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.

First, Do No Harm

The Hippocratic Oath says "First, do know harm." Google says "Do no evil." I've been known to say "I don't need you to help me...I need you to get out of my way."

Before you worry about how to motivate your Creatives, you might want to focus on not demotivating them.

One of the great advantages of leading Creatives is that they tend to be passionate about what they do. They've got a talent, they get to use it...that's pretty cool. Not everyone gets a career like that. So odds are they're already pretty motivated before you walk in the door and try to lead them. You probably don't need to motivate them too much, so you might think instead about things you do that could wreck that motivation.

What might you do wrong? Well, micromanaging is generally a bad idea when you've got talented people working for you (and if they aren't talented, why are they working for you anyway?). Ignoring their suggestions (which is different from "listening but not agreeing") will give them the feeling their unique talents aren't recognized or appreciated. Failing to get them the resources they need will make them wonder why they put in the Creative effort when you don't seem to be doing your job.

In the US we've started to figure this out over the past few years. We've gone to flatter, less hierarchical organizations so we don't have extra layers of leadership and management getting in the way of Creatives. We've started recognizing individuals' abilities rather than just the number of years they've been with the company or the pieces of paper they've earned. And we've finally begun to realize that telling people they're doing well when they really aren't is more damaging to morale than honest feedback is, because let's face it, people aren't stupid, and they know when they deserve praise and when they don't.

Expectations are changing in Asia as well, and with that change comes the potential for leaders to mess up and reduce creativity rather than promoting it. As creative industries grow, young Creatives have seen the way some other nations are going and they want their countries to go that way too. Whether they've studied abroad or just read about working conditions on Twitter, they want their leaders to give them the tools they need and then step back rather than acting in an authoritarian way. They know what's possible, and if they don't get it, their motivation may drop and their efforts may not be as strong. If the traditional relationship between elders and juniors doesn't change, those juniors may not turn in the quality they're capable of producing...or, they may just leave the country altogether, a phenomenon that a number of countries are seeing already.

So when you go looking for books on motivation techniques, stop and ask yourself if that's what your Creatives really need. When it comes to Creatives' motivation, you've got a better chance of screwing it up than you do of increasing it. So for crying out loud, be careful!

You Don't Have to be a Star

When you go into a leadership role, it doesn't have to be all about you. And when you're leading Creatives, it really shouldn't be.

An article in Friday's Washington Post addresses the evolving need for less emphasis on THE leader, and more emphasis on leadership. Juana Bordas writes in "Holdin' Out for a Hero" that "everything a leader accomplishes is only possible because of the many contributions and good effort of his or her people and supporters." She writes further that

leadership today is transforming from a hierarchical form based on the military model to a more collaborative, participatory, people-oriented one. Leadership is moving from the one to the many. Even the military now has tactical and strategic leadership that moves down the ranks...Perhaps it is time to lay to rest the "great man" theory of leadership and stop looking for a hero.

Many people come into a leadership position thinking they're going to save the day, or make the big change that will transform the company. But anyone who's leading Creatives needs to recognize they can have a much more powerful effect if they allow their employees to exercise their skills and their initiative, rather than trying to do everything themselves. Your Creatives have skills you don't, they have ideas that never occur to you, and if you don't let them have a voice, you're wasting a lot of talent.

This isn't to say that you put every decision to a vote, or that you have a meeting every day to discuss whatever issues have arisen in the last 24 hours. Leadership by teams can take much too long. What you should realize, though, is that in a creative firm your role isn't to come up with all the answers yourself, but instead is to harness the talent at your disposal and keep it focused. Instead of always telling people what to do, maybe you should be getting them to tell you what they CAN do.

Remember: Superman could always do more when he was fighting evil alongside the Justice League rather than when he was on his own.

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.

Finding Inspiration in Unlikely Places

Creatives need inspiration. Maybe something to get them into the right frame of mind, maybe something to spark some specific ideas about visuals or textures or sound, inspiration can be a starting point or a nudge in a particular direction. Part of your role as a leader is to create an environment where inspiration can happen...you can't always BE the inspiration, but you can help your Creatives find it.

We often think of inspiration coming from positive sources...something noticed on the street, an overheard remark, your Creatives' inner passions. This is a big part of why you should create a work environment that allows these things to come through, whether it be by keeping things casual, or allowing your Creatives some flexibility in dress or work location, or creating a workspace that encourages discussion and collaboration.

But does every inspiration need to come from something positive?

Probably not. In fact, inspiration could come from the lack of something as easily as it can come from the presence of something.

An issue only becomes a "problem" when there's a solution for it. If you look at how the government works, you rarely see policies being developed out of the blue. Instead, they're presented as solutions to a problem. Drug research and medical advancements don't happen because people are healthy, they occur to fix something that's wrong. Your Creatives may be inspired by something they don't like as much as by something they do. If you see a videogame with bad graphics or a dumb storyline you may be inspired to create something better. A bad haircut begs for a better one. Those design shows on HGTV? They don't exist because people are happy with the way their living rooms look. Help your Creatives understand where their positive contribution can help correct something negative.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Just as they can be inspired by something they see, your Creatives can be inspired by something they don't. A gap, and empty space, something that should be there but isn't, can lead your Creatives to fill that gap. Your role is to help them see the gaps around them. Encourage questions and study and discussion. Give them time to turn away from the tasks you've given them and let them pursue some interests of their own, because wherever their passions lie, that's where they have the best chance of noticing that something seems a bit off, a bit empty. Encourage them to get away from their desk or their computer or the salon and see what else is out there...and, more importantly, what isn't.

You can't lead your Creatives around by the hand. If you need to do that, then they aren't very creative. What you should be doing, though, is creating opportunities for them to explore the world to see what sparks their creative spirit. Make sure they know not to just look for the obvious stuff jumping out in front of them; if that's all they consider, their creative output will be pretty run-of-the-mill. Instead, encourage them to look at sources that others might not see...that's the best way for you to get an original product from them.

Put Down That Phone

Multitasking is so common we don't even bother using the term most of the time...it's just the norm. While we're working we're used to e-mailing, chatting online, tweeting, listening to music, surfing the web...and this week's introduction of the iPad offers us yet another tool for occupying our minds with multiple things at once (my goal was to be like every other blogger and mention the iPad at least once...mission accomplished). Creatives are used to this, and often won't think twice about having multiple tabs open on the computer with only one of them being work-related.

We've gotten used to the idea that multitasking allows us to do so much more. But a study last year at Stanford University tried to figure out what was so special about people who could multitask a lot, and instead discovered they couldn't do things as well as people who stayed focused. Rather than finding an ability to concentrate on many things at once, they discovered an inability to concentrate on any single thing.

Obviously, this isn't what you want from your Creatives. We've accepted the idea that having multiple inputs tends to increase creativity, but instead it may be that our Creatives are too distracted by all the details to be able to finish their work in a timely fashion or with the quality we hope for.

So how do you keep this from having a negative impact on your Creatives' work? Well, you want to be awfully careful about blocking access to Facebook and Twitter, or making policies to keep people from multitasking. Not only will you create a lot of resentment, but you may have individuals who really can handle all these things at once (remember, study results like these look at results across the board rather than at specific individuals). A better option is education, letting your Creatives know about this study and discussing it, and encouraging them to figure out for themselves what works best. In the end, you really need to evaluate them based on their results, rather than how they get them. Give them the latitude to figure out what works best for them, and if the result is lousy work, then they need to deal with the consequences. But at least give them enough information to make that decision.

Just because people think multitasking doesn't have a negative effect doesn't make it so. Help your Creatives do their best work by helping them figure out what's best for them.

Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure: I'm typing this with both Facebook and Twitter going, while watching TV, and I took a call a few minutes ago. And yeah, writing this has taken at least twice as long as it should have.

Toxic Environments

You know these people:

"How's it going?"
"Oh, I'm gettin' by."

"What's up?"
"Well, I'm hangin' in there."

