Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice 9781119334002, 9781119334019

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Leadership in the Creative Industries Principles and Practice

Karen L. Mallia

This edition first published 2019 © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. The right of Karen L. Mallia to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with law. Registered Office(s) John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA Editorial Office 101 Station Landing, Medford, MA 02155, USA For details of our global editorial offices, customer services, and more information about Wiley products visit us at www.wiley.com. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print‐on‐demand. Some content that appears in standard print versions of this book may not be available in other formats. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this work, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives, written sales materials or promotional statements for this work. The fact that an organization, website, or product is referred to in this work as a citation and/or potential source of further information does not mean that the publisher and authors endorse the information or services the organization, website, or product may provide or recommendations it may make. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a specialist where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication data applied for [Hardback] 9781119334002 [Paperback] 9781119334019 Cover Image: © iStock.com/Alex_Doubovitsky Cover Design: Wiley Set in 10/12pt Warnock by SPi Global, Pondicherry, India 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Contents Acknowledgments  xiii Introduction (Yes, This Is Meant to Be Read. First.)   1 Section I  Creativity and Creative People: What You Need to Know About How They Work  5 1 Creativity and the Creative Industries  7 1.1 ­What Is Creativity?  9 1.1.1 Who Is Creative? And Who Is “a Creative?”  9 1.2 ­What Are “the” Creative Industries – And Why Are We Using This Term?  10 1.2.1 Creative People Are Spreading Virally  12 1.3 ­Leading Creatives Makes Rocket Science Look Easy  13 1.4 ­Fundamentals of Creative Theory  14 1.4.1 Psychology, Social Psychology, and the “Right” Context for Creativity  15 1.4.2 The Systems View of Creativity – Creativity and Relationships and Organizations  17 1.5 ­The Creative Challenge. Actually, Several of Them  18 1.5.1 Who Is Ready for This Kind of Leadership Challenge?  19 1.5.2 One Thing You Can Learn from Experience: Assessing and Evaluating Creativity  20 1.5.3 Creative Judgment Is Fundamental to Creativity – and Creative Leadership  21 1.5.4 The Making of a Creative Leader: It’s a Process, Too  21 1.6 ­Chapter Summary  23 1.7 ­Ideas + Action  23 1.8 ­Some Great Reads + Resources  23 ­References  23

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2 The Role of the Leader in Creative Work  27 2.1 ­What You Are, and What You Do: Personal Characteristics and Creative Leadership  28 2.1.1 How Leaders Influence Creativity: Skills and Behaviors  29 2.1.2 Soft Skills: The Importance of What You Didn’t Know You Needed to Know  30 2.1.2.1 You Need to Know How to Think. Really Think  31 2.1.3 Leaders Communicate: Writing, Speaking, and Interpersonal Skills  32 2.1.4 How Leaders Lead: Leadership Behaviors and Leadership Styles  34 2.1.4.1 The Leader Holds the Keys to a Climate for Creativity  38 2.1.4.2 What Great Leaders Actually Do Every Day in Creative Industries  39 2.1.4.3 Your “To Do” List: Some Concrete Advice  41 2.2 ­Chapter Summary  43 2.3 ­Ideas + Action  46 2.4 ­Some Great Reads + Resources  46 ­ References  46 Understanding and Managing for Creativity  49 3.1 ­The Science, and Art, of Creativity  50 3.1.1 Is There Really Such a Thing as Creative People?  51 3.1.1.1 Creativity at the Individual Level  52 3.1.1.2 This Is Your Brain on Creativity  54 3.2 ­Creative Personality, Traits, and Behaviors  55 3.2.1.1 It’s Not All Roses  58 3.2.1.2 The Paradoxes of the Creative Individual  58 3.3 ­How the Process Impacts the Creative Product, and Where the Leader Fits In  60 3.3.1 How the Individual Creative Process Works  60 3.3.1.1 Problem Solving Versus Problem Definition  60 3.3.2 Thinking Styles: Divergent and Convergent Thinking  62 3.4 ­From Traits to Situational Influences – Where Leaders Fit in the Creative Process  62 3.4.1 Ordering Creativity – Always a Rather Tall Order  63 3.4.2 Inspiration and Motivation – Where Internal and External Influences Converge  63 3.4.3 Leaders Motivate by Supporting Their Followers  64 3.4.4 Teach Them What They Need to Know – As Well as How to Think  65 3.4.5 What Leaders Do Matters. But How They Do Matters Even More  65 3.5 External Influences: The Domain, the Field. Social, and Organizational  66

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3.6 ­Chapter Summary  67 3.7 ­Ideas + Action  67 3.8 ­Some Great Reads + Resources  68 ­ References  68 4

The Creative Community: One, Big, Sometimes Dysfunctional, Family   71

4.1 ­Creative Leadership Is Not Just an Inside Job  72 4.1.1 Professional Networks 101  73 4.1.2 Formal and Informal Networks  74 4.1.3 Networks and “Networking” Are Not the Same  76 4.1.4 Many Industries, Many Kinds of Networks  76 4.1.5 To Each Their Own. And Many Others  77 4.1.6 Community and Proximity: Creative Clusters  78 4.2 ­Approach Professional Networks Strategically  78 4.2.1 How to Choose Wisely  79 4.3 ­Why Are Networks Critical to Leadership?  79 4.4 ­You Build Expertise Through Your Networks, and Demonstrate It  80 4.4.1 Networks Bring Access to Opportunities  80 4.4.2 Communities Provide Leaders External Validation and Reputation Building  81 4.4.3 Thought Leadership Builds a Leader’s Network  81 4.4.4 Networks Are Where You Find Mentorship and Sponsorship  82 4.4.4.1 Need It, Want It, Do It. Always  82 4.4.4.2 Sponsors Are Different from Mentors  82 4.4.4.3 Networking Has Rules, IRL, and Online. But They’re Not Always Written Down  84 4.4.4.4 Online Networks: Less About the “Social” Part – And More About the Professional Part  84 4.5 ­Community Is Currency Is the “Gig” Economy  85 4.6 ­Community Has Some Painful Side‐Effects, Too  87 4.6.1 A Tightknit Community Can Be Impermeable  88 4.6.2 Perception Becomes Reality, Even If It’s Wrong  88 4.7 ­Chapter Summary  89 ­ References  89 Section II 

From Creative Staffer to Creative Leader  93

The Factors That Make or Break a Creative Leader  95 5.1 ­Who You Fundamentally Are Affects the Leader You Will Be  96 5.2 ­To Lead, You Need to Think Like a Leader and Act Like a Leader  98

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5.2.1 How to Think Like a Leader 101: THINK. Really Think  100 5.2.2 Know Thyself. And Thy Limits  101 5.2.3 Focus  102 5.2.4 Think Carefully. Your Every Decision Either Encourages Creativity, or Kills It  103 5.3 ­Act Like a Leader: Essential Behaviors to Lead for Creativity  104 5.3.1 Practice Persistence  104 5.3.2 Learn to Manage Yourself First: After Focus Comes Resilience  104 5.3.3 You Have to Build Trust, and Earn It  105 5.3.4 Observe People and Behavior. Find Legitimate Power  106 5.3.5 Communicate with Clarity  107 5.3.6 Listen More Than You Speak  107 5.3.7 Cultivate Your Relationship Skills  107 5.3.8 Resist the Urge to Micromanage or DIY  108 5.3.9 Stay Open, and Well Ahead of the Pack  110 5.3.10 Start Modeling  110 5.3.11 Stop Being a Perfectionist  110 5.3.12 Observe. Learn. Repeat Daily  111 5.3.13 Watch Out for the Creative Asshole. Especially If It’s You  111 5.3.14 Be Humble  112 5.3.15 Saber‐Rattling Starts Wars and Doesn’t End Well  112 5.3.16 Embrace Change and Become a Chaos Filter  112 5.3.17 Creativity Needs Regular Feeding – Yours and Theirs  113 5.4 ­Chapter Summary  114 5.5 ­Ideas + Action  116 5.6 ­Some Great Reads + Resources  116 ­ References  116 6 Creative Work Never Ends: Neither Does Creative Leadership  119 6.1 ­Leadership Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint  120 6.2 ­Learn, Think, Do. And Don’t. The Habits of Great Leaders  120 6.2.1 Listen, Listen, Listen  121 6.2.2 Give Your Microprocessor a Spin: Sit and Have a Think  121 6.3 ­Question EVERYTHING. Regularly. Rinse and Repeat  122 6.3.1 What Business Are You In?  122 6.3.2 Who Are You with and to Others?  124 6.3.3 What Does “Success” Look Like in Your Head? And What Do You Want in Your Obituary?  124 6.4 ­The Mentorship Mandate  125 6.4.1 Do It. You Really Have No Choice  126 6.4.2 Leadership Is Not Pie  126 6.5 ­Remember: It’s Not Business, It’s Personal  128

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6.5.1 Be Nice  128 6.6 ­Talent: Finding, Encouraging, and Keeping the Best People  129 6.6.1 Who Are You Looking for in Hiring? Specialists? Generalists?  131 6.6.2 Where Do You Look?  132 6.6.3 Recruiting the Best Talent Means Relentless Monitoring and Cultivating  134 6.6.4 Beyond Hiring: Worry About Retention  134 6.6.5 Revolving Doors Are Expensive and Unproductive  135 6.6.5.1 Enable Your Staff to Take Your Job  136 6.6.6 Prepare to Drive Change, and for Inevitable Disasters  136 6.7 ­Chapter Summary  136 6.8 ­Some Great Reads + Resources  137 ­References  137 Section III 

Leading For Creativity and Better Creative Work  141

Leadership and the Environment for Creativity  143 7.1 ­Context Is Created Before Anything Else Is  144 7.1.1 A Good Environment Isn’t a Perk. It’s a Requirement for Creativity  145 7.1.2 Leaders Create Context, Culture, and the Environment for Creativity  146 7.2 ­How the Leader Builds Culture and Climate: Inspiration, Motivation, Implementation  147 7.2.1 Inspiration  147 7.2.2 Motivation  148 7.2.3 Implementation  149 7.3 ­Culture Building Basics: Start with a Philosophy  149 7.3.1 Practice What You Preach  151 7.3.2 How to Generate the Right Climate for Creativity  153 7.4 ­Let’s Get Physical  158 7.4.1 Geography  158 7.4.2 Layout and Design  159 7.5 ­External Influences on Culture and Climate  159 7.6 ­Chapter Summary  160 7.7 ­Ideas + Action  160 7.8 ­Some Great Reads + Resources  161 ­ References  161

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8 Collaboration, Teams, and Creativity  163 8.1 ­Where Leaders, Teams, and Teamwork Intersect  165 8.1.1 Who Says You Need a Team?  168

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8.1.2 Things to Consider Before Building Teams  169 8.1.3 When Teams Work, Wow!  170 8.2 ­Building Great Creative Teams  171 8.2.1 WHO Should Be on the Team? Choosing the Right People  171 8.2.2 Team Diversity and the Medici Effect  172 8.2.3 Skill Diversity Is Essential for Creative Teams  173 8.2.4 WHAT Type of Team Is Needed?  174 8.2.4.1 What Size Is Right? Two Enough? Eight Too Many?  175 8.2.5 WHEN Do Teams Work? When Should They Work?  175 8.2.6 WHERE?  176 8.2.7 HOW Do You Orchestrate Successful Teamwork?  177 8.3 ­Chapter Summary  179 8.4 ­Some Great Reads and Resources  179 ­ References  180 Motivation, Competition, and Conflict  185 9.1 ­Motivation Through Shared Leadership and Autonomy  186 9.2 ­Other Motivators  187 9.3 ­Tried and True Ways to De‐motivate Creative Teams (Use with Caution)  189 9.4 ­Making Collaboration Magic  191 9.4.1 Building Camaraderie and Team Culture  192 9.4.2 When Collaboration Kills Creativity  192 9.5 ­Creative Industries Are Rife with Possibilities for Conflict  193 9.5.1 Sometimes, Conflict Can Enhance Creativity  193 9.5.2 Types and Kinds of Conflict Matter  195 9.6 ­A Little Healthy Competition?  195 9.7 ­When Competition Turns into Conflict  197 9.7.1 Averting Dysfunctional Conflict Within and Among Teams  197 9.7.2 When Freelance Collides with Staff  198 9.7.3 Sometimes, Amputation Is the Only Answer  198 9.8 ­Chapter Summary  199 ­ References  200

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10 Diversity and Creativity: It’s Everybody’s Problem. And It’s Big  203 10.1 ­Trade Popular Fiction for Cold, Hard Facts  204 10.2 ­Reality Check: Some Painful Truths, and (Real) Numbers  206 10.2.1 Meritocracy Is a Lovely Myth. But That Is All  206 10.3 ­Why Has So Little Changed in So Long?  207 10.3.1 Culture  207 10.3.1.1 Bias Persists – and Replicates Itself  209 10.3.1.2 Ageism Is Unlike any Other Prejudice  209 10.3.1.3 Vive la Difference!  210

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10.3.2 Systems Play a Bigger Role Than Originally Thought  210 10.3.2.1 Creative Culture Can Be Exclusionary  211 10.3.2.2 Hiring and Promotion  211 10.3.2.3 Creative Process Itself Contributes to Disparities  212 10.4 ­Why the Creative Industries Need Diversity More Than Individuals Do  212 10.4.1 Steal from the Best, and Watch for Landmines  214 10.5 ­What You Can Do to Foster Diversity  214 10.6 ­Chapter Summary  218 10.7 ­Some Great Reads + Resources  218 ­ References  219 Section IV 

The Future Is What You Make It  227

A Look at Ethics and the Big Picture  229 11.1 ­Ethics Can No Longer Be the Last Thing on the Mind of Creative Leaders  230 11.1.1 It’s Not That Hard  231 11.2 ­What Is Valued, by Whom?  231 11.2.1 The Value of Values, and the Value of Creative Work  232 11.3 ­Disagreement Is Good for Creativity – and Ethical Decisions  234 11.3.1 Doing Good Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Be Great. Good Is Good for Business  234 11.3.2 Teasing Out Truth, Lies, and Everything in Between  235 11.3.3 A Framework for Ethical Decision‐Making. It’s a Process  239 11.3.4 Weighing the Impact of Tough Decisions on People – and Creativity  239 11.4 ­Chapter Summary  241 ­ References  242

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12 Now What?  247 12.1 ­How to Build an Enduring Creative Career  247 12.2 ­Create Your Story: Actively Shape Your Professional Reputation  249 12.2.1 Thought Leadership: Know It, Then Share It  249 12.2.2 Reputation Promotion and Brand Management  251 12.2.3 LinkedIn and Other Platforms  253 12.2.4 Be Open to Seeing Opportunities in Unexpected Places  253 12.2.5 Know What Is Possible  253 12.2.6 Know When to Stop  254 12.3 ­Are You Ready for Leadership?  254 12.3.1 You’re Already Leading  255

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12.3.2 Do You Want to Change the World?  255 12.3.3 Where Do You Want to Go?  256 12.3.4 Danger Lurks Out There. Be Aware  256 12.4 ­From Seeing the Future to Being the Future  256 12.4.1 Growing Pains and False Gods  257 12.4.2 Be Responsive. But Remember That Naked Emporer  257 12.4.3 It’s About People, Stupid. Not Technology  259 12.5 ­Chapter Summary  260 12.6 ­Ideas + Action  262 12.7 ­Some Great Reads and Resources  262 ­ References  263 Appendix  265 Index  273

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Acknowledgments This book has been a lifetime in the making. Many people contributed, both knowingly and unwittingly. First, credit goes to the parents who struggled and sacrificed from the day I was born to fund the college education ticket out of a working‐class town – and told me there was nothing I couldn’t do. Thanks to the retired Mobil Oil executive who taught a January term advertising course at Rider College, who inspired me to become a copywriter because you could make more money doing that than working in journalism, even at the New York Times. Then there are all the mentors at Ogilvy who taught me so much of what I know during the first years of my career. D.O.’s aphorisms and Magic Lanterns still echo in my ears. I continue to pass on that enduring wisdom to every advertising student who lands in my classroom. Thanks to the great creative leaders who improved me  –  and my work  –  with every critique. Jay Jasper. Suzette Prigmore. Sue Buck. Malcolm End. John Doig. Joyce King Thomas. Sam Scali. Cappy Caposella. Thank you to every creative partner who let their stardust rub off on me with every ideation session: Amy and Ann and Phil and Candace and Mike and Sheila and others. Thanks also to the creative assholes who crossed my path. You all taught me resilience  –  and what not to do. The blowhards taught me that true genius doesn’t need shameless self‐promotion. The sharks and thieves taught me the value of integrity. Had it not been for these sorry types, I would never have known so much joy when I encountered genuine talent and greatness. Thanks to my Rider professors, Frederic Turner and Tom Simonet, who remembered me well enough nearly 20 years after graduation to write grad school recommendation letters (in the dark ages, before Google or LinkedIn!). They aided my transition from the advertising industry to my second career in the academy. Thanks to Pixy Ferris who recognized a paper good enough to become my first academic publication. Thank you, Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin for catapulting Neil French’s bombastic sexist comments around the globe in 2005, right when I needed a project to fire up a research agenda. Honestly, what would a creative person find more

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fascinating to study than creativity itself? Gender and creativity and the creative industries and all their intersections. Thank you to all my colleagues at the University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications for helping me navigate the mysteries of the academic world, and for your guidance and support through this loooooonnnng project made even longer by a TBI. Augie Grant, Keith Kenny, Cecile Holmes, Bonnie Drewniany, Carol Pardun, and Andrea Tanner: I most certainly could not have done it without you. Likewise, thank you to my scholarly colleagues and co‐authors who shared their light and insights: Sheri Broyles, Jean Grow, and especially Kasey Windels. Then there’s my precious little family. Thank you, Bruce Bakaj. Somehow, you’ve stood steadfastly beside me for almost four decades encouraging me in this and so many adventures, when others would have run screaming. And thank you to the light of my life, Emily Bakaj. Your very existence has given me more than you will ever know. Go. Live. Follow your star wherever it leads …

