Mad Men

One of the Leading Creatives crew sent me an interesting question:

"Completely random but regarding the blog: have you considered tying it into Mad Men in some way?  Given the popularity of the show, you could review parts of certain episodes by looking at the management style of Sterling Cooper.  Things are a bit different now, of course...just a random thought that I'm throwing out there."

An interesting idea, and one I'll consider.  The only logistical problem is, I don't watch the show.  The crew member who wrote does, and I asked him about writing some posts himself, but he's in grad school and already has enough writing to do.

But this gets away from my real question, which is: can we learn about leadership from television?

The answer is a definitive "maybe."

Both fictional shows like Mad Men and "reality" shows like Project Runway or Top Chef may provide some useful case studies, or starting points for discussions.  The fictional shows can be useful for seeing problems, though you need to be careful about adopting the solutions they come up with; remember, they've got a team of writers figuring out how to resolve a situation in 60 minutes with time for commercials, so they might not be too relevant in the real world where you operate.  With the reality shows, well, if nothing else you can see some of the personalities you might be facing and you can be thinking about how you would deal with them.

One advantage to using a popular show as the basis for this blog, or for your own in-house training or even discussions with peers, is that it provides a common frame of reference.  Lots of people might not have read Daniel Pink's latest book (even though they should) but they may well have seen last night's Mad Men.

So yes, if I can make time for it after my other shows (I'm not sure how helpful Lost and Family Guy would be for this blog) I may try and do some writing around Mad Men's themes.

And if anyone else wants to take a crack at it, let me know!

Mellowness

One of the things a friend pointed out during our trip to Lisbon was how laid back the Portuguese are.  "Mellow" was the word he used, a word I haven't heard often since, oh, 1979.  But it was an apt description of a pretty relaxed population that didn't seem to take themselves too seriously.  They had a nice style about them, they seemed pretty chill (though you don't want to get between the older ladies and their afternoon pastries and espresso!), and you don't see the running around and craziness of a Washington DC or London or many other capital cities.  The locals just seem to enjoy life, and yay for them...more people should.

That mellowness comes with a price tag, of course.  Though in the past Portugal was the home of many important explorers, the Portugal of today seems more content to let the rest of the world do the discovering and exploring.  Google "Portugal" and "Nobel Prize" and you only find two (Literature in 1998, Medicine in 1949).  You don't see too many inventions coming out of Portugal, though one of their contributions to the world -- port wine -- just might make up for that.  The Design and Fashion Museum didn't have a lot of homegrown exhibits.  It's easy to think there's a trade-off at work: less energy equals less creative output (or at least, less commercial creative output).

If this is the case, then you may have to consider a similar trade-off in your firm's culture.  A laid back, relaxed, mellow company might not have the energy to take on competitors or build new business.  You may not do cutting-edge work, you might not land the big clients, you may not make a ton of money...and that might be OK.

There's nothing wrong with having a less profitable, but more fun and relaxed firm, IF that's what you want.  If you don't have money at the top of your list of goals, then you might be able to afford to take a different attitude, one with a better work-life balance in the company.  But if you want to have a mellow approach AND make lots of money, that might not be viable.  As the boss you need to figure out what's most important and move your firm's culture in that direction.  And you need to make it clear to potential employees what your goals are and what kind of approach you expect; hard-chargers who come into a very chill workplace will be disruptive, and probably feel underchallenged.

Many people will tell you that your first priority should always be profit.  Very often, though, when people offer you advice about how you "should" do things, they're basing that advice on their own plans and desires.  That doesn't help.  Your best bet is to dismiss the advice of people who don't understand your priorities, then make sure YOU know what those priorities are and how to achieve them.  Make sure, too, that you're aware of the implications of those choices and are willing to accept them. If you're not, your priorities might be out of whack.

For the record: a mellow workplace is sounding pretty good right about now.

Oops

Due to some unfortunate problems involving Lufthansa Airlines, a broken cargo door switch, a large glass of orange juice and a small rubber duckie, we're going to run without an entry today.  Check back Monday, m'kay?

What is Design?

The Leading Creatives crew is still in Lisbon, and we spent Sunday at Museu do Design e da Moda (the Design and Fashion Museum). Rather than being filled solely with Portugese design history, the museum has a wonderful collection from the 1930s to today of clothing and interior design examples from around the world.