"So how's your day?"
"Let me tell you what that no-good dirtbag in Accounting did..."

These people (the second ones in each example, not the first, in case you missed that) have got very negative attitudes. They subscribe to the "ain't it awful" school of conversation, where the only subject they can come up with is a negative one, as if that's supposed to offer a common topic for them and others. They often appear beaten down and just barely making it through life. For many, this makes them feel important, since only a truly important person would be working as hard as they do, right? There are folks out there who would rather exaggerate the work they do than actually do their work, and one way to get away with that is to always seem to be weighed down by problems. Their negativity has the unfortunate effect of spilling over into the rest of the workplace, creating a toxic work environment as their negativity spreads.

How do you deal with these folks? Step 1 is to try to spot them in the interview process before they even come to work for you, weeding out those folks who spend the whole time complaining about their last job. If you don't catch on until they're actually working for you, you definitely need to talk with them and just ask why they're so negative all the time. You can't legislate a good attitude, of course, but you can let them know the impact they're having. And if all else fails, you might suggest to them that if they're perpetually unhappy in this job, perhaps the thing to do is find another one. I've made that suggestion to a couple colleagues and their attitudes have changed for the better...around me, anyway.

Of course, they might truly be unhappy in their job, or might even have some mental health issues that need addressing, so you should look deeper and figure out if there's a reason for all their negativity.

What else creates a toxic environment? Well, in-fighting among leaders will do the trick. Employees don't want to get caught in the middle of office politics, and may very well duck down out of sight, limiting their exposure to your conflict by limiting their contributions. Of course, you don't want your Creatives limiting their contributions, you want them...well, creating. If the leaders below you are having problems that disrupt the organization then meet with them and try to work things out as an objective moderator. If that doesn't work, then be sure you have the facts, and then charge in and take sides and make people play nice. Don't let inter-office conflict go on, especially among the leadership, because it creates so many problems. And if the leader having a conflict is YOU, well, realize you need to resolve it, and quickly.

Another problem leading to an unhappy workplace is malaise. If your Creatives don't have enough to do, or feel they aren't being utilized well, they'll get bored, have no sense of purpose, and spend more time sending out resumes than doing their work. The way to overcome this is to organize your business such that you have the right number of people for the work you do and also that you have the right people in those jobs. Leaving a bunch of creative people sitting around without too much to do is going to absolutely kill morale.

Creatives don't thrive in a toxic environment. Few people in any job do, but creative work requires a more open outlook in order to create innovative ideas...a bunch of unhappy people tends to dampen the mood. Do what you can to create a high degree of morale in your workplace and aim for a place where people enjoy coming, not where they can't wait to leave.

Striking a Balance

If you could do a search and word count of the 200+ entries in this blog, the word that would probably come up the most is "balance." There is a reason for this:

The most important function you have when leading Creatives is maintaining balance.

Ok, that's just an opinion, not an established fact or anything. But if you think about it, so much of what you do is keeping different aspects of your firm in balance. Consider:

- resources vs priorities

- Creatives' need for autonomy vs their level of experience

- right-brain-ed-ness vs left brain-ed-ness

- clients' wishes vs the goals of the firm's owners

- Creatives' interest in having an enjoyable workplace vs your need to make a profit

- your Creatives' need to express their individuality vs a formal, professional workplace

- long-term vs short-term

- salary vs other forms of compensation

None of these are mutually exclusive, you simply need to find the right mix of each. What you need to realize is that, as a leader, YOU are the one who decides that mix. That's what you're getting paid for.

When you come right down to it, the culture of your organization rests largely in your hands. How you address competing desires and various constraints will determine (to some extent) the firm's atmosphere, your Creatives' productivity, the kind of people you recruit and retain, and other aspects of your firm's long-term and short-term life.

Your ability to keep that balance will come from your education, your experience, and your willingness to make decisions. If any of these are lacking, the time to fix them is now, not later.

Dealing with human resources issues, mentoring employees, scheduling meetings...all of these things that seem like the normal day-to-day experience of a leader are all driven by the balance you maintain. If you don't pay attention to keeping that balance, you'll lose it, and like a cyclist losing his balance while pedaling down the street, that's just never pretty.

Newbie-havior

I recently had a joyous day at work: my replacement arrived.

I won't be leaving my current job until this summer but, because we'd originally thought I'd leave sooner, we'd already arranged a replacement. Since he's in now, rather than arriving as I'm walking out the door, means I actually get to train him up and get him acclimated to our unique environment before throwing him into the mix. The fact that he was a student at a university where I taught (at the same time, though not one of my students) has made it easier to adopt a mentor-mentee relationship early on.

Getting your newbies used to their new environment and helping them find their place in your office culture is an important early step for them, and one that too often gets neglected. We often leave people to pick it up as they go along, and as a result they may come in with one set of expectations that don't match reality, leading to embarrassing mistakes or misunderstandings that can provide an initial setback or even dog them for their entire time with your firm. You can help your new Creatives be more productive sooner if you introduce them to the culture and the expected behaviors in your company sooner rather than later. This is especially true for people who are just entering the workforce for the first time when they come to you. You shouldn't expect people to "just know," because even if they do figure it out on their own, you're losing productivity while they do.

Nadira Hira wrote about this in The Gig last fall, basing her piece in part on her own experiences. She suggested five key things for newbies to consider, and you as a leader should think about how to help your new Creatives in these areas...as well as any others you think are important. Hira goes into more detail, and you should go read her article, but here are the basics:

1. Consider their surroundings. Your new employee needs to understand the expectations of the workplace. Levels of familiarity, styles of dress, due dates, interoffice romance...all of these things can lead to early problems if they make a misstep.

2. Think tact. Make sure they understand they should treat others, especially supervisors, with a certain degree of respect. If they disagree, they should address those disagreements out of the public eye and do it in a way that can lead to resolution, not to more conflict.

3. Get managed. Encourage your newbie to develop relationships with experienced Creatives who can provide them with insights and perhaps inspiration. Your new employees need someone to talk to about workplace issues, both good and bad.

4. Aim for friendly, not familiar. Don't assume you should communicate with co-workers the way they do with their friends who know all their quirks. Professional interaction will help create the mutual respect that's essential for cooperation between Creatives. And they probably shouldn't add all their coworkers to their Facebook and Twitter on day one.

5. Listen. Seriously. Make sure your new Creatives understand that, while they were hired because of their skills, they aren't yet the master of the universe. They need to listen to others, not simply demand to be heard.

Creatives may be especially susceptible to problems. We expect Creatives to be independent and have unique personalities. Obviously, this is in part what you're paying for, but equally obvious is the need to have them fit into your firm in a way that contributes rather than being unnecessarily disruptive.

And don't pay too much attention to the Gen Y vs Gen X vs Boomer divide...ANY new employee can screw it up early on, so help them out no matter how much real-world experience they seem to have.

My replacement is still calling me "sir," and I'll need to break him of that soon. But he should still call our Big Boss "sir"...that's just the way we roll.

Reality Check

We've talked before about using your employees for what you've hired them to do and making sure you use the individual contributions your Creatives bring. These are important. Not only do you want to get the most out of your talented employees, you also want them to be motivated enough to offer you their best.

You and they still need to realize, though, that when they're new, there may not be much they can do. If someone is new to this career, or even just new to your organization, they should take the time to settle in and make sure they know their way around before acting too much like an authority on, well, everything.

Case in point: a friend of mine works for a major international organization, having completed his master's degree at a very prestigious school in 2009. He's very enthusiastic, ready to get to work after years of school, and is ready to change the world. But he also realizes something very important: not only is he new to the organization, this is also his first regular job. He understands his capabilities and knows what he can do, but also knows how much he still has to learn. He's very engaged and very energetic, but he focuses that energy where he can be most productive, safe in the knowledge he'll be able to accomplish more later. He takes on new challenges but seeks guidance when he does, whereas in areas where he feels more comfortable he strikes out on his own.

