see if you can make it happen. This is one time when being a "yes man" is OK.

Mentoring Gone Bad

Mentoring is important in any creative field. It not only prepares the next generation of Creatives who will follow you but also encourages the creation of new ideas and knowledge and methods that will advance your field. But it's only useful if you do it right. Not everyone does.

One problem with the mentor-mentee relationship (my spellcheck tells me "mentee" isn't a word but really, don't you think it should be?) occurs when the mentor simply doesn't have the skills to be a mentor. Let's face it, not everyone has the social skills for good, one-on-one interaction. mentoring takes patience, good communication skills, and an ability to see things from someone else's perspective while helping them see things from yours. It's not uncommon for new leaders (and, unfortunately, plenty of old ones) to have not developed these skills yet. If you're new to the leadership game, maybe you should develop any skills you're missing before you worry about mentoring an individual.

A lot of people who would otherwise be good mentors simply don't have the time. You want successful people to be mentors, but one reason they're successful is they already work hard and may not be able to devote the time to a personalized relationship. If you can't, or know that you won't, make the time, don't take on a mentee. While they're waiting around for you to get to them, they could be getting guidance from someone else.

Bad chemistry is an unfortunate problem. Sometimes a relationship doesn't work out, not really because of anyone's fault, but because two people simply don't click. If that's the case, look around for a suitable replacement, talk to that person, and if it'll work out, suggest to your mentee that they might gain more from this other person. Friction in your relationship with your mentee will obscure any good advice you could be giving them.

Sometimes you get paired with someone with whom you have little in common. You write copy, they do graphics; you're straight and single, they're gay and in a relationship; you prefer Family Guy while they're partial to Harvey Birdman (why anyone would be escapes me, but still...); it could simply be that you have nothing either professionally or personally in common, so it's hard for you to understand their life and for them to understand yours. Once again, a replacement would be a good idea.

Mentoring someone who reports directly to you, or over whom you have some authority, is tricky. Part of mentoring is encouraging them to take risks and try new things, and if you're the one who writes their performance report or adjusts their salary, they might be hesitant (and you might factor in things that you wouldn't have seen if you hadn't been their mentor). The best thing is to mentor someone outside your direct authority. That's tougher in a small form, but important if you can do it.

And like we said a couple weeks ago: don't try to date your mentee. Seriously. Bad things will come of it.

If you know the relationship with your mentee isn't working, cut the cord. Find them another mentor who can help them and is appropriate for them, and then either find yourself another mentee or step back from the mentoring business for a while. Sometimes, the circumstances are such that this particular relationship isn't a good one. And sometimes, you just suck at it.

Of course, if you're not a good mentor, you probably should be asking yourself what you're doing in a leadership position in the first place.

Do You Really Want to Be a Leader?

The traditional way of business is "up or out." That is, if you don't advance up the food chain, moving from employee to manager, well, you must be be doing something right.

But in the creative fields, it's time to rethink that philosophy.

Consider this: you've spent years going to school, practicing your technical skills, learning about what works and what doesn't, developing new ideas, building a reputation...and now you're going to watch other people do that while you manage the budget. Is that really what you want to do?

For many people, it is. Leadership is a challenge, and many people who get a taste of it -- whether by being in charge of a team working on an ad campaign, or maybe having fond memories of being a Boy Scout patrol leader when they were 14 -- want more. Truthfully, leading other people is one of the most challenging things you can do in business. You can still have the chance to use your creative skills but now you can also use your experience to help others grow. If you're one of those employees who says "if I were in charge, things would be different," this is an opportunity to put your ideas into practice. It's a way to continue learning and growing in a new way, and if you're someone who gets bored easily then maybe doing something new is exactly what you need to stay excited about your chosen line of work.

But if you see yourself going into a leadership role simply because you feel you HAVE to, then you're making a mistake. If this isn't something you really want to do then don't do it, because it takes a commitment to do it right, and if you don't feel that, then you have the opportunity to screw up in a big way. I mean, if you're a solo employee you could mess up your own work and have an impact on, say, a single project, but as a leader you have the chance to screw up EVERY project. And if you're high enough up in the hierarchy, you could even bring down the business. So don't get into it unless you really want to.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with staying in your field as a creative expert rather than as a leader. Lots of stylists are content not to own their own salon, plenty of interior designers are only too happy to have someone else handle the budget while they go out and design. If you want to commit yourself to your craft, then do it.

Now, there may be a price to pay: in many traditional business models the leadership gets paid more because of the increased responsibility. If you're in that environment then recognize you might not make as much as you otherwise could. But if you make more money while making yourself unhappy, is it really worth it? If you're willing to accept less money in return for enjoying your work more, that seems like a fair trade.

Some businesses are getting smart and moving away from that model. They realize that the rules for pay should be different for different specialties. Rather than encouraging someone to leave behind what they love and what they're best at, the smarter creative firms will reward their Creatives who become amazing at their craft while leaving the leadership to those who are more interested in that. With such a model they're more likely to end up with leaders who want to lead and Creatives who want to create.

Bottom line: before becoming a leader, ask yourself, "is this really what I want to do?"

