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.

Virtually Workable

Inc. magazine has embarked upon an interesting challenge: after writing about the ups and downs of virtual work, they've decided to pack up their offices for a month and publish the magazine remotely. Cool. And of course, they'll be blogging about it, so be sure to follow them.

The folks at Inc. are very used to sitting down with one another...this kind of creative work often seems to benefit from face-to-face discussion. Max Chafkin writes in their blog that "Working remotely is never easy, and we may face particular challenges coming from an industry where it is still common for an editor, a designer, a photo editor, and a writer to gather around a table to look at a page proof." Rather than jumping on the telework bandwagon you should first look at your work processes and decide if they can be done as well or better if done remotely...or if, perhaps, you would benefit from different work processes altogether.

The staff at Inc. isn't jumping into this blindly. They prepped for it with plenty of reading and spoke with the authors of some of those books they found most useful. They're also soliciting input from readers as they go along, trying to find the best way to function and realizing they need to be open to change as this process goes along.

We've talked a lot here about telework and going remote, the plusses and minuses you can expect and how to limit the costs while maximizing the benefits. But in the end, you'll only know if it works for you by trying it out. If you're intrigued by the idea of going virtual, maybe a month-long experiment would be worthwhile for you. Don't just jump into it, but instead, have some goals you'd like to achieve and some metrics for measuring your success, and be sure you're as prepped as can be before starting it. You'll get your best understanding through experience, and you'll get your best experience through good preparation.

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.

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.

A Place for My Stuff

A friend of mine recently posted pictures on Facebook of his new office.

He's a strategic planner at a large international organization, having been there about 6 months since finishing his master's degree. He is quite literally making the world a better place. Not a bad gig. He learned a few weeks ago that he'd be moving out of the office he shared with someone else and getting his own space. Immediately, his thoughts turned to making this new place his own, and based on the pics I saw, he's done exactly that. The tasteful artwork, the flowers and other amenities, the well-organized desk, all fit his personality. Nice.

Like my friend, I'm a strategic planner in a large bureaucracy, but unlike my friend, I work in an area reminiscent of a Dilbert cartoon, or a minimum-security prison. As I looked at his pictures I glanced around the three walls of my cubicle. Photos and mementos are propped up against the walls because there's no way to hang anything. I don't have room for all the books I need so most of them are stored at home and I have to make notes to myself to remember to bring them in as needed. I get to listen to all my neighbors: the guy in his 20s with ADD, the single father in his 30s who's pretty sure the world is supposed to revolve around his needs, and the new lady in her 40s who spends her days gossiping on the phone with people from her past jobs. It's not exactly an environment where I can do my best work. The only times in my career when I've had anything even come close to a proper office has been when I'm teaching.

Creatives need a space where they can create. What that space will be will vary based on the needs of your firm and the personalities of your Creatives. Hair stylists don't need individual offices, but they benefit from a well-designed salon. Creative teams might use individual work spaces but then need a communal area to come together when the team needs to function like a single individual. Truly creative people often like to surround themselves with a creative style, and will be more productive if they're working in a space to which they enjoy coming, rather than one which they can't wait to leave.

Your own experience in your creative field will help you understand what works well. Talking with your Creatives will help you understand what THEY think works well. The trick, of course, is to find the available space and make it happen.

You can't always do that. If you're in an established space and can't afford to move, then even if it's less than optimal you're probably stuck with it. If you're just starting out, you may not be able to afford much. You just need to do the best you can with what you have, but be sre to talk to your Creatives so you know how to define "the best." If they physical layout isn't that great, let your Creatives have some freedom when it comes to decorating and livening up the place.

If nothing else is possible, just bring in some fresh flowers every now and then. And maybe some cupcakes. Because everything seems nicer with flowers and cupcakes.

Give Them What They Need

I talked last week with a freelance photographer in Malaysia who specializes in travel photography. He’s done quite a bit of work for travel magazines, heading out mostly around Southeast Asia to provide a new perspective on familiar places, and he has a talent for helping you see a place as if for the first time, no matter how many times you might have been there.

But he hasn’t done any work for the magazine in months, nor does he expect to any time soon. The reason? The magazine drastically cut the funding for daily expenses on trips, to the point that he would have been paying for much of the trip out of his own pocket, wiping out a large percentage of what he would make from the assignment. He can’t afford to take a week away from other potential gigs in order to take one that won’t make him any money, no matter how much he’d enjoy it, so the magazine is losing out on his talents.

A travel magazine without money for travel? Come on.

When it comes to resources you need to be a smart manager, and among those smarts is a sense of priority. When your focus is on creative output then your first priority needs to be to get your Creatives what they need -- maybe not all that they want, but what they need -- to create. A graphic designer needs software. A hair stylist needs styling products. And a travel photographer needs travel funding.

Your Creatives bring talent. As a leader, it’s YOUR job to provide the resources they need to use that talent.