This is the kind of balance that you, as a leader, need to help your Creatives maintain. You want to give them freedom and you need to put their enthusiasm to good use, but at the same time you should recognize where their lack of experience can be a detriment. You'll get some Creatives who, because they are very talented (or think they are), will come in and try to dictate how things will work now that they've graced you with their presence. Your goal should not be to rein them in; your goal instead should be for them to rein themselves in. Through your effective leadership, they should learn how to do that. Not only will they be more productive now, they'll also be more open to learning as they go along. That's what we call "a good thing."

Army of One

A few years ago, in grad school, I had a discussion with a professor about the U.S. Army's recruiting slogan at the time "Army of One." I thought it was an intriguing little slogan. My prof, a retired Army officer (and, I had to remember, the guy who would give me my grade) was less impressed.

His belief, which was pretty common among many active and former Army folks, was that telling potential recruits they would each be an "Army of One" flew in the face of the essential concept of teamwork and ignored the disastrous effects of individualism (not individuality, but individualism) on unit cohesion and effective military operations. They felt it suggested that new soldiers only had to focus on themselves, rather than on their role in the Army. If they were correct about the message, then that would indeed be a poor recruiting slogan.

I always thought, though, that the meaning was different from that, and that it was actually a pretty shrewd message. For 20 years before that the Army's recruiting slogan was "Be All That You Can Be," and frankly, during those 20 years, "all that you could be" when you graduated from high school was a faceless cog in the machine...whether on a Ford assembly line, in a suit at IBM, or in the green uniform of a US soldier. Your options as you entered the world with no experience were a little limited.

(It's worth noting that these television and print campaigns are aimed at recruiting enlisted soldiers -- potential officers are mostly recruited through other means. So, the target audience tends to be future and recent high school graduates.)

As we entered the 21st century, though, that high school graduate's options had expanded dramatically. He or she could take skills learned in their spare time, whether IT-related or creative or what have you, and start out in a job where they could make a contribution almost immediately (and be rewarded appropriately, too). Internet startups, large tech firms, and free agency were now the Army's competition. "Army of One" told potential recruits that each individual could be a contributor, that they could come into the Army and make a difference, and have their work recognized. They wouldn't have to spend years as a faceless grunt before they could contribute something unique; the Army was ready to make use of their skills NOW. This, hopefully, would make the Army a viable alternative.

Whether that message was effectively communicated is debatable. A lot of people who had spent years in the military certainly didn't see it. Then again, they weren't the ones being recruited.

Just as the Army recognized that teenagers' perceptions of their own potential were changing, so too do you need to understand what your Creatives expect when they come to work for you. Today's new employees have seen that, even in a poor economy, Creatives with talent can be put to good use right away...in fact, a poor economy is a time when you really need to use everything you've got, rather than sticking your newest talent in the corner for a few years. You need to offer your Creatives the opportunity to do something meaningful, or they'll go to someone else who will. There are plenty of firms out there that will make good use of the Creatives you don't get; do you really want the most motivated potential employees to go to your competitors instead?

As a side note, when I went to grab a Wikipedia link for all those who are unfamiliar with the Army's recruiting campaign, I discovered that the true meaning of the campaign is alleged to be "Army of Officers, NCOs, and Enlisted." (hence the "ONE") That's the first time I've ever heard that. If true, then it blows my whole defense of that slogan right out of the water, because honestly, I think that's kind of dumb.

Don't Play Favorites

"It's lonely at the top" is a cliche, but as with most cliches, there's some truth behind it.

As a leader you need to avoid having favorites among your employees. That's tougher than it sounds, but if you've got a special connection to one or some of your employees, it's critical you at least avoid the appearance of favoritism.

You're going to have problems if you find you've got a few people you always seem to be with out of a much bigger group of employees. These might be friends, or they might be employees you trust the most or who are in the same creative specialty as you. If you find yourself "playing favorites" like this, you're really not helping yourself.

Why? Mostly, because it hurts your relationship with other employees. When they see you consistently talking with one person or a small group, the others may feel cut out. They're likely to interpret your actions as a sign that their opinions don't carry as much weight, that they aren't valued as much, This probably isn't what you mean, but that isn't always what's important. You need to pay attention not only to your actual intentions but to the perceptions others have as well.

It's easy for this to happen among Creatives. In the workplace, we're naturally drawn to people with similar interests, with comparable skills. If you find someone who thinks like you do, or who has a similar background or experiences, it's not uncommon to link up with that person. But in doing so you may not only be alienating others, you may also be limiting yourself to a single perspective and losing out on the diversity of ideas available form your workforce.

So, if you find yourself heading to the same person's cubicle so often that you're wearing a trough in the carpet, cut it out. You might feel comfortable with your favorites, but no one else will be.

Back to Work

With most of the "Capital H" holidays receding behind us, many of your minions have probably returned to work. If you gave your Creatives some time off -- and if you didn't, then "Bah, humbug!" to you -- they'll be floating back to work amid a chorus of "how was your Christmas?" and "I have GOT to get to the gym after all that." It may be a couple days until they return their full focus to the job at hand. And that's OK.

The holidays tend to disrupt your Creatives' work effort. It's a time of distraction, and for folks who've been immersed in a fog of creativity, it can be difficult to step out for some eggnog and then jump right back in. Your Creatives need to be in the right frame of mind in order to produce, so don't be too surprised if it takes them a couple days to get back into it full-force. If you can, try to hold off on the intense demands for now...there's time for that soon enough.

Of course, it's also true that some of your Creatives never really got out of their creative frame of mind even during the maddest of the mad days of December. Every walk through the mall gave them ideas for fashion or hair or advertising, every drive through the neighborhood's ongoing light displays brought to mind images and ideas they can use in their work. Some people never turn off their creative brains. And we love them for it.

So, you'll have some folks who've come up with great ideas and who couldn't wait to get back to work, while others tuned out for a bit and are just now restarting them. There are liable to be a few days where those two groups need to sync up, so don't try to force people back into pre-Christmas productivity...give them a little time to readjust.

That said, don't be afraid to start beating them mercilessly NEXT week. Like usual.

A Meeting Space That's Right for Your Meeting

Holding a brainstorming session in a room that's set up for an inquisition might not get you the best results. Likewise, giving a formal presentation while everyone's in bean bag chairs isn't going to let you make your point very well. Those things are noisy.

Bottom line: when you set up for a meeting, do it in a way that helps you get the most out of it.

If you've got one or more experts coming in to give a presentation, or someone's providing an update on a project, then put that person somewhere obvious, where they can be the focus of attention. It's OK for the speaker to stand out, since the meeting's about them. Rows of seats with the speaker up front make sense. If people need to bring a lot of material with them, have tables.

If you've got a group giving updates, and it needs to be fairly structured (i.e., we need to know about A, and then B, which explains C, etc.) then putting people around a conference table works. If you've got a creative team that needs to know what other members of the team are doing, this kind of setting can help the conversation flow around the room.

When you're setting up for brainstorming, you might want to keep it casual. For instance, lose the table, but have a dry write board or someone typing on a wall-mounted screen. Non-structured seating arrangements help you avoid a sense of hierarchy, so that junior designer doesn't feel quite as intimidated when he or she has something to offer. Keep the focus off of any one individual so that it stays on the group as a whole.

This might sound like common sense, but we get into habits and it's hard to break out of them no matter how much sense it makes to do so. We have a room set up, and it doesn't occur to us to change it. Ask yourself: when was the last time you took the table out of your conference room? Have you ever purposely created a different seating style? Give it a shot.

You might think this is a pretty minor issue, and maybe it is. But if you're going to bring people together and take up their time, time that could be spent on other things, then you might as well get the most out of it. Something simple like the room where you get together can have a big impact on the usefulness of a meeting.

Of course, all of this presumes you actually NEED a meeting. We all know that sometimes we have too many meetings.

