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.

Be Open to Bad News

The idea of "shooting the messenger" was first expressed by Shakespeare, or so says Wikipedia. But in a nutshell, the leader who lashes out at the poor subordinate who got tagged to report bad news is wasting time, and wasting messengers. Don't be that leader.

Many leaders say they want open communication in their workplace, but very often what they really want is open "top-down" communication. That's important; a leader needs to communicate a vision for the organization, provide clearly defined tasks, and offer constructive feedback even when it isn't all happiness and sunshine. But "down-top" communication is equally important, just for different reasons. Your Creatives need to know they can come to you with bad news. If they don't, and you never learn about problems, you won't be in a position to fix them until it's too late.

When your employees come to you with problems, especially if it seems to be their fault, your first instinct might be to blame someone. Try to restrain that urge; focus instead on fixing the immediate problem, and then the actual cause. In fact, you should look at having your employees fix it rather than taking on every problem yourself. If you try to handle everything, that just encourages your employees to dump everything on you.

This isn't to say you shouldn't look into who's responsible for causing a mess. You need to, in order to help avoid future problems. Also, you might find a pattern of mistakes or neglect, which might mean that person has got to go. But looking for who's responsible should be one part of solving problems, not an end unto itself. Your first priority is to deal with whatever's wrong.

Now, once you appear open to receiving bad news and hearing about what's wrong, then you need to brace yourself to actually hear it. Creatives often tend to be very opinionated (shocking, I know!) and won't hold back. You're liable to get some very spirited discussions. Be clear about wanting them to feel comfortable coming to you with problems but also wanting them to do so professionally. Still, you need to have thick skin, and be able to respond logically and rationally rather than purely on emotion. While openness is essential, letting it devolve into arguing is going to create strained relations in the workplace, and you don't need that.

Make sure your Creatives know they can bring you bad news and get the problem addressed. Don't have an attitude that encourages them to keep problems to themselves, or you'll have people updating their resumes and calling recruiters because they know what's going on while you don't. Keeping "who's dating who" a secret is no big deal, but keeping "we're about to go bankrupt" a secret is.

Divide and Conquer

You've got a project coming due. The task requires multiple skills to get it done and numerous eyes to check the different parts and make sure they fit together. Because you're such a great recruiter of talent you've got a collection of Creatives who can tackle any challenge. They're all very talented in their primary skill and they know enough about what others do that they can function very smoothly as a team. With these folks working for you, how could you possibly screw it up?

Well trust me, it's easy. Just because you have the right people doesn't mean they have have the right leader.

When you have multiple people on a project you need to be the traffic cop that keeps them from running into each other. With all these talented people you need to make sure they know who's responsible for what so they put there skills to use in the combination that's best for you. Without a proper division of labor, you'll never accomplish all that you're capable of achieving.

A friend at a graphic design firm offered a good example. Tasked to create a website for an online retailer, a group of Creatives needed to handle background design, product presentation, textual contact, payment systems, and other artistic and practical matters. A good team was in place, but their boss had an unfortunate tendency to go back and forth with people individually, talking to them not only about their specialty, but about other aspects of the project as well. There had never been an effective "kick off" to the project, so nobody was really sure how they should divide up the work. When the boss talked to someone about some aspect of the project, that person figured it meant they were somehow responsible for it. At various times there were different versions of the site floating around as different people thought they were responsible for different things, and no one knew quite what was expected of them. The end result was a missed deadline, a website that required way too much debugging, and a visual experience that was unlikely to draw in new customers or attract repeat business.

How can you avoid this?

First, have a good start to the project by bringing the group together -- whether in person or electronically -- and spelling out the desired result of the project and a clear division of labor. Make sure people understand who's responsible for what. Encourage collaboration, but make it clear who is accountable for different aspects of the work. Get your people off to the right start.

Once the work is underway, make sure you stick to those lanes that you set at first. Don't go running off to Person A to ask about Person B's work, and don't be bouncing ideas off Person B that you should be discussing with Person C. Don't confuse your Creatives...they have enough to worry about.

If you find you need to make a change once the project's underway, then by all means do so. But if you do, you need to make that clear to everyone. Otherwise, you're liable to have multiple versions of a product being created, and the final result won't be as good as what you could have done if you'd kept everyone on their proper path.

You generally have enough work to go around; if you don't, you might have too many people working for you. Divide it up, task it out, then let people do what you've told them to do.

You can still screw up the project, but at least it won't be for this reason.

Private-Sector Diplomacy

Much of your leadership occurs inside the firm, but you need to be looking at your relationships outside as well.

The recession has affected firms' relationships with their customers. In many cases, your efforts to cut costs may have reduced the quality of your customer service. If you've missed deadlines or turned out products that aren't hat your customers were used to, then you'll need to work to regain their trust.

You may also have seen a negative impact on your relationship with your pool of potential employees. Maybe you had to lay off employees, and will need to be hiring more Creatives once things are better. But the simple fact that you laid off people in the first place may have given you a bad reputation, leaving potential employees wary of coming on board. You need to fix that, too.

An interview conducted this summer by the folks at McKinsey Quarterly addresses how firms can work to repair their reputations with different stakeholders. You should consider not only customers and potential hires but also your current employees and your shareholders, if any. The idea is to take some of the concepts governments use in "public diplomacy" (think of this as the "winning herats and minds" kind of thing) and apply them to private businesses. Public relations specialist Richard Edelman, interviewed by McKinsey, discusses it far more eloquently than I can, so go hit that link and watch the interview (also, I don't want to be accused of plagiarizing...just go to the source!)