You’ll need to plan in advance with your Creatives so you understand your goals and they can figure out what they need to achieve them. If your salon plans to offer the Chi hair straightening technique from Japan, then you need to pay for that training; if you don’t see it as part of your offerings, then maybe you don’t shell out the $3000, or whatever it costs these days, simply because your stylist thinks it would be cool to learn. Figure out what’s necessary to meet your needs and focus your resources on that. As more resources are available, then you can do the lower priority things.

Try not to waste resources on unnecessary administrivia. If you’re throwing out a bunch of letterhead and ordering all new stuff simply because you’re changing the font at the top (and yes, I’ve worked in a place that did exactly that), you’re wasting money that could be better spent on your creative output. When you find yourself asking your Creatives "did you get the memo about the new format of the TPS reports?," you need to rethink your priorities. Put your resources into profit-making output rather than bureaucratic needs. That's not to say you don't spend money on in-house stuff that's necessary but not profit-making (like IT support, for instance) but it DOES mean you don't create unnecessary bureaucratic requirements.

Watch out as well for the "fun but not needed" stuff. Do you still emloy an in-house chefs, run a doggy day care, and provide massages on demand? This stuff is nice, and can create a better atmosphere for doing creative work, but in the current economic environment it might not be affordable...in any case, if you're scrimping on the stuff you really need in order to provide the stuff that makes things nicer, your priorities are out of whack. Some places can get away with this; Google is famous for it. But if you had Google's revenues, you could do it too. If you don't, well, then, you may need to focus your resources more sensibly. It's important to create a good working environment, but not at the expense of your true goals.

A travel magazine that doesn't have money for travel is headed out of business, or at least will find itself becoming a mediocre enterprise that doesn't stand out on a crowded newsstand. Your Creatives need resources to do what they do, and you need to find a way to get them. Maybe they need a lot, maybe they only need a little, but you need to know what they need and get it into their hands.

Bean There, Done That

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that coffee shops in New York are starting to limit the use of free wifi by customers who aren't buying much, and who are instead likely to be taking up so many tables that paying customers can't find a place to sit, and so go elsewhere. In "No More Perks: Coffee Shops Pull the Plug on Laptop Users," (subscription required) writer Erica Alani discusses the problems small cafes are having and some of the steps they're taking to increase revenue without alienating their regulars. She writes:

Amid the economic downturn, there are fewer places in New York to plug in computers. As idle workers fill coffee-shop tables -- nursing a single cup, if that, and surfing the Web for hours -- and as shop owners struggle to stay in business, a decade-old love affair between coffee shops and laptop-wielding customers is fading. In some places, customers just get cold looks, but in a growing number of small coffee shops, firm restrictions on laptop use have been imposed and electric outlets have been locked. The laptop backlash may predate the recession, but the recession clearly has accelerated it.

The original point of free wifi was to draw in customers who would then buy coffee, pastries, maybe lunch...keep people there for a while and they'll order more stuff, but make them pay for wifi and they'll go elsewhere. You can see the difference: Starbucks requires either payment to them or a T-Mobile account, so it's more of a "finish up and go" place for most people who need online access, whereas Panera Bread has become a popular spot for digital nomads.

But that hasn't quite worked in all cases. Cafes that offer free refills on coffee find people going through cup after cup, but only paying once. Even those places that don't have a refill policy, but also don't have a "buy something or get out" policy, are liable to have people sitting there all day long. These places -- especially the independent coffee houses more so than the big chains -- are looking for ways to keep wifi users there doing off-peak hours while getting them out of the way of the lunchtime crowd.

This can be an issue for you if you've adopted some of the new ideas for structuring your workforce, such as relying on free agents, or for flexible styles of working such as telework. Many of these folks, not using an office, are liable to be the ones taking up space at these coffee shops. They need to be aware that the tide had turned and they may no longer be welcome to use someone else's business as their day-long campsite.

What can you do? Consider purchasing online access, whether through a mobile account that's used at coffee shops, airports, and other public places (T-Mobile comes to mind), for your full-time employees. You might write into your free agents' contracts that they must have a reliable source of internet access, so they can't use "I got kicked out of Pike's Perk" as an excuse for not getting something to you on time. (Pike's Perk, by the way, would never do that because they are totally cool, and if you live in Colorado Springs you really should visit them sometime)

Your Creatives should identify spots other than private businesses where they can set up shop (libraries are great for this sort of thing, often having free wifi access, plus lots of resources called "books"). There's also, of course, home, but the reality is that many independent workers try to get out of the house to work. If they're going to use coffee shops, suggest to them that they actually buy food and drinks there, not just once a day, but throughout their stay. As a business leader yourself you can surely understand the profit needs of those businesses, so take a positive step toward helping them out.

One of the things I found surprising about the online article was the Comments section -- it was overwhelmingly in favor of the coffee house owners. Though a few people commented that owners seemed to be paying the price for a successful marketing tactic, many other writers were suggesting ways to weed out revenue-reducing customers, keep the regulars, and increase profits. It's nice to see people realize that, while it's been possible to get something for noting, that's really not the way the universe normally works. What you need to do, as a business leader, is make sure your employees find something that works for them, and ultimately, for you.