Cut Them Some Holiday Slack

The holidays are here and some stress can come with them. Sure, it's self-induced stress, as we do a lot to make other people happy...buying gifts, throwing parties, meeting for dinner, traveling, whatever. You need to realize that regardless of whether you like this season or not ("paging Mr Scrooge..."), your Creatives have other things on their minds right now. So cut 'em a little slack.

Consider giving your Creatives a little extra time off at this time of year. Give them a chance to buy some gifts, pick out a tree, decorate the house, or go grocery shopping. Ask yourself if there's really any reason people need to be working on Christmas Eve. Or December 31st? This isn't to suggest simply shutting down your firm, but merely giving people a little extra personal time if it doesn't lead to some critical failure on your company's part.

If you think about it, a lot of time spent at work right now might not actually be spent working. So how about making a deal with your Creatives: you'll let them take some extra personal time, and in return, when they're at work they're really working. No more shopping online, no more addressing Christmas cards or working on their holiday newsletter, but doing the job you pay them to do. Sound fair?

You'll often find that if you give people a little extra leeway when they need it, they'll put in some extra effort the rest of the time. They tend to be motivated to work for you if they know you appreciate what they do the other 11 months of the year, and by giving them some freedom now when they can use it, you also let them know you trust their judgement and professionalism.

Or, you could decide to just to stick with the regular workload and expect people to do their own stuff on their own time. But beware...you're likely to be visited by three ghosts...

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.

Foiled Again

With our big planing conference starting in two days, it pains me to report that "stymied again by indecisiveness" is in the lead by a big margin.

Pay Attention to Morale

The LeadingCreatives crew headed up to New York this weekend to check in with folks and do some Christmas shopping. Mission accomplished on both counts.

One of my longtime friends and colleagues is working in a small firm there and is chomping at the bit to get out. The upside is, he's a genius, and could do a great job for anyone. The downside is, he might have to leave New York to do so. And this makes him sad.

Frankly, the combination of frustration at the company and concern about his future is making him very unhappy at work. And that's never a good thing.

When you have employees who dread coming to work, who spend their first half hour hitting 20 job search websites, who can't wait to leave...well, they may not being giving you their best work. So it helps to pay attention to their attitudes and fix problems if it's possible for you to do so.

There are some things that aren't really fixable. After 4 years my friend is still in the same position where he started, because the firm is only composed of a few people and there's simply no way to move up. If you have a small company, with no plans to expand, then that's just the way it is. Since your Creatives won't be able to get promoted, you need to find other ways for them to develop professionally. Maybe you can pay for additional training and education, perhaps you could give them time to do professional writing...the bottom line is, if you can't promote them one way, then find another way for them to grow.

You might also have trouble giving raises. Startups, in particular, may not be able to offer more money each year. The recession may be limiting your growth and revenue. My friend is still making essentially the same as he was making 4 years ago, which in New York is not the best plan for personal financial security. If profits are growing, be sure to share them with your employees. If profits aren't growing, you need to figure out what needs to change. And if your business plan is proceeding on schedule and you simply aren't at the big profit part of the plan yet, then find other ways to compensate them. My friend has raised the issue with his boss of offering better health coverage, for example, but the big guy isn't listening.

The "not listening" part is a big factor in my friend's unhappiness at work. His boss is very set in his ways, uninterested in changing anything, keeping policies as is. One suggestion my old colleague made was offering a telework option, and he demonstrated its feasibility over a few days, but it was a no-go. When your employees come to you with ideas for positive changes to the working environment, they may giving you a big hint that something's wrong. If they feel like they have no control over their work life, no say in how they do their jobs, and if they're missing out on other things like raises and promotions, you're likely to have some unhappy Creatives.

That's something you want to watch for. You need to take the pulse of your workforce on a fairly regular basis. This doesn't have to mean sitting down for feedback sessions...it could be as simple as watching body language in the office, or seeing how quickly people bolt out at the end of the day. If people are coming to you with ideas, and you keep turning them down, you should start worrying when they stop coming to you. If you're interested in keeping your experienced employees, you need to find ways to keep them positively engaged in the firm. Creatives who feel like bureaucrats, and stuck in a position with no developmental or financial future, might not be too happy at work.

And they may spend their first half hour of work each day checking 20 different job search websites.

Oh, and another lesson learned from this trip: when you run into someone you've met before, don't say "that's right, you go to Parsons," when in fact they go to the Fashion Institute of Technology. My bad.

What Do You Want to Work On Today?

Google has a well-known policy of requiring it's Creatives to spend 20% of their time at work on projects of their own. This isn't designed for employees to do outside work on company time, but instead is supposed to be something good for Google, something outside the norm, something original.

Of course, Google is not the only major company to do this, nor is the tech sector the first to give it a try. 3M started its "15% time" policy in the early 20th century as it produced consumer goods. Genetech, a biotech firm, encourages its researchers to pursue their own initiatives. There are plenty of benefits to companies that stem from encouraging personal work.

The obvious, and most direct, benefit to your company comes when your employees work on their own projects and someone comes up with a great new product. The classic story in this realm is the invention of Post-Its, and Google likes to tell the story of how Gmail came about in the same way. You just might get something really great if you let your Creatives be creative beyond the boundaries of their normal workload.

You can get better employees out of the deal, too. Personal projects allow them to flex their creative muscles and learn new things that could open new avenues for your firm. You want your Creatives to be creative, and allowing them to take their own initiative will lead them to be better performers for you. Do you really want a bunch of employees who wait around to be told what to do???

The effect on your employees can be pretty dramatic. The opportunity to work on independent projects is a great recruiting tool. It shows you trust your employees, demonstrates a culture of autonomy that will be appealing to the best Creatives, and sets you apart from other employers. It's great for retention, too, as it contributes to a positive environment where people are happy to work. It won't solve all your human resource problems, but it can be a very positive factor.

Sure, you should have some oversight, not just to make sure people aren't goofing off, but also to grab onto a good idea as it's emerging. Figure out what kind of arrangement you want to have with your Creatives, make sure everyone understands it from the time they're hired, and then try it out. yes, small firms might feel like they don't have the capacity for this, but in the long run, it might be the most productive thing you do.

Remember How to Let Go

Earlier this week, Window Media, which published a number of weekly newspapers across the U.S., went out of business. This result was apparently coming for some time, but the leadership failed to prepare their employees for the likely, almost inevitable, end.

On Monday morning, some employees got phone calls telling them their newspaper was shutting down, and they need to quickly come collect their belongings. In other cities, the writers and design editors and the rest of the staffs showed up to find locked offices and a notice telling them when they needed to return to get their stuff later in the week.

No warning. The employees knew things were bad, but few realized just how bad.

Perhaps their leadership would have benefitted from reading this.

Don't Gossip

We all know there's plenty of drama in a workplace filled with Creatives. It's like a union rule or something. One of the first steps you can take to minimize that drama is to cut back on the gossip. And the best way to do THAT is to not be a gossip yourself.

Social gossip can be harmless. Who's dating who (unless one of the who's is married, or is the other who's boss) or whose tie doesn't match their belt, or whatever, can be meaningless. But gossiping about business matters...now THAT'S a bad thing.

The worst culprit here would be you, as a leader. If you do it, it sets the tone for everyone else. But it also signals some problems with your leadership.

If you're gossiping with your employees about things going on in the company, that implies you don't have good communication within the company. If information is being traded as gossip, rather than being passed openly and honestly from leadership to workers, that's bad. When employees hear you gossiping about business matters, then they start wondering what they AREN'T being told. If your employees know you don't trade in gossip then they'll pay more attention to the things you DO talk about.

Don't talk trash about the people above you, and don't sit around with your employees badmouthing policies from above. Remember, once you have to carry out policies, they become yours, rather than belonging to some vague "they." If you're criticizing the policies you're supposed to carry out, it becomes much harder to enforce them when your employees think you don't agree with them.