Economists and government officials are saying the recession appears to have bottomed out and things are getting better, but the recovery will be slow. If so, we all have some work to do, so let's get at it now rather than waiting around. Fixing your bruised relationships is one key part of that.

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.

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.

Professional Writing

I know from personal experience that the best way to learn about something is to teach about it. But that's not always possible. It can be tough to get out and find the time to teach a class. It can be even tougher to find a willing audience.

Another option, though, is writing. When you write, you don't need your audience sitting in front of you. In fact, you can get many of the benefits of teaching regardless of whether anyone's reading.

There are a lot of great benefits that come from writing, especially if you do it on a regular basis, though you can still get a lot of advantages even if you just write occasionally. Writing forces you to stay current in your field, so you're not suggesting ideas that have already been overtaken by new ones. In doing so, it also encourages you to be thinking of new ideas yourself, so you can present interesting original thinking rather than just writing about others' concepts. The feedback you get on your writing can spark even more ideas, serving as a virtual brainstorming session. Finally, from a broader professional perspective, you have the opportunity to share your thoughts with your peers and advance your field...just don't give away ideas to your competition that let them get ahead of you!

Of course, regular writing also improves your most basic communication skills, and that's never a bad thing.

One last point: professional writing offers a way to advertise your firm at no cost to you. And it does it in a way that shows you not only know what you're talking about, you're also not lacking in self confidence.

How do you get out there and write? Well, while you could write a book, that probably shouldn't be your first project. Look for professional magazines and journals in your field that accept unsolicited articles and essays. You could also look at writing a regular column about your particular field for a local newspaper. And of course, the easiest way to break into publishing: write a blog.

There are lots of things you probably shouldn't be doing during work hours, but professional writing isn't on that list. Don't feel guilty about taking time to do this during the day. You're improving your skills and advertising your business...both of those are pretty important for any successful firm.

By the way...all of these ides apply as well to your Creatives as they do to you. So encourage them to give this a shot, too.

Happy Songkran!!

April 13-15 is the celebration of Songkran in Thailand. A new year festival, it is also celebrated in Laos and Cambodia at this time, unlike Chinese New Year (known as Tet in Vietnam), which is a lunar new year celebration in late January or early February.

So hey, since it's a holiday in Southeast Asia, why not give your employees a holiday??? Is it possible you might have some Thai/Lao/Khmer Creatives in your firm who might like to spend the day getting soaked with water with their family?

A recent article in Diversity-Executive magazine points out that many firms are bad at cross-cultural communication within their own firms. In fact,

Organizations tend to lose out on the opportunity to capitalize on a variety of business impacts — such as improved recruitment and retention and having access to new ideas and business practices — when they don’t carefully navigate intercultural workplace issues.

So, even though it seems like taking an extra holiday might cost you money, think about how much money you might be losing by not taking that holiday, and generally ignoring the diversity within your workplace.

Getting Your Point Across

Two guys are driving through Florida when they hit the town of Opa-Locka. It's getting late so one turns to the other and says "why don't we find a place to stay here in Opa-LOCK-a?"

The other says "Fine, but just so you know, it's pronounced 'O-PAL-ocka.' "

"No," says the first, "it's Opa-LOCK-a."

"Uh uh," says the other, it's O-PAL-ocka."

They go back and forth like this for a couple miles..."Opa-LOCK-a!" "O-PAL-ocka!" "Opa-LOCK-a!" "O-PAL-ocka!"

Finally they decide to settle it and stop at a small shop in the middle of town. They walk in and ask the lady behind the counter, "Excuse us, ma'am, but how do y'all pronounce the name of this here place?"

She looked at them like they were idiots, leaned forward, and very slowly and deliberately said, "KRIS-py Kreme."

Moral of the story: if people don't understand what you're asking, you won't get an answer that helps you.

While top-down communication is of course important for a leader, you can't forget the importance of clarity in your one-on-one communication, too. Any leader needs to be able to communicate well, but when you're leading Creatives you've got a couple unique hurdles to jump.

First of all, creative fields aren't always straightforward. In engineering you've got laws of physics and in accounting you've got a set of generally accepted principles, but show the same hairstyle to two stylists and they're likely to explain it in different ways. Creative fields have a lot of "fuzzy" aspects to them, and many things are known through intuition and feeling, which are just hard to explain. The problem, though, is that you have to frame questions and statements in a way that other people understand what you mean even though the language may not always seem sufficient for getting your point across. It's always important to remember that our employees aren't mind-readers, no matter how convenient that might be on occasion, so take that extra moment to be sure that what you're want to say is what they're really hearing.

You also need to remember that you're dealing with people who don't always think in a straight line. Creatives' minds tend to go off in many directions and they simply may not be in tune with your way of thinking or see things from your perspective, so something that seems clearly obvious to you may be hidden from their view. This is especially true in a firm where many specialties co-exist...an advertising copywriter may not think the same way as the graphic designer on their team, but you have to communicate with both of them.

That raises another point: you may have to interpret for two or more Creatives who are having trouble communicating. Don't be afraid to step in -- politely -- if it sounds like your employees aren't getting their points across but YOU can understand what they mean. In the end it's up to you to clear up any confusion between your Creatives. Remember that scene in This is Spinal Tap after Ian, the band's manager, has taken Nigel's drawing of Stonehenge and returned with something "in danger of being crushed by a dwarf"?

Ian Faith: Nigel gave me a drawing that said 18 inches. Now, whether or not he knows the difference between feet and inches is not my problem. I do what I'm told.

David St. Hubbins: But you're not as confused as him, are you? I mean, it's not your job to be as confused as Nigel.

David, sedated though he may have been at that point, got it right: It's a leader's job to clear up confusing communication, and when you're working with Creatives, that's often going to be a challenge.