Diversity for a Reason

Now, I’ll be the first to say you shouldn’t do things just to say you’re doing them. Unfortunately, a lot of leaders that say they embrace diversity may be saying that simply because it’s what they think they’re supposed to say, without really managing diversity within their workforce in order to improve their firms. But if you understand what diversity means and how it can help you, you’ll discover just how powerful it can really be.

Diversity doesn’t just mean having a mix of men and women, or having people with different skin colors or different religions. What it really comes down to is having people with different perspectives. The point is not to meet some random quota, but instead to bring a range of viewpoints into your firm which can help you understand a broader cross-section of consumers, or provide a wider range of ideas for your firm. Factors like gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, economic class, marital status, education…all of these contribute to one’s perspective on the world, so finding a mix of these attributes can offer you a diverse mix of inputs to your business as well. Without diversity in your workforce you’re more likely to keep working along a narrow path, missing opportunities as they arise because your focus is so limited. In creative fields, that can spell death for a company.

When you’re hiring, try to look beyond the obvious features that signal diversity and instead listen to your potential employees during the interview process to see what they can bring. While asking questions that are too personal is a no-no, listen carefully to how they respond to the questions you do ask to see what they bring. If they offer a perspective that sounds different from what you’re used to, that should be a point in their favor. Expand your recruiting beyond the "normal" places to increase your chances of broadening your corporate perspective. For that matter, expand your recruiting beyond that which your competitors do, so you have a chance to pick up some of the talent they miss.

So in the end, that doesn’t mean you should try to set and meet quotas of so many men, so many women, so many gay, so many straight, so many Asian, so many Latin American…well, you get the point. What you should do instead is create a corporate culture that is open to all these different groups, that actively seeks out new employees from a variety of sources, and that makes use of these various perspectives, so you’re able to attract new employees, hang on to them, and get the most benefit from them.

Don’t celebrate diversity just because a bumper sticker told you that you should. Celebrate it because it’s good for your creative business. And remember that “celebrating diversity” doesn’t just mean having a statement about it in your employee handbook, it means nurturing a culture that sees diversity as the norm and takes full advantage of it.

Don't Be Surprised

Things happen that catch you off guard, and you can't always control that. Too often, though, you can, you just don't.

Very often we get signs that something is happening or a trend is developing, but rather than looking into how it can affect us, we ignore it. It's kind of like getting sick but refusing to go to the doctor...often, by the time you do, the problem is a lot worse than if you'd just dealt with it up front.

Why do we often ignore emerging problems or opportunities? A common answer is "I'm too busy dealing with reality to deal with 'maybes.' "The logic goes that you can't deal with every possibility, so it's easy to justify not addressing something.

But does "dealing with maybes" really take all that much effort? If you know a change is coming in your firm, in your market, or in your field, how much effort does it take to sit down with a few people and ask "what's the effect on us if this happens?" You may determine the effect is minimal, and not worry about it anymore. You might decide that it could affect you, but the response to that is out of your control. Or, you might figure out that there's something you can do to counter the effect, and maybe even keep a problem from occurring or encourage an opportunity to emerge.

That's the thing to do: think about what you can do, and then if it's feasible, do it. Perhaps you can keep a problem from popping up, shaping your environment rather than responding to it after the fact. If not, then maybe you can figure out how you'd respond to something if it happens, and then take whatever steps you can to mitigate potential bad effects or take advantage of opportunities. Sure, if you prefer, you can just sit around and ignore it, but if it happens -- whether good or bad -- you're going to have to respond to it anyway, so why not exercise some control over your response?

In creative fields your job is develop new things, so "change" should not be unique, and both problems and opportunities should be expected. Unlike workers in more static industries, your Creatives are creating change from within (if they're any good, that is). There are also plenty of changes that can come from the outside, which everyone faces. A friend of mine works in a fairly new division of a company, and a new executive is about to come in above them. "What if he decides to just get rid of our division? What then?," she asked her supervisor, who didn't have an answer. That's a pretty serious threat, so they need to be thinking about 1) how to keep that from happening, and 2) what they're going to do with everybody if it does,

Far too often we're surprised by things that shouldn't be surprises at all. We just need to get our heads out of the sand, or wherever we've stuck them, and take a good, realistic look at the world around us.

Take a Break

Work's fun, sure. I mean, it's what we all live for, right??? Yep, nothing better than spending 60 hours a week in the office. But still, no matter how much you enjoy spending hours and hours and hours working, sometimes it helps to take a vacation.

One of the benefits you can, and should, offer your Creatives is a good vacation policy. It helps you, because it gives them a chance to get away and recharge their batteries, helping them to be better when they're back to work. It can also be a useful salary alternative if you aren't in a position to pay higher wages. And of course it helps them, by giving them a break from work, allowing them to spend time building stronger relationships in their personal life which can translate into less stress in their professional life. Creatives can't be continuously creative, and it will help them keep their edge if they take a break on occasion.

What makes a good vacation policy? Well, to start with, give them enough time. The US government offers 13 vacation days a year to brand new employees...is there any reason you should be offering less? Start them off with a decent amount and allow that to grow with seniority. You could offer more time off as a bonus for exceptional work. Also consider allowing some unpaid time off in addition to their paid vacation, particularly as a way to deal with unexpected needs that arise.

You should also allow them to carry over some or all of their vacation from year to year. The potential problem with this is that some people will horde their time, denying them the benefits of vacation, so they can take it all at one -- potentially leaving you without an employee for an unacceptable amount of time -- or so they can get paid for it when they leave the company. But carrying over is important because sometimes people can't take their vacation. A friend of mine who's a stylist gets one week a year, but because he's trying to buy a house this year he can't afford to take a vacation. Rather than allowing him to carry over his vacation to next year the salon is instead forcing him to take it this year, which means he'll spend it around home rather than taking a real, and relaxing, vacation.

Have a "no communication" policy while they're on vacation. Leave the Blackberries at home (if you even feel the need for your Creatives to have those, that's kind of a shame) and don't do company work on vacation. Have them take the time to relax and get ready for the work awaiting them when they return.

Be flexible in allowing vacation time. Have your employees tell you as far in advance as possible so you can plan around it or identify any potential problems. Try to avoid having everyone take off at once, unless you're prepared to shut down the firm for a while.

Some companies take things a step further and have a "no policy" policy. That is, they allow employees to take as much vacation as they want, the only requirement being that they meet the goals that are set for them. As a leader, you avoid having to create and enforce policies while tracking employees' time. You and your Creatives are encouraged to develop clear goals and ensure they are met. You will most likely engender some loyalty from your employees because you are showing that you trust them, and while you face the risk of people abusing that trust, employers who've tried this method find that's pretty rare.

I know there are people who take pride in working so much they never take a vacation, but frankly, that strikes me as a pretty dumb attitude. Yes, there are times when you won't be able to take a vacation, but should you really be "proud" of this? To me, it often gives the impression that someone is incapable of getting their work done in a normal amount of time, rather than that they're really dedicated.

Bottom line: figure out how to best give people time off, and then do it.

Check Your Perspective

There was an interesting story today on All Things Considered about the impact of "social technology" in the workplace and the differences between generations. It got me thinking, and I figured I might as well think out loud here.

The story addressed people who stay in touch with such things as Twitter, Facebook, SMS, Blackberries, through blogs, etc. there was some pretty broad generalizing of the Millennials, who accept these things as the norm, Gen-Xers who have adapted to them, and Boomers who aren't big fans and tend to roll their eyes a lot. Their were some questions about etiquette, employee productivity, and different perspectives on what's appropriate in the workplace and what isn't.

Let me say this first of all: in a meeting, the electronics go off. If you're meeting with employees, whether one on one or in a group, they should be focusing on the discussion and not on a conversation with someone else. Frankly, I'm of the opinion the same is true in social settings...if you're out with friends, focus on the ones who are there, not the ones who aren't. (and yeah, I'm guilty of violating my own statement). Every new communication technology has led to etiquette issues, from talking on a speakerphone when you don't need one, to ensuring everyone in your subway car hears your cell phone conversation, to sending out an SMS during a job interview (though with regard to that last one...I mean, c'mon!). If you see your employees doing something stupid, you should counsel them on their behavior rather than letting them continue. If their parents didn't teach them, then sadly, maybe you need to.

There's also a concern that people are being paid to work, not to Tweet or update their blog or things like that. If you're at work, you should work, right?

Of course, that also suggests that if you're at home you SHOULDN'T be working, and the truth is, that dividing line has been blurred more and more in recent years (often by the same technology we'll talking about here). So it may be understandable that people who find themselves working outside when they're supposed to be on personal time may feel justified in using work time for personal issues. And honestly, how different is it to be talking on Twitter rather than talking around the coffee pot? Whether they're using the company's bandwidth or the company's break room, they're still using company property. Taking a break from work for a few minutes can help them reenergize and do better work in the end...that's why we allow coffee breaks and smoke breaks Where you need to step in is when the personal stuff becomes the norm rather than the break. And honestly, you don't need new technology for that problem to arise. I'm surrounded by three workers who span these three generations and they carry on all day about one thing or another having nothing to do with work (unless they're complaining about how hard they're working), and they're not using any technology at all.

You need to realize that your Creatives are often very collaborative by nature and may be using these technologies to share work-related ideas, ether within the company or with peers and friends in the same field. That can be a good thing and lead to better results, though you want to be sure they aren't giving away corporate secrets.

As with any technology, as with any method of working, the key question is "are your employees getting their jobs done to the best of their abilities?" If they are, but you find they don't need to spend much time working in order to do that, then maybe you need to rethink your structure rather than worrying about who's Tweeting. You may find these social technologies helping more than they hurt, but you might have to overcome some biases in order to see that objectively. And of course, this is more likely in creative fields than in, say, customer service. As one commenter suggested on the ATC story, You probably don't want to wait for the guy behind the counter at Subway to finish sending an e-mail before making your sandwich. But remember, if you're leading Creatives, you're working in a different world from customer service, and need to adjust your style accordingly.

Book Review: A Whole New Mind

In A Whole New Mind author Daniel Pink first outlines a bit of human history. He describes the Industrial Age, in which assembly line workers were the key, and the transition to the Information Age, when knowledge workers reigned supreme. Now he sees us moving into the Conceptual Age, where Creatives will be the main ingredient for success.

This, Pink argues, increases the need for right-brained thinking, not to replace the more logical left-brained thinking, but rather, to complement it. Success will come to those who can develop ideas, who can give customers the design or the story they desire, who can do more than just use current knowledge and instead will develop new knowledge.

The first part of the book describes the emerging Conceptual Age and highlights Asia, Automation, and Abundance as prime reasons for it. Asia, he argues, has taken over much of the industrial work and is now taking much of the knowledge work as well. Automation, which was at one time replacing assembly line workers, is replacing many knowledge workers now. In both of these cases the need has been created for employees to turn their attention to doing something beyond just manipulating existing knowledge. Abundance, he says, has put us (well, the developed world, anyway) in a state where, since we already have so much -- especially in terms of material goods, information, and leisure time -- customers are looking for something extra (e.g., unique design, a captivating story) to distinguish between different products and ideas. Whether he means to or not, he leaves an open challenge for readers to identify other factors underlying the shift to the Conceptual Age.

The second part of the book gets into the six "senses" that Pink says will guide our lives in the Conceptual Age: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning. He does a great job of explaining these concepts and demonstrating why they're so important, then goes a step further and helps readers understand how to develop these senses themselves. I have to admit, I started doing some of these exercises immediately, and within a short time I've found myself noticing things I never would have seen before, things that were always around me but which went unnoticed. Like his earlier book Free Agent Nation the author gets pretty detailed in his suggestions. He recommends individual techniques, useful books, and even some classes, and while not everyone can do that last one, for the price of a book Pink shares some of the key lessons he learned when he took them.

A Whole New Mind really helps introduce the reader to new perspectives. Creatives tend to be pretty right-brained anyway, and for them this book is probably most helpful in terms of putting into words what they already experience. For those who might not have such strong right-brain skills, especially those who may be leading right-brainers, Daniel Pink offers some great insights and exercises to help build those skills.

Communication Compromise

Plenty of leadership books will tell you "get out from behind your desk, don't try to lead through e-mail." But what if e-mail is what your employees prefer?

Your Creatives are more likely to flourish in a healthy work environment. Communication is one important piece of that environment. Simply applying a random management technique without worrying about whether or not it's appropriate may not work out so well.

At the same time, you can't change your preferred style of leading every time a new person shows up. Come to think of it, the more employees you have, the more diversity you'll have when it comes to how they prefer to communicate. So instead of just imposing one method or another, try to find something that you and your Creatives can all live with.

So, maybe relying on e-mail is the thing to do after all. Some people work better if they aren't interrupted and can deal with communication a few times a day, and so might not be bothered by the impersonal nature of e-mail. Others might like the "drop in," taking full advantage of your open door policy and expecting you to hit them up whenever you have something for them. Their need to stay on top of things, or hear things face to face, takes precedence over uninterrupted working time. Maybe, if they need the face-to-face but prefer to work without waiting for the next tap on the shoulder, they might want a scheduled time to check in with you regularly. And even though it might seem crazy, your employees might actually prefer regular meetings with the whole team. Just try to keep them in check.

When you're interviewing new employees, this is a good chance to let them know how you communicate, and see what they're most comfortable with. It gives them an idea what's going to be expected of them and allows you to see how well they can adapt to your organization's style. Maybe they'll be so far off that you aren't comfortable bringing them on board, though that's pretty extreme. But make sure it's a topic you discuss, whether in an interview or at least early on after they start at the firm. The first step in learning how to communicate best is to communicate.

Bigger Boxes

One of the earliest posts in this blog discussed how to think outside the box by building bigger boxes. It's nice to see the rest of the world catching up with this line of thinking.

In May the Boston Consulting Group published a report titled Thinking in New Boxes: How to Bring Fundamental Change to Your Business. The authors hit on some critically important points that address the need for "boxes" and the ability to move from old ones to new ones. A key theme is that humans need models and frameworks to function most effectively and understand context, and we need to simplify things when we can. By simply 'throwing away the box" you're left with nothing...no framework, no way to understand reality, no tool for integrating your firm with the rest of society. You need something, and though it can be different from what you had before, at least there will be a "box" there.

One important element of your box is how you view the purpose of your company. Are you a search-engine company or are you an information outlet? Are you a video-game developer, or are you an entertainment provider? Once you adjust the "lens" through which you view your firm, it opens up new possibilities. Maybe those possibilities don't interest you, and if so, you should search for a new box.

The authors provide a few examples of firms that have "re-envisioned" themselves, and you can see the distinction between different boxes. Then they get to the tricky part: turning theory into practice. Though this is difficult, they also suggest that when it comes to developing new ideas for the firm, 80% of the work is in finding that new box. Once that happen, the rest comes relatively easily.

I'd suggest a few things that will help you put this theory to use:

an educated workforce
a diverse workforce
a culture that encourages risk-taking and new ideas
regular influx of new ideas from outside the company

These are just a few things that will help, and they don't require much effort. The biggest effort may be in finding the time to get people together, put aside the day-to-day work, and really focus on box-design. But as a good leader, you shouldn't have any trouble getting people to do that, right? Right???

Corporate History

Having a sense of vision and a long-term focus for your company are important. Knowing where you're going is a good thing. Just as important is understanding where you came from. Your history guided you to your present and sets the stage for your future, so it's important for your employees to know about it.

This is more important for Creatives than it is for other workers who do repetitive tasks. Creatives are, by definition, creative, and they're going to be coming up with new ideas and taking your firm in new directions (at least, they will if they're good). For them to do that most effectively they need to understand your firm's goals and values and the relationship between the firm and your operating environment, and they need to know what's worked and what hasn't in the past, and more importantly, WHY they have or haven't worked.

Knowing how and why your firm began will tell your Creatives something about what's expected of them. Understanding the founders' vision for the firm and what they had to do to get it going will give them a clue about what's important. Now, if your firm is old then a lot of that is likely to have changed, and if it's huge and well-known, they may already know that sort of stuff (how many new Google employees need a lesson in Google history?). But in smaller or lesser-known firms, this kind of introduction is important, as it allows your employees to better focus their creative energy in a way that advances the company.

When your employees know how and when the firm started they can also understand what the environment was like in which the company began. Was it a new competitor in an existing market, or did it create the market? What was the technology like? How were the general economic conditions compared to now? What was it that allowed the firm to launch successfully, and are those factors still in place (or even still relevant) today? When your employees can see how things outside the firm have changed they can have a better idea what the firm needs to succeed.

Creatives will develop new ideas; after all, that's why you pay them. But not every "new" idea is really new. Sometimes they'll throw out something that's been done before but either didn't work, or did but is no longer useful. Or maybe their idea didn't work before, but conditions have changed so it's a great idea now. Only by understanding your history can they have a sense of which ideas are right and which just aren't.

You don't need to write a book about your company or teach some dry lectures. Just have a talk with new employees and clue them in. We have a new guy in my office who was sitting in a meeting the other day and I could see from the look in his eyes he had no idea what we were talking about, because you really needed to know the context and the nature of our relationship with another organization to get the importance of what we were discussing. I pulled him aside afterwards for about half an hour and have him the background he needed. Already, I can see the difference in his work.

For a little effort, you'll have a bunch of Creatives who are much better prepared to contribute good ideas.

The Best of the Best of the Best

Talking with someone recently, I heard him ask "wouldn't you expect your boss to be the best in the firm at what you do?"

Um, no. Personally, I'd expect that I'M the best in the firm at what I do. But that says more about my ego and ambition than my boss' abilities.

My real answer, though, is that I don't necessarily want a leader who's the best possible designer/stylist/copywriter/whatever. Instead, I want a leader who's the best possible leader.

This raised a good question: do you have to be more skilled than your employees in order to be their leader? My answer to that would be "no."

For one thing, saying who's "the best" among Creatives is a tricky proposition. How do you measure that? It's tough to find a way everyone agrees upon. Maybe you can divide people into "talented" and "untalented," but even that's an opinion. So don't worry about being "the best" because that's somewhat out of your control.

Another thing to consider is, if your creative skill was your greatest talent, then maybe you should be doing that instead of being a leader. You need to think about where you'll add the most value to the firm, and if you can do things in the creative realm that no one else can do, well then, maybe you need to be doing it and let someone else be the leader.

Of course, even though you don't have to be the top in your field, it helps to have some talent. You need to understand the requirements and capabilities of your Creatives, and if you're going to evaluate them you need to understand what they do.

One reason that people suggest the leader should be the best of the bunch is that it's the way you'll get respect from your Creatives. They'll look up to you because of your talent, or so goes the theory. But if they're getting screwed over by upper management while you're off doing better work than them and making them look bad in comparison, then respect is going to be hard to come by. What they'll really respect you for is being the best possible leader, who motivates them, protects them, and draws out their own best effort.

And after all, isn't that what you're getting paid to do?

In Sickness and In Health

Creatives are often very motivated people...and if they aren't, they probably aren't the ones you want working for you anyway. One problem with such highly motivated people is that they tend to work when they shouldn't, like, when they're sick. It's bad for them, and it can be bad for your business.

Employees who are ill aren't going to be 100% focused on their work. That's dangerous for assembly line workers, acceptable for bureaucrats, and debilitating for Creatives. Get them to stay away from work, rest up and feel better, so you'll get their full capability rather than some diminished capacity.

Of course, coming into work doesn't just hurt them, it puts the rest of your team at risk too. It's bad enough to have one person down with the flu, you need to try to keep it from spreading.

And if you're in a field where your Creatives work directly with clients -- hairstyling, say, or perhaps interior design, or something where consultations are the norm -- then you need to avoid getting your clients sick. Nothing will turn them off to your firm faster than to come in, get sneezed on repeatedly, then suffer with symptoms during the black tie gala that was the whole reason for getting their hair done in the first place,

How do you keep motivated people from coming in and putting themselves and everyone else at greater risk? If you're in a field where they can work at home, the answer is obvious, and many creative fields do allow you to work remotely. The hairstylist we mentioned earlier, unfortunately, doesn't have that luxury.

The issue of sick leave is a tricky piece of that. Many employees prefer to use their sick leave as paid time off for other things, then come to work when they've got a minor illness. How do you overcome this? Consider not having sick leave. I work for a place where we don't have sick leave, we simply don't come to work if we're sick. We're not charged time off, we don't have to dig into our annual vacation if we're sick longer than the company policy says we're supposed to be, and we don't use sick days for non-illness activities because there are no sick days. You may think, "well, then my employees will just abuse that policy and take off a lot of days they don't need" but you'd be surprised. Remember, the good employees are the motivated ones who work too much rather than too little, and if you've got employees who would abuse this and avoid work, do you really want them on your team anyway? If it makes you feel better, add a little clause to the policy that says that anyone who does abuse the policy will be fired.

Illness in the workplace is a bad thing. Do what you can to limit the effects when people do get sick. You can't avoid it, of course, but you can minimize the disruption it causes and end up with the best work your Creatives have to offer.

Don't Press That Button!

My dad used to have a little sports car, an Austin Healy. I don't remember every detail about that car but I do remember a little label he had right above the ignition key: "Engage Brain Before Engaging Engine"

A similar reminder would be useful above every computer screen: "Rethink Before Hitting Reply."

Many of your Creatives, especially the millenials among them, have grown up with the free flow of information courtesy of that box on their desk, a flow that is now enhanced by smart phones and facilitated by social networking capabilities. Even as they decry the government violating their privacy, they send all sorts of personal things into the cyberworld that can never, ever be taken back. It's one thing if they're students in high school or at college; the person who gets hurt the most by their mistakes is them. But once they work for you, you're also liable to take a hit.

Email is the easiest way to screw up...hitting Reply All instead of Reply is a good way to send a bad message about someone directly to that someone. In many creative firms you're likely to be using group work, and so people may grow accustomed to using Reply All for online discussions within the team. That habit may extend to non-team emails, and that's when trouble is likely to occur. A good rule of thumb for your office is to use Reply All as the exception rather than the rule.

For that matter, it might be useful to keep group projects out of the email realm and use in-house capabilities, like a wiki or Sharepoint or something along those lines, to conduct your internal business. Emails have a way of leaking out, sometimes intentionally and sometimes accidentally, and that's a good way to see your internal information go out to the wrong people...like, say, your competitors. More on that in a moment.

A last point about emails: the content. If you spend any time at all following the news you know that people often put things into email they think no one else will ever see. Bad idea. You have to assume that any email you send will be sent by the world. Let's face it, once sent they never, ever go away. Lots of people have grown up operating in an electronic medium, sharing the deepest thoughts, starting and ending relationships, and generally doing many things by SMS and email instead of doing them face to face. the problem is, after a while, people might forget the specifics of a real-life discussion, but electrons never die. A suggestion for your employees: if you wouldn't want your mother to read it, don't put it in an email or a text.

As for sending stuff outside your company...Creatives often like to share ideas and get others' opinions, and given the mobility inherent in many creative fields, the people whose ideas they're soliciting might not be in the same firm as them. That might not stop them, but you've got to make sure it does sometimes. It's possible your Creatives could be sending out proprietary information that could end up hurting your company. Don't leave it up to their judgment, because everyone's judgment was formed in different ways, and they may not be thinking about the same risks as you. You need some kind of policy about what can be sent outside the company and what can't, and make sure your Creatives understand that.

We need our electronic communication...20 years ago, we apparently didn't know what we were missing, but now we do. But every good thing has a potential downside, and our electronic tools are no exception. Don't just assume your employees know the right way and the wrong way to share information...take a moment and give them your thoughts on the matter so everyone can handle it the same way -- safely.

How Much is Enough?

A friend of mine in Malaysia had an interesting Facebook status today:

"someone wants me to hire him... and teach him everything I know... -.- why doesn't he pay me?"

My friend is a designer, working in films and television and doing the sets for photo shoots. He's had a lot of work lately and needs an assistant, but this one applicant wasn't quite what he had in mind.

When you're hiring new Creatives you'll rarely find someone who already knows everything you want them to know. You may have to set aside time for on-the-job training, or even send them to a class. At a minimum you should expect some time getting used to the job before they can do everything they promised you in the job interview.

With that in mind, you still need to be careful just how inexperienced they are. If you're recruiting an employee for the long run and you can afford inexperience, this is your chance to grow a new employee from scratch. But if you need someone who can start contributing right away, you can't afford someone with no skills at all. Make the job requirements really clear in the job announcement and the interview, and

When someone comes to you and says "I'd like to work for you, please teach me everything you know," it does seem a little strange that they'd be learning from you, but you'd be paying them rather than the other way around. True, everybody has to start somewhere, and it's always seemed like a Catch-22 when you need experience to get a job but you can't get experience until you have a job. It's fun to be a mentor, it's fun to have an apprentice, but sometimes you just don't have the time for all that. One of your functions as a leader is to figure out what kind of new employee you need to hire. Figure out what and who you need at that time, and choose wisely.

And if you want, let THEM pay YOU for a change.

More on Foreign Experience and Creativity

We recently suggested here that there might be a correlation between creativity and living in a foreign country. In a recent issue just last month, The Economist picked up on the same study and offered some additional insight into it.

The article, "Expats at Work," suggested that

Anecdotal evidence has long held that creativity in artists and writers can be associated with living in foreign parts. Rudyard Kipling, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Paul Gauguin, Samuel Beckett and others spent years dwelling abroad. Now a pair of psychologists has proved that there is indeed a link.

Take that last statement with a small grain of salt. A study doesn't "prove" a hypothesis, it just supports it and, if tested enough, provides some validity. Remember, even if you test something 500 times, you'll never know what would have happened that 501st. So they've demonstrated a link, but haven't proved anything.

The study also didn't just focus on creativity as relates to Creatives. Of the two samples, one of them dealt with "creative negotiating" which, while certainly an opportunity for creativity, doesn't really fit our definition of Creatives as those who create something that didn't exist before.

In our post in April we suggested there was no real discussion of the direction of causality, that is, whether overseas experience enhances creativity or if creative people are simply more likely to try living overseas.

To check that they had not merely discovered that creative people are more likely to choose to live abroad, Dr Maddux and Dr Galinsky identified and measured personality traits, such as openness to new experiences, that are known to predict creativity. They then used statistical controls to filter out such factors. Even after that had been done, the statistical relationship between living abroad and creativity remained, indicating that it is something from the experience of living in foreign parts that helps foster creativity.

It's an interesting study, and having learned more about it now, I'd still stick with our earlier suggestion: looking for employees with overseas experience can provide you with more creative employees.