Do NOT talk about your employees with other employees, especially if you're being critical. I used to have a boss who would tell me how disappointed he was in others...all I could think was, "what's he saying to them about me?" Remember, anyone who gossips to you will gossip about you, so the quickest way to lose your employees' trust is to start talking to them about each other.

Along similar lines, if someone comes to you with a complaint or a concern or a new way of thinking, don't go blabbing it to others. People will stop coming to you if they think you can't be trusted to keep your mouth closed, and you'll shut off important communication from your employees if you do that. So don't do that.

Gossip is unprofessional, and gossiping about the business creates a lot of problems, especially if YOU do it. It can be tough to get your employees to stop, but it should be fairly easy to make yourself stop. Just. Don't. Do. It.

It's All About Attitude

Even as leaders we all work for someone. Whether it's for a boss higher up the food chain, the shareholders, or our clients, we always answer to somebody. And when the person you're working for lays down a goal in front of you, you have two possible attitudes you can take:

"Let's figure out how we can do it"

or

"Let's figure out why we can't."

Ask yourself which attitude would work best for your firm?

And now ask yourself which attitude you really have. Really.

Still a Problem With Focus

So Friday my boss calls me. "Can you come down?," he asks. "We need to have a skull session."

We're in the midst of planning a major restructuring of our organization, an effort involving a thousand people, millions of dollars, and new employees and facilities in a couple countries. It's big, it's been keeping me hopping, and it sounds like my boss has just gotten some new guidance we need to discuss.

Next month we're holding a planning conference with some of our folks from around the area and around the globe to develop a strategy that, for budgeting reasons, needs to be ready to by February. There's a lot to think about. There's a lot to plan. There are a lot of ideas that need to be "socialized" with other groups. As the strategic planners it's up to us to create the way forward.

I get to his office and sit down. The boss looks pensive.

"OK," he says, "we need to figure out a way to take notes during this conference."

...

Are you KIDDING me???

Obviously, he never read this post. It would be helpful if he did, as long as he didn't know I'm the one who wrote it.

Anyway, I told him what to do, and left to go back to work.

Leaders, I implore you: focus your attention on the important stuff, or you're letting your Creatives down.

Personable, But Not Too Personal

During a couple days last week I listened to someone in a nearby cubicle explaining Facebook to his supervisor (bless her heart) and then "friending" her. Knowing what I do about this guy's life, I'm not sure he really needs to be inviting his boss into his personal world.

A friend mentioned something similar to me last week. His company's about to expand their use of Facebook, and he wondered about friending his boss. I advised against that, suggesting maybe he could set up a second, professional account instead, but he said he'd probably never log into that second account, something I've heard from other folks before.

The question this creates for me is: if I'm the boss, how much to I want to be enmeshed in my employees' personal lives? How much do I really want to know???

My friend made the point that in past jobs he's always been most effective when he's gotten along well with his co-workers and bosses, sharing personal stories and talking about more than just work. This makes sense; you tend to work better with the people with whom you get along well.

But how well do you need to get along to work well together? How far do you have to go? How much do you really need to blend your personal and professional lives?

Social networking sites are a key part of those questions. We often put out far more information on Facebook than we would ever discuss in the office. We also have less control over what gets communicated; friends can tag us in photos or post things to our walls that others can see, and by the time we know it's there, lots of people may have already seen it. It's good to be personable at work, it helps people work together better, but we need to consider some limits as technology increases the potential for sharing information far beyond what we ever would have shared in the past.

So, be friendly with your employees. Take an interest in their personal lives, without becoming a stalker. Know about the good things like a birthday coming up, or the bad things like a death in the family or trouble at home. Knowing your employees better will help you work with them better. But before you go overboard, ask yourself how much you really want to know about their personal lives.

And perhaps more importantly, you might ask yourself how much you want them knowing about yours.

Focus, People

"OK," he said, "here we go."

It was Tuesday morning, and my supervisor had just arrived, breathless, at my cubicle. He's the head of strategic planning for our organization, which consists of about a thousand people scattered around the globe, with activities in nine countries. Because of some new laws that will soon be passed, our operation is going to expand by 150% in the next 5 years.

"The Big Boss just told me," he said, "that we're going to hold a planning conference, and soon, to figure out a way ahead."

Now, this might not sound like much, but to a strategic planner like me, it was great news. Why? Because for three years I've been writing about the changes occurring in our operating environment, trying to encourage our leadership to both shape that environment and adapt to the things we can't affect, and predicting what will happen if we fail to do so. Now, after I've been largely ignored for those three years, we're being forced by new legislation to change our practices, and do so in a way that's going to sharply increase our workload. Finally, I'm going to have a chance to lead some positive changes, even though we're being forced to rather than doing it by choice.

"So," said my boss, "I've got Alex looking for a conference room we can use."

And it hit me: with all we have to think about, with all the research and analysis we need to turn out before this can happen, with all the possibilities open to us for doing some really good work in the future...my boss' first thought is about finding a conference room.

Obviously, the logistics of a one-day meeting to be held in two months are important. Equally obvious is the fact that they aren't the MOST important thing. The fact that my immediate supervisor goes directly to that, first thing, is my first indication that he doesn't really have a clue what we're going to talk about at this thing.

That becomes clearer as we talk. He is setting dates and wondering about coffee and donuts; I'm asking him what product the Big Boss is expecting to come out of this, and he says he doesn't know. He is wondering if we can push it back to after New Year's, but looks confused when I ask if we're just planning for the next five years, or farther.

I understand why he's focused on these details: it's easy. Figuring out how to arrange the seats around the table is a lot simpler than figuring out what everyone should be discussing at that table. Unfortunately, my supervisor's inability to focus on the work that really needs to be done during these last three years has left him unprepared for the task we've just been handed. He's afraid to focus on the important things, because he knows he's not able to talk about them intelligently, so he instead addresses the minor details that are easy to mark off a checklist.

Your Creatives deserve better. When something important comes along you need to focus on the value-adding aspects of it rather than worrying about the simple things. If you employ a short-term focus, looking only at the easy details and ignoring the important, and often harder-to-do, stuff, you send a message to your Creatives that that's what they should be focusing on too, and as a result the really important stuff gets thrown together at the last minute, if at all. Trust me, your requirements for a conference room will become clearer once you know what it is you're trying to accomplish.

As it turns out, I have (with my supervisor's approval) started bypassing him and going directly to the Big Boss to get a better picture of what he wants to accomplish. Unfortunately, he's not too sure yet, either. So either I'm going to be stymied again by indecisiveness, or this time they'll just give up and let me lead things. Should we be placing bets on which way that's going to go???

Loyalty is Important, But...

...make sure it is smart loyalty.

One suggestion we've made for dealing with the recession is to try to keep your workforce on, since if you cut them now you're probably going to have to hire them back later when things get better, and you'll have a better relationship with them if you keep them engaged throughout this period.

Having said that, you may feel like you must let some people go if your firm is to stay in business (As Caiphas and Mister Spock taught us, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one"). Or, you may simply feel someone's not pulling their weight, whether in good times or bad, and it's time to let them go. Either way, you're going to have to deal with the conflict inherent in loyalty.

You hope for loyalty from your Creatives, and so in turn you must demonstrate it to them. People who do good work for you deserve to be treated fairly and respectfully, and if they work hard for you then you should try to keep them in the job. The basis for that loyalty, though, needs to be something important to the firm. Ideally, you should be demonstrating the strongest sense of loyalty based on performance and potential rather than simply on longevity and seniority.

Unfortunately, the later criteria often become most important. A colleague in Asia told me that his firm is preparing to lay off as much as 20% of their workforce in December (I tried to explain the "that's just not right" aspect of laying people off right before Christmas, but I don't think it resonated as strongly there as it would in the U.S.). However, the CEO has identified one person who absolutely will not be laid off because "he's been here so many years."

Now, it's nice that this employee has been with the firm so long, but is that really relevant? The real question should be what he's doing for the firm. You'd like to think someone with that much longevity is a contributor, but it might simply be that they knew no one else would hire them because they're so bad, so they managed to stay on. Do you want to be cutting skilled people while holding onto somebody for the simple fact they've been around a long time, regardless of their abilities? If so, that's a recipe for trouble.

That's not merely a hypothetical situation; in this case, the employee in question not only doesn't do much, but also, since learning of the CEOs decision, now does even less because he knows he can't be fired. Removing his external motivation to do good work leads him to be an even less productive employee.

If you want to consider longevity in your layoff decisions, fine. Just don't make it the only factor, or even an important one. While you want to be loyal to individuals, you also need to be loyal to the firm as a whole, and keeping individuals who aren't as talented doesn't satisfy that need. Reward those who do well and you'll end up rewarding the whole company instead of just a few individuals who may not even deserve it.

Flat Mentorship

Everyone likes to say they want a flat organization, whether they really do or not, because it's the thing to say these days. It's useful to flatten out your firm's hierarchy, with fewer levels of oversight between the worker bees and the CEO and fewer stovepipes that limit collaboration. But you need to consider all the likely effects before you do it.

There are a lot of benefits to a flat organizational structure for Creatives. It allows for more independence and initiative, allowing them to exercise the skills you hired them for. It makes things move faster, with less review and fewer meetings, so work can get done without a lot of holdups. It cuts your overhead costs, so you can focus your time and resources on your Creatives and not on layers of oversight.

But one downside to this is that with fewer leaders and managers in a firm, you have fewer people available for mentoring. And if your firm is full of Creatives who really need mentoring, that’s going to be a problem.

We know that mentoring is an important part of leadership. But if we’re also trying to create a more effective firm by having a leaner structure, that doesn’t leave a lot of people in formal leadership positions who can take on protégés. One architectural firm told me they went from having 1 leader for every 8 people to 1 for every 20. While that brought about some good changes for the firm, it also led the CEO to say in a meeting, “we are not a schoolhouse.”

There are ways you can continue mentoring. First, figure out what kind of mentoring you need to do. Helping a protégé develop their creative skills is time consuming; helping them map out a career path is less so. Your mentorship objectives need to be realistic in light of your manpower.

Remember, too, that mentors don’t need to be in formal leadership positions over their protégés. In many cases, it’s better if they’re not, because it’s tough to counsel someone about a problem with their leader if the problem is you. So consider making mentorship a part of senior Creatives’ job descriptions. As people gain seniority and earn more there’s a reasonable expectation that they should be assuming more responsibility. Plus, it helps prepare them for leadership positions someday. Don’t just rely on current leaders, or you’re likely to not have enough people.

Of course, there are limits to how much mentoring you can do, so you also need to think about who you’re hiring and how much guidance they will need. Going back to the architectural executive’s views on training and schooling, you need to think about hiring the right people to fit into a flat organization. Since you want independent people with a high degree of skill, you need to look into hiring experienced people rather than those just out of school. If you’re hiring people new to your field, they’ll need more advice and guidance, but honestly, they’ll need more supervision, too, and that doesn’t fit the concept of a flat organization.

So, while having fewer leaders may limit your ability to mentor, the people you hire into such a firm should require less anyway.

The firm mentioned earlier hasn’t really taken that approach. As they’ve gotten flatter, they haven’t revamped their hiring strategy so they’re likely to be hiring the wrong people. The result is requests for mentorship, with no one to provide it. Something’s got to change, or the conflict between needs and resources is only going to create more problems.

Little Things Mean a Lot

As you walk around major cities in Southeast Asia you’re likely to see a lot of fancy looking buildings. Some are very ornate, some use a lot of color, some simply look imposing. There are new office buildings as well as old shophouses, and many look great from the outside.

But as you look more closely, or take a step inside, you’re just as likely to find that the nice looking façade hides some details that don’t look so great. Poorly designed fixtures, switches that don’t seem to connect to anything, inadequate ventilation (kind of important in tropical climates), shoddy workmanship -- all of this is pretty common. At a hotel in Indonesia I had a beautiful bathroom, with a tub/shower that was apparently designed to dump as much water as possible onto the floor. A quick look revealed that the gap between the tub and the wall provided a small canal that created a waterfall down the side.

Speaking with someone from an architectural firm I quickly learned that this is common throughout Southeast Asia, even among high-end architects (and other Creatives a well). The emphasis is often on pumping things out as quickly as possible, rather than taking time to focus on details. Contracts are often won based on how quickly a creative firm promises to turnout a final product, rather than on a the ultimate quality of that product. There’s a “big picture” view that leads to things that look nice and the outside -- and that may impress the neighbors -- while ignoring the “little picture” of the details that really distinguish one product from another. Any architect can design a house; a good architect can design a house that you would want to live in.

In many Western cultures, especially among the most developed countries, this simply won’t be acceptable. Customers have come to expect the details that set your product or service apart from others, so you can’t afford to neglect them. Creative industries are all about the details, and in cultures where the time is available to appreciate them and the resources are there to afford them, your clients will expect you to put in the effort. You simply can’t ignore the “little picture,” so you need to instill in your firm a culture that addresses details with the same effort as the “big picture” stuff, without sacrificing profitability. You can’t skimp on one and expect to maintain the other.

Perhaps the more important lesson is for those in societies where details often haven’t been that important. The interest in good design and quality work is fueled not so much by culture as by economics. As nations develop stronger economies, and as productivity evolves to the point where people have time to appreciate more, they will expect more. Creative firms in more recently developed countries need to recognize the evolving tastes of their customers, and understand the challenges posed by competitors who do appreciate this reality. There’s a growing emphasis on the details in creative work, and potential customers are looking for firms that understand that. Make sure yours is one of them.

It DOES Matter Who Gets the Credit

There's an old saying that says there's no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit. That's true to a point, but don't use that as an excuse to take credit away from your Creatives.

A friend of mine used to work for a well known fashion designer. My friend was a very talented designer himself and was the source of some very nice clothes (this wasn't just him talking, I did see the sketches myself). But the boss' attitude was that his name was on the clothes, so as far as anyone was concerned, he was the only one doing the designing. The other designers, as far as the world knew, didn't exist.

Now it may seem like, for branding purposes, such an approach would be useful. If it’s the name on the tag, or on the firm, that draws customers, then the public persona may require one person’s face rather than an ensemble. But your people deserve credit at least in professional circles, and you should find a way to balance that with your profit-making requirements.

Sure, you can keep your Creatives out of the public eye (though honestly, does anyone really think any big designer does all the creative work by him or herself??), but they should get the professional recognition they deserve from their peers. This is awfully important for their morale and motivation. Your talented people want to be recognized for their abilities, maybe not necessarily by customers but certainly by others in their field, both in their own firm and elsewhere. This is a pretty natural feeling and if you ignore it you run the risk of them bailing out on you when you need them. So you should at least acknowledge them within your field rather than pretending they don’t exist.

Taking the credit yourself puts your firm at risk by helping create a bad reputation for you. Creative firms tend to see a high turnover rate, and as word gets out about your style, the more talented Creatives are likely to avoid you. Since the talented Creatives are the ones you want, this is bad news for your company, and since you‘ve insisted on taking all credit for yourself, any substandard work done by less-talented employees reflects on you personally..

Your employees need that professional recognition as well if they’re going to advance in their field. Chances are they won’t be staying with you for 40 years and will be looking for opportunities for greater responsibility and new challenges elsewhere. Denying their contributions hurts their ability to do that, and frankly, that’s just unfair on your part.

Taking credit for others’ work is the sign of a big ego or a weak character (not that those two are mutually exclusive -- it could be a sign of both). Strong leaders have enough confidence in themselves that they aren’t worried about being overshadowed by their Creatives. Weak leaders try to keep oters from seeing what it really takes for them to be successful. So ask yourself: which one are you?

Don't Get Cocky in the Recession

The US government reported this week that the unemployment rate has reached 9.7%. It’s worth noting that the rate only includes those people still looking for work; if you add in those who have given up looking, it’s certainly a bit higher. Leaders and managers may see themselves in a position of “employment dominance” created by a weak labor market.

Think twice, though, before adopting this attitude yourself. When it comes to Creatives, you still need to be careful about losing them.

First of all, remember that the most talented Creatives will always have other options, and the most talented ones are the ones you want to keep. Firms are still hiring, headhunters are still calling, and the Creatives most attractive to others are the ones you most want to hold onto. Adopting an attitude of “hahaha, I’ve got you now!” is just going to encourage them to go out the door.

Next, consider that a weak labor market in the US doesn’t equate to a weak labor market everywhere. Asia is bouncing back out of the recession, as are some European countries. Creative talent is increasingly mobile, ad if opportunities arise in other countries, your employees may jump. Don’t think an overseas move is out of the question…more and more people have an interest in trying out life in another country, perhaps due in part to the explosion of university students who are studying abroad and realizing just how cool it is to live somewhere else for a while. And of course, there are always telework opportunities with overseas companies, too.

Finally, rather than seeing this as a chance to consolidate power over your employees, you should instead view it as a chance to beat out your competitors. Many companies’ weaknesses will surface during a recession and they will grow weaker. You should use this chance to increase your market share and strengthen your firm for the day when the economy recovers. You should be trying to come out of this downturn with an improved position, and for this you need a motivated, high-quality workforce.

If you view your work as a power struggle between you and your employees, then you have a problem. Hopefully, that’s not your attitude, and if it is, then you really need to change something. Don’t look at a recession as a chance to make yourself stronger relative to your employees. No general ever won a battle by using a lull in the fighting to hammer is own troops rather than hammering the enemy. Use, don’t abuse, this opportunity.

Celebrate Work by Playing All Day

Labor Day is approaching this weekend (in the US, anyway) and for many of us it’s simply a chance for a 3-day weekend. Travel, parties, a final time in the swimming pool, or maybe just some relaxation…it’s a nice passage from summer to fall (which doesn’t actually start for another 3 weeks, but whatever).

But Labor Day began as something more: a celebration of the working class’ hard work that built our modern economy. And maybe, as we enjoy our days off, it would be good to reflect a bit on why we have those days off.

As our economy continues its shift from industrial-based to knowledge-based, the face of the working class may change, but it still exists. For you, in the creative fields, your Creatives represent the working class. They may have college degrees, they may have fancy certifications, they may carry portfolios rather than filling out job applications, they may never break a sweat, but in a knowledge economy they are the working class, and that’s worth thinking about.

You might want to take this opportunity to reflect on your relationship with your Creatives. Think about who they are and what they’re trying to achieve for themselves, and evaluate how that fits into your company’s plans. See what concerns they have, not just inside the office but also what sorts of things on the outside might affect their work with you. Examine your own performance over the last year -- have you learned anything? Do you handle problems better? Are you able to see opportunities more easily? Does your leadership meet their needs, and does their followership meet yours? If you see some things that might need fixing, well, go ahead and start fixing them.

This isn’t to say you should cancel your plans for the beach and instead go into a cave and meditate on your existence for three days (unless that’s what you already planned to do). We here at LeadingCreatives.com have our own plans for the weekend involving the 212 area code. But in addition to enjoying the time off this coming weekend, give your own labor situation some thought, whether at home or at work or wherever. If you pick a point during the year, every year, when you take stock of your leadership and your employees, well then, you’ll do it at least once a year. That may be the bare minimum, but it’s better than nothing, yes?

Keep Your Folks Open to Change

Change happens, perhaps more so in creative fields simply by the nature of creativity. Creatives may be more open to change than others by virtue of their innovative temperament. But they still develop habits, and if things pop up that require a change in those habits, that change can still be rough. So if you can, keep your Creatives in a frame of mind that leaves them open to change. Such a culture of flexibility isn’t natural; it can se a few things to help encourage it.

The foundation of an organization’s culture comes from its strategy, which can be expressed and developed in a strategic plan. You should have a plan that recognizes and accommodates change. The goals and objectives in your plan should acknowledge the need for flexibility and demonstrate the importance of a human capital development program that encourages adaptability. With this as your basis, you can build a workforce that’s more flexible.

Make sure you recruit people with the mindset you’re looking for. This will come through more in the interviews than in resumes. Try to get a sense for how potential employees deal with something new before you bring them in.

In addition to recruiting, look at retention having long-term employees provides for more in depth knowledge, but such employees can often be more settled in their ways. Ask yourself if you want to have mostly long-termers, short-timers, or some half-and-half mix.

You also need to be willing to let people go if you find they can’t keep up with the demands you place upon them. “Seniority” should not equal "guaranteed employment” if they simply can’t -- or won’t -- do what you need them to do.

Try to keep as flat an organizational structure as possible, with the fewest possible leaders. You’ll often find that people in authority are the most resistant to change because they’re afraid their authority will disappear -- and it just might.

Try to keep your budgeting as flexible as possible. Yes, you need some stability there so you can plan your resources, but you also need to be able to shift those resources when changes demand it. Striking that balance isn’t easy, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.

Businesses that don’t change to meet new conditions around them are more likely to miss opportunities or succumb to challenges, and ultimately fade away. Creative organizations are particularly susceptible to this, since the whole reason they exist is to create new things, and failing to do so makes them irrelevant. A culture that accepts the need to change is not automatic -- if anything, resistance to change is the default human condition. Take some steps to make change easier, because the alternative is to just make things harder on yourself.

Get Yourself Organized

One critical element of leadership is management. While leadership and management often get confused with one another, management is really more of a subset of leadership. In order to lead your Creatives well you need to manage your resources effectively. One of the most important resources in the creative world is time, and if you aren’t organized, you’ll waste too much to ever truly be successful.

Very often, projects that don’t get done on time might as well not get done at all. An advertising campaign for Valentine’s Day does no good if it’s ready in time for Easter. A newspaper’s graphic design layout needs to be ready by deadline. Hairstylists make a living not only through the types of services they provide but also through the number of clients they see, so having one client in the chair all day generally means a net loss. You not only need to keep your Creatives organized, you need to keep yourself on track as well.

You should be guiding your Creatives, not really leading them by the hand but instead tracking their work and making sure it gets done. Know the goals, deadlines, and potential obstacles inherent in the assignments you give them. Keep an eye out for emerging problems so you aren’t surprised. Help your Creatives with scheduling -- perhaps set the due date and then work backwards, setting milestones along the way. When they send you something for your review or simply as an update, keep track of it so they don’t have to keep resending stuff to you. Believe me, that’s a pain, and it slows them down.

Good communication is key. Don’t make people tell you something twice, and don’t get into the habit of repeating yourself. Organize your e-mails as they come in; your mail program allows you to create folders, and rules for sorting mail, for a reason. Reply to e-mails and phone calls as quickly as you can -- perhaps, instead of dropping everything every few minutes, you might set aside a little time every hour or two to respond. Try to limit unnecessary communication -- don’t say in three e-mails what you can say in one -- but deal quickly with people instead of leaving them hanging.

If you need to meet with people about their work, keep the meetings short and to the point. Have an agenda in mind, even if you don’t feel you need one on paper. If you’re meeting with someone, don’t let other people walk in and interrupt you; an open-door policy is a good idea, but don’t let it be abused.

Keep a record of your Creatives’ accomplishments and problems so you can provide them with regular feedback. You can do more than just help them along with their current projects -- with good feedback you can help them develop and improve so they need less assistance in the future and can move along more quickly while still turning in great work. But if you don’t keep track of the good things and the bad, it’s hard to have a meaningful feedback session.

Handle your Creatives’ administrivia when you can. Have a system in place to deal with getting them the supplies they need, taking care of human resource issues, arranging travel...if you’ve got the support stuff organized, they can do the creative things you hired them to do.

Creative projects are often on a deadline, and even those that aren’t are best done quickly rather than being drawn out over time. The key to speed is organization, and as the leader you’ve got the most organizing to do. You can keep your Creatives on track by being on track yourself.

Follow Through

You’d think that, if someone assigns a project to an employee, that leader would want to follow through and ensure it actually gets done. But that’s not always the case. Too often projects seem to fall through the cracks.

But you and your Creatives are only successful if your projects are completed. If you start something, see it through to the end. Now, “the end” could be the accomplishment of what you set out to do, or it might be the termination of that project somewhere along the way, but however it turns out, don’t leave your Creatives hanging.

Unfortunately, it’s not all that uncommon for projects to get started, but then not advance. Sometimes you start getting into it, but then the resources you need aren’t available. It helps to have a defined budget and know in advance what you’ll need. In some cases, you might have the financial or material resources, but that most slippery of resources -- time -- isn’t available because you just have too much going on. You need to have a reasonable estimate of what the project requires and your own capabilities before taking on something new. If there’s a lot going on, you as the leader might have the time to follow up on what your Creatives are doing, and they might interpret this as a lack of interest, subsequently deciding notto worry too much about this since you’re obviously not. So, even if you can’t spend a lot of time watching things, at least check in every now and then so your Creatives know they should continue. Finally, your folks may have trouble getting started because of some challenge at the beginning, and if they never get going the project is likely to die on the vine. Don’t just assign something and then turn away; make sure it gets going and builds a little momentum.

You’ll find, on occasion, that you start something, only to have to stop it along the way. Not every project your people start is going to make it through to successful completion. For instance, if you find you’ve taken on too much, you may have to kill a lower priority project, or at least put it on hold until you can put real effort into it. You might also find that you just don’t have the resources, or maybe the technology you need isn’t mature enough. If so, then stop until you can do it later (if you can). And of course, if you’re working for a client, they just might change their mind and ask you to cancel. Regardless of why you might have to quit something, it’s important to clearly terminate the project making sure everyone knows it’s stopped so you don’t have people working on it when they’re no longer supposed to.

Creative resources are finite, particularly time. So, you need to use them wisely. Finish those projects that should be finished, cancel those that need to stop. Don’t just pause somewhere in the middle. Make sure your Creatives know what’s expected of them and help them follow through to the end, one way or another.

Changing of the Guard

Everyone works for someone...that’s a good rule of thumb, anyway. So even though you’re in a leadership position, you most likely have someone, or several someones, above you. Every now and then those faces will change, and you need to be ready when they do.

A change in leadership has a number of effects. The first you’ll run into is a transition period, when you better expect that no new decisions -- at least, nothing important -- will get made. There may be a gap between the departure of your old leadership and the arrival of the new, and even if the timing is seamless, there’ll be a period during which the new leadership is getting its feet on the ground and learning about your busness. Even if someone’s been promoted from within, they still have to get used to their new position, and that’s going to take a little time. If you’ve got anything important that needs to get approved, it’s a good idea to take care of that before this transition period starts.

You can make this process go faster by putting together a “transition book” or some similar means of communicating what you do to your new boss. Include examples of your department’s work, info on your Creatives’ backgrounds, some explanation of your objectives and functions and how they all fit into the firm’s overall goals...basically, let them know what you do, how you do it, and why.

Preparing in advance for the transition does more than just getting you through that phase more quickly; it can also help make sure you continue to exist. New leaders sometimes take a look at the organization and start making structural changes. You can save yourself a lot of grief if you’re prepared to explain why what you do is necessary and why you need to resources you have. Remember that what seems like common sense to you might not be so obvious to your new leadership, so try to take their perspective instead of just your own when preparing.

You might also look at the transition as an opportunity. If there are things you’ve wanted to do, but you’ve been blocked by past leaders, then this may be a chance to make some changes. Prepare your case for change and be ready to present it early on. Don’t push the issue right out of the gate, but set the stage for it when you meet with your new boss early on and then make your pitch soon after, once they start feeling comfortable making decisions but before they’ve gotten set in their ways.

However you view the problems and opportunities associated with new leadership, you’d be wise to start preparing as soon as you know change is coming. Don’t wait until a new boss arrives to start getting ready for the change. While it’s helpful to know something about that new boss, since that will help you get ready in a way that’s appropriate to the situation, you can get the basics of your transition together even before you know who’s coming in. If you wait until they arrive then you’ve waited too long, and when it comes to transitioning to new leadership, you really don’t want to leave stuff to chance.

Controlling the Use of Teams

Some people just aren’t happy unless they’ve got a whole team of people assigned to a task. But your use of teams needs to be balanced against the requirements, and the culture, of your firm.

The proper use of teams is one of the trickiest aspects of leading Creatives. In the right circumstances, organizing your Creatives into teams encourages a kind of synergy that provides results far beyond what any individual could accomplish. But under the wrong conditions, insisting on group work can hurt not just a particular project, but your overall organizational culture as well.

When you assign someone a project, ask yourself what they need to be successful. If an assignment requires multiple skills sets to be integrated in a complementary fashion, then yes, you should consider forming a working group to bring all those skills together. In advertising, for instance, the copywriter, the artist, the marketer, the client account manager, the lawyer...all of these have a role to play, and its generally better to get them together from the start rather than doing the work piece by piece.

But if all your Creative needs is information from others, then you should consider having them run solo and simply collect the inputs they need from others.

Why? Well, much of it comes down to the issue of control. When you have an individual working on something, they decide what the end result looks like and then pass it up to you for approval. When you form a team, though, everybody in that group gets a vote. It doesn’t come to you until everyone’s reviewed it and approved it. This not only slows down the creative process, it also leads to mediocre results as the group tends toward the least common denominator in order to gain consensus and move on.

Frankly, you often don’t need this. Creating unnecessary hurdles for Creatives stunts their innovation. If all you need from other people is information, why give them a say in decision making? Don’t create hassles for yourself when you don’t need them.

Insisting on teams can also affect your Creatives’ morale, and their interest in doing good work. A colleague of mine used to work for a boss who ended every assignment with “now, you’re going to need a working group...” “The implication,” says my colleague, “was that none of us were capable of accomplishing anything on our own. I don’t think that’s what he meant, but the message that came across was that he didn’t think much of our abilities.” As a result, a lot of the more motivated people left, leaving behind a group of employees who preferred not to accept responsibility. If you want a successful creative firm, these aren’t your ideal employees.

So be judicious n your use of teams. Don’t let a working group be your default position. If you can, let your people do the work you hired them to do, and maximize the creativity coming up from the ranks to you.

Save the Politics for November

Some people see a leadership position as a chance to inflate their ego, maybe make up for something that was missing earlier in life. Or maybe they find it easier to get satisfaction from the relatively easy method of playing office politics than from actually doing something productive. Whatever their reasoning,you should avoid being one of them. Because these people suck.

Office politics take different forms. Some leaders try to advance to higher positions. Others try to get more resources for their departments, not so much to do more with them as to simply have more than everybody else. Some are setting themselves up for another job somewhere else. And some simply have nothng better to do.

They don't help. Worrying about that kind of nonsense distracts you from the company's business, but worse, it distracts the people around you, too. Your employees suffer because they're trying to do good work and they don't get any top cover from you becaue you're focused on yourself. Your peers suffer because they have to deal with your childishness and try to keep it from interfering with their work. Your leaders suffer because they can't trust you to report accurately and objectively. Overall, the whole firm suffers from office politics.

Creative firms in particluar suffer because they require an environment that supports creativity and innovation. The negativity associated with office politics sucks the creative energy out of a group, wrecking everyone's focus.

Now, let's not be naive. Office politics are a normal fact of life. There will always be "those people," and sometimes even good leaders need to fight for their people. You need, though, to keep it to a minimum, and not play into it someone else's ego. If you're focused on inflating your ego rather than inflating your profit margin,then a leadership position probably isn't right for you.