Separating design styles by successive decades allows you to see development over time. What we saw today raised an intersting question: is design -- be it fashion, interior, hair, graphic art, whatever -- an evolutionary process, in which designers take what exists and build upon it, or respond to it, or counter it? In other words, does design grow over time based on what has come before? Or, instead, is design primarily a revolutionary process, where the same ideas may continue in different forms for a period of time, only to be replaced by flashes of inspiration that lead to a new style that has no relation to what came before?

Discuss.

Job Descriptions

When you move Creatives into new positions, especially if they have leadership and/or management responsibilities, you need to give them a clear job description. Otherwise, they might not know what they're supposed to be doing, and no one else is likely to know, either.

Some leadership positions are pretty easy to define. Lower-level leadership, however, might be a little tougher. What role does a Junior Art Director play in an ad agency? What responsibilities does a Lead Stylist have at a salon? What does your Second Assistant Director do on your film project? If YOU know what you expect of them, but nobody else does, then you're sure to face a lot of confusion.

The people in these positions need to know what they're supposed to do. What are they responsible for? What authority do they have to get it done? Understanding what they HAVE to do and what they CAN do is essential for anyone in a leadership role. This is especially true for your Creatives as they make the transition into leadership for the first time. If they've spent years developing their talents as individuals, but now are responsible for other people, you need to give them some pretty clear guidance.

Other employees need to know what these leaders are responsible for, too. To whom do they go with a problems? Who can tell them what to do, and who can't? If they get conflicting guidance from different leaders/managers, whom should they follow? Things get pretty sketchy when your employees aren't sure who's in charge of what, and that kind of confusion can slow down the creative process when people aren't really sure what their expectations are. Make life easier for your employees by clearly defining the roles of the leaders under whom they work.

Even your non-leadership positions should have a clear job description...after all, people need to know the expectations and requirements under which they're working. It really becomes critical, though, for people in leadership positions at all levels, because they've got more responsibility, and they really need to know what that responsibility is.

Exploring European Attitudes

The LeadingCreatives crew is going back on the road, this time to Lisbon, Portugal. Having spent lots of time in Asia, it'll be interesting to learn more about attitudes and cultures on the other side of the globe. We're looking forward to learning!

Don't Leave Decisions to Chance

One of your biggest jobs as a leader is to make decisions. Yes, sometimes it's hard, and yes, sometimes people don't like you very much afterwards, but that's what you get paid to do. If you try to pass that off, you're not doing your job. Simple as that.

We're not talking here about little decisions, like "where should we go for lunch?" This is about important decisions that affect the direction of the company, or affect people's lives and careers. Don't pass the buck to others, and DEFINITELY don't leave it to chance.

One way leaders pass it off is by having employees vote. This is what we call "a bad idea" for a number of reasons. First, you will set a precedent, and once people get a taste of voting they're going to start expecting it; the next time, when you actually make the decision yourself, you're going to face a serious backlash. Next, when employees vote they often are focusing on their particular role in the company, and their vote will likely reflect that. Remember, it's YOUR job to deal with the big picture, not theirs. They could come up with something that takes your company way off course, and you really can't do anything about it since you ceded the authority to them. About the only thing worse than having a vote is having a vote and then ignoring the results.

This isn't to say your employees shouldn't have a voice in decisions and shouldn't offer their input; they should. But there's a difference between making an input and making a decision. They can offer their suggestions, but it's up to you to make the final decision.

Another thing we see sometimes, especially with regard to training and other opportunities, is a lottery. That is, put everyone's name in a hat and pull out the winner, who then gets to go take a class or go on some company-sponsored trip or something. This is a total cop-out on your part. Leaders (and maybe I should put that in sarcasm quotes: "Leaders") who do this are trying to avoid having anyone get mad at them, but c'mon, all the good employees will be mad that decisions about them are being made by the laws of probability rather than by what's good for them and for the firm. You need to make decisions about people based on their talents, the company's needs, your employees' desires, and not just on the luck of the draw.

If you give up control over decisions you're setting yourself up for problems. Never mind that you're abandoning your responsibilities, you also may be about to lose control over where you go from here. Leaving important decisions to chance risks putting your company on a path for which you're not prepared, or may lead you to lose the very people you most need to keep.