Keep Meetings in Check

Last week I suggested you should use meetings to communicate more effectively. And I meant it. But people, there's a limit.

Meetings are very important for getting information out to your employees and clearing up any confusion so they can focus on their creative work instead of on whether or not the company's about to go under. But don't fall in love with the idea that these folks are sitting at your feet waiting for great wisdom to spout forth from you...they just want to know about the latest benefits package, or something. It's easy to fall into the trap of calling meeting after meeting after meeting, and letting them drag on and on and on, but DON'T DO IT.

Some bosses have meetings because they don't know what else to do, and if they can go home at night and say "wow, my day was just crammed with meetings," then they can feel like they accomplished something even though they probably didn't. And of course, some employees like to sit in meetings because it beats working. How often have you sat around listening to someone talking about what they should be doing instead of actually doing it? Try not to be that person, OK?

Work rarely gets done in a meeting. They are designed to pass information and to discuss issues, not to get things done. There are exceptions, of course, like when you have a team project and you need to come together to make some decisions or finalize a project, but most meetings are designed for information transfer. So go into a meeting with low expectations for getting work done.

I had a government boss who was deputy director of our division. We had meetings every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for an hour at a time. This was so he could be updated on the work we were doing, which of course we hadn't we hadn't done much of...because we were sitting in meetings. Do the math: 3 hours (sometimes more) in meetings is nearly 10% of a 40-hour work week. That's a lot of wasted time.

After a year and a half with this supervisor, working in a very bureaucratic division, he and some of the rest of us broke out and created a strategic planning group with him in charge. Finally, we'd gotten out of the mundane, inbox-to-outbox world and stepped into some long-range thinking. What was his first decision? "We're going to have meetings every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for an hour at a time." Uh uh. I told him "you can have as many meetings as you want, but pick the ONE you really want me to come to and I'll be there." (the advantage of a government job is it's really tough to get fired for talking back to your supervisor) Oh, and these were just the "administrivia" meetings -- we'd also be having "focused sessions" to explore different issues. I told him that when I needed other people to sit around and talk about my project instead of working on their own, I'd let him know (once again, thank goodness for job security).

One other point about this boss and then I'll move on: he used to answer the phone during his meetings. Never never never never never do this. Do not waste your employees' time by calling them for a meeting and then conversing with someone who's not there. Trust me, we were NOT impressed by how important he was. If possible, turn off the ringer on your phone. If you really don't think you can ignore the phone or e-mail for very long, well, there's your incentive to wrap this up quickly. Personally, I like the attitude of a law firm in suburban New York that has banned electronic devices, including Blackberries, during important meetings (which makes me wonder: if the meeting is unimportant, why have it in the first place?). Get in, get it done, get out, and then worry about other stuff.

If it seems I'm opposed to meetings, I'm not. I'm opposed to unnecessary meetings, to meetings that last too long, and to people sitting around talking about work but never actually doing any. If you're working in a factory or in some bureaucratic office, people might enjoy going to meetings because it gets them away from the mundane work they're doing, but if you've got creative people who are excited about their work, the last thing you want to do is derail that enthusiasm with two hours of stories about your latest vacation.

The first collection of Dilbert comic strips was called Always Postpone Meetings With Time Wasting Morons. If you can, let this book be your bible.

Where Do Creative Ideas Come From?

I came across the following article by Darren Rowse at Problogger. This is a great blog and back in 2007 he had a few posts specifically on nurturing creativity. As you try to develop your creative employees you should consider encouraging these ideas as ways to come up with new ideas. Some of these involve breaking old ways of thinking and they are likely to require some practice, but as you develop these skills in you and your workers you'll move ahead of your floundering competitors.

1. Evolution

When new ideas come as a result of building upon previous ones. This is very much a step by step process where at each step the progression in ideas very small but where over time it is significant.

A great blog related example of this has been the evolution of most blogging platforms, like WordPress which periodically updates it’s features - building each time on what they previously had.

Most bloggers enter into this evolutionary process every day with their blogging - taking previously expressed ideas (both their own and those of others) and extending them.

A good question to ask yourself when entering into this evolutionary process is - ‘how could I improve (insert thing to evolve here)….?’

Evolution isn’t the ’sexiest’ of the methods that I’ll talk about here - but it’s probably the most common way of creating new ideas.

2. Reapplication

When you look at something old in a new way.

The exercise that I did with participants in my presentation to illustrate this point was to give each person a fork and to tell them to come up with as many new uses for a fork as they could in 2 minutes.

Most people start that type of exercise somewhat paralyzed by their previous boxing of forks - but breaking outside the box can lead to some interesting (and sometimes useful )discoveries.

A question to ask - ‘how could I do XXX differently?’

3. Synthesis

Where two or more existing ideas are combined into a third new idea.

This is one of my favorite ways of being creative. I like the challenge and possibilities that it can bring.

This is what happened that fateful day that someone wondered what would happen if they combined the idea of a theatre and a restaurant together - theatre restaurant.

It’s this Synthesis that I think we’re seeing more and more of in the blogosphere at present as people combine blogs with other types of websites (forums, video, audio, job boards, chat rooms etc).

A question to ask when entering into synthesis - ‘how could I take the benefits of XXX and combine them with the benefits of YYY’?

4. Revolution

Where a completely new idea that is markedly different from a previous one is developed.

An example that comes to mind is of a blogger that I recently met who used to be an email newsletter marketer. He found that his newsletter lists were becoming less and less effective so decided to move from newsletters to blogs - reinventing (and enlivening) his business in the process.

His goals didn’t really change but his methods did considerably.

A question to ask - instead of asking ‘how can I make XXX better’ one might ask - ‘what could I do instead of XXX to achieve the same goals?’

5. Changing Direction

Where there is a complete change of focus.

This is a fairly radical process for a business or individual to take and generally involves wiping a slate clean to rebuild from the ground up.

A question to ask in this case - ‘if we could start over - how would we do things differently?’

I’m sure there are other ways to be creative (and I’d be interested to hear your suggestions below) but the above five might make a good place to start.

We often think that people are either creative or they aren't, but that's not entirely true. While there is certainly some innate talent, like any talent it improves with training and practice. Find ways to develop these attitudes in your employees and watch their creative skills improve.

Minimizing Drama

Put a group of creative people into a room. Challenge them to do outstanding work. Demand that they use all of their skills. Give them a tight deadline. Provide some guidance, then step out of the way.

If you've got a good group of people you'll get some really good results. It'll be tight, it'll be what you wanted, it may be better than you hoped for.

But along with good results, you'll probably get a lot of drama on the way.

Why is that? Why is it that when you put a bunch of skilled, creative people together you end up with catfights, gossip and innuendo, and occasionally some screaming and hair-pulling? Where do all the drama queens come from? It's so common that we expect it...no one sees the interpersonal conflict on Project Runway or America's Next Top Model and says "oh, that's SO unrealistic." But the only way to deal with it is to understand where it comes from.

First of all, consider that the really good people are going to set high standards for themselves. As a result, they probably expect everyone around them to meet the same standards, and when that doesn't happen, conflict erupts. (I know I'm guilty of this a lot) Also, if anyone does anything that might keep them from meeting those high self-standards, then that person is viewed as a problem and is dealt with accordingly.

One reason people feel comfortable setting high personal standards is because they think highly of their own skills. So if there's any critique of those skills, any hint that someone else thinks they aren't as good as they thought, the defenses go up immediately and instead of listening to something that may be constructive (or might not have even been a critique) you get two people either talking without listening to each other, or not talking at all (it's tough to tell which is worse).

In a lot of cases you bring together people with a mix of skills. That's obvious in something like website design, where you've got coders, designers, content providers, ad people, and so on. But even in a hair salon you're likely to have people who specialize in color vs hair, or in mens' cuts vs women's, and they will all have their own view on how things should get done based on the perspective they bring. If those various opinions differ, well then, you get conflict.

Not only do your employees bring different skills, they also have different options available for using them. In a bureaucracy, where everything will get done tomorrow the same way it got done yesterday, you don't have a lot of choices to make. But in a creative environment where things could get done many different ways there will be as many opinions as there are options. When someone's path doesn't get chosen you've got the opportunity for some drama right there.

And of course, people are often drawn to creative endeavors because they have a particular temperament that's suited for it, and one aspect of that is often a flair for the dramatic. Alas.

So how do you deal with it? How do you keep the drama to a minimum? Well, you need to realize it's pretty likely to occur and deal with it in advance, before behavior patterns get established, feelings get hurt, people storm out, lawsuits get filed, etc.

Bring your employees together and see how well they mesh.

Try to keep people who despise each other away from each other.

Help them learn about each other's strengths, and about individual work styles, so they don't get surprised later.

Nip the problem in the bud by making it clear during hiring interviews that this is a drama-free zone.

Have an opportunity for feedback and constructive dialogue so people can vent their frustration in a less confrontational way.

Discourage (but don't prohibit) inter-office dating.

Given that enclosed spaces can lead to high tensions it can be tempting to think that having remote distance workers will solve your drama problem. On the one hand it can reduce the face-to-face screaming, but it can also increase the behind-the-back whispering (or texting). You also miss out on the bonding that can occur between colleagues which can reduce friction, and further, you can limit the opportunity for people to learn about and understand each other's particular talents, which could also help minimize the conflict.

Whatever happens, do your best to keep your drama away from your customers. That's not what they're paying for and they don't want to hear it. Be honest, do YOU want to hear a cashier complaining about the long hours he's working or a flight attendant going on and on about how horrible passengers are? Does it inspire confidence in a client to hear the hairstylist say "I could just kill everyone in here right now!" while holding a pair of recently-sharpened shears? No no no no no. Whatever internal issues are going on, once the client walks into the room it's time for smiles on everyone's faces, or else a quick boot out the back door.

And finally, don't be afraid to let people go if they are more trouble than they're worth. At the same time, bear in mind that if they're worth it, you may have to put up with some screaming and hair-pulling. Such is life.

Bottom line: drama is a part of life but it's not inevitable, and it CAN be managed. And if all else fails, maybe you can just work them so hard that they're too tired to complain about anything.