(a quick side note: today marks the 150th entry on LeadingCreatives.com. When The Simpsons hit 150 episodes there was a big hoo-hah about it, but here at LeadingCreatives.com we tend to go for little hoo-hahs.)

Lose the Gossip

Gossip doesn't do anybody any good, and does plenty of ill for your workplace. Careers get damaged, teams get wrecked, and people's attention gets diverted from their work. For Creatives, who really need to be thinking about what they're doing, gossip gets pretty distracting.

You may think it's fun to go to the person with "the dish" and see what's up, but remember, anyone who gossips TO you will gossip ABOUT you.

The first step in limiting gossip is to create a culture of mutual respect. Discuss this with employees, emphasizing the positive atmosphere of your workplace and the benefits of working with people you respect. Don't present it as "be nice or you'll get fired" but instead put it in a positive light.

Be sure, of course, that if you're talking that talk, you're walking that walk. Don't be publicly negative, try not to criticize people in front of others, and don't be a gossip yourself.

If you have an employee who's spreading gossip, step in and make the point that it's unprofessional. You don't need to do it in a harsh way, you could even try to make a little joke about it, but get the message across that it's unprofessional. Let them know that nothing hurts your workplace quite like employees who act like they're 12 years old. Anything that makes them think about what they're doing should help.

If it doesn't stop then pull them aside one-on-one and be more direct. You don't have to be threatening, but let them know they're disrupting the organization.

If they still don't stop, then consider if you can let them go. As a leader you don't need to give people an infinite number of chances...once you counsel them directly on their conduct then they know what's right and what isn't. At the same time, you need to consider the uniqueness of your Creative's skills and balance the problems they're causing with the benefits they bring to your organization.

An important thing to keep in mind is that you should never make personnel decisions based on gossip. If you hear "so-and-so said..." don't just take that at face value. be sure to get all sides of the story.

Working with a bunch of outgoing Creatives can be a great thing. Just make sure that outgoing-ness is used for good, not evil.

Digital Nomads

Last Sunday's Washington Post offered up a front page article on "digital nomads."

We've talked before about telework and the benefits, as well as the challenges, it offers. The concept of digital nomads refines that a bit, suggesting that your teleworkers are spending more time out of their homes and in coffee houses, parks, ornate hotel lobbies, and other spots that strike their fancy.

The proliferation of WiFi in public places during the last few years has made it possible to stay in touch while working, which was always one of the challenges to telework. If you needed to communicate, or work online rather than just on your own laptop, you needed that connection, which often meant staying home. As WiFi has expanded in commercial spaces as well as open spaces, your teleworkers have more places to go, and now are even starting to find like-minded people with whom to associate during the day. There's an interesting advantage here: you can't normally pick your co-workers, so if you don;t like them you're still stuck with them, but you CAN pick whom you choose to meet up with at the local Panera Bread shop.

So, there's a big benefit: your Creatives can choose their surroundings, not just the physical structure but the people surrounding them, too. This can help overcome the boredom of sitting in the same little cubicle day in and day out. They can also pick a place appropriate for their mood of the day, someplace that shakes them out of a bad emo sense so they can get some good work done, or some place that complements their feeling of excitement about a project. Whatever they're looking for, they have more choice, and that's a big factor in the quality of life in a job.

The nomad life also overcomes one of the big problems associated with telework: the lack of clarity between work-life and home-life. Working at home means you're always surrounded by your work, and it's tough to stop thinking about it; that was tough for me as a PhD student. But by moving around to different places they can have a definite starting point and ending point for their workday.

Getting out of the home and finding other people also helps those Creatives who feed off the energy of a crowd rather than doing their best work solo. While some people prefer quiet, others prefer background noise or talking with others throughout the day, and as the article pointed out, informal groups are forming at some nomad spots that may be recreating the office environment but in a way that's more supportive for certain employees.

There are still challenges associated with telework, of course. In addition to the increased security issues that come with working in public places you also need to make sure your Creatives have the tools they need to be mobile if you agree that's a good option for them. But as the advantages of telework become more obvious, in many fields it gets harder and harder to say it's a bad idea.

So take a look, and see if it's right for you.

Does the Know-It-All Really Know It All?

I have a co-worker who started in our office about a month ago as a strategic planner. The number of people who don't want to work with him grows with each passing day. he's turning people off through both his know-it-all attitude and a lack of knowledge and understanding about what we do -- frankly, that's a deadly combination. Our boss knew he had a reputation like that before he arrived, but didn't do anything to address it. Unfortunately, he put him on a project that requires pretty detailed knowledge about how how programs work in order to develop a brand new program. Now we're all paying for it with frustration and lowered morale.

How might you, as a leader, deal with something like this? It's going to be a problem for you -- surveys among business leaders are finding the perception that young workers are arriving with over-inflated senses of their own importance. Though often attributed to millenials' upbringing, let's be honest: we were all like that, weren't we? I mean, this is really nothing new.

It poses a potential problem for you, perhaps more so among Creatives. You have people with unique skills who have been told how talented they are, and who may have a strong sense of "pride of authorship" when it comes to their work. It's easy for them to come in and assume they'll quickly be in a position of authority because many of them have been told for years that that's their destiny.

They can just seem annoying at first, but it turns into a serious problem when these folks try to change the way you operate. Change is good, when it leads to improvements, but if someone doesn't understand why you do things the way you do, then how can they know their proposal will be an improvement?

It's better, and easier, to prevent this problem than it is to fix it later. When you get a new employee, an education program is a good idea. They should understand your corporate history, so they know how things got to where they are now. They need to know about responsibilities in the firm...who does what, and why? They need to be clear on where the firm is heading, from the broad vision down to their particular tasks. Only when they understand why you do things the way you do should they be offering ideas for change.

But what if you didn't prevent this, and they start causing problems? Let's look at that Wednesday.

Take a Break

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Sickness and In Health

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Social Capital in Singapore

The development of social capital is important to your firm. As trust and relationships emerge between your Creatives you'll find they interact more, creating a synergy that enhances the overall creativity and innovation of your firm. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and so forth. I've talked about this concept before with people in different situations and I've found that many people think this happens naturally, that it takes no effort, and that it's the normal situation that firms can expect.

But that's not quite true. Societies, whether small firms or national populations, don't necessarily create social capital. The time I recently spent living and working in Singapore showed me a society where social capital did not develop for the most part, and I saw some effects of that. Think about how this could play out on a smaller scale in your company.

Singapore has a high population density, limited natural resources, and multi-generational families living in the same home. In this situation, social capital can pretty much go one of two ways: either people learn to cooperate and help each other and do things that benefit society as a whole, or people can look out for themselves with a "get out of my way" approach. What I saw in Singapore seemed to be the latter.

You could see this expressed in daily life, in the little interactions between strangers. Getting onto public transit involved trying to cut around to the front of the line, and blocking those getting out just for a chance to rush on ahead of others. It was rare to see someone give up a seat on the train to an older person or pregnant woman. In restaurants, customers are rude, or at best indifferent, to the wait staff, who provided mediocre service in return. If I saw someone hold a door for someone else, I assumed they were an expat. There just didn't seem to be a lot of cooperation in daily interactions.

Now, this isn't a criticism, merely an observation. Different societies develop in different ways, and no doubt there are cultures that go too far in terms of social capital. But there are effects of this, and when it comes to your firm, you need to decide if you can live with those effects, or if it would be better to encourage the development of social capital.

What are the effects? I'd say that for Singapore one of the biggest effects has been a reduction in natural-born innovation. Yes, a recent survey ranked Singapore #1 in the world in terms of innovation, but even many locals will tell you that's being done mostly by the foreign workers. As a foreigner I was often told how different I was, particularly in the way I interacted with people. For example, among the professors on my hallway, only two of us kept our doors open, me and a British professor. This encouraged students to talk with us and facilitated the exchange of ideas, which are pretty important when it comes to creativity and innovation.

This isn't to say creativity and innovation don't exist among the Singaporean population. They do. I have one friend who's a very talented graphic designer, another who's a wonderful fashion designer, and there are some very interesting films coming out of Singapore. But these talented individuals are just that, individuals, and it's difficult to bring people together collectively. Do some collaborations exist? Of course. But not on the scale that they could if cooperation was the social norm.

The lesson for your firm is that social capital doesn't just "happen," because there are other ways your firm's culture can develop. True, if all your Creatives come from a high social capital environment then you'll be more likely to see it develop, but if you get that diverse workforce we all say we want then you'll get some negative qualities along with the benefits, and low social capital might be one of them. Being proactive about the development of social capital among your Creatives can be the difference between having creative individuals or a creative firm.

Keys to a Creative Culture

You can hire Creatives, you can have them teleworking or sitting in an open-air office, your can pay them better than your competitors can match, but that doesn't guarantee you creativity. Your employees can't just be creative on demand, or on certain days of the week if they're going to be most effective. Instead, they need a culture of creativity, an environment that encourages and rewards creativity on a regular basis. Just as you can't ski in a desert, you can't expect to be creative if you've got an organizational culture that doesn't support it.

A survey of 300 executives by the Economist Intelligence Unit identified six factors that are necessary conditions for a creative environment.

Clarity of purpose: the sense people have that innovation is a business priority. Your employees need to know they are there to be creative, that the firm exists to be creative. A good understanding of your firm's mission is critical at all levels, not just among the senior leadership.

Outside-in perspective: the sense that the organization is open to ideas from external sources, especially from customers. Real Creatives understand they always can learn more and they don't have a monopoly on good ideas. If leaders listen to outside views, the employees are more likely to as well.

Innovation discipline: the sense that innovation is managed through a disciplined process. It's easy to sit around and fill up a dry-write board with ideas. It takes discipline to turn those ideas into reality. Creatives are more energized to be innovative if they know their efforts will have a result.

Idea generation: the sense that employees are expected and encouraged to take initiative and try new ways of doing things. If leaders don't want to move forward and try new things, employees won't wither. That's death for a creative firm.

Idea support: the sense that the environment in the organization is supportive of the development and implementation of innovative ideas. This includes not punishing people for trying something that doesn't work. As we've written before, if you never fail, you aren't taking enough risks. Creatives need to know their leaders will support them when it comes to new, unconventional thinking.

Recognition: the sense of being rewarded for identifying and implementing innovative ideas. If the whole idea of your firm is to be creative, then you need to reward those who meet your mission. Give your Creatives the tools they need and then watch to see how they perform. If you want success to be repeated, you have to let people know when they've been successful.

These ideas don't guarantee success -- it's not a checklist for every firm -- but they tell you what the minimum is.

How do you achieve all these factors? Well, that's another discussion for another time...

Info Overload

The other day I heard someone on the other side of the cubicle wall ask "what does this acronym mean?," referring to the name of another organization with which we sometimes work. She has a tendency to talk a lot anyway, so I just rolled my eyes and didn't answer, thinking "there's a box on your desk with a keyboard and a screen that connects you to THE WORLD, and in about 5 seconds you could get the answer."

To be fair, she's a bit older (yes, even older than me!) and wasn't raised with an "always on" connection to the internet, with all its right and wrong answers, its good and bad information. She may not yet have transitioned to the frame of mind that uses "Google" as a verb or that expects -- nay, demands! -- immediate access to information. She doesn't read her newspapers online, she doesn't find old friends or keep up with current ones through Facebook or MySpace or LinkedIn, and she doesn't map out her trip to the grocery store and get traffic conditions for different routes. She doesn't really understand what a blog is.

But we do. In particular, many of your younger Creatives do.

We have so much information available to us, and it's so easy to go get it. Some of it comes through a "pull" system, like going to different websites or leaving an office TV tuned to CNBC. Some of it is a "push" system, whether we're on mailing lists or getting individual e-mails. We can access that from so many places with wi-fi, Blackberries, iPhones, and more.

The availability of information can be very useful for Creatives. Many new ideas are developed from a synthesis of existing ideas. A news story can spark a new way of thinking about something. We can reach out and get answers in a hurry so we don't waste time digging for answers and instead can get back to our creative work. We can see what others in our field (including our competitors) are doing. And we can take a quick break, when we need to rest our brains, and just look at YouTube. The immediacy of our information access is a good thing.

But...

...and there's always a "but," isn't there?...

...too much information can overwhelm us.

If you take in too much information you'll have trouble processing it, and that whole idea of synthesizing various ideas to come up with something new won't work. Never mind that time spent online, on the Blackberry, or on the phone is time spent not working, there's also the problem that when you ARE working, it might not provide the high quality work you want.

Kathleen Parker recently wrote in the Washington Post that

...with so much data coming from all directions, we risk paralysis. Brain freeze, some call it. More important, we also risk losing our ability to process the Big Ideas that might actually serve us better...

In fact, brain research shows that we do our best thinking when we're not engaged and focused, yet fewer of us have time for downtime. (If you have to schedule relaxation, is it still relaxing?)

Daydreaming, we used to call it. Ask any creative person where they got their best ideas and they'll say, "Dunno. Just came to me out of the blue." If you're looking for Eureka -- as in the Aha! moment -- you probably won't find it while following David Gregory's Tweets. Or checking Facebook to see who might be "friending" whom. Or whose status has been updated. George Orwell is . . . More likely, the ideas that save the world will present themselves in the shower or while we're sweeping the front stoop. What the world needs now isn't more, but less. The alternative to mindless activities for the mindful is turning out to be not a less-informed nation but a dumber one.

Unchecked "infomania" -- yes, there's even a term for this instapathology -- can lead to a lower IQ, according to a 2005 Hewlett-Packard study. The research, conducted by a University of London psychologist, found that people distracted by e-mail and phone calls lost 10 IQ points, more than twice the impact of smoking marijuana -- or comparable to losing a night's sleep.

Just as too much candy rots your teeth, apparently so too does too much information rot your brain.

The solution is not to unplug the cable modem or confiscate the phones. As is the case anytime there are benefits and costs to something, you need to strike the right balance. Making polices about shutting down information, like limiting internet usage, can be seen as punishment and can also end up hurting your Creatives' ability to do their jobs...remember, information is good. Instead of trying to force something upon your employees, try teaching them instead. Help them discover the proper balance for themselves, give them the tools to figure this out on their own. You'll end the day with more talented Creatives who are better at getting and using information, and in the process, they won't hate you. Put those to results together -- more skill, no hate -- and that's not a bad outcome.

An Office for Groups and Singles

While many firms employ telework or a free agency style of working, those concepts may not be right for everyone. For many firms large and small, the office will be the center of the working world. That being the case, it's important to have an office space that inspires ideas and encourages creativity and innovation. And yes, an office space CAN do that, just like it can hurt the ability to do that. When I've worked for different organizations I've never had a workspace that was designed to facilitate creativity, though sometimes there are accidental features that do help.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that balancing collaboration with concentration is critical in a creative environment. While the specifics of your design will depend on factors such as the particular field in which you work, the nature of the creative work you do, or the size of your firm, you really need to keep this concept in mind. teamwork is often important in creative fields, but so is independent work, and you need a workspace that encourages both.

In my current job, we set up a strategic planning division last year, and some of the members were so taken with their newfound importance that they wanted to have all our meetings behind closed doors. This had the double effect of isolating us from all the other divisions with whom we should be working and fueling suspicion that we were up to something like cutting budgets. Though we finally got past this childish point, it did remind us that there are times when you do need to work privately, and having a place to do that, in addition to encouraging collaboration, was important.

The common path taken by creative firms is to get out of individual offices and and have some sort of open floor plan. This is good when you want to cooperate, but can be bad if it creates a noise level that makes independent work difficult. There are some ways to address this. One might be to have individual cubicles designed in a way that minimizes the noise flow throughout the office, while having a central area in the room where people can roll their chairs and discuss. Another option might be to have two rooms...I worked for an agency 10 years ago that had one room with individual cubicles while the other had an open design, and Creatives chose the room in which they wanted to work based on their individual preferences. originally, the leadership was moving in the direction of having both rooms incorporate an open design, because "that's how you encourage creativity," but they weren't taking into account the fact that individuals' work habits differ.

It's worth having informal places for collaboration as well. In many offices, the coffee lounge or snack room can serve this purpose. In my current office that room is very small, has two large refrigerators, a microwave, industrial-size coffee maker, and is located right next to some cubicles so there's a sign asking people to keep conversations to a minimum. In the process, we're losing out on a great, well-lubricated (in a coffee sense) place for some interesting conversations. A better solution might be to have a larger space, with some small tables and a white board or two on the wall, where spontaneous conversations can lead to something productive.

Informal places for self-work would be useful too. When I taught at a small college a few years ago, another professor pointed out what was missing from the large area between the dorms and classroom buildings: benches. Even though thousands of students passed through this area every day, there was no place to just sit and think about what they'd just discussed in class. OK, now, every student's not going to be so introspective as to need a bench, but what this professor pointed out was that the message the school was sending was "get out of class and get back to your room...don't stop to think about what you just learned." Having someplace away from the individual office where one can stop, get a change of scenery, and do some thinking without checking e-mail every 5 minutes, can be a useful thing. For me, i often leave my office and head down to Starbucks for something different, which is great for Starbucks but, because it's along a major corridor in our building, doesn't provide a great atmosphere for deep thinking.

One interesting idea is to incorporate a share bookshelf bookshelf somewhere into your floor plan. Creatives often seem to have more books than other folks and a strong desire to share if only to have someone else with whom they can discuss the latest Christopher Moore novel or new ideas in photography techniques. Having a central place for sharing books, magazines and journals can encourage more professional reading and spark new discussions that can head off in very interesting directions.


As we noted above, the specifics of your design will depend on what attributes are important for your firm's success. There are some good basic principles to follow, though, and one firm full of Creatives offers a useful checklist for office design. There's another interesting article that has a discussion with architects and designers about what they like to put into a creative office...and perhaps, where they'd like to work themselves.

You can go simple or complex in your design, and during the dot com boom many firms included silly elements designed to make the office more interesting. One friend at a web gaming firm in Berkeley had a slide that went between floors, obviating the need for stairs (well, for going down, anyway) and there are plenty of fire station poles, hot tubs, and so forth. There's a place for "highly-designed" offices, and maybe your firm could benefit from that. You might also need something much simpler (and less expensive). Either way, you need to put some thought into what kind of space will best serve your Creatives.

Separating Work and Real Life

As a grad student, I was always thinking about school. I can remember having deep thoughts about organizational theory while in the shower (my water bills tended to be high as a result). I felt sorry for friends who asked how my dissertation was going because they typically got a 3-hour report in excruciating detail (but I warned them...). It was pretty much impossible to separate school from my "real" life when school was on my mind every waking moment.

One of the occupational hazards for your Creatives is a similar blurring of work life and real life. Many Creatives enter their field because it matches their passion for art, writing, the pursuit of knowledge, whatever. In many ways, they're turning their hobby into their work, and there are some great advantages to that from a job satisfaction viewpoint. But doing so makes it kind of tough to still have hobbies that are separate from work, when your favorite hobby IS your work.

Real creativity doesn't stop at 5pm, and you want employees who are passionate about their work, so the idea that they'll always be doing, or at least thinking about, their job can be pretty appealing to the leader who only has to pay them for 8 hours a day. But it's better if your employees can take a break from work. They need time to recharge their batteries, to put things aside so they can come back with a fresh look. Frankly, they need interests beyond the job they do for you, or they're going to get stale and burnt-out. They -- and any relationships they have with other people -- will be better off if they can draw a line between working for you and having their personal life. And ultimately, a happy employee is better for you, too.

This is particularly tough for teleworkers, both those who are regular employees and those free agents you bring in. A good friend of mine who worked remotely had a small apartment with his desktop in the bedroom. As a result, he couldn't even get away from work by sleeping...it was always right there next to him. He lived on the East Coast and the company was on the West Coast, so by following the office's schedule he could easily be working until 9 or 10 every night while his local friends were off from work. His sleeping was messed up, his social life suffered, and his work wasn't any better than if he'd worked a normal schedule.

You can't really dictate to your teleworkers (and even, somewhat, your in-house employees) how they should be working, and it's hard for you to know if they're spending too much time on work. But you can try to create a culture -- even remotely -- that encourages people to stop and have a personal life. Be clear about your expectations with new employees, and let them know you don't expect them to be continuously focused on work. Have "suggested" working hours in the office (with some flexibility) and for your long-distance remote workers, try to set "windows" every day for things like phone calls and e-mails, so they don't feel like they have to be up at 3am checking their mail.

Remember, all this applies to you, too. No matter how much you enjoy your work, get away from it. A nice philosophy is "work to live, don't live to work." It's easy to say "I'll just do one more thing, then go home" but after a while you need to realize no matter how long you spend on it today, something will still be there tomorrow. You want to do a good job, of course, but you'll do it better if you get away from it when you're supposed to.

Loose Environments

A stuffy, restrictive environment can really reduce the creative atmosphere in your workplace. Individual creative styles don't always conform to broad, universal policies. Forcing your Creatives to fit into a box constructed of strict rules and hierarchies can limit their creative effectiveness, which is the reason you hired them in the first place. A looser, freer environment that allows your employees to explore their own creative style and challenge conventional thinking, with a free flow of communication between talented people, can lead to an outstanding final product.

You'll find, though, that too loose of an environment can hurt your ability to lead. Trying to be a buddy makes it tough to be a boss. Lack of hierarchy make sit unclear who has the final say in decisions. No rules can mean no one really knows what they're responsible for, or what's truly off-limits. Going out for drinks with your employees makes it hard to criticize them for coming to work with a hangover.

As with most things in life, what's needed is balance. But figuring out where to draw the line is tough. The easy answer -- and the unsatisfying one -- is "it depends."

The size of your firm matters. Bigger firms tend to be more hierarchical because it's harder to coordinate what a lot of people are doing than it is for a few, If you're trying to get different groups within the company to work together you'll probably need a more formal structure than if you've got 15 people working in a startup.

The nature of the work is a factor as well. If you require a lot of teams you should try to break down the walls between different specialties and avoid stovepipes in your company. If it's mostly individual work, you need to focus on keeping open communication between you and each of your individual Creatives. Try to figure out how the communication needs to flow and then set up your structure to facilitate that.

Consider the maturity of your Creatives. Are they mostly fresh out of school or have they been in the working world for a while? Those who are more experienced are more likely to understand what's appropriate and what's not, and can use their own judgment on things. Less experienced workers might need more structure so they can learn about the working world and how they fit into it.

Consider your own maturity as a leader. Are you new to this, or have you been leading for a while? Did you come from the ranks of the employees into management, or did you come into this company from the outside? Your experience, and your existing relationships with your employees, will suggest how much leeway you can give yourself. If you think you're able to have a casual working relationship but still be tough when necessary, then go right ahead. But if you think you'll have trouble crossing back and forth over that line, then just stick to a more professional relationship for now and leave the looseness for when you're ready.

Early in my career I'd moved into a leadership position in the training division of a large organization. One of our instructors really screwed up, and I had to clean up the mess, a pretty serious mess at that. As I was trying to figure out how to deal with this employee -- what, exactly, should be the consequences for his careless inattention to detail? -- I was stuck with one serious problem: he was my roommate. I learned from that experience that there's a time to be casual and loose and a time to be more rigid and structured, and a good leader is one who's able to tell the difference.

Mandatory Fun

I'm a fun guy. No, seriously, PhDs can be fun people. In the right setting. With the right atmosphere. And the proper phase of the moon.

There are things I like to do, things that keep me relaxed and help to recharge my batteries so that when I come back to work I'm better for it. I can do a better job and be happier about my work if I have something to help me take a break and take my mind off of it.

But what's fun for me isn't necessarily fun for you. And that's where "mandatory fun" can become a problem.

When you're in a leadership position you might feel compelled to come up with fun things for your employees to do. Maybe you want to help people relax, or perhaps you're encouraging team building, or maybe you want to bring everyone's families and significant others together. You might have picnics, ski trips, parties in the office, "rope courses," whitewater rafting, rock climbing, golf tournaments, or something else that you think would be fun. But just because YOU think it's fun doesn't mean anyone else does. And when you make this sort of thing mandatory you can lose a lot of the benefits you're hoping for.

Consider the goal of trying to help people relax and forget about work for a while. How easy is that to do when they're surrounded by other people from work? Even if you're out of the office, all of the office relationships still apply. What happens to that employee who's never picked up a golf club...will he be penalized when his bosses see his skills are more suited to Putt-Putt than to Bushwood Country Club? Probably not, but he can't know that for sure, so instead of helping him relax you're putting extra pressure on him. An office function still has the word "office" in there, so it's hard for people to really relax...even if you pick an event they'd normally enjoy, which isn't always the case. A group of Creatives will have very diverse interests, so finding something everyone finds enjoyable is going to be tricky.

How about team building? That's a good objective, particularly in creative fields like advertising or software development or other places where group work is necessary. But is an out-of-office event the best way to do that? I've always felt that the best way to build teams is to do it where it matters: in the workplace. If you need people to work well together then let them do that through work rather than through some artificial "team building" event. A lot of people resent the suggestion that they aren't professional enough to do what the job requires, so be careful about using some fun event to try to accomplish what you should be accomplishing in the workplace.

One of the favorite reasons for mandatory fun that I've heard in my career is that it provides a chance to get our families involved in our work environment. Well, so what? Is that necessarily a good thing? Is there some reason my kids need to play with my co-workers' kids rather than with the other kids in our neighborhood? (OK, I don't have kids, but if I did, the question would apply) I've met co-workers families and wondered, "what's the point?" If I'm not going to be seeing them regularly, what's the benefit of seeing them now? And if I do want to see them regularly, I don't need my boss to set that up, I'll just hang out with them on my own. Of course, the single employees without a current significant other, the gay employees who aren't yet "out" to everyone and don't feel they can bring their partner, and that employee who's in the middle of an ugly custody battle in an even uglier divorce, are all going to feel excluded, and that's not helpful at all.

None of this is to say that socializing within the workplace is a bad idea, but what IS a bad idea is forcing people to do it. Plenty of the people who work for you will want to spend time socially together, but they can do that on their own without your oversight. Lots of people will want to organize office outings and parties, but it's best to let them do that on their own so that your involvement as the boss doesn't make people feel pressured to participate. Office environments develop their own social culture, and trying to purposely create that culture through required events will advance that development...but possibly in a direction you don't like.

Hair Cell-On

Today I stopped into a salon in Bangkok (did I mention I'm in Bangkok? Yes, I'm in Bangkok) where I saw something that I don't see that often in the States (though admittedly, I'm operating with a small sample size in terms of salons). A stylist had finished up one fellow's hair and was giving him a neck-and-shoulder massage, which is a great custom here in Thailand that I wish American salons would start up. Anyway, at one point the stylist's cell phone rang. I thought it was odd he didn't have it switched off, or at least set to vibrate, whle working with a client. I was even more surprised when he answered it. And I was even MORE surprised when he continued the massage with one hand. Though I imagine the client -- another westerner -- might have been even more surprised than I.

"An isolated incident," I thought, until I later heard another phone go off somewhere in the salon and a muffled conversation get started. And then it happened to me, though my stylist had the courtesy (?) to step away and keep the call brief.

This suggested a couple lessons to me, one more appropriate for hair salons but also one of a more general nature.

In terms of the salon, or really, ANY environment where your Creatives are working directly with customers, cell phones need to be a no-no. If they're with a customer their focus needs to be on that customer. Unless you're waiting for a call that's going to affect your relationship with that client, that phone needs to be silent and be ignored. Clients who engage your Creatives want to know they can focus, and also want to know they have the Creative's full attention on their work. Answering the phone in the middle of a client's styling session makes that client feel they aren't getting their money's worth and you're liable to lose their repeat business. And of course, if that stylist isn't concentrating on work, they're liable to do a bad job as well. The bottom line, regardless of which creative profession you're talking about, is FOCUS.

In a broader sense, this suggests something about Creatives in general. We often let Creatives have a bit more freedom in the workplace so as not to interfere with their muse or upset their aura or what have you. That's all well and good when it positively affects their ability to do their job. But when it detracts from their work, when it interferes with a client-Creative relationship, or when it's just downright rude, then don't feel you have to give in on everything. This blog often suggests doing things to support your Creatives' working environment, but you as a leader need to know where to draw the line.

The Bangkok example might not seem relevant to many people. They don't really work for tips here the same way as the US encourages, so the stylists' motivation may be a bit different, and the need for a good environment for the clients may not seem as important. But one thing I've noticed about this salon, which I have visited probably 6 times in the last 3 years: the number of clients seems to be getting smaller each time, as does the number of employees. Yes, I know, correlation does not equal causality, but I have to wonder if getting rid of the cell phones might help a bit.

So, cell phones off, and encourage your Creatives to give clients -- and every aspect of their job -- their full attention.

And for the record, as I sit here at a Bangkok coffee house typing this entry, I'm feeling a VERY strong "Carrie Bradshaw" moment. But you can't sue someone for simply experiencing a sensation, can you? Hope not.