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.

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.

Visual Illiteracy

Do you see what's going on around you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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