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Introduction (Yes, This Is Meant to Be Read. First.) Creative talent has always been in great demand. “Content creation” is the latest catchall phrase for what writers and art directors and filmmakers have been doing for ages. But the explosion of channels and evolving digital landscape mean greater opportunity in the creative industries than ever before. It’s no surprise that growth in the creative industries outpaces other sectors in most national economies. The whole “maker movement” added fresh cachet to being creative. People all over the world clamor for careers that combine earning a living along with an outlet for creative expression: design of all kinds – package, graphic, web, fashion, and more  –  advertising, social media, video and filmmaking, and countless others. But once you are in, and do your job quite well for a few years, you’ve “been there, done that.” You’re a rising star … then what? Inevitably, career success means moving up. A promotion. And in the creative industries, career growth usually means going from creating yourself to leading others who create. If you’re highly talented, it often means rising to leadership more quickly than it would in staid, traditional industries. Unfortunately, simply having demonstrated great creative talent in your craft in no way prepares a person for successful leadership. Most creative businesses don’t do much to prepare you either. Creative people don’t usually plan five years ahead. They rarely plan to lead. They don’t even think about leadership until they’re thrust into it (unless grousing about a leader who sucks qualifies as “thinking” about leadership). Which is why this book needed to be written, and why you need to read it before you need it. Be ready when your potential is recognized – because most of your peers won’t be prepared to lead. The vast majority of people employed in creative industries are too busy with their day‐to‐day jobs to follow academic research on creativity and leadership. They’re lucky if they catch some highlights in the trade press or business news. And that’s unfortunate. Because the people at the very top of many companies Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Introduction

or agencies (especially the biggest ones, who are beholden to shareholders and quarterly numbers) have one overriding concern: the bottom line. When decisions are made that undermine creativity, creative people, the creative product – and ultimately the business – all suffer in the long haul. Sadly, that is true even in creative industries. Yet, success and creativity needn’t be at odds. Look at Google and Virgin and DreamWorks for great, shining examples. Too many ad agencies and design firms and creative leaders do things a certain way simply because. Because they’ve seen others do it that way, or because they believe something “works” to inspire creativity because good work resulted (without really knowing which variable among many might be the cause) or because they read something somewhere, a hint about this or that. Hearsay. Conventional wisdom. Trial and error. Unfortunately, that kind of leadership training leaves serious destruction in its wake, in “churn and burn” among employees, in lost accounts, in psychic damage, and more. A precious few folks will be fortunate to be working in organizations that have inspired creative leadership at the helm. Those lucky staffers can observe and model good leadership behaviors and practices in action. A few creatives also will work in the rare places with formalized leadership training programs. Another small minority are “born” leaders, and seem to innately know what it takes to lead in a creative industry. This book is for all the rest – for the vast majority of truly talented creative people who’ve been so wholly consumed by mastering their craft, they haven’t even begun to think about what it really means to lead others toward creativity. You may be in the workplace, anticipating your next career move. If you’re still in college or university, congratulations for having the foresight to think beyond your first career step (or for being smart enough to be in a program that anticipated it for you). And most importantly, this book is for those who think they’re prepared for leadership but who might want to pick up some fresh tips and ideas. You will all come to find out there is more to leadership than you ever imagined. Take for example, Chiat\Day’s failed “virtual office” experiment of the 1990s. (Young people, this was during the unimaginable era before everyone had cell phones and Wi‐Fi in their pockets.) At the time, it was heralded by architecture gurus and the advertising industry as the most amazing, forward‐thinking approach to building an environment for creativity. People would check out a phone and a laptop every morning from a window shaped like a huge pair of red lips, and find some place, any place, to sit for the day. This was supposed to herald the future of the workplace, and spur creativity. Instead, it made creative teams reserve conference rooms every single day, and seize them as de facto offices, and made it nearly impossible to find a co‐worker, as no‐one was ever in the same place twice. The fact that this arrangement is gone, gone, gone, living only in architecture and office design history books, tells you how well that creative experiment worked.

Introduction

Inspired creative leadership can foster greater creativity, which in turn ­ enefits the creative individuals who make the “product,” the clients they serve, b and the bottom line of the companies who embrace the best practices for ­creative industry leadership. In some special instances, the innovation that grows from great creativity improves lives, even our whole society. This book provides an overview of the knowledge gleaned from decades of scholarly research on creativity and the creative industries. In the hands of talented creative leaders, it can be a powerful tool for spurring awesome creativity and innovation, better lives for the people who labor in the creative industries, and wildly successful organizations. We’ll look at the latest learning from a variety of disciplines, and pull together best practices for leadership in the creative industries, the businesses whose very existence depends upon people generating creativity on demand every single day. If you’re already an expert in creativity and the creative process, feel free to skip Chapter 1. Otherwise, be wary. Without a deep understanding of human creativity, the creative personality, and creative process, trying to lead in a ­creative industry would be like being dropped onto an alien planet without knowing anything of the species, their habits and culture, or understanding their language. You’d have a pretty difficult time convincing them to do ­anything you suggest. Skip chapters at your own peril.

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Section I Creativity and Creative People What You Need to Know About How They Work

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1 Creativity and the Creative Industries There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would forever be repeating the same patterns. Edward de Bono Creativity is celebrated. Envied. Exalted. Since people first etched on the walls of caves and chiseled a stone wheel, our world has been filled with evidence of human creativity in art and architecture and music and breakthrough inventions. We see it in buildings and monuments, from the terracotta army of Qin Shi Huang to Sydney Opera House; in everyday objects and technological wonders, in Google glass, in virtual reality, and driverless vehicles. Innovators like Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, and Richard Branson are held up as cultural icons – written and talked about until they take on a larger‐than‐life place in society. In recent decades, new technologies have emerged, adding a plethora of new creative job opportunities to those that already existed in media and design and entertainment. Since Richard Florida first announced “The Rise of the Creative Class” (Florida, 2002), talk of creativity and innovation has exploded in almost every field – far beyond those directly associated with cultural and creative production. Why? Because in the twenty‐first century, more than ever before, creative thinking is what fuels economic growth. The creative industries are hugely important. But even outside the borders of the so‐called “knowledge economy,” many economists see creative industries exerting a broader, dynamic impact on culture and prosperity. There’s a surge in what are considered creative occupations – those where people apply themselves to a creative process that yields novel ideas or products or solutions that had not been envisioned before. Today, even in “noncreative” enterprises success is largely driven by ideas and innovation, making creativity both a precious resource and a hot commodity.

Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Section I  Creativity and Creative People

Bright, creative minds are both highly valued and in great demand – as are the people who know how to make creativity blossom and flourish, and can lead others in creative endeavors. Leaders. Creative leaders. Small wonder that the study of creativity and creative careers and leadership have all exploded. Many colleges and universities have recognized that they cannot simply prepare students for their first job. They need to share the knowledge and skills to prepare students for a career, for leadership, and for the multiple career changes now considered inevitable over a lifetime. Learning to lead creative people is critical to the career success of those entering the creative industries – and to the future success of all the businesses that compete for a finite pool of creative talent. Software programs will come and go, communication channels will emerge and disappear, but the fundamentals of creativity, and leadership that promotes it, will endure and provide lasting value. Leading for creativity is no small task. Because the very essence of creativity is to “zig” when others “zag,” to bend rules, and to question everything. In case it isn’t glaringly obvious, that way of working doesn’t square very well with the traditional leadership model, where the leader makes the rules and followers follow. We’ll discuss that matter in detail in Chapter 2. For now, suffice it to say that before you can learn to lead for creativity, you need to understand the concept of creativity from every angle: what it is, how the creative process operates, and how creative people think and work. This gossamer substance we call creativity is elusive, difficult to identify, harness, and quantify. You may be creative, but even that doesn’t mean you have a clue about where your ideas come from  –  or prepare you to lead others in creativity. In this chapter you will learn: ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

What creativity is, who is creative, and who is “a creative” What “the creative industries” are, and why they are so important Some fundamentals of applied creativity – creativity applied to work A bit about how creativity impacts creative leadership Why leadership in a creative enterprise is unlike any other

Most of us have some concept or mental image of what creativity is and could produce a definition if pressed. But few understand the power, the breadth, the ubiquity, or the incredible depth and complexity of human creativity. The more you learn about creativity, the more amazed you will be. The more you will want to know. Thanks to dozens of scholars doing decades of research, and most recently using neuroimaging to further enhance our knowledge, quite a bit is known on the subject of creativity. But before we proceed, let’s define our terms.

Creativity and the Creative Industries

1.1 ­What Is Creativity? Some say it is applying imagination to problem solving. Creativity is usually defined as “the capacity to develop novel and useful ideas, behaviors, or products” (Runco, 2004). To be considered “creative,” an idea or product must meet two essential criteria: it must be both novel and useful (or appropriate). Novel means original, unexpected – that which has not been seen or done before. However, an idea that is original or novel is not enough. To be considered creative, an idea or object must also have inherent value – be relevant or useful. Who decides? Who says what is “creative,” and what is not? It depends. In the fine arts, the measure of value is looser than in the creative industries – sometimes, novelty is enough to consider a painting or composition creative. In creative industries, however, the value of a creative work is tied to fulfilling a strategic objective – and that is judged in a variety of ways, often on numerous levels. For example, in advertising and design, once a concept meets the bar of being novel, it is measured against the agreed‐upon strategic communication objectives or creative brief. It is judged by its creator, again by a creative director (sometimes a hierarchy of creative directors), then by agency management and finally, by clients. Then it gets produced, and an audience weighs in. In the fashion industry, a design has to sell through levels in the house, catch the eye of the trade press and influencers in shows, meet fashion buyers’ needs, attract the eye of the ultimate purchaser – and then, fit and flatter the wearer. Across the creative industries, the stakeholders and specifics may vary somewhat, but the hurdles a creative idea must soar past are always numerous. Those whose livelihood comes from their ideas are engaging in applied creativity. That is a deliberate, staged process of problem solving in search of fresh answers. Creative occupations require being creative on demand, on time, with a novel approach that satisfies a given assignment – and doing that again and again, with every new project. Thus, some have argued that can be more challenging than being creative in artistic expression. If delivering something entirely new, earth shattering, never‐ever‐been‐ seen‐before, on deadline seems daunting, relax. Being creative doesn’t mean coming up with a statue of David every pass. Creativity often arises simply from a new combination of, or association between, existing elements or ideas. This is why being adept at divergent and associative thinking is an important part of being able to be creative. Essentially, being creative is simply thinking and solving problems in new ways. 1.1.1  Who Is Creative? And Who Is “a Creative?” You are. Everyone can be. Every human being is born with the capacity to be creative. But not everyone uses it. Creativity is an ability that converges and interacts with a host of individual variables: personality traits, motivation,

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thinking styles, intelligence  –  especially divergent thinking (Barron and Harrington, 1981; Csikszentmihalyi and Getzels, 1973; Dellas and Gaier, 1970; Lubart, 1994; Mumford and Gustafson, 1988) and abilities and knowledge and how all these variables interact (Lubart and Sternberg, 1995; Sternberg and Lubart, 1991). Are artists more creative than those in other disciplines? Can scientists or coders be creative? (Think about Leonardo da Vinci before you dismiss scientists.) While most people tend to associate artists and the arts with creativity, no group owns it. Creativity is a way of being, a way of approaching life and work that can be applied to any discipline. It is how products are invented, breakthroughs in medicine occur, and how humankind makes leaps. In 1997, Apple launched an advertising campaign with a commercial called “The Crazy Ones.” (You might have seen the revised version that was done as an internet eulogy to Steve Jobs when he died in 2011.) The one‐minute spot is tribute to visionaries from wide‐ranging fields, those who “Think different”: Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Martha Graham, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Buckminster Fuller, Muhammad Ali, Alfred Hitchcock, Mahatma Gandhi, Jim Henson, Maria Callas, Pablo Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright, Amelia Earhart, Richard Branson, Ted Turner. The commercial is a beautiful, poetic homage to audacity and creativity, featuring the human penultimate in a given art, science, business, or sport. It could be intimidating to mere mortals with creative aspirations. Rest assured, theirs is just one kind of creativity. Their brilliant works are examples of what researchers call “Big C” Creativity or eminent creativity. Big C Creativity is that rare, breakthrough, genius‐level, epic kind of creativity. There is plenty of room for many others, in music and dance and product design and advertising and architecture, to demonstrate and express “small c” creativity. Yes, you still have to work hard, hone your craft skills, and push boundaries as well as your own limits. You can be a successful creative person and creative leader – even if you’re no Picasso or Einstein. Creativity isn’t owned by any particular group, nationality, or gender. Happily for those who want to become more creative, creativity can be learned, and it can be enhanced with practice. Good news for anyone with ambitions for a life and career in the creative industries. Creatives are what most people call all the various people doing creative work in those industries.

1.2 ­What Are “the” Creative Industries – And Why Are We Using This Term? What exactly is a “creative” industry? What industries are or aren’t included in the lot?

Creativity and the Creative Industries

The creative industries emerged as a construct in the 1980s, and were first classified as a distinct economic entity by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in the United Kingdom. They defined The Creative Industries as those industries which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property (DCMS, 1998). The most recent DCMS report characterizes creative industries as those “with a high intensity of creative occupations” (DCMS, 2016, p. 36). Despite a lack of a worldwide consensus on a definition or precisely which industries should be included, there is global awareness of “the creative industries,” and recognition of the critical role they play in a knowledge economy. Indeed, the creative industries are one of the fastest growing sectors of the global economy (Henry, 2009). These are the creative industries classified by the DCMS: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9)

Advertising and marketing Architecture Crafts Design: Product, graphic, and fashion design Film, TV, video, radio, and photography IT, software, and computer services Publishing Museums, galleries, and libraries Music, performing, and visual arts

(DCMS, 2016).

Despite their obvious breadth and diversity, the cultural and creative industries share many common features. Creative work is considered fun, stylish, and hip (Gill, 2002; Nixon, 2003), as well as exciting and cutting edge (Henry, 2009). So the creative industries have a cool, trendy image that captivates the imagination of many. They employ creative people, who are passionate about their work, and love what they do – because doing creative work is playful and self‐actualizing. By nature, creative work is “entrepreneurial” even within an organization. The creative industries are believed to offer greater flexibility and connectivity (Henry, 2009). For these reasons and others, entrance into the creative industries is notoriously competitive. While “the creative industries” is a helpful designation for economists, and provides a useful framework for this book, its imperfection in identifying all the leaders in creative fields or creative work is readily apparent. Locating creativity by industry belies the complexity of cultural production in a mashed up creative landscape, where content creation and potential leadership can be found almost anywhere, in any brilliant creator with the right skills and software, an internet connection, and a following. The proportion of contract and freelance work is on the rise, bringing challenges in leading creatives whose roles defy a formal hierarchy.

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Further confounding a neat, formal classification of what it means to lead in a creative industry is the rapid growth in creative positions at the edge of, or well outside of, the named creative industries. Think about people like Alex Sinclair, Global Creative Director, at IBM Interactive Experience (IBMiX). (Creative – at IBM? The “Big Blue” monolith of days gone by?) Few would rank the venerable New York Times a “creative” industry, and yet they employ a growing creative team who develop brilliant, multiplatform brand content in their T‐Brand Studio. (A “newspaper” making brand films? OMG.) These are just a few examples of the numerous enterprises that confound where we might find groups of creatives and those who want or need to lead them. This complexity is why some have argued that delineating creative work by industry, based on what businesses do, what they produce, and how they do it, is already outmoded (Bakhshi et al., 2013; Potts et al., 2008). In addition, “the creative industries” include thousands of workers who aren’t “creative” at all, such as HR professionals, accountants, and more. They suggest that the business of creativity is better viewed as a set of creative occupations, by function rather than by the type of business. Creative occupations are those having “a role within the creative process that brings cognitive skills to bear to bring about differentiation to yield either novel, or significantly enhanced products whose final form is not fully specified in advance” (Bakhshi et al., 2013, p. 24). So let’s be imprecise and ignore the definitional boundaries of the creative industries in this book, and include anyone leading people in creative pursuits – regardless of the company that writes their paychecks. (If you’re going to prosper in a creative industry, you might as well begin to let go of rigid constructs and the need for tight distinctions. Right now.) The principles here apply to anyone self‐identifying as “a creative,” earning a living with ideas and creative skills, and part of a creative community that unites them. Creative people are creative people wherever they are, and wherever people want to lead them. 1.2.1  Creative People Are Spreading Virally More and more organizations – and more types of organizations – are developing a creative product, and have a compelling need of the right kind of leadership. Creative or full‐service advertising agencies were once the only makers of brand content, but many other players have joined them in developing creative ideas and content: digital agencies, media agencies, public relations firms, media companies like the New York Times and others who are creating and producing brand content from social media to video. Design firms that once only did logos and packaging are taking the lead on branding and concept work, a myriad of publications are creating native ads or sponsored content, numerous companies like Mars manage social media and other brand communications in house, and, among others, Red Bull creates its brand videos in

Creativity and the Creative Industries

house. In 2015, collectively, the top 100 brands uploaded a video to YouTube every 18.5 minutes (Google, 2015). AOL (remember, America Online?) introduced AOL Build, a public‐facing studio in New York City, along with big plans for live programming. PepsiCo joined others jumping onto the brand content bandwagon in 2016, opening its own state of the art content studio in Manhattan. Tech companies in and outside of Silicon Valley are pursing the same creative talent pool that used to feed only the creative industries (Schultz, 2016; Tadena, 2015). All of which demonstrates a desperate search for creativity and good ideas. Good ones are not easy to come by; great ones are even more elusive. And it is leaders who cultivate them. So perhaps the real question in this content‐driven world is not who needs creative leadership, but who doesn’t need creative leadership?

1.3 ­Leading Creatives Makes Rocket Science Look Easy What is leadership? As you might imagine, there are many different ways to define it. But all include the ability to motivate or inspire, providing goal direction, and fostering good leader‐follower relationships (Riggio, 2008). Those are essential to all kinds of leadership. But in creative occupations, getting them right isn’t just important, it’s everything. Nothing impacts the final product more. Remember, nothing about developing electronic games or directing theater or film in any way resembles making widgets or squaring accounts. Creative work differs in fundamental ways. A creative idea or concept is more than a product or service delivered to satisfy a concrete need. It is a personal statement about its author. It is an expression of the caliber of talent of its creator, her vision. It holds the culture, codes, and values of the organization behind it. It has its own voice and personality, and is an embodiment of the leader’s vision. Something that intricate and complex doesn’t just happen. Great creative work is inspired and steered by great leadership. A special kind of leadership. One that requires being a student of creativity  –  understanding how great ideas happen, who is creative, what creative people are like, and what drives them, and knowing every contributing factor that influences the outcome of creativity – in order to affect every element and make every creative person achieve his or her maximum potential. In creative industries, leadership doesn’t mean a forum for inspirational, visionary patter. Every single leader decision, from hiring to workplace norms, from critique to offhand remarks, comes out in the work. A leader plays an integral role in organizing for creative work to get done, and is ultimately responsible for the quality of the creative product produced. If it isn’t great, if it doesn’t work, clients walk, heads roll, and businesses fail.