If you're not willing to make decisions then what, exactly, are you getting paid to do???

Cross-Border Supervision

Having returned from Asia two days ago, the Leading Creatives crew is definitely feeling the jet lag. The 30 hours of travel to get home, though, offered plenty of opportunities for reflecting upon what we saw and heard.

Monday night in Bangkok I had dinner with an old friend who's in marketing, and who just started a new job with a domestic airline (among other things, he's responsible for the in-flight magazine, which I think is pretty cool). In his last job, in marketing for a popular international chain of gyms, he ran into a problem that Southeast Asia is going to need to deal with: cross-border supervision.

Here in the US we might think twice about having a firm being directly controlled by someone in another country, but it wouldn't surprise us if our boss was a few states away. After all, many large companies have regional directors, and there really aren't too many problems associated with that other than the lack of face-to-face conversation (and plenty of people see that as a plus!).

What we're seeing in Southeast Asia, as companies grow and spread into neighboring countries, is that the home office is keeping pretty tight control over operations elsewhere. This might not be much of a surprise if you think about it in terms of distance; flying time from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, for instance, is about the same as flying from New York to Washington DC, and it takes less time to fly between Singapore and Bangkok as it does to go from Chicago to San Francisco.

But while the distances between these places might be pretty small, the cultural differences between them can be pretty big. We don't think much about cultural differences between Chicago and New York, but there can be some pretty significant differences in business styles and customer behavior between countries. My friend pointed out that his boss was in Singapore, and "she didn't understand how we do things here." Gym clients in Singapore have different goals and expectations than do many gym clients in Bangkok, when you consider a typical client. The employees also have different styles of work and expectations about their own objectives. And then there's the language issue: "she expects all of us to speak English as well as she thinks she does, which isn't all that good anyway," despite the fact that, while English is commonly spoken in Singapore (which after all was a British colony less than 50 years ago), it's less prevalent in Thailand (whose residents will proudly tell you has never been anyone's colony).

This might not have much of an impact if we're talking about something like manufacturing, where techniques are simply repeated ad nauseum and once the employees know them they can pretty much function on autopilot. It has more of an impact, though, in knowledge-based work, and Creatives will certainly suffer if their bosses don't understand them. Cultural differences and lack of understanding affect your boss' ability to guide you and to understand the content or concept you produce. A product or outcome appropriate for one setting may not be right in another environment.

The solution really boils down to one of two things: greater cultural understanding, or decentralized control. Neither of these will be easy. Understanding the intricacies of one other culture is tough enough, and trying to really understand five or six or more is a real challenge. Loosening the reins of control will also be hard, as one common element across many Asian cultures is the expectation of strong centralized authority.

Tough though it may be to overcome some of the problems of being supervised from another country, the truth is that as firms grow beyond borders and as creative firms increase their economic power, something needs to change for Creatives to achieve their full potential. Being limited in your abilities because the person setting your goals doesn't understand you culture is sure to be frustrating, and frustrated Creatives don't create very well.

Asian Education

I've written before on the topic of education in Asia, but most of my experience comes as a professor in a Singaporean master's degree program. Now, I've seen it from the student's perspective, and I'm more convinced than ever that educational styles in Asia need to change to take full advantage of Creatives' potential.

I was in Bangkok on this trip, taking a week-long class. Now, my students in Singapore had told me about their schools -- the memorization and repetition, not questioning the instructor, providing an answer that followed a checklist rather than one that required real thought -- and I finally experienced it for myself. I thought I'd understood what my students were talking about, but now I really get it, and I understand why so many of them were hesitant to speak in class, at least at first.

That kind of style can work very well for training, particularly in areas where tasks are repetitious, such as in manufacturing or agriculture. Knowing what's required and developing a pattern of behavior is appropriate for something like that. But when it comes to education, where you're teaching people how to think and solve ill-defined problems, it's just not that helpful. The problems leaders face don't always have well-defined solutions; if they did, they wouldn't really be problems, now would they? And Creatives certainly don't design based on a checklist; that would mean they're only doing what's been proven to work before, not doing anything new, and that isn't really too creative, is it?

Many Asian teachers would tell you the system they have works fine, and has for a very long time. That's certainly open to debate, but what isn't really debatable is that modern economies have new demands. New skill sets are needed when you go from making a widget the same way a million times to designing new widgets, and so employees need new capabilities when shifting from an industrial economy to an information economy.

The need for new educational styles becomes obvious when you see the demand for overseas education among many of the best and brightest in Asia. In Singapore, for instance, a number of highly coveted scholarships are given away each year to attend prestigious schools abroad. Unfortunately for Singapore, many of these students find ways to get out of the requirement to return to work in Singapore, and instead try to stay overseas. If Singapore offered an education that was appropriate for these folks, rather than sending many of their most creative minds out of the country, they could keep them at home and reap the benefits of their abilities.

There will always be a place for rote memorization in education, and for many people this style of learning may be all they need. But if Asian countries want to develop and take advantage of the creative potential of their populations, they need educational systems that encourage individual thinking and true understanding, rather than just repeating what the teacher says and does. Failing to do so means they'll miss out on incredible opportunities to compete globally. Yes, Vietnam can keep making t-shirts and Malaysia can keep mass-producing computer chips, but if they want to do more, and do it well, they need to invest in education. Beyond investing, though, they need to divest themselves of some old ideas about learning that may not be applicable anymore, if indeed they ever were.

Hangers On Hanging Out

Every now and then you'll have employees who try to make a name for themselves by attaching themselves to every project in sight but not really doing any work.

Don't encourage this.

Their plan is simple: they want to get their name out in front of their bosses as much as possible so they become one of "those people" whom everyone knows. And so, they volunteer to "help" with a lot of different projects.

Now, with all the "quotation marks" around "various phrases" in "these paragraphs,' you can infer that I'm being a little "sarcastic." These folks aren't really trying to help anything, of course, other than themselves. They don't really do any work, but they make a lot of noise to make it look like they are. And in the end, when credit goes out or further opportunities arise, they're hoping to be in there with the people who really did put in the effort.

You need to shut these people down, because they're not just annoying, they can actually be detrimental to individual projects and to the firm as a whole. At the same time, you need to get them to channel their energy into real work, or else leave the company.

Why are these hangers-on such a problem? Well, they get in the way of people who are doing the real work and end up slowing things down. They often insist on getting reports from everybody else so they "know what's going on" and supposedly can contribute, but it's all for show. Not only do they slow things down, they may actually knock things off course when they feel the need to contribute ideas in order to look important, ideas that are based on only the most shallow understanding of the project, and thus probably aren't that great, but may end up getting incorporated. And yes, they can cause a morale problem that will have long term effects on your other employees. Nobody likes to see a slacker getting credit for work they didn't do, so if you reward (or even just ignore) this behavior, you're making more trouble for yourself in the long run.

What do you do with them? First, you need to pull them aside and tell them that, while you appreciate their motivation and enthusiasm for working on so many projects, you need them to focus their energy on something more specific. Assign them something that they're qualified to do, be clear about your expectations, then step back and let them do it. If they can do what you asked them to do, try to keep them focused on their own work and not everyone else's. If it turns out, though (as it too often does) that they aren't really prepared to take responsibility for their own work, then you need to look at letting them go. People like this get in the way of talented, motivated Creatives, and you really don't need them around.

In the end, you have people who want to work, and people who only want credit for work. The first kind of employee offers you a lot of benefits, the second kind brings nothing but pain. In order to focus your attention on the first kind (which is where you make your profits) you need to either fix, or get rid of, the second kind. Whatever you do, don't let them get away with it.

Don't Copy a Style...Create One

Creatives know that copying someone else's work is uncool. It may also be illegal, but to a true Creative that's far less important than the lack of ethics displayed by a copycat.

When it comes to leaders, you shouldn't copy either, but for different reasons.

When you take business classes, when you read books on leadership, and when you talk to your peers, you're going to be exposed to plenty of examples based on other people's experiences. You'll also hear lots of broad-based lessons, or fundamental principles that may help you. But you can't just take other people's experiences or a bunch of generic concepts and plug then into your firm and expect the same results. You're different from them, and your employees are different from theirs.

The trick is to take those ideas you think are useful and figure out how they apply to your situation. This means you can't just study leadership; you also need to study your firm. Also, as you try to implement the lessons you learn, realize that you may need to adjust as you go along. Be open with others about what you're trying to accomplish so you can get their feedback. What sounds like a great idea in the classroom may not be so great in the office.

When I was in Afghanistan in 2007, mentoring the faculty at a university in Kabul, they made it clear they wanted to adopt the structure and curriculum of a top American university as their own. I carefully pointed out to them that most of their faculty only had a bachelor's degree and they had very few textbooks written in Dari. Plus, universities in the US aren't dealing with an insurgency that threatens the country, and American students aren't worried about whether their village back home has been attacked. The differences between the two environments are just so different that taking an American style and plugging it into an Afghani university would be insane. And so, we found a happy medium: a curriculum and faculty structure that improved their capabilities, but in a way they could actually achieve.

My travels in Asia the last week have revealed a lot of interest in Western styles of leadership, especially the evolving ideas about how to lead in a knowledge economy. What I've suggested to these young, emerging leaders is that they not try to just copy the American style of doing things. What we do in the US doesn't necessarily work in Hong Kong or Thailand or Singapore...or even in Canada or England You need to consider the context in which you're trying to apply these lessons, and part of that context is the culture in which you, your employees, your peers, and your bosses were raised. People can't just shrug off years of culturalization simply to meet the demands of a new book on management practices.

Yes, you need to learn, but more importantly, you need to learn how to make it work.

Personal Credibility

In the military, when it comes to dealing with senior leaders (some of whom may not be perfect, believe it or not) there's an idea that "you don't have to respect the person, but you have to respect the rank." A similar concept holds true in private business: while employees might not respect a leader, they should respect that person's position and authority. So even a poor leader will have people doing what he or she wants, simply because that person is in a certain position of responsibility.

But wouldn't life be much better if they actually DID respect the person?

Your credibility with your Creatives is an important factor in getting them to perform at their highest levels. Following somebody because they WANT to leads your Creatives to better performance than following somebody because they HAVE to. If you can get people to do things only because of your position, well, that's good. But if you can get them to do things because they want to, that's SO much better. Your personal credibility with your employees goes a long way toward making a better environment for creative work.

So how do you get that credibility? Establishing it in creative fields may be a bit different than in other industries, and each particular field -- in fact, each particular company -- might require something different from you. But here are a few ideas to get you started.

Talent Creatives have talent, they know what's possible, and so they're more likely to follow someone else who displays comparable, or better, talent. You might have a different skill set but you need to be able to hold your own in creative endeavors, whatever the medium.

Ethics If people don't trust you, they won't follow you. If you're dishonest, good employees won't want to associate with you because they don't want to get dragged down when you get caught. Plus, if you'll cheat or lie to other people, they figure you'll do the same to them. People want a leader who is open and honest with them.

Communication Be open with people and don't hold back. If employees know you'll be straight with them, and will be accessible to them, they won't question you behind your back. Also remember that down-top communication is as important as top-down communication. They need to know they can come to you with small problems before they turn into big ones.

Respect Respect is a two-way street. If you want it, you have to give it. Just as you deserve a certain respect based on your position, so do your Creatives. Don't ignore their skills or what they have to offer, don't treat them like children or slaves, and take the time to learn what will make each employee perform at their highest level.

In talking with people in Asia this past week I've heard a number of people say that, while tradition and custom demands a certain level of respect for people in positions of authority, that hasn't often led to the best results. As leaders here start to break away from that traditional idea, and work to earn the respect of their employees, their employees' creative output is improving.

Your firm's performance is directly proportional to your credibility. Don't get the idea that, simply because you've attained a certain position in a company, everyone will do exactly what you say to the best of their ability. If you have that attitude, you might not keep that position for very long. And truthfully, you shouldn't.

Physically Fit

There are a few entries that I think bear repeating every now and then, such as this one on the importance of physical fitness. Fitness activities can help keep the creative juices flowing, give people the energy to work hard, and lower your firm's health care costs. Good fitness among your Creatives can increase revenues and decrease costs, which according to my calculations means higher profits for you. If you want those benefits, you should consider helping people achieve their fitness goals.

And I'm not just saying that because I ran the Hong Kong Marathon (again) yesterday.