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Don’t be scared. There’s plenty of tangible research to guide successful creative leaders. Let’s begin with the science of creativity and creative personality, how it works, and whom you’ll be trying to lead.

1.4 ­Fundamentals of Creative Theory For almost as long as humans have been thinking about thinking, people have been trying to figure out how ideas happen. The ancients philosophized about it. For decades now, psychologists have discussed and debated whether creativity is the result of an inborn, innate ability, or whether it is the product of environmental influence. There is research supporting both perspectives. So, as with the origin of many other human characteristics, the truth lies somewhere in between, and in recognizing that creativity comes from some combination of both DNA and environmental influence. As mentioned earlier, most creativity theorists believe all human beings are born with the capacity to be creative. (Note the italics. In creativity, having creative ability doesn’t necessarily mean one uses it. There’s a very important distinction between having creative ability and engaging in a creative act.) Once environmental influences exert themselves, innate creative talent is either encouraged and trained to flourish, or it is not. This is precisely why leadership is so vitally important in the creative industries. The right leader can inspire people to do more than they ever imagined they were capable of. Conversely, a poor leader can utterly destroy people’s creative capacity, create a toxic work environment  –  and ultimately drive a whole enterprise into oblivion. It is essential to understand what research has uncovered about how human creativity works, when the life of an organization depends upon generating great creative ideas or products. Creativity researchers have approached the study of creativity from various perspectives, categorized as Four “P’s”: Person, Product, Process, and Place. You can find a terrific review of creativity research in Sasser and Koslow (2008), from which this succinct overview of the approaches of each of these streams is excerpted: Person. This body of research includes models of individual creativity, examining the many internal factors that make a person creative, such as what inspires them to create or how they differ from people who are less creative. These insights focus researchers on how people think and behave in different ways to prompt higher levels of creativity. Personality, ability, skills, experience, motivation, and especially the passion to create, are central – and many individual factors interact in complex patterns. Product. Other researchers examine creativity through its products, the work produced. This stream of research attempts to understand creativity by studying the works themselves, such as the paintings, the musical compositions, the designs, films, or games.

Creativity and the Creative Industries

Process. Creativity researchers have also looked at the ways human beings come up with ideas – both cognitively, and how groups generate ideas or teams develop innovations. This is one of the most developed research streams, as researchers hunt for the “holy grail” of creativity, seeking blueprints and concrete guidance for the best way of ideating, best ways of teaming people for creativity, and the most effective means to encourage human creativity and foster the best creative work. Place. Environmental models of creativity focus on areas of the organization – its culture, workspace structure, or client situations that have an impact on creative people and the creative process. This terrain includes both controllable and uncontrollable factors such as image, structure, culture, integration, communication, styles, systems, traditions, and other factors. One visible demonstration of this is the playful vibe of tech startups and creative boutique agency offices purposefully designed to stimulate creative ideas (Sasser and Koslow, 2008). Environmental influences on creativity begin in childhood with parenting, and continue as other relationships and life experiences exert their weight. In the creative workplace, leaders play a vital role in building and sustaining an organizational climate for creativity. More recently, Vogel (2014) argued for adding a fifth “P” into the mix, Philosophy. This is defined as a creative leader’s overarching theme or concept, designed to focus an agency’s dispersed creative energy in one direction, acting as a foundational springboard from which everything starts and from which it can expand (Vogel, 2014, p. 125). A leader plays an integral role in forming and sharing an organizational culture – something that will be discussed in great depth in Chapter 7. If you’re wondering what all this creative theory has to do with leadership, FYI 1.1 should connect the dots, describing how leaders can leverage two of the P’s of creativity. 1.4.1  Psychology, Social Psychology, and the “Right” Context for Creativity Perhaps Degas toiled away alone in his atelier, but in the creative industries, no one works alone. Collaboration was built into many creative fields long ago (anyone remember the comedy writers on the Dick Van Dyke Show from the 1960s? Or perhaps the interactions of the agency creatives at Mad Men’s Sterling Cooper Draper?) Many scholars and practitioners consider collaboration essential to creative work – especially in digital media. Gathering groups of creative people to work together in creative enterprises, and trying to direct their outcomes, brings more to the party than more people and more personalities; it brings in the complex dynamics of relationships. Thus, social psychology plays a valuable role in understanding creativity at work.

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FYI 1.1  Boost [Y]our Creative Leadership Skills by Thomas Vogel Human creativity is at the core of creative industries. Managing creative enterprises in fields like entertainment, music, film, architecture, performing arts, software, advertising, marketing, media, technology, and design requires more than just traditional management skills, business acumen, and a flair for cost cutting and efficiency. Good leadership of creative organizations requires a sound understanding of individual and organizational creativity and creative thinking skills in order to be effective and successful. The creativity 5P model  –  Person, Process, Place, Product, and Philosophy offers a framework that allows leaders to apply a more holistic approach and look at five key dimensions that influence the creative output and success of any organization. A leader can influence and strengthen any of those five Ps separately but also can see how the five dimensions work interconnected – similarly to musical instruments in a symphony. By focusing on the person component of all employees, a leader must understand, nurture, and challenge the creative abilities of each individual (and yes, every human being is creative and as a consequence every employee does have the ability to be creative). Although maximizing an employee’s skills and expertise in one area might be in a company’s or leader’s main interest, many individuals are looking for variety, change, and challenge in their job. This provides a good leader with the opportunity to look at an employee from a more holistic perspective and allow more than just one skillset to play out. When creative skills are being trained and practiced regularly any individual can increase and improve creative and problem solving skills. Every company and every individual I have encountered during my 30+ years professional career is using a process to solve problems. The interesting part is that the more successful ones are aware and conscious of their process. As a leader of a creative enterprise it is imperative to know what a creative problem solving process looks like and which one might be the best one to suit the company’s business and service offerings. The minutiae of day‐to‐day operations make it easy for any team to not follow a good process and to miss the opportunity to utilize the best thinking of every employee. Although design thinking (representing just one creative problem solving process) has become quite popular and has helped many leaders (and companies) in recent years there are tremendous opportunities to bring better (creative) process knowledge into many more teams, departments, and organizations. The creativity 5Ps framework – person, process, place, product, and philosophy can help any leader of creative organizations improve overall results, which in most cases will also lead to business success. Thomas Vogel teaches courses in creativity and creative thinking and directs the master’s program in Global Marketing Communication and Advertising at Emerson College. He is a creativity consultant and a founding partner of mediaman, a digital marketing agency.

Creativity and the Creative Industries

Harvard management professor Teresa Amabile (1983) was the first to argue for a social psychology model of creativity, one that emphasized the contextual nature of creativity – external influences – in particular relationships with others. This is among the most widely accepted creative theories, and it has been expanded with subsequent research to encompass the importance of collaboration in creativity. The majority of the evidence serves to debunk the stereotype of the creative genius or “lone wolf ” creative. (Of course, some individuals will always have exceptional talent and stand out among peers.) Social psychology informs nearly everything we’ll discuss in this book: everything a creative leader is, says, and does; how leaders communicate with, and motivate, creative people; how leaders create the physical and cultural environment that influences creativity; how teams are formed and function, and the relationships that affect their outcome. Everything. 1.4.2  The Systems View of Creativity – Creativity and Relationships and Organizations Yes, researchers have all but put creativity under a microscope. But creativity doesn’t occur in a vacuum or a double‐blind experiment  –  in the creative industries, or anywhere else. It’s complicated – by all those factors mentioned above, and many more. Thus, one of the world’s leading creative theorists, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, proposed the systems view of creativity. This theory holds that creativity is best understood when viewed as system and examined through the relationships among and between the different components. The three elements of a creative system are: 1) the individual, who brings novelty into a given domain 2) the culture, which brings with it symbolic rules 3) the domain, “a field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997, p. 6). When you start to view creativity as a system, you see that human creativity is a byproduct of numerous personal and contextual factors and the interactions among them (Shalley et al., 2004). A myriad of things occur, coincide, and interact to bring creativity about – or prevent it from occurring. We can identify many factors influencing creativity at the level of the individual (some of which were already mentioned under “person” above): intellect, skills, training, life experiences and prior work experiences, motivation, fears (of risk, of criticism, of losing one’s job, and more), and personality. It’s easy to see how these might interact with culture. One who is naturally risk averse is unlikely to demonstrate creativity. But if that person grows in a culture that encourages daring and risk, that aversion might be quieted and allow the person to push through to more original ideas. If daring ideas are rewarded

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by the domain – congratulated by one’s creative director, acclaimed by industry experts in trade magazines and awarded by the experts – you can imagine how the outcome of the next creative project may be influenced. Just as individual factors may vary, the same is true of the countless other conditions that either encourage creativity or work to thwart it. The way a leader critiques work. Whether the physical environment is noisy and distracting. If different floors divide people in more than physical ways. There are the culture codes of the organization: is failure punished, or encouraged? Are the people clubby or clique‐y? What does the organizational atmosphere feel like  –  is it playful? Cutthroat? Does the type of work that wins accolades in the industry look like what gets done there? Or does all the creative work have a signature “look” or “voice”? On the last one, if that coincides with what you do best, hooray. But what if it’s at odds with your idea of good work? Unconscious bias can influence how one’s creative work is perceived. We discuss much more concerning the leader’s role in developing an environment for creativity in Chapter 7.

1.5 ­The Creative Challenge. Actually, Several of Them Welcome to two of the most frustrating jobs in the world: (i) confronting a blank piece of paper until you bang your head against the wall or have a great idea, and (ii) trying to keep creative people coming back every day and doing #1 again and again and again until you and your clients are happy. The first is the reality of being a creative professional; the second is the crux of leading for creativity. Creativity is so damn hard. Yet people love it. What is it about creativity and the creative industries that has people fighting tooth and nail to jump into the fray – and people vying to lead groups of people who won’t want to be led? How do you explain that? It takes a few psychologists. First, those who’ve profiled the creative personality. Research codified what you may have already observed: creative people are unlike engineers, or librarians, or bureaucrats, and they do not respond to the world as most others do. They are unfit soldiers. They rarely take any answers at face value, and are continually asking “why?” Creative personality (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999; Runco, 2004; Sternberg, 2006) is exhibited by a constellation of shared traits and characteristics. Creative people share personality traits and behaviors across disciplines and domains – and not surprisingly, you will find them throughout creative occupations. Creative personality is associated with: curiosity, openness to experience, gritty optimism, intrinsic motivation, willingness to work hard, resilience, obsessiveness over details, and comfort with ambiguity. These traits are

Creativity and the Creative Industries

Traits of Creative Personality Curiosity Openness to experience Mastery of the craft Gritty optimism Willingness to work hard Resilience Obsessiveness over details Comfort with paradox and ambiguity Figure 1.1  Traits of Creative Personality.

generally considered the hallmarks of successful creatives, and are summarized in Lubart (1994); Sternberg and Lubart (1991, 1995); and Sternberg (2006). Some of the key traits of creative personality are listed in Figure 1.1. Of course, there is individual theme and variation among creative people, as with all populations, so not every creative exhibits all of these traits, or exhibits them to the same degree. Look at those traits again. Remember the question about who’d be signing up to do this kind of work? There is your answer: people who are optimistic, hard working, self‐motivated, and love searching for the answer to a question, the most perfect answer. Creative occupations attract creative people. In addition to common personality traits, creative people also tend to have abilities and exhibit behaviors that contribute to expressing creativity. For instance research finds creative individuals have a greater facility for divergent thinking (Runco, 2010), evaluative thinking (Baer, 2003), and persistence (Nijstad et al., 2010). By happy coincidence, many of the traits, skills, and behaviors of successful creatives also are associated with successful leadership. We will discuss these traits at length in Chapter 3 as we explore how creativity intersects with leadership behavior and decision‐making. 1.5.1  Who Is Ready for This Kind of Leadership Challenge? The creative industries provide little or no preparation for creative people to become creative leaders. That’s why this book exists. In creative fields, people frequently get promoted because they’ve done one job well – then they get rewarded with a different job, which requires a very different skill set. (Don’t let any similarity in titles fool you.) Others spend years in the business end of a creative company, and by the time they’re named president they think they’re creative because they’ve been around it. (Without ever having done a creative task, mind you.) Lots people who are not leaders get assigned to supervise creative people and make decisions about creative work. Remember, titles make managers, they don’t make leaders.

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Leadership used to be so simple: give orders and others follow them. This simplistic, conventional perception of leaders has evolved, as business models change and as more and more organizations emphasize collaboration. But that traditional model never worked in a creative enterprise anyway. Creativity isn’t an act, but a process. A process of imagination, expression, and association. Every step of which is influenced by a leader – every characteristic, habit, communication expertise, behavior, decision. So when people assume the role of leader from the creative rank and file, they will have an inherent advantage in understanding how creative people think and work. They’re creative. They might be able to breeze over some of the “who” and “what” of creativity and creative process. But there’s still plenty more to learn when it comes to leading for creativity, and “how” to go about it. 1.5.2  One Thing You Can Learn from Experience: Assessing and Evaluating Creativity As the systems perspective on creativity suggests, “Just as originality does not guarantee creative performance, so too is creativity not solely a divergent, intuitive, generative process. Selective, evaluative, and valuative processes are necessary” (Runco, 1993). Evaluating creativity is no easy task. Runco spent his entire life studying creativity and admitted, “I naively suspected that the appropriateness of ideas would be relatively easy to operationalize … [I] now feel that appropriateness and relevance are even more subjective than originality” (Runco, 1993 in Runco and Charles). Is it even possible to articulate clear, objective criteria to evaluate a creative product? One of the most renowned creative scholars believes it’s all but impossible (Amabile, 1982). So, if you can’t articulate specific, objective standards, how can you run a business that depends on differentiating “meh” and “pretty good” from amazing? As a leader – how can you tell creative people what you want – and how do you know it is right when you see it? Creative judgment. Recall Csikszentmihalyi’s systems theory. He underscored the importance of the domain. For something to be creative, it must be recognized as such (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999). When appropriate judges in the discipline (domain) independently agree that something is creative, it is (Amabile, 1982). In other words individual, subjective evaluations become validated with a consensus of agreement. Admittedly, there are some objective measures. You’ll find textbooks listing ways to judge “good” ads; pages of theoretical principles that define “good” design – like balance, harmony, and clarity; and basic rules that differentiate music from noise. All creative disciplines have some baseline guides that make a valid starting point in judging the appropriateness of a given work. They’re useful in sweeping out dramatically different levels of quality, separating good

Creativity and the Creative Industries

from bad – but far less accurate in teasing out the difference between excellent and brilliant. Principles and guidelines are made of words, and words are symbolic constructs fraught with ambiguity. They aren’t terribly useful in expressing the shadowy characteristics that discriminate the many variations on the continuum along the way to extraordinary. 1.5.3  Creative Judgment Is Fundamental to Creativity – and Creative Leadership How can you make a product without a road map or any specs? What does true creativity look like? How does someone recognize great work when creative people deliver it? With knowledge and talent and skill, with experience and training. Months, years of practice. An incremental journey that takes one from apprentice to master of her craft, from acknowledged expert to leader, hones the creative judgment essential to leading others in creativity. Judgment is essential first for creativity (Runco and Charles, 1993), as well as for leading others in it. It’s simple to see how a creative leader’s knowledge, skills, and experience come into play when assessing creative work. But don’t forget the critical intersection of all those with interpersonal skills. The focus needs to be objective. It’s about the work, and not the creator. Remember, tone and manner are as influential as the content of your critique. Getting creative people to do their best work requires leaders to negotiate a delicate balance  –  one that clearly identifies weaknesses in the work, provides suggestions, and ultimately inspires creatives to push harder, saying in effect, “I know you can do better than this.” According to creative director, creative professor, and author, Nancy Tag, “Critique  –  the ability to deconstruct work, identify its strengths and weaknesses as measured against strategy, and champion its power – is the skill most likely to turn art directors into creative directors. It is a demonstrative act of leadership.” She explains how to develop that ability with critique in FYI 1.2. 1.5.4  The Making of a Creative Leader: It’s a Process, Too Expertise. Inspiration. Motivation. Clearing the weeds. Judgment. All these are considered fundamental to leadership, and they take on magnified importance when one is leading for creativity. Creativity occurs in a complex, living system, and you’re balancing hundreds of elements looking for a perfect, magical balance. To lead for creativity, you’ve got many parts to play – and master. It’s a process. But it all boils down to two things, experience and training. Art and science. The latter is the easy part. Leadership can be learned, most successfully when it is based on solid theoretical footing (Avolio et al., 2009). Read this book, its recommendations, and don’t stop.

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FYI 1.2  Critique Your Way to the Top by Nancy R. Tag While there are various roles in any design process, the basic functions are often split between those who create the work and those who must judge it. Like two sides of a coin, you’re either a creator or a critiquer. This reinforces the stereotypical divide between the passionate artist and the intellectual adjudicator. And if you’re on the creative side of this divide, it’s easy to feel diminished because the person who sits in judgment is almost always the most powerful person in the room. Listen up: These are not mutually exclusive skills. Indeed, no one is more equipped to critique creative work than a creative person. Being able to deconstruct a piece of work in order to make it better is one of the most powerful leadership skills in the toolbox. You know the term “thought leader”? Well, critique is a way of making those thoughts heard – and public for all to see. It’s audible proof of critical thinking; connects disparate items to create a narrative; demonstrates analytical abilities; makes you a persuasive force – and the power behind a more productive process. Critique is not only good for its own sake, but also when it comes out of the mouths of an art director, copywriter, or designer, it works against type. And that’s the true sound of leadership. Nancy R. Tag is a creative director, writer, advertising professor, and the director of the Branding and Integrated Communications Program at City College of New York.

Experience is also part of the process of becoming a leader, and getting the right experience is far less predictable. That’s not “experience” as in playing the role of a leader or manager. Everything you do, every experience you’ve lived, that makes you who you are, contributes to your skill as a creative – and as a leader. Ah, there, right there, is where the art of creative leadership comes in, the part that left‐brainers hate. Sorry, but just as is the case with creativity, there will always be some part of great leadership that comes from combining a unique, individual human being and the sum total of his experiences, learning, training, gut instinct, and neurons and synapses, that X factor, that je ne sais quoi. No matter how much scientists – even social scientists – might wish otherwise. But we can say with certainty that just doing the job of a creative is not enough to prepare one for leadership. The job isn’t easy. Now you know why great creative leaders are in such great demand. And why I wrote this book to help you become one.

Creativity and the Creative Industries

1.6 ­Chapter Summary The creative industries and creative occupations are an increasingly important economic driver, spurring demand for both creative talent and those skilled in leading others in creative work. To lead creative people, you must understand the creative process, creativity, and a host of variables that affect it. Creativity is the ability to generate an idea or product that is novel and appropriate. Being able to recognize great ideas is a critical factor in creative leadership, one that is acquired along with mastery in a given creative field. Having the capacity for creativity is not the same as successfully demonstrating it, because creativity operates in a context influenced by factors inherent in the individual, the domain, and the culture. Creative people tend to exhibit certain characteristics, behaviors, and the traits of creative personality. The same traits that are associated with creativity make leading creative people especially challenging. Happily, both creative ability and leadership can be learned and developed.

1.7 ­Ideas + Action How creative are you? There are a host of creativity tests online, but the ones with recognized validity are the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). Have you got the raw material to lead for creativity? Do this online Strengths Finder to learn more about your capabilities: www.gallupstrengthscenter.com.

1.8 ­Some Great Reads + Resources Coyle, D. (2009). The Talent Code: Greatest Isn’t Born, It’s Grown, Here’s How. New York: Bantam Books.

­References Amabile, T. M. (1982). Social psychology of creativity: A consensual assessment technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(5), 997–1013. Amabile, T. M. (1983). The social psychology of creativity: A componential conceptualization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(2), 357–376. Avolio, B. J., Reichard, R. J., Hannah, S. T., Walumbwa, F. O., and Chan, A. (2009). A meta‐analytic review of leadership impact research: Experimental and quasi‐experimental studies. Leadership Quarterly, 20(5), 764–784. Baer, J. (2003). Evaluative thinking, creativity, and task specificity: Separating wheat from chaff is not the same as finding needles in haystacks. In M. A.

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Runco (ed.), Critical Creative Processes. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. 129–151. Bakhshi, H., Freeman, A., and Higgs, P. L. (2013). A Dynamic Mapping of the UK’s Creative Industries (Report). London: NESTA. Retrieved from www.nesta.org. uk/about_us/assets/documents/dynamic_mapping. Barron, F., and Harrington, D. M. (1981). Creativity, intelligence, and personality. Annual Review of Psychology, 32(1), 439–476. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999). Implications of a systems perspective for the study of creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (ed.), Handbook of Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press. 313–335. Csikszentmihalyi, M., and Getzels, J. W. (1973). The personality of young artists: An empirical and theoretical exploration. British Journal of Psychology, 64(1), 91–104. DCMS (1998). Creative Industries Mapping Document. DCMS: London. DCMS (2016). Creative Industries Economic Estimates. DCMS: London. Dellas, M. and Gaier, E. L. (1970). Identification of creativity: The individual. Psychological Bulletin, 73(1), 55–73. Florida, R. L. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books. Gill, R. (2002). Cool, creative and egalitarian? Exploring gender in project‐based new media work in Euro. Information, Communication & Society, 5(1), 70–89. Google (2015). Top 100 Brands Report: Insight into brand content on YouTube (Blog). Google Agency Blog. Retrieved from https://agency.googleblog. com/2015/07/top‐100‐brands‐report‐insight‐into.html. Henry, C. (2009). Women and the creative industries: Exploring the popular appeal. Creative Industries Journal, 2(2), 143–160. Lubart, T. I. (1994). Creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (ed.), Thinking and Problem Solving. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. 289–332. Lubart, T. I. and Sternberg, R. J. (1995). An investment approach to creativity: Theory and data. In S. M. Smith, T. B. Ward, and R. A. Finke (eds.), The Creative Cognition Approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 269–302. Mumford, M. D. and Gustafson, S. B. (1988). Creativity syndrome: Integration, application, and innovation. Psychological Bulletin, 103(1), 27–43. Nijstad, B. A., De Dreu, C. K. W., Rietzschel, E. F., and Baas, M. (2010). The dual pathway to creativity model: Creative ideation as a function of flexibility and persistence. European Review of Social Psychology, 21(1), 34–77. Nixon, S. (2003). Advertising Cultures: Gender, Commerce, Creativity. London: SAGE Publications. Potts, J., Cunningham, S., Hartley, J., and Ormerod, P. (2008). Social network markets: A new definition of the creative industries. Journal of Cultural Economics, 32(3), 167–185.

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Riggio, R. E. (2008). Leadership development: The current state and future expectations. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice & Research, 60(4), 383–392. Runco, M. A. (1993). Creativity, causality, and the separation of personality and cognition. Psychological Inquiry, 4(3), 221. Runco, M. A. (2004). Creativity. Annual Review of Psychology, 55(1), 657–687. Runco, M. A. (2010). Divergent thinking, creativity, and ideation. In J. C. Kaufman, and R. J. Sternberg (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press. 413–446. Runco, M. A. and Charles, R. E. (1993). Judgments of originality and appropriateness as predictors of creativity. Personality and Individual Differences, 15(5), 537–546. Sasser, S. L. and Koslow, S. (2008). Desperately seeking advertising creativity. Journal of Advertising, 37(4), 5–19. Schultz, E. J. (2016). Pop Star: PepsiCo makes big bet on in‐house content creation. Advertising Age, 16 May. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/ cmo‐strategy/pop‐star‐pepsico‐s‐big‐bet‐content‐includes‐a‐movie/304004. Shalley, C. E., Zhou, J., and Oldham, G. R. (2004). The effects of personal and contextual characteristics on creativity: Where should we go from here? Journal of Management, 30(6), 933–958. Sternberg, R. J. (2006). The nature of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 18(1), 87–98. Sternberg, R. J. and Lubart, T. I. (1991). An investment theory of creativity and its development. Human Development, 34(1), 1–31. Sternberg, R. J. and Lubart, T. I. (1995). Defying the Crowd: Cultivating Creativity in a Culture of Conformity. New York: Free Press. Tadena, N. (2015). Tech firms pull talent away from ad agencies. Wall Street Journal (Online), 1. Vogel, T. (2014). Breakthrough Thinking: A Guide to Creative Thinking and Idea Generation. Cincinatti, OH: HOW Books.

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2 The Role of the Leader in Creative Work Listen to anyone with an original idea, no matter how absurd it may sound at first. If you put fences around people, you get sheep. Give people the room they need. William McKnight Let’s say you’re a brilliant creative person. You are a master of your craft. After a few years of achieving accolades for doing great work, you get a big raise and a promotion and you’re expected to lead a group of creative people. Now what??? Few people working in creative industries actually learn what it takes to be a successful creative leader, or even realize that great creative talent or mastery is one of the less important factors associated with successful creative leadership. Too often, creatives are thrown into the deep end of the pool without ever learning to swim. Arnold CEO Andrew Benett put it quite succinctly when he said, “The average Starbucks barista gets more training than the average communications employee” (Morrison, 2011). That’s unfortunate. Because in a creative endeavor, creativity is not just contingent upon the talents of people on the “factory floor” producing the work. Leadership contributes mightily to creativity. A great creative leader plays a pivotal role in both the quantity and quality of an organization’s creative product. (And not merely by avoiding chaos, although that’s essential.) A leader affects the creative work in numerous direct and indirect ways, which we’ll discuss in this chapter. Theory and research in creativity and leadership and management – across a variety of disciplines – repeatedly demonstrate the power a leader exerts in guiding work and in promoting a climate for creativity.

Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Congratulations, you’re reading this book – so you’ll know what to do when you make that leap. Okay, it’s free association time. I say “leader.” What is the first thing that comes to mind? What does that leader look like? What does that leader do? What does a relationship with the leader feel like, from a follower’s perspective? A superior’s? Describe some characteristics of this leader. Did you say “tough,” “powerful,” “in control of the action?” Sorry, not anymore. Leadership has changed considerably from that old‐school conception, especially leadership in creative industries. Current approaches to leadership emphasize collaborative relationships, power sharing more than power‐wielding (e.g. Conger and Pearce, 2003; etc.). As the workforce and the nature of work have evolved from the twentieth to the twenty‐first century, so has the role of a leader and the kind of leadership that’s considered most effective. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the creative industries. A great creative leader inspires, motivates, guides, mentors, and supports her subordinates. A great creative leader has a sphere of influence that extends beyond the immediate creative group or department and formal job description – and impacts the organization’s culture and reputation, its clients, and the whole industry via trade groups and the press. Indeed, the fate of the entire enterprise itself rests in the hands (or more accurately, the head) of the leader. How on earth does he or she do it all? Essentially, it comes down to who, what, and how: the essence of who that leader is, what they know and do, and how they do what they do. The onslaught of digital and social media during the last decade has changed the landscape of creative occupations in profound ways (Mallia and Windels, 2011). When paradigms shift, the leader plays a pivotal role – one that demands being at ease with change and flexibility along with a heck of lot more. In this chapter you will learn: ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

The characteristics associated with good leaders The soft skills essential to leadership Styles of leadership The keys to building a creative climate Concrete ways to lead creative people successfully

2.1 ­What You Are, and What You Do: Personal Characteristics and Creative Leadership A host of personal characteristics, traits, and behaviors all play a critical role in leadership.

The Role of the Leader in Creative Work

When creative industry leaders rise from the creative ranks, they inevitably bring along with them the traits associated with a creative personality: autonomy, flexibility, preference for complexity, openness to experience, sensitivity, playfulness, tolerance of ambiguity, risk taking or risk tolerance, intrinsic motivation, psychological androgyny, self‐efficacy, wide interests, and curiosity (Runco, 1997). Creativity is also associated with intuition, aesthetic sensitivity, intelligence, and self‐confidence (Oldham and Cummings, 1996). (More details on the psychological construct of creative personality and its ramifications for leadership are covered in Chapter 3.) Happily, nearly all those traits are also positively associated with good leadership. Yet certain characteristics that work well for a creative person are not so great in a leader: like ego (the ugly step‐brother of self‐confidence), reclusiveness, hyper focus, and obsessiveness over details. These behaviors must be tempered when creatives climb to leadership, along with a persistent urge to just do the work yourself. Thus, moving up doesn’t only involve the things you must learn, but what you need to forget. Sometimes, assuming leadership requires re‐booting your inner work‐self. The tendency to think as an “I” must give way to “we” thinking, and understanding every decision’s impact on those you lead. The perfectionist will need to rack focus from minutia to a broader view, and leave the finer points to others. One of the most important considerations in creative work is whether a leader continues to do her own creative work once she is supervising others. There are good arguments on both sides, and we will take them up in a larger discussion on motivation and competition, in Chapter 9. 2.1.1  How Leaders Influence Creativity: Skills and Behaviors Real leaders see what others don’t. Call it vision. Call it perspective. They have enormous power over the creative enterprise. Research is rich with evidence that leaders have a profound influence on the creativity of their subordinates. This influence comes from a gestalt of personal characteristics, behaviors, and skills; from what leaders do, and how they do it. A good creative leader influences creativity in three ways: directly, by contributing her own subject (domain) knowledge, through mentoring and developing subordinates’ talents, and by spurring staffers’ own intrinsic motivation (Amabile et al., 2004). The first of these comes from a leader’s “hard” skills: the specific knowledge, skills, and expertise the leader has in his creative field. Hard skills are domain specific. In other words, you know your stuff in your particular creative industry: if you’re a web designer you are more than competent – you’re an ace at design, adept at coding, and your typography is so beautiful the page could hang in a museum. If you’re a writer, you are a brilliant wordsmith. You don’t just write with one voice or style, but are a chameleon with language. You can

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spit out a razor sharp headline, write 48,000 words of page‐turning prose, brilliant dialogue – or lyrics. Whatever your particular creative field, you the one who produces work everyone around you wishes they had done. “Hard skills are acquired skills that involve conceptual or theoretical knowledge, ‘how to’ perform in a given domain” (Bryans, North and Worth, 2000). Skills in the domain are essential for leadership for two reasons: First, you must have the capability in order to inspire others to do great work. You’ve got to have the “subject” knowledge and the judgment to know the difference between mediocre, good, and great. Second, domain knowledge is essential for credibility as a leader. If you can’t do the job brilliantly yourself, who is going to listen to your guidance or respect your authority? The other two ways a leader fosters creativity – mentoring and motivating –  have nothing to do with your particular craft, but engage what are called “soft” skills. These skills are not domain specific, in other words, they apply across disciplines – and are viewed as critical to leadership. Study after study tells us that leader behaviors affect people perceptually and affectively, and in turn have a direct impact on the creativity of their subordinates. 2.1.2  Soft Skills: The Importance of What You Didn’t Know You Needed to Know The term soft skills describes “a range of interpersonal, behavioral, and people skills that include problem‐solving, conceptual/analytical and critical skills, visual, oral, and aural communication skills, judgment, and synthesis skills” (Boyce et al., 2001, p. 37). These are your “general education” skills that span disciplines. These are the skills that often spell the difference between career success and failure. (Notice these critical skills have nothing to do with CS6 or CAD, or any technology for that matter.) These are vital for everyone in the creative workplace, but take on increasing importance for those with client contact and those in leadership. Search the academic literature for soft skills, and you’ll find nearly as many lists as research studies, identifying varying numbers of skills up to as many as 60. The list in Figure 2.1 represents the general consensus, and reasonable limits. Of course, soft skills are important for leaders in all contexts. But in creative fields – where making decisions about creative work involves a high level of ambiguity – a leader’s need for these skills, like critical thinking, interpersonal communication, persuasion, and presentation skills, is even more significant (Windels et al., 2013). Among the soft skills recognized as important to success in creative industries – especially in leadership – are: oral, written, and interpersonal communication, teamwork and presentation skills, business etiquette, organization and problem solving/critical thinking, skills in intergroup relations, empathy, and team building. These are all addressed in this text.

The Role of the Leader in Creative Work

Soft skills needed in creative occupations—and leadership Problem-solving/critical/analytical thinking Communication: oral, written and interpersonal Teamwork Presentation/persuasion skills Business etiquette/professionalism Organization Skills in intergroup relations Empathy Team building Flexibility Work ethic Figure 2.1  Soft skills needed in creative occupations – and leadership.

Some skills in Figure 2.1 likely seem logical and intuitive. The value of others is less obvious. So let’s consider how each comes into play for leaders in the creative industries. 2.1.2.1  You Need to Know How to Think. Really Think

Don’t say “duh.” Problem solving, conceptual/analytical and critical thinking, judgment, and synthesis skills are the core of creative work and leadership. While they each represent unique ways of applying your brain, they are all ways of thinking. Both creativity and leadership involve identifying problems and finding solutions. That is neither a simple nor random process. Thinking stretches beyond the parameters of a given assignment, and must be strategic as well as creative. Designer Douglas Davis explains. FYI 2.1  Leading the Client: Providing Value Through Creative Business Solutions by Douglas Davis Though clients ask for a logo, packaging, or a campaign, what they need is differentiation, loyalty, or awareness. While most times the problem comes in the form of a tactical element, the solution always involves the strategic objectives behind the request. Leading the client involves knowing the difference between the two. This isn’t a new concept. Thomas Watson Jr. knew back  in 1973 that “good design is good business.” What is new is the relevance of creative leadership, because of the way business is now annexing design as it previously did with integrated marketing. The power and impact that design

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has had on business lately can be seen in everything from the lasting impact of visionaries like Steve Jobs to every word of the advice in McKinsey & Co.’s article “Building a design‐driven culture.” Relegating creativity to the execution or the end of solving a business problem is an unfortunate misstep in a world of increased emphasis on aesthetics and design process. In the Fred Nickols paper “Strategy IS Execution: What You Do Is What You Get,” he states that “strategy as contemplated and strategy as realized are often two very different matters. Strategy as realized is the outcome of efforts to execute strategy as contemplated.” It is logical that if creative people are leading their clients by contemplating business strategy from the outset, the more likely it is that strategy will be realized when they execute. When I apply this thinking to today’s economy, it underscores my belief that injecting creativity into the beginning of a business discussion is the way to boost the success of the outcome. More importantly for the long term, this is the way to make the value of your design‐oriented relationship with a client irreplaceable. To bottom‐line it, right‐brained creativity is the spoonful of sugar that makes business ventures and marketing objectives palatable to the public. This process requires the discernment of creatives leading their clients and the results produce creative business solutions. Douglas Davis is associate professor at New York City of Technology, a graphic designer, and author of Creative Strategy and the Business of Design.

Creative thinking processes are covered in greater detail in Chapter 3. For now, understand that there are many different ways to go about thinking, such as divergent, convergent, and associative thinking. All play a role in doing creative work, and in creative leadership. Knowing your craft is not enough to lead. The best leaders are both highly task‐oriented and highly relationally oriented (Bass, 1990). The good news is that soft skills can be taught and acquired. If you don’t currently excel at some or all of them, this is your wake‐up call. In a competitive workplace (and every creative industry is highly competitive), soft skill competencies mean the difference between which of two talented creative applicants gets the job. And soft skills will be the discriminator between who gets ahead and who’s stalled in 5 or 10 years. Not could be, or may be. They will be. 2.1.3  Leaders Communicate: Writing, Speaking, and Interpersonal Skills You’ll write when you get work. Plenty. Groom yourself for career success with powerful communication skills. Communication is the foundation of relationships, and leadership is built on relationships.

The Role of the Leader in Creative Work

Poor writing is the leading complaint employers have with new hires, and it is costing companies enormous sums for remediation they resent having to do. Good writing is essential to be able to distill thoughts to the most concise and powerful language. In every creative industry, it matters  –  even if you don’t think it is going to be critical to your job. Remember, even photographers must be able to write captions, and tight, concise writing is tough. Accept that everyone writes, and creative leaders must write well. Period. The reward for becoming proficient is that great writing is one soft skill that will help you rise above the pack. Many employers also find too many people lacking in presentation skills. This does not mean being a whiz with PowerPoint or Keynote or any multimedia extravaganza. Presentation skills are inherently interpersonal skills and, in business, overlap with persuasion skills. They are essential for creative leaders – whether you’re trying to convince your boss that your idea is better than your co‐worker’s, pitching new business, or trying to convince a client to take a brave leap. Great concepts or ideas don’t come to life unless you can share them, communicate their value, and convince decision makers to produce them. Presentation skills are learnable, but require practice for mastery. So take a class in debate or improv or theater. Join Toastmasters. Those with presentation anxiety can learn to overcome it. Even an introvert can  –  and should – learn to present. No doubt the least recognized (and least used) interpersonal communication skill is listening. This is how leaders not only glean information, but also demonstrate their understanding  –  of what others are saying and feeling. Listening contributes to empathy or the ability to recognize, anticipate, and relate to the thoughts and feelings of others. It is crucial in life, work, and leadership. Especially among groups of creative people who tend to be innately more sensitive. Lest you dismiss empathy as an optional skill, or an irrelevant touchy‐feely concept, consider this. Research shows that transformational leadership behaviors like that can have a significant impact on alleviating stress felt by their protégées (Sosik and Godshalk, 2000). In addition, research shows that good leader–follower relationships led to a lower incidence of burnout and health problems (Rose, 1998). Those are pretty important considerations in leading creative people. Two soft skills get ever‐increasing attention, and have the potential to change the face of creative industries: empathy and team building. Digital media has contributed to a paradigm shift in how creative work gets done, from permitting remote work and flexible schedules to increasing broader collaboration on creative projects (Mallia and Windels, 2011). Leaders hire and build teams, and a growing body of research demonstrates the profound impact of those decisions on creative outcome. There is great irony in discovering that current leadership in most creative industries is overwhelmingly male, while both empathy and collaborative

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ability are two traits that much more likely to be found in women (Mallia et al., 2013). Making a case for “the female advantage” in leadership began more than two decades ago, but practice has yet to catch up with theory (Helgesen, 2011). All people can be effective creative leaders – but different people bring different and diverse ways to leadership. Diversity in teams and leadership is a topic deep enough, wide enough, and important enough to warrant its own chapter, and that is Chapter 10. Should you be a young, white male, your careful attention is required there. 2.1.4  How Leaders Lead: Leadership Behaviors and Leadership Styles A leader is often a manager. But not all managers are leaders. The difference? Managers are bosses. They hold positional power, authority that comes via a formal supervisor title that puts them in charge of a group of subordinates, and makes them responsible for the success of a group or team. On the other hand, leaders attract followers: people want to follow them – because of their vision, not their title. The best managers are also leaders. Leaders have personal power, an authority that comes from inside – their charisma and other personal qualities – a kind of power that doesn’t require a title or rank for others to pay heed. Leadership studies have developed various typologies for leaders, defined by both traits and behaviors. Just as with creativity, some of these are innate but most can be acquired through learning and training. You’ll find almost as many models of leadership out there as you will people eager to publish a book. Many variations are little more than semantic differences of the basic typologies you’ll find in peer‐reviewed leadership research. One of the most widely accepted models of leadership describes three styles of leadership: transformational, transactional, and laissez‐faire (Bass, 1990). Most often, successful leaders in the creative industries are transformational leaders. Transformational leaders have a vision – and the personality (charisma) and communication skills that compel others to follow them. The transformational style of leadership is often called “creative leadership” in management literature – making old‐school scholars cringe when creative people and people in creative industries toss the term around much more freely. (Sigh. The descriptive term has a variety of contextual definitions, thus this text is less rigid.) Not every leader in the creative industries is a transformational or creative leader. Steve Jobs led Apple employees to create some of the most innovative products of the twentieth century. He was a creative genius, yet initially an autocratic leader. He was demanding and used his authority and power to force subordinates to do his bidding. (Think military‐style command: giving orders and not embracing questions or ambiguity.) Many of his subordinates hated him and his sometimes abusive manner. You could argue he was a “successful” leader if you base success on results: Apple made a ton of groundbreaking products and a lot of money. But few people would choose to be led by someone with his

The Role of the Leader in Creative Work

leadership style or consider him an exemplary leader. Nor is Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos a creative leader. He takes pride in Amazon’s innovation, but it has come at great human cost – a workaholic culture of “churn and burn” as was widely reported in 2015 news (Schwartz, 2015). Even in a Silicon Valley culture where most people are work‐obsessed, Amazon was known for brutal practices under Bezos’s leadership. (Like encouraging people to regularly rat on their peers, and firing the bottom 10% of employees at regular intervals.) This style of leadership – counterpoint to transformational – is usually called transactional or autocratic leadership. Leaders dictate what needs to be done, and what subordinates need to do to achieve what they want in terms of external or extrinsic rewards – such as raises, better opportunities, or keeping their jobs. Rather than acting as a coach through the work process, the transactional leader steps aside and lets followers do what they’ve been told. Transactional leaders tend to focus on short‐term results, rather than long‐term goals. Leadership styles don’t correlate with any particular type of industry or position or generation. Some leaders demonstrate different styles in different contexts. However, females are more frequently found to exhibit a transformational leadership style; men are more often transactional leaders (Rosener, 1990). That makes perfect sense since many of the behaviors of a transactional leader are considered “feminine” in our culture. Remember, though, one’s sex doesn’t automatically dictate leadership style. A third type of leadership is laissez‐faire leadership. Some highly egotistical and entrepreneurial creative types might prefer work for this kind of leader, one who provides minimal instruction and input and maximum individual autonomy. You don’t need to be a leadership scholar to conclude that this type of leadership easily results in chaos, unless applied sparingly. In the creative industries, leading people who are fiercely independent, impulsive, and have wide‐ranging interests, hands‐off leadership would be an unlikely means to achieving organizational goals, deadlines, or any kind of quality control. As mentioned above, transformative leaders are sometimes called “creative” leaders, regardless of the type of organization they lead. They communicate goals by inspiration, motivating their followers’ intrinsic desires to exceed expectations, let  alone meet them. They take risks, challenge the status quo – and set a positive example that followers can model. They foster teamwork and collaboration. The transformational style of leadership is much more successful (Bass and Riggio, 2006; Bass, 1990, 1997). That is especially important in creative industries and occupations, because research demonstrates that transformational style leadership harnesses and focuses the creative potential of creative staffers and is correlated with increased creativity (Jung, 2001; Sosik et al., 1998). Transformational leaders are distinguished by four key characteristics: (i) charisma, (ii) inspiration, (iii) intellectual stimulation, and (iv) individualized consideration (Bass, 1990).

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Let’s elaborate on each of these characteristics, and see how they might play a role in fostering creativity. First, charisma. This compelling personal quality draws people to like and trust transformational leaders, to emulate them, to share their vision, and to want to follow them. It gives leaders personal power. Second, inspiration. The best creative leaders have demonstrated their own talent, strong work ethic, and hold high expectations for their subordinates; they stimulate curiosity and spur the intrinsic motivation of others. Their input into others’ creative work shapes and enhances it. Third, intellectual stimulation. The great leader energizes her staff; she shares knowledge and makes discovery an ongoing practice for all. Fourth, individualized consideration. This is mentoring, sponsoring, and demonstrating a genuine interest in the growth and success of each subordinate. Some researchers have associated transformational style leadership – and its positive relationships between leaders and members – with alleviating stress among subordinates (Sosik and Godshalk, 2000). This is certainly valuable in creative industries that operate under constant pressure. It’s also one of the ways a creative leader can foster a climate for creativity. Is leadership style malleable? Can an authoritarian leader become a creative one? See what this expert in organizational communication and behavior says.

FYI 2.2  Steve Jobs, a Leader Transformed by Sharmila Pixy Ferris, PhD How can a leader in a creative industry stimulate success? Steve Jobs, iconic leader of Apple, Inc. shows us one path to effective leadership. Stephen Paul Jobs founded the Apple Corporation in 1976, with partners Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Under their leadership Apple revolutionized personal computing. But the Jobs who led the original Apple Computer is not the transformational leader who led Apple to global prominence as a multinational innovation organization. A transformational leader, according to seminal research by Bass (1999) is characterized by charisma and the following components: ●● ●●

●●

●●

Idealized influence: serving as role models for followers. Inspirational motivation: motivating and inspiring … by providing meaning and challenge to followers’ work. Intellectual stimulation: stimulating followers’ efforts to be innovative and creative. Individualized consideration: paying special attention to each individual follower’s needs for achievement and growth by acting as a coach or mentor. (Bass and Riggio, 2006, pp. 5–7)

The Role of the Leader in Creative Work

During his early days with Apple, Steve Jobs was highly charismatic, with a “reality distortion field” that could “bend situations to his very strong will” (Isaacson, 2011, p. 38). But at the same time he was not truly a transformational leader in that he was also dictatorial. He could be rude and controlling, humiliating employees, and taking credit for other people’s work (Isaacson, 2011). Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985. After a long hiatus (founding NeXT and leading Pixar) Jobs returned to Apple as a more fully transformational leader. To his early charisma, Jobs added the other dimensions of transformational leadership. Idealized influence and inspirational motivation can be seen in Jobs’s continued success at inspiring and launching new products. His influence and motivation are evident within Apple, where he inspired a passion for work among his employees, and externally as he communicated his clear public vision for Apple through now‐legendary speeches and keynote presentations. Intellectual stimulation can be seen in how Jobs encouraged his employee teams to be innovative in problem solving and product design. For example, he took his top 100 employees on a retreat each year to encourage intellectual contributions. Individualized consideration is demonstrated in Jobs’s frequent motivation of his teams with individual encouragement, as well as in the creation of the Apple Career Resource Center to help employees develop their skills and abilities. Although Steve Jobs passed away in 2011, his transformational leadership’s influence remains. Today Apple is the world’s largest technology company, with the “largest market cap, but also the largest sales, profits, and assets” (Chen, 2015). Sharmila Pixy Ferris is Professor of Communication at William Paterson University, specializing in computer‐mediated communication, organizational communication, and groups and teams. She teaches in Communication Studies and the Professional Studies MA.

Gifted designer, creative leader, and former President of Rhode Island School of Design, John Maeda, created a telling side‐by‐side comparison between the characteristics of the authoritative leader and creative leader – the two most dramatically different types (see Figure 2.2). It brings to life the principles we’ve discussed. While some argue that good managers can manage from “seven thousand feet” without knowing the details of the business they are managing, that is decidedly not true for leaders – especially creative ones. Creative leaders do it all. “They have to be good at managing people, keeping up morale, hiring, firing, training, quality control, and client management (keeping clients happy, helping them buy brave work, solving problems, taking

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Authoritative leader

Creative leader

Symbol of authority More sticks Hierarchical Linear path Plan and execute: launching with 1.0 Sustaining order Yes or no (clear) Literal in tone Concerned with being right Think like a general or conductor Delegates action Closed system One-way Close the ranks Follows the manual Loves to avoid mistakes Reliability Orchestra model Community in harmony Wants to be right Open to limited feedback Your opinion matters

Symbol of inspiration More carrots Networked Nonlinear path Iterate and do: living in beta Taking risks Maybe (comfort with ambiguity) Metaphorical in tone Concerned with being real Think like an artist or designer Hands-on driven Open system Interactive Permeable Improvises when appropriate Loves to learn from mistakes Validity Jazz ensemble Community in conversation Hopes to be right Open to unlimited critique What are you really thinking?

a: From Redesigning Leadership, Joan Maeda with Becky Bermont, 2011. Figure 2.2  Authoritarian vs. creative leaders.

it in the face when they’re not happy). Creative directors are almost always the most visible people in their agencies, inside and out. They get credit, and blame” (Mallia, Windels, and Broyles, 2013, p.2). While this was said in reference to the job of the advertising agency creative director, it applies pretty much across the whole lot of creative industries. It’s a big job. 2.1.4.1  The Leader Holds the Keys to a Climate for Creativity

Creativity research tells us that creativity isn’t all in the head. Outside dynamics impact creativity, too, and the organizational climate is a powerful contributor. One of the leader’s vital roles is building a climate that stirs creativity and allows it to grow. Not only does the creative climate directly impact the productivity of staffers and the caliber of their work, it also builds the organization’s creative reputation throughout its industry. Happily, management researchers have identified what they dub the “keys” to fostering a climate of creativity in an organization or creative group (Amabile, 1996).

The Role of the Leader in Creative Work

KEYS to a climate of creativity: 1. Organizational encouragement 2. Supervisory encouragement 3. Work group support 4. Sufficient resources 5. Challenging work environment 6. Freedom 7. Low organizational impediments 8. Low workload pressure Figure 2.3  KEYS to a climate of creativity.

How does a leader take those eight principles and operationalize them in a business where creativity is all, in a creative industry? One step at a time. First, let’s look at the complexities and challenges of leading in creative industries, and then, look at some core leadership advice that great leaders give. The leader’s role in fostering the ideal environment for creativity is so vital, so central, an entire chapter is dedicated to it, Chapter 7. 2.1.4.2  What Great Leaders Actually Do Every Day in Creative Industries

As a leader in a creative industry, you have one primary objective: Getting the very best creative work out of your team. EVERYTHING you do every minute of every day leads back to that. Every decision, every behavior, everything you say (or don’t say) either contributes to that outcome, or derails it. It’s important to understand that the leader’s impact on creativity isn’t always directly observable or traced from a specific suggestion, but comes from an overall high level of leader support. According to Amabile, highly supportive leaders influence people’s sense of ownership and competence in their work, which leads to deeper, more motivated involvement in the work – and that is important for creativity (Amabile, 2003). 2.1.4.2.1  They Call It “Cat Herding” for a Reason

If you’re working in a creative industry, you instantly recognize the challenge. If you’re a creative, you know it instinctively – creative people don’t want to be led. The most brilliant, talented people are independent thinkers: they answer to the muses and have very individualized ways of working. Their personal goals (like building a portfolio) don’t always coincide with organizational goals. It’s mighty challenging to get them all moving in one direction toward one shared goal. That’s why it’s been likened to herding cats, and why traditional management techniques are useless with this crowd. True leadership is essential. Creative leadership. Where do you begin? First, understand the goals of the organization you’re working for. Every single place is different and its philosophy and mission is

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usually articulated somewhere, often on its website. But you’ve got to know the unwritten codes as well, and those are often more important. Be an amateur anthropologist and observe what upper management does and says, what kind of work is touted and acclaimed internally. What does your boss expect of you as a leader – and of your team? How will your leadership be evaluated? Is it by pushing your team to win every award show in your industry or getting publicity for the agency? Or, will your leadership be measured by building a cohesive, familial group atmosphere, and cultivating long‐term talent retention? Is your charge to make the client happy even at the cost of painful compromises to the integrity of the work – or falling on your sword and persuading a client to buy audacious concepts that scare them at first blush? Your role is defined by who you are and where you are. Know your staff. Look and listen. Mostly listen. You need to understand each “cat” in your herd: ●●

●●

●●

What are her goals – short term and long term? What does he want from his job and life? Ask. Otherwise you’ll never know what will best motivate her or him. Observe behavior. When does she do her best work – in the early morning before everyone else arrives? Does he come in late and work late? Are some people more introspective – others more willing collaborators? Look at each individual’s work. What are his strengths and weaknesses? Does one have a particular “style” or talent? Is her “voice” profound and authentic – or sharp and humorous? How does each align with the unwritten creative codes of the business?

Once you know the goals of the organization and what everyone’s individual goals are, find the sweet spot. Where do they intersect? This is called goal‐centered management. You succeed by moving your cats toward organizational goals, by motivating them to realize how their own goals will be achieved in the process. How do you motivate? By everything you say and do – through everything you communicate. (Which is why communication skills are so important in leadership.) Your every communication is important: every email, every meeting, every hallway conversation, and every elevator remark. Your communication is both informational and relational. Think of each leader–follower communication as a building block that becomes a strong relationship. But none is more important than in the dialogue involved in assessing creative work. Each time a creative director evaluates work, knowledge and skill intersect with interpersonal skills. Be too kind and flattering of decent work, and you’re not inspiring someone to do his or her best work. Deliver a tough assessment in a way that is too blunt or cruel, and you can undermine creativity. A negative impact can seep beyond the project at hand, and demotivate creative people in

The Role of the Leader in Creative Work

everything they do going forward. Think about it. Who’s going to give you their heart and soul on a punishing deadline after you’ve abused them? Getting creative people to do their best work requires leaders to negotiate a delicate balance – delivering feedback that clearly identifies any weaknesses in the work, provides suggestions, and ultimately inspires creatives to push harder, saying in effect, “I know you can do better than this.” 2.1.4.3  Your “To Do” List: Some Concrete Advice

Try to forget what you’ve seen and heard others say and do about creative leadership. Old ways of working aren’t working anymore. Behaviors get replicated for no rational reason other than because that’s how someone did things before. Too much conventional wisdom in the creative industries is at odds with research‐based evidence. The future of the creative industries depends on evolution in process – not just a bright and shiny product. What follows is a neat, concise summation of more than 40 years of research by dozens of scholars. Here’s how the best creative leaders inspire and innovate every day: Set the bar. Lead by example. You personify the work ethic, and establish the creative standard and aesthetic you expect. The great creative leader demonstrates what success and great work look like, in order to make expectations real and tangible. Make decisions, especially the tough ones. Start the fire  –  and keep it burning hot. Have a clear and powerful vision. Share your goals with subordinates. Real inspiration isn’t an empty pep talk when you kick off a project. You need to inspire and keep morale high on an ongoing basis. Keep pushing boundaries. Encourage failure. Great creativity can only come from risk taking, experimentation, and trust. Risks don’t always yield results, but must be encouraged. They’re an essential contributor to creativity (El‐Murad and West, 2004). They are learning opportunities for everyone if you critique and discuss failures as a regular part of the process. Encourage, period. Bang the gong. Acknowledge triumphs explicitly – and broadly. Recognition is what inspires people to push past mediocrity and mental exhaustion day after day in search of ideas. Leader encouragement is one of the most powerful triggers for motivating creative people. Be authentic. (Be it. But please don’t ever use that overused word – or you won’t be.) Don’t try to be someone you are not. Demonstrate integrity in your behavior and actions. Be open and cultivate a culture of openness. That is how a leader builds trust and a cohesive team. Communicate – early and often. And clearly. The creative process has enough inherent ambiguity. A leader communicates up, down, and sideways. Persuasion, negotiation, and presentation skills are paramount. The best creative leaders are masters of all forms, because it’s the means by which you do everything else. The higher up you go, the more time you’ll spend communicating and the less time you’ll spend doing anything else. Inspiring is communicating. Critiquing is

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communicating. Selling your subordinates’ work to management and to clients. At its core, leading is all about communicating. Clear the weeds and the landmines. If you want to encourage creativity, you need to clear away the impediments, to make it easier for your staff to work. You need to delete the de‐motivators. Sometimes, that means going to bat to get adequate time, not spinning their wheels on poorly conceived or premature assignments, keeping account management out of the way while they work, managing clients. The great leader does whatever it takes to allow creative people to do their best. Create challenges, not competitions. Nothing is more demotivating than feeling like you’re constantly competing just to keep your own job, yet the “gang bang” is common practice in creative – especially in ad agencies. People think competition spurs better work, but most creativity research says otherwise. Real challenges energize the intrinsically motivated, like giving them great assignments, many and varied opportunities, and unfettered freedom to own their own creative work. Give the people what they need. Make sure creative people have all the resources they need: sound, insightful creative briefs, adequate timelines. People need more than free food and foosball tables to help the creative juices flow. Provide encouragement, empowerment, and freedom to discover. Don’t micromanage. That’s a confirmed creativity killer. Sniff out the truffles. Hone your creative judgment so that you see the potential power in any rough idea. Even inexperienced creatives can recognize a great idea in finished form. As a creative leader, you must be skilled at finding a germ of an idea hidden in the brush. And you need to help subordinates flesh it out. Critique clearly and honestly. Guide them to the summit like a Sherpa. But don’t give them all the answers – let them find the solution. Quality control. Be organized and productive. Make decisions, even when they’re tough. “It’s all about the work.” Admittedly, this is more about managing than leading, but unfortunately a leader in the creative industries plays the role of the manager, too. Everyone in the creative industries is in the business of creativity. As a leader you will be increasingly engaged in and responsible for not just the creative output, but the bottom line. (Any bonus you get will be dependent upon profitability, not aesthetics.) The bean counters outside the creative realm may push you to push your people to crank out more work in less time, even if you don’t feel the compulsion. Always remember, balance is essential. Otherwise the whole agency will be slouching toward mediocrity and that’s no way to succeed in the long run  –  as a creative leader, or a creative company. Hire people smarter than you. Don’t be threatened. There is no “I” anymore when you become a leader. David Ogilvy proffered this advice a hundred years ago, and it’s still the best way to succeed as a leader. Don’t feel threatened by people who are smarter or more talented than you. When one of your team

The Role of the Leader in Creative Work

does great things, you look good. As the cliché reinforces, a rising tide lifts all boats. In an age with increasing emphasis on collaboration and teamwork, that is truer than ever. Develop talent. Every time you review and critique work you are teaching and coaching. Well, you should be. That is how a highly talented leader shares all that domain knowledge and experience that brought her to the top. You also need to thoroughly understand how the creative process works (Chapter  3) and make sure your people do, too. Every decision you make shouldn’t just improve the work, but build the capabilities of your creative people. Don’t just rely on a small coterie of superstars. If everyone isn’t producing brilliant work, as the leader, you bear a good bit of the blame. Every time you form diverse teams, you create fresh opportunities and different ways of thinking. Invest in keeping your staff at the cutting edge of evolving creative channels, and in their ongoing knowledge and skill development. Help them build their portfolios. Not only is building an outstanding portfolio motivating for its owner, it shines reflective glory on his leader and mentor. Make them turn off as well as on. Human brains need down time to recharge, and time to experience the world in order to have ideas every day. Creative people are natural workaholics (because they love what they do). Don’t “burn and churn” talent. Those are just clever words for what happens when leaders undermine the creativity of their people by overworking them and then toss them out because they can’t come up with great ideas. Feed creativity. Make it okay – actually necessary, to have down time, to take vacation, and leave at a reasonable time. Otherwise people can’t have the experiences that give their brains the material they will draw upon to develop new ideas down the line. See the future. Be the future. Know everything that is possible and what lies beyond the horizon. Be a thought leader. Filter the fads from meaningful new technologies. Create a culture of creativity that the whole organization lives and breathes. Creative fields are changing constantly and rapidly – if you aren’t at the leading edge, you can’t be a creative leader in the twenty‐first century. That’s how you invent a car, not a better buggy whip. It’s how RGA evolved from creating titles for TV spots to developing Nike Plus interactive technology, and how a small Minneapolis direct marketing agency came to invent a wildly successful product like the HurryCane. There is much more to each one of these recommendations, which we will go into elsewhere in this book. Stay tuned.

2.2 ­Chapter Summary A leader plays an integral role in the outcome of creative work. Thus, the role of the leader in creative occupations is a complex one influenced by personal attributes, skills, behaviors, and personality characteristics. Among the most

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important are the leader’s own creative and critical thinking capability, subject knowledge in the domain, and soft skills, all of which interplay in creative judgment, mentoring, and other interpersonal aspects of leading. Management scholars identify a variety of leadership styles, but the transformational (AKA creative) leadership style is the one considered most effective in creative occupations and industries. Leading for creativity takes a special kind of leader, a superb communicator with a high degree of emotional intelligence who understands creative people and the creative process, as well as the principles of leadership.

­Lessons from Legends How Not to Suck as a CD by Luke Sullivan, legendary copywriter, creative director, author, and professor of advertising, SCAD I think it’s a shame that so many people, when they become creative directors, forget what it was like being a creative. Most of them seem to forget what it was they themselves most needed, back when they were a workin’ creative. They forget what it was like. They forget what they were like. Me? When I was a young copywriter, I was (among other things) insecure, arrogant, clueless, impatient, and always cynical. Always cynical. And cynics are hard to lead because they don’t believe a thing most managers have to say. And the thing managers do that cynics find most grating? Cheerleading. “Hey, it’s not so bad we have to re‐pitch this client! I just know you can come up with something better!” Cynics hate cheerleading. Cynics don’t want account people to beat around the bush saying, “It’s okay, your ads are with Jesus now.” Just say “Dude, your campaign died because the client didn’t get it. And yeah, it sucks.” I’d counsel managers to share the creatives’ pain, to share their frustration. They don’t need you to come in and plop some whipped cream on the shit sandwich. In fact, when one of my teams was told they had to do something that was stupid or just kinda sucked, I said, “Hey, when you have to eat a turd, don’t nibble.” Cynics hate cheerleading. They also hate pretty much everything about corporate structure: memos, meetings, time sheets, expense reports, and all that HR stuff. It bores them or irritates them. The smart creative manager will do everything he or she can to streamline the corporate red‐tape and act as a buffer against agency bureaucracy. Cynics also hate meetings. They’re a huge time‐suck. Cynics think, “Why did we even have that meeting? You coulda just leaned into my office and said it.” My suggestion: fewer meetings, more conversations.

The Role of the Leader in Creative Work

Here’s another interesting thing about creatives. You’d be surprised how much torture we can take if you just tell us why we’re being tortured. Creatives like transparency. They wanna know what they’re part of. They wanna know why they’re being asked to do something, even if it’s a dumb reason; and in this business, it usually is a dumb reason. Smart creative managers don’t try to “protect” creatives from the bad news; and in this business, it usually is bad news. It’s bad news, so just say it. If you try to tiptoe around it, you’ll end up sounding like that guy in Office Space who was always goin’, “Uh, yeeeeaaahh, if you could just go ahead and come in this weekend.” Another thing I wish I’d heard less of when I was a young creative? It usually comes during a creative meeting. Someone in the back of room puts down their donut and says, “Well, if I could just be the devil’s advocate here for a sec …” Dude, shut up. Ideas are fragile. The bubble can pop so easily. Instead of being the devil’s advocate, why not be the angel’s advocate? Don’t just blurt out what you hate about something. Not liking stuff is easy. Anyone can do it. It’s harder to find out what’s good about the idea. The trick is finding that little coal and then blowin’ on it ’til it’s flame. I forget where I read this quotation from writing coach Jay O’Callahan, but it went like this: “It is strange that, in our culture, we are trained to look for weaknesses. When I work with people, they are often surprised when I point out the wonderful crucial details – the parts that are alive.” He went on to suggest, “If our eyes are always looking for weakness, we begin to lose our intuition to notice beauty.” I found this very same advice from a venture capitalist, David Sze of Greylock Partners: “Anyone can tell you why something’s going to fail. The real trick is to find out why something will succeed.” Before I wear out my welcome here, I’ll just close with one last piece of advice, this one from my old boss, the late Mike Hughes of The Martin Agency. Mike said that rejection is such a daily part of this business, and so it’s important to remember creatives need to score a victory every once in a while. It doesn’t have to be a huge win; just a little victory at the right time can keep creatives very motivated. He said: “[A creative director should help find] relief for the people with thankless jobs – the copywriter on the account that has a new direction every week, the account person who deals with the especially difficult client, the project manager on the project that can’t be managed, the planner who’s partnered with a not‐very‐good creative team. “Sometimes that relief means the top people at the agency need to get involved with a problem client or account. Sometimes it means moving people into different positions – even if it makes everyone involved feel a little uncomfortable. Sometimes it means creating or investing in projects that have a high likelihood of meaningful success, even if that success isn’t a financial one.” Oh, how I miss Mike.

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2.3 ­Ideas + Action Got grit? Find out at: http://angeladuckworth.com/grit‐scale.

2.4 ­Some Great Reads + Resources Minsky, L. and Bendinger, B. (eds.) (2012). The Get a Job Workshop: How to Find Your Way to a Creative Career in Advertising, Branding, Collateral, Digital, Experimental & More. Chicago: Copy Workshop. Sullivan, L. and Boches, E. (2012). Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Vonk, N. and Kestin, J. (2010). Pick Me: Breaking into Advertising and Staying There. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

­References Amabile, T. (1996). Creativity in Context. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Amabile, T. M. (2003). Five questions about … how leaders influence creativity. Harvard Management Update, 8(12), 3–3. Amabile, T. M., Schatzel, E. A., Moneta, G. B., and Kramer, S. J. (2004). Leader behaviors and the work environment for creativity: Perceived leader support. Leadership Quarterly, 15(1), 5. Bass, B. M. (1990). Bass & Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications. (3rd ed.). New York: Free Press. Bass, B. M. (1997). Does the transactional‐transformational leadership paradigm transcend organizational and … American Psychologist, 52(2), 130. Bass, B. M. (1999). Two decades of Research and Development in transformational leadership. European Journal of Work & Organizational Psychology, 8(1), 9–32. Bass, B. M. and Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational Leadership (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers. Boyce, G., Williams, S., Kelly, A., and Yee, H. (2001). Fostering deep and elaborative learning and generic (soft) skill development: The strategic use of case studies in accounting education. Accounting Education, 10(1), 37–60. Bryans North, A. and Worth, W. E. (2000). Trends in entry‐level technology, interpersonal, and basic communication job skills: 1992–1998. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 30(2), 143–154. Chen, L. (2015). The world’s largest tech companies: Apple beats Samsung, Microsoft, Google. Forbes.com (website), 11 May. Retrieved 13 February 2017 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/liyanchen/2015/05/11/ the‐worlds‐largest‐tech‐companies‐apple‐beats‐samsung‐microsoft‐google.

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Conger, J. A. and Pearce, C. L. (2003). Shared Leadership: Reframing the Hows and Whys of Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. El-Murad, J., and West, D. C. (2004). The definition and measurement of creativity: what do we know?. Journal of Advertising Research, 44(2), 188–201. Helgesen, S. (2011). The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leadership. New York: Crown Publishing Group. Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. New York: Simon and Schuster. Jung, C. G. (2001). Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Hove, UK: Psychology Press. Maeda, J. and Bermont, R. J. (2011). Redesigning Leadership. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Mallia, K. L. and Windels, K. (2011). Will changing media change the world? An exploratory investigation of the impact of digital advertising on opportunities for creative women. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 11(2), 30–44. Mallia, K. L., Windels, K., and Broyles, S. J. (2013). The fire starter and the brand steward: An examination of successful leadership traits for the advertising‐ agency creative director. Journal of Advertising Research, 53(3), 339–353. Morrison, Maureen (2011). Left to fend for themselves, employees feel no loyalty to agencies: Arnold CEO Andrew Benett offers bleak talent‐management stats. Advertising Age, 8 March. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/special‐ report‐4as‐conference/ andrew‐benett‐offers‐bleak‐talent‐management‐stats/149297. Oldham, G. R. and Cummings, A. (1996). Employee creativity: Personal and contextual factors at work. Academy of Management Journal, 39(3), 607–634. Rose, M. R. (1998). An Integrative Investigation of Job Stress, Situational Moderators, and Group‐level Patterns within the Leader–Member Exchange Model of Leadership. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest Information & Learning. Rosener, J. B. (1990). Ways women lead. Harvard Business Review, 68(6), 119–125. Runco, M. A. (1997). The Creativity Research Handbook (Vol. 1). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Schwartz, T. (2015). The bad behavior of visionary leaders. The New York Times, 26 June. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/business/dealbook/the‐bad‐ behavior‐of‐visionary‐leaders.html. Sosik, J. J. and Godshalk, V. M. (2000). Leadership styles, mentoring functions received, and job‐related stress: A conceptual model and preliminary study. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21(4), 365. Sosik, J. J., Kahai, S. S., and Avolio, B. J. (1998). Transformational leadership and dimensions of creativity: Motivating idea generation in computer‐mediated groups. Creativity Research Journal, 11(2), 111. Windels, K., Mallia, K. L., and Broyles, S. J. (2013). Soft skills: The difference between leading and leaving the advertising industry? Journal of Advertising Education, 17(2), 17–27.

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3 Understanding and Managing for Creativity

As you recall from Chapter  1, numerous factors contribute to creativity. Broadly speaking, they include individual factors such as a person’s ways of thinking, personality, and cumulative life experiences, as well as external, environmental factors. If you’re going to lead for creativity, you need to thoroughly understand creative people, their personality traits, their behaviors and motivators, and the intricacies of the creative process. All are essential, in order to recognize, hire, and retain the most talented people, and so you can do Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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everything possible to contribute to their success, which in turn is your success and your organization’s success. First, you’ll have to separate half‐truths, hearsay, and myths from genuine wisdom and social science. An awful lot of hocus‐pocus is published on creative topics – and even more on leadership practices. Some advice is built on tenuous theoretical footing, if any. Some of it is useless, if not destructive. This book has done a lot of weeding for you, focusing on peer‐reviewed findings and validated expertise. Fortunately, a goodly number of dedicated scholars have invested decades of research on creativity revealing much information – about creativity, creative personality, personal traits associated with high levels of creative ability, about which behaviors enhance or quash creativity, and how to build an environment where creative people can flourish and do their very best. This chapter identifies the characteristics that creative people typically share, across disciplines and domains, how those relate to making one’s living in creative endeavors, and what that means for creatives who become leaders in creative industries  –  and for others who find themselves leading these unique human beings. Later, we discuss how to translate that knowledge into organizing for creativity, from the individual to the team to the entire organization. In this chapter, you will learn: ●● ●● ●● ●●

●● ●●

The basic science and art of creativity How creative processes work – in the mind and in creative industries Some factors that encourage creativity and those that inhibit it Personality traits correlated strongly with creativity  –  and great leadership Behaviors that correlate with high creativity – and creative leadership How to motivate creative people

3.1 ­The Science, and Art, of Creativity Remember, despite the fact that people usually associate artists and the arts with creativity, they don’t own it. Creativity is a way of being, a way of thinking, and a way of approaching life and work that spans disciplines, though it is more heavily concentrated in creative industries – because creative work naturally draws people who consider themselves creative and are attracted to creative pursuits. After decades of study, scientists and social scientists have some pretty powerful evidence of how creativity and creative minds work. We discussed some fundamental theories of creativity in Chapter 1. As the study of creativity evolved, scholars acknowledged that beyond the individual, the domain (the cumulative body of knowledge in a subject area), and the field (the context and elaboration of knowledge of experts

Understanding and Managing for Creativity

working in the domain who judge something to be creative) (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988, 1996), there was another factor influencing creativity: collaboration (John‐Steiner, 2000). Quite often, creative  work  comes from two or more people working as a team (Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer, 2014; Garber et  al., 2009; Mallia and Windels, 2011; Sawyer and Dezutter, 2009; Sternberg et  al., 2003). In some industries, this has long been the case; in others, teamwork and collaboration are assuming greater importance as their creative processes expand. When once musicians needed to play in the same space, recording can now take place with numerous individuals, in multiple locations, in multiple time zones. In some creative industries, especially digital media production, collaboration is reaching farther across a variety of disciplines, and changing the size and nature of creative collaboration. So it is important to recognize that the act of collaboration itself has an influence on creativity. 3.1.1  Is There Really Such a Thing as Creative People? So if research says that every human being is born with the capacity be creative and to engage in creative activity or work toward innovation, why is it that some people clearly seem to be more creative than others? Why is that? Surely you are familiar with the temperamental “artiste” creative type. That’s a stereotype, right? Yet, like many others, this stereotype holds a kernel of truth. Yes, there are “creative people.” They are not like everybody else. Some do have inflated egos and prima donna tendencies along with substantial talent. However, in reality, the creative “type” is far more complex than the stereotype, and creativity results from a stew of inborn abilities, individual traits, behaviors, and external influences. What is the raw material required for creativity? The investment theory of creativity holds that creativity requires a confluence of six distinct but interrelated resources (Sternberg, 2003): ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

Intellectual abilities Knowledge Styles of thinking Personality Motivation Environment

You’ll immediately recognize that some of these reside at the level of the individual, like intellectual abilities, while others are as obviously influenced by both the individual and the leader, such as motivation and the environment. What is more surprising, and we’ll discuss a bit later, is the many, many ways in which leaders can influence those factors  –  both knowingly, and sometimes unwittingly.

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3.1.1.1  Creativity at the Individual Level

So if most research contends that every human being is born with the capacity to be creative, why are some people more creative than others? First of all, that’s because there’s a difference between having an innate ability, and using it effectively. In addition, research suggests that some people appear to be born with a mind and a variety of personality traits that make them better suited to be creative – to take advantage of the cards they were dealt, if you will. Creative people also have life experiences and engage in behaviors that further enhance their capability even more – learned behaviors associated with creative fluency. Intellectual abilities are also important. Most highly creative people are also keenly intelligent, although IQ in and of itself is not sufficient to be creative. Creative people hold a lot of knowledge, of course, specific knowledge in their respective disciplines and also much unrelated knowledge  –  about a broad array of other topics. Some psychologists questioned whether “uncreative” people are born that way, or whether they might actually be intimidated by creativity (Anderson, 1992); or because they buy into the myth that creativity belongs solely to a few, rare geniuses (Johar et al., 2001); or whether they are simply constrained by their own belief that they are not creative and choose not to be (Sternberg, 2000). All these represent individual behaviors that can thwart creative tendencies. In addition, certain experiences can knock every ounce of creativity out of a person, like being forced to “color inside the lines” or being discouraged from creative expression. Negative experiences and negative feedback can inhibit the expression of creativity and sublimate the urge to be creative. On the other hand, being free to think and explore a variety of things and encouraged to do so enhances creativity. Sternberg suggests that creativity is also the result of an attitude or set of attitudes – and that people can learn those attitudes if they don’t already have them. Regardless of your own baseline level of creativity, engaging in behaviors associated with creativity will boost your ability. Though there may be scholarly debate on how much creative ability comes from which source, a creative person is universally understood to be the product of nature and nurture – the result of both genetic influences and external experiences. As a creative leader, you clearly can’t change someone’s DNA. It’s just as obvious that a leader wields the power to build and sustain an atmosphere that encourages creativity. What is less apparent is that a creative leader can also exert influence on some factors you might imagine are only within the purview of the individual. For instance, a leader can affect discipline‐specific knowledge with formal and informal training; accelerate creativity fluency with skills coaching; stimulate creativity by providing opportunities for enriching

Understanding and Managing for Creativity

experiences; in addition to modeling and promoting behaviors associated with creativity. If you’re not a creative director, or don’t plan to be one, how much of this chapter do you really need to read? All of it. How can you possibly work with, let  alone influence, people you can’t understand? You need to know whom you’re leading and how – and why – they do the things they do. I’ll let Keith Quesenberry explain to you why you need to understand the creative process. While his frame is the advertising agency, the wisdom applies across the spectrum of creative endeavors and to all leaders who want to encourage creativity. FYI 3.1  Why You Must Understand the Creative Process by Keith A. Quesenberry As an advertising copywriter I worked at small boutiques to large international agencies with startups to Fortune 500s. Sometimes I crafted inspiring ads that moved people and won creative awards. Other times they were mediocre solutions deserving less than a momentary glance. What was the difference? Creative Process. Being a creative leader requires more than hiring people with proven talent. It requires leading the entire organization to ensure policies, management, departments, and employees are educated about and support the process needed to produce creative work. There are two types of advertising agencies: creative‐driven and account‐ driven. I worked at both. At the creative‐led agencies I produced my most remarkable campaigns. At the account‐management‐driven agencies I produced my most forgettable ads. The creative‐driven environments had a creative person as an owner, partner, or top manager. They had power to prescribe and preserve business policies and procedures. They built an environment that allowed for the unpredictable creative process to occur. The account‐driven environments had leaders strictly bottom‐line focused with little understanding of how creative people work. They wanted us to sit down, crank out words and images to produce neat invoices. They had project managers who constantly checked up on us interrupting the creative process to ensure we knew our deadlines. The places where I made my most creative ads had leaders who started projects with built‐in time for the creative process and had project managers who protected us from interruption and assisted not insisted. These leaders also understood that when they walked by you with your feet up and staring at the ceiling you weren’t slacking off, you were creating. As James Young Webb says in A Technique for Producing Ideas, “… the production of ideas is just as definite a process as the production of Fords,” but it is messy. It doesn’t always fit timeframes, produce tidy timesheets and doesn’t

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look like productivity in other professions. That is why advertising agencies are a unique environment where the tension between art and commerce plays out on a daily basis. To be sure, even an ad agency must follow business practice or it will not be in business long, but leaders must ensure mutual respect and understanding of the business process and creative process. When both are allowed to run in their optimal way the account manager and creative can celebrate the account and award wins together. Keith Quesenberry is the author of Social Media Strategy: Marketing and Advertising in the Consumer Revolution. He is an associate professor of marketing at Messiah College and has industry experience as an associate creative director and copywriter.

3.1.1.2  This Is Your Brain on Creativity

For more than 60 years, psychologists, sociologists, neurologists, anthropologists, and others have explored human creativity and attempted to unlock its secrets. But only in recent decades have researchers been able to actually see it happening  –  to actually watch creativity occurring in real time. Thanks to modern imaging techniques like MRIs and CAT scans, neuroscientists can watch brains in action, and have literally seen how they work – leading to some fascinating  discoveries about the brain and creativity. Some neuroscientists have identified and measured brain chemicals that impact creativity (Geddes, 2009), and observed glucose metabolism occurring in the brain during creative activity (Plucker and Renzulli, 1999). Neuroscientists have reported a variety of interesting findings, and even overturned some long‐held beliefs about creativity. Since the 1960s, most scientists have recognized that we have two brain hemispheres, left and right, each of which is predominantly responsible for certain functions. The left brain controls logic, language, numbers, symbols, sequences, and judgment. The right brain is where images, color, rhythm, music, imagination, and emotion reside. One of the most surprising recent findings concerns where creativity occurs in the brain. Scientists had long thought that the right brain controlled all our creativity, but that is not the case. Neuroscience now tells us that both hemispheres are necessary for creative work. Creativity actually engages both brain hemispheres, and happens as a result of pattern recognition and interactions between the two. And further, that an insight, the “aha” moment, relates directly to unconscious processing that precedes it – and is not just a function of the deliberate problem solving (Kounios and Beeman, 2014). Thanks to ongoing study in this area, we are continuously learning much more about creativity and the brain.

Understanding and Managing for Creativity

3.1.1.2.1  Creativity Involves Multiple Ways of Thinking

As Apple may have foretold in its 1990s advertising campaign, some researchers suggest that creative people actually do “Think different.” Or, more grammatically, that creative people think differently than noncreative people. Artist Jean Dubuffet put it this way, “For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity.” Thinking differently is observed in a variety of ways. Some find that creative people have greater cognitive flexibility (Chrysikou, 2012). Research holds that creative people have a greater capacity for divergent and convergent thinking, both of which are necessary for creative problem solving. Divergent thinking is the ability to generate multiple alternative problem solutions. It is considered essential to creative thinking and coming up with novel ideas. Convergent thinking involves finding the one right answer, the best solution, to a defined problem. Creative people are found to be capable of high levels of associative thinking. Associative thinking is the ability to relate a concept to a wide range of other ideas – allowing development of novel ideas (Kilgour and Koslow, 2009). Mednick (1962) proposed that some people were better able to do this because they had a flatter associative hierarchy. On the other hand, other researchers argue that enhanced creative ability could simply be a result of creatives simply thinking more than noncreative people. Much the same way that exercise training strengthens muscles, regular practice enhances ideation and problem solving ability. Creative people just do it, over and over again. Of course, all creative people are not the same. But research demonstrates that they do share quite a number of commonalities.

3.2 ­Creative Personality, Traits, and Behaviors Psychologists have identified a “creative personality” and certain characteristics associated with it. These are the traits and behaviors shared by people most likely to be able to harness creativity – and to make a creative endeavor their life’s work. Most social scientists agree that the creative personality demonstrates some combination of the following (Guilford, 1970; Runco, 2007). These traits and behaviors are what define creative people and separate them from their less creative counterparts. Let’s examine them and how each relates to doing creative work and being a creative leader. ●●

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Curiosity. Creative people are compelled to explore. They are always seeking more, and looking around the next corner. Everyone is born curious, but while others lose their capacity, creatives practice observation and stay curious. Openness to experience. Creative people thrive on seeing, doing, and experiencing the novel. Being open to a breadth of experiences means ideas are in

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storage when they’re needed. It is strongly correlated with divergent thinking – both quantity and quality, and that is essential for creative achievement. Independence/Autonomy. Creative people want independence to make their own decisions and control their own destinies. (Already you can see how this tendency might be trouble in entry‐level positions anywhere. Control and ownership of ideas will mean tension in an organization where creatives are explicitly told what to do.) Wide interests. Creative people are anything but myopic; they have numerous, varied interests. Diverse interests make creative people interesting, the most fun people at cocktail parties, and the partners you’ll want for Trivial Pursuit Storing all that diverse information provides fodder to call upon for ideas. Attraction to complexity or novelty. Others are afraid of newness, change, or problems that are complicated. Not creative people. They seek them out. They love the new and the novel and solving a complex puzzle. Emotional sensitivity. Creative people feel deeply. This means euphoria when one’s work is loved and respected, profound pain when it’s not accepted. Leaders need to understand that creative people aren’t just doing a job, but deeply involved and emotionally invested in their work. It’s their “baby.” Playfulness. This is not about enjoying gaming or foosball, but instead describes the creative’s tendency to play and experiment with ideas in a variety of ways. It’s why they actually enjoy working long and hard in creative pursuits. Thinking is as much play as it is work. Tolerance of ambiguity. This is one of the most important traits for successful creatives and creative leaders. As we’ll discuss in Chapter 3, the creative process is usually a messy, chaotic, nonlinear process. Getting from good ideas to great ones requires understanding and acceptance of the nature of the creative process, and the ability to work with and through its inherent ambiguity. Risk taking or risk tolerance. Creative people do not fear uncertainty. They dive head first into uncharted terrain, are willing to try and experiment, and enjoy pushing boundaries. Without risk, there is no creativity. Intrinsic motivation. You don’t have to tell creative people to tackle a creative challenge. They have an innate need to strive for their goals, to create and to be creative. Because they are driven by internal desires, leaders will find it difficult to control or direct creative people with the “carrots” or extrinsic motivators that might be effective with ordinary folk. Psychological androgyny. Creative minds are less encumbered by established gender stereotypes – and are able to be dominant and submissive, aggressive and nurturing. With fewer proscribed boundaries for their thinking, they exhibit the strengths of both genders. (This has nothing to do with the identified gender or characteristics of the whole person. It’s that their mind is more flexible than others’ tend to be.) Self‐efficacy. Creative people have confidence in their own abilities.

Understanding and Managing for Creativity

Those listed above are the most universally recognized characteristics of creative personality. Other creativity researchers note some additional characteristics of creative personality, or use slightly different terminology. The following traits or behaviors below have also been identified among creative people in certain domains: ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

empathy gritty optimism humor artistic sense awareness of creativity originality need for privacy personal energy/willingness to work hard heightened perception

Not all creative people possess all of these traits. And certain characteristics are clustered in creative people in a particular domain  –  for example, one group of traits will more commonly be found among designers and a different cluster among scientists. Yet, all together those traits should give you a pretty clear mental picture of whom we’re talking about when we say “creative people.” (Though not all creative people possess every single one of these traits.) Creative behaviors also contribute to the creative fluency. Most creative people approach problem solving in alternating ways, working both with partners or teams and thinking by themselves, introspectively. When they work alone, creative people achieve flow – a state of extreme focus that allows them to filter out the rest of the world and focus on problem solving and ideation. Beware interrupting them! Achieving flow is central to the creative process, regardless of the type of work being done. This is where breakthroughs often occur. Lest you begin to think creativity is just an innate gift, know that creativity is hard work, and creative people exert considerable effort. One common behavior that creatives share is that they think a lot. They love to think and explore. They enjoy attacking a mental problem and exercising their mind. In fact, some research indicates that innovators spend almost 50% more time trying to think different than other people do (Dyer et al., 2011). Small wonder they have more ideas, and better ideas. Because the more you think, the more ideas you have. The more ideas you generate, the more likely you are to have a truly innovative one. This validates what inventor Thomas A. Edison said almost a hundred years ago, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Creative people work really long and hard to do great work. As a leader, you’ve got to encourage your team to generate many, many ideas before culling them to share with you  –  and make sure you give your staff

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enough time to do that. There can be a host of business reasons to trim time and compress schedules, but you and those above you need to realize that the creative process takes time, and shortcutting it is simply going to guarantee the production of average work and actually preclude great ideas from occurring. 3.2.1.1  It’s Not All Roses

No doubt, you are beginning to appreciate the depth and complexity involved in trying to lead a team or organization full of creative people. But wait. We only reviewed the positive traits to this point. There are negative personality traits found to correlate with creativity as well. These include: hyperactivity, rebelliousness, egocentricity, cynicism, sarcasm, absentmindedness, disobedience, and argumentativeness (Runco and Pagnani, 2011, p. 65; Torrance, 1962). Hmmm. Little wonder that grade school teachers find that the most highly creative students in their classrooms tend to be the least cooperative and agreeable (Westby and Dawson, 1995). Fast‐forward a few years, and those hyperactive, sarcastic, absentminded, argumentative children will likely be working in creative industries, and someone will have to get them to deliver creative ideas on strategy, on deadline, and on budget. And, let’s not forget that the proverbial “fine line between genius and insanity” is another stereotype that holds a bit of truth. Many productive creative people have conditions that actually serve to fuel their creativity, ranging from attention deficit disorder to classification on the autism spectrum. Studies show that adults with ADD demonstrated a greater creative fluency (White and Shah, 2006, 2011), as well as a greater ability to overcome constraints on their creativity (Abraham et  al., 2006). Autistic traits have been associated with having high numbers of unusual responses to divergent thinking tasks (Runco, 1984). Leadership means trying to shepherd dozens of people like the ones we’ve described above, and rally them around creative projects that often have strict strategic parameters and unrealistic deadlines. Imagine. And we haven’t even begun to discuss the environmental and situational factors that will also contribute to creativity and creative leadership. 3.2.1.2  The Paradoxes of the Creative Individual

Despite the tidy list above outlining the traits of creative personality, creative people defy tidy classifications, and demonstrate more than a few paradoxes. Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, one of the world’s leading creativity experts, explains it best: I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up with new ideas and new things. If I had to express in one

Understanding and Managing for Creativity

word what makes their personalities different from others, it’s complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an individual, each of them is a multitude. (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p. 36). These paradoxes underscore the leadership challenge faced in creative industries. More specifically, Csikszentmihalyi (1996) describes the paradoxes of the creative person as: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10)

having a great deal of physical energy, yet also often quiet and at rest being smart and naïve at the same time combining playfulness and discipline, responsibility and irresponsibility alternating between imagination and fantasy and a rooted sense of reality tending to be both introverted and extroverted, humble and proud at the same time tend to escape rigid gender role stereotyping are both rebellious and conservative. very passionate about their work, yet can be objective as well their openness and sensitivity expose them to suffering and pain, yet a great deal of enjoyment

Wonder why it’s so important to understand the minds and traits of creative people before you can lead them? The very complexities and paradoxes inherent in the psyche of creative people that make them so brilliant are precisely why they are more challenging to lead. It is also imperative to understand the interplay between the cognitive factors and the situational factors that you can influence as a leader. That is to come. We cover how leaders influence creativity with knowledge sharing in Chapter  6, through environmental factors in Chapter 7, and through how you organize creative people and form teams in Chapters 8 and 9. Just as having a box of Play‐Doh doesn’t make you a sculptor, simply having the traits or ability is not enough to be creative. Creativity also encompasses an individual’s attitude toward life, and a myriad of decisions she makes concerning how to express that creativity (Sternberg, 2003). Creativity involves one’s approach to play, and the importance of this was highlighted in a speech brilliant comedian and filmmaker John Cleese gave as a commencement address in 1991 (see Some Great Reads + Resources). And, as we will now discuss, a host of internal and external influences impact creative production, influences that could be positive or negative depending on the leader and her personality, behaviors, and practices.

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3.3 ­How the Process Impacts the Creative Product, and Where the Leader Fits In First, let’s avoid confusion. Creative process has two meanings. It is both used to describe the approach an individual takes to creative thinking or problem solving, and it is also the term used to describe organizational processes by which creative work gets done. We’ll look at both. 3.3.1  How the Individual Creative Process Works The good news is that what goes on in the human creative process is pretty straightforward. And though it’s been nearly 100 years since Graham Wallas (1926) first published The Art of Thought, the validity of his model describing the stages of process is still widely accepted. His four‐stage model describes the steps to creativity as: ●●

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Preparation. The curious mind is driven to search for everything it can about the problem to be solved (Koranda and Sheehan, 2014), soaking it all in like a sponge. It involves problem identification, idea generation, and conscious thinking in a variety of ways. Incubation. Thinking. Mulling. Rolling it over and letting the creative problem percolate in the unconscious. Processes go on during sleep and when you’re doing other unrelated activities that contribute to forging connections in the brain. Illumination. Answers come. In the shower. On the commute. The thinker or team gets them all down on paper. Verification. The individual and team and then various others look at the idea, discuss, weigh in, and evaluate whether it really does solve the problem. Sometimes adjustments are made to the original idea. Sometimes a cold eye finds they’re not as good as first imagined.

Sorry. There’s a reason the stages here have bullets and not numbers in front of them. Because current research accepts the validity of these stages, but views the whole process of getting to truly creative ideas (Novel and useful, remember – not just good.) as more circular than linear. We now understand that the creative process involves multiple rounds of generating ideas, systematic attempts to work out which have the most promise, forging solutions, testing them out, and figuring out the best answer. 3.3.1.1  Problem Solving Versus Problem Definition

Creativity is really just problem solving, right? So what is the problem? And who delineates it? Ah, that can be the tricky part. Creative people must first understand what problem they need to solve before they can engage in any

Understanding and Managing for Creativity

kind of creative process to go about doing that. Many fluent creative people and creativity researchers consider problem definition an essential first step in creativity. Is this “problem solving” versus “problem definition” more than a hair‐splitting, semantic difference? Yes. Read what one world‐class graphic designer has to say on the subject.

FYI 3.2  Why Look for a Problem When They’re Handed to You? by Robin Landa In the design professions, a leader or client articulates a problem and the designer solves it. This top‐down model has everyone moving in the same direction (linear path) toward a solution. To ensure a designer’s problem‐solving capability is rich and perhaps innovative, a leader should foster a designer’s imagination by allotting time for and encouraging experimentation and exploration – for problem finding. To solve a given problem well, a designer must learn to think like a scientist rather than a detective. This premise goes back to Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld in 1938: For the detective the crime is given, the problem formulated: Who killed Cock Robin? The scientist must, at least in part, commit his own crime as well as carry out the investigation … The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old questions from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science. Thinking imaginatively prevents the creation of pedestrian solutions. Scientist Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors only the prepared mind.” The goal then is to prepare one’s imagination so that original works and ideas can emerge. This is a developed capacity, which requires ongoing practice‐led research. By encouraging designers and art directors to initiate, to generate their own inquiries or to pose questions (such as, “What if …?” or “If only …”) and follow them through, a leader not only invests in designers’ thinking but may find that free investigation may lead to articulated problems (Rubidge and MacDonald, 2004). Freed to experiment, to expand imaginations, designers find a way back to problem solving. Robin Landa is Distinguished Professor, Michael Graves College, Kean University, and author of several books on advertising and design.

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Landa describes this from a designer’s perspective, since that is her own creative discipline. But the process is not discipline specific, despite current use of the term “design thinking.” That catch phrase seems to imply that thinking about design is somehow different than other creative thinking. It is not. Rest assured, “design thinking” is just a trendy grab for ownership of a universal creative process. Problem definition is a crucial step for any creative person, in any creative profession. And a good leader plays a central role in outlining the problem for his subordinates and briefing teams on any given project. 3.3.2  Thinking Styles: Divergent and Convergent Thinking Once you’ve defined a creative problem, you must solve it. Creative people go about that with any number of approaches, but essentially they boil down to using the mind in some systematic ways. Beginning in the twentieth century, divergent thinking has been considered a hallmark of creative thinking. It remains vitally important in developing numerous novel alternatives. But in and of itself, divergent thinking is not enough for actual creative production. Creative production also requires convergent thinking (e.g. Brophy, 1998; Cropley, 2006; Rickards, 1993; Runco, 2007). It makes sense. Once many great ideas are generated, it takes knowledge and decision‐making, reorganizing and integrating ideas, to identify the best answer by comparing the alternatives  –  making sense with existing information and judgment (Kilgour and Koslow, 2009; Mumford et al., 1997). (Think back to Nancy Tag’s discussion of the importance of critique in creative work in Chapter 1.) As work is developed in creative industries, both creative people and creative leaders engage in a continuous dance back‐and‐forth between the two modes of thinking to bring ideas to fruition (Runco, 2007). Facility in ideation can be learned from “on the job” experience, but formal skills training is also critical  –  and the responsibility of the individual and organizational leadership. It’s in the best interest of the creative person and the organization to hone their abilities if they want to stand above their competitors.

3.4 ­From Traits to Situational Influences – Where Leaders Fit in the Creative Process Creative people don’t just think differently, they work differently, too. For those in creative industries and enterprises, work is more than a job or a paycheck. When your work is making a creative product, it is also a means of self‐expression. Work occupies a place of centrality in their lives, beyond what work

Understanding and Managing for Creativity

typically means to people in more routine jobs. Today, with the patronage system long gone, few talented individuals can support themselves in the fine arts. So they gravitate to the creative industries and entrepreneurship, self‐selecting the opportunity to be creative, and earn a living at the same time. Creative‐work‐as‐self‐expression is an important consideration underscoring why leading creative people is unlike leading people in a factory or a bank or in civil service. Here lies the very essence of why so many traditional, tried‐ and‐true managerial practices won’t work in creative industries. And why traditional kinds of motivation and rewards usually don’t inspire creative people. If you’re creative yourself, you undoubtedly have some intuitive understanding of what creative people tend to be like – and what moves them. (As like tends to attract like, you probably also have highly creative friends.) If you’re not terribly creative, look around. The most clever and innovative minds in your organization are creative people, and if you haven’t already noticed, they march to the beat of that proverbial different drummer, and will not respond to leaders as others do. 3.4.1  Ordering Creativity – Always a Rather Tall Order Making any product in the creative industries is a rather complex task, incorporating numerous creative individuals, with different knowledge bases, different skills and practices. That is especially true in the digital media industries, where both the breadth and depth of knowledge and skills required to produce are greater. And let’s not forget that big distinction between creative potential and creative performance. In order to enhance anyone else’s creative fluency and productivity, you’ll need to thoroughly understand their creative process, learn the best practices involved in organizing for creative work (which we will discuss in Chapters 6–8), and you will want to identify, learn, and use the leader behaviors that are known to make an impact on the creative success of your followers. These behaviors flow from inspiration to motivation. How can you motivate them, if you don’t know how? 3.4.2  Inspiration and Motivation – Where Internal and External Influences Converge The leader’s role in inspiring creativity neither begins nor ends with a soapbox speech. Unfortunately, no one can draw a direct line of causation from one particular leadership practice to ace creative work in subordinates. Leader–follower relationships are complex and are comprised of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of interactions and communications, overt and covert. You can’t view it as a direct link from “if this” to “then that.”

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Leadership comes from relational behaviors like the way you say hello when you’re walking down the hall, or whether you share personal good news among team members, and whom gets invited to a meeting, or not. Amabile found that creativity is encouraged through an intervening process whereby seemingly trivial behaviors that leaders engage in on a day‐to‐day basis have a profound indirect influence, and that much of what leaders said and did led team members to feel either more or less supported by the leader (Amabile, 2003). Feeling supported by the leader influenced team members’ creativity. Leader behaviors and interactions influence in often subtle ways, but they contribute mightily to the outcome. 3.4.3  Leaders Motivate by Supporting Their Followers As we’ve discussed, creative people are innately curious and have a high degree of intrinsic motivation and desire for autonomy. So you might assume that the best way to lead would be to just hire great people and then stand back and let them to their thing. Au contraire. Great creativity requires a leader who takes an active role. Not in the trenches, working alongside her people. A great leader is more like a coach, whose job it is not to play the game but to assure that his team gets everything they need to do their best – and to make sure the way is cleared for them to do what they need to do. First of all, even innate human traits can be like houseplants: they need the right conditions to grow, and wither if they don’t receive the right attention. Curiosity is like that. It will atrophy if it isn’t used and encouraged. Some researchers suggest that humans are hardwired with two sets of instructions, one set conservative and the other an expansive group that holds instincts for exploration and risk‐taking. People who have little opportunity to explore or face too many obstacles or don’t have risk‐taking rewarded are unlikely to have the motivation required for creative behavior (Schmidt et al., 2007). For creativity to thrive, a leader must remove the obstacles to its growth. As one creative director put it, “My job is to clear away the weeds.” Weeds can take many forms. Some are tangible, like unrealistic deadlines, a bad creative brief, or some annoying junior account executive checking in too often to see how a project is progressing. Weeds can also be physical – such as numbing, stuffy windowless space or a gray cubicle environment where personal décor is prohibited. One of the biggest impediments to creativity is psychological: fear. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of not having a good idea. Fear of losing one’s job. Not surprisingly, motivation comes from the opposite tack: building a safe space. One of the most compelling ways to motivate creativity is to encourage risk – and embrace failure. No lip service will do here. A leader – the whole organization from top to bottom – needs to recognize and accept that failure will inevitably be a side‐effect of motivating people to striving for what has

Understanding and Managing for Creativity

never been done before. Permission to take educated risks is as essential for breakthrough creativity as the human brain itself. Creative behavior is the result of not one, but many motives. In the creative industries we can count among these the innate urge to create, to please the boss, to win awards and recognition for one’s work, and practical desires like to keep this job, or get a better one as well. 3.4.4  Teach Them What They Need to Know – As Well as How to Think Great leaders give their followers everything they need to do their best work. Of course, that involves giving them the resources they need to do a specific task. That means thorough project briefings articulating clear objectives and expectations and all the support required to do it – from background information to software to time. It also involves giving them broad knowledge in the field that enhances their creative abilities – such as the latest digital possibilities if you’re creating mobile apps; information on new cameras if you’re in photography or film; training in the latest software, etc. What’s less intuitive perhaps is that a leader also needs to train his people how to think. Yes, some students will leave portfolio schools, art schools, and film schools with a bit of education in the creative process. But not all of them will. And the learning most of them will experience in creativity is not nearly enough to maximize their potential. Creative training will increase their fluency, allowing them to generate more and better ideas. If you want to train an endurance athlete you don’t show them how to run once and then leave them to their own devices. You make sure they have regular training sessions – and share the latest learning with them. Creative talent needs the same kind of ongoing training. Not only must people learn what’s new, they also need regular flexing of their creative muscles, and to shake up their approach to problem solving to remain at the top of their game. 3.4.5  What Leaders Do Matters. But How They Do Matters Even More You can memorize this book from front to back and still be a lousy creative leader. Knowing what to do is important. But ultimately your knowledge about leadership won’t inspire brilliant creativity from your followers. How you go about it will. So yes, it’s your policies and vision, but it’s also your empathy and earnest compassion that will fuel the best work. As we just mentioned above, an ongoing effort at building an atmosphere of trust and safety is a powerful motivator. So is autonomy. All human beings have not just a psychological, but also a biological need for control over their own destiny and decisions (Leotti et al.,

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2010). You can provide that by embracing shared leadership and providing opportunities for control as well as to create. Empower people, and they will deliver. Assess your regular tone and manner at work. Intense and absorbed? Focused, yet open to talk? What is your primary means of communication? Is it texting orders? Or stopping by and asking for input? Try getting your team in for an 8 a.m. meeting with and without breakfast and see how much buy‐in you get each way. Guide. Consult. Don’t direct. Encourage people’s sense of ownership and competence in their work, and creative people will have deeper, more motivated involvement in their work (Amabile, 2003). Provide meaningful feedback as needed, but avoid micro managing. It’s bad business in any field, but it’s deadly in creative work. It doesn’t just ruin them for the project at hand – but makes it harder to get motivated for the next job. Just imagine how the highly paid graphic designers felt after working weeks to develop a new logo for Yahoo when the CEO Marissa Meyer felt the need to work on it herself over the weekend. Ouch. It is not individual talent that separates average creative work from brilliant. It is the power of leadership.

3.5 ­External Influences: The Domain, the Field. Social, and Organizational Look at a Toulouse Lautrec poster, and you can date it instantly. You may not recall a precise year, but you just know the era from which it comes – and just as surely recognize that it is not a contemporary creation. Creativity is further influenced by factors beyond the realm of the individual or the line leader. The whole essence is a product of the individual artist as well as influences from the field (the art world of that time, patrons, those who commissioned the work) and the domain (the sum total of what was recognized at that time as art, as beautiful – and what lay at the very edge). As discussed in Chapter 1, the individual, the field, and the domain all play a role in defining what is creative in any given discipline (Csikszentmihalyi, 2015). As you recall, the systems theory of creativity defines the field as “the group of gatekeepers who are entitled to select a novel idea or product for consideration,” and the domain is “the symbolic system of rules and procedures that define permissible action within its boundaries” (Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer, 2014, p. 67). Articulated house standards, mission statements, and unwritten codes affect creativity and the shape it takes. These are the social norms that dictate the discipline. Collectively, leaders establish those. Leaders at every level within an organization constitute the field, as do trade groups and the other influencers

Understanding and Managing for Creativity

that judge what is creative, too. Peers. Idols. Industry awards, from the Emmys to Cannes. Gallery or museum shows. Film critics. Academic experts. Agencies that develop signature “looks” and styles, underscore the power of an agency culture or the imprint of a powerful leader in shaping the creative outcome. These can override personal preference or personal style in creative urges. In fashion design, the designer or brand name label dictates constraints on the designs that will emanate. The domain includes the sum total of all the conventions and possibilities in the larger culture – the cultural symbol system in which the creativity takes place. What is possible in storytelling in movies and music changed with every technological advance. Creative boundaries in fashion design, typography, and architecture shift and go – as each new contribution further pushes the edge of what is deemed novel. What is esthetically pleasing in Japanese design and Western design is not identical. And that is why. This simply underscores the collective power of great leaders in a creative industry, and how each forms a thread in the tapestry of creativity that envelops us.

3.6 ­Chapter Summary Research in psychology, neurology, and brain imagining tells us more and more about creativity and how it works. Leaders must understand its nuances in order to encourage and inspire creativity, and to motivate creative people. A soup of life circumstances from DNA through childhood to adulthood, from home and work, and the social and cultural milieu all contribute to an individual’s creativity. Both individual, internal factors and external factors contribute to the ability to demonstrate creativity. Individual factors include creative personality, thinking styles, traits, skills, and behaviors. External factors include experiences, leader behaviors, creative processes, and both physical environment and organizational climate. A leader with emotional intelligence understands all the variables and clears the weeds for her people to take rational risks and reach for the stars. Creativity can be taught, nurtured, and honed. A great creative leader can motivate and influence creative work, and does so via every single thing they say and do every day, not just a pep rally at a project kick‐off. Be authentic, and creative people will follow you anywhere – and do it brilliantly.

3.7 ­Ideas + Action Are you open to experience? Where do you stand on the “big five” personality factors psychologists measure? This free online tool tells you: http://­ personality‐testing.info/tests/IPIP‐BFFM.

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So does this pdf version: http://personality‐testing.info/printable/big‐five‐ personality‐test.pdf. Have you got the raw material to lead for creativity? Do the Clifton StrengthsFinder online assessment to learn more about your capabilities. This isn’t free, but it is based on loads of worldwide Gallup research so it’s worth it: www.gallupstrengthscenter.com.

3.8 ­Some Great Reads + Resources Emotional intelligence is a big deal in psychology and management. Dive in and see what they’re talking about with this popular book by Daniel Goleman: Goleman, D. (2006). Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Get inspired and intrigued about making creativity work. View or read about the brilliant 1991 speech comedian and filmmaker John Cleese delivered to the Visual Arts commencement: https://genius.com/John‐cleese‐lecture‐on‐creativity‐annotated.

­References Abraham, A., Windmann, S., Siefen, R., Daum, I., and Güntürkün, O. (2006). Creative thinking in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Child Neuropsychology, 12(2), 111–123. Amabile, T. M. (2003). Five questions about … How leaders influence creativity. Harvard Management Update, 8(12), 3–3. Anderson, J. V. (1992). Weirder than fiction: The reality and myths of creativity. The Executive, 6(4), 40–47. Brophy, D. R. (1998). Understanding, measuring, and enhancing individual creative problem‐solving efforts. Creativity Research Journal, 11(2), 123–150. Chrysikou, E. G. (2012). Your creative brain at work. Scientific American Mind, 23(3), 24–31. Cropley, A. (2006). In praise of convergent thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 18(3), 391–404. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988). Society, culture, and person: A systems view of creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (ed.), The Nature of Creativity: Contemporary Psychological Perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press. 325–339. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). The creative personality. Psychology Today, 29(4), 36–40. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2015). The Systems Model of Creativity: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Dordrecht: Springer. Csikszentmihalyi, M. and Sawyer, K. (2014). Shifting the focus from individual to organizational creativity. In The Systems Model of Creativity. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer. 67–71.

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Dyer, J., Gregersen, H., and Christensen, C. M. (2011). The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. Boston: Harvard Business Press. Garber, L. L., Hyatt, E. M., and Boya, Ü. Ö. (2009). The collaborative roles of the designer, the marketer, and the consumer in determining what is good design. Advertising & Society Review, 10(1), 1–16. Geddes, L. (2009). Creativity chemical reveals complex interplay with intelligence. New Scientist, 202(2708), 14. Guilford, J. P. (1970). Creativity: Retrospect and prospect. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 4(3), 149–168. Johar, G. V., Holbrook, M. B., and Stern, B. B. (2001). The role of myth in creative advertising design: Theory, process and outcome. Journal of Advertising, 30(2), 1–25. John‐Steiner, V. (2000). Creative Collaboration. New York: Oxford University Press. Kilgour, M. and Koslow, S. (2009). Why and how do creative thinking techniques work? Trading off originality and appropriateness to make more creative advertising. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 37(3), 298–309. Koranda, D. and Sheehan, K. B. (2014). Teaching curiosity: An essential advertising skill? Journal of Advertising Education, 18(1), 14–23. Kounios, J. and Beeman, M. (2014). The cognitive neuroscience of insight. Annual Review of Psychology, 65(1), 71–93 Leotti, L. A., Iyengar, S. S., and Ochsner, K. N. (2010). Born to choose: the origins and value of the need for control. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(10), 457–463. Mallia, K. L. and Windels, K. (2011). Will changing media change the world? An exploratory investigation of the impact of digital advertising on opportunities for creative women. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 11(2), 30–44. Mednick, S. (1962). The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review, 69(3), 220–232. Mumford, M. D., Whetzel, D. L., and Reiter‐Palmon, R. (1997). Thinking creatively at work: Organization influences on creative problem solving. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 31(1), 7–17. Plucker, J. A. and Renzulli, J. S. (1999). Psychometric approaches to the study of human creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (ed.) Handbook of Creativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 35–61. Rickards, T. (1993). Creative leadership: Messages from the front line and the back room. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 27(1), 46–56. Rubidge, S. and MacDonald, A. (2004). Sensuous geographies: A multi‐user interactive/responsive installation. Digital Creativity, 15(4), 245–252 Runco, M. A. (1984). Teachers’ judgments of creativity and social validation of divergent thinking tests. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 59(3), 711–717. Runco, M. A. (2007). A hierarchical framework for the study of creativity. New Horizons in Education, 55(3), 1–9.

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Runco, M. A. and Pagnani, A. R. (2011). Psychological research on creativity. In J. Sefton‐Green, P. Thomson, K. Jones, and L. Bresler (eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Creative Learning. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. 63–71. Sawyer, R. K. and DeZutter, S. (2009). Distributed creativity: How collective creations emerge from collaboration. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 3(2), 81. Schmidt, J. A., Shernoff, D. J., and Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2007). Individual and situational factors related to the experience of flow in adolescence: A multilevel approach. In A. D. Ong, and M. H. M. van Dulmen (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Methods in Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press. 542–558. Sternberg, R. J. (2000). Identifying and developing creative giftedness. Roeper Review, 23(2), 60–64. Sternberg, R. J. (2003). The development of creativity as a decision‐making process. In R. K. Sawyer, V. John‐Steiner, S. Moran, R. J. Sternberg, D. H. Feldman, J. Nakamura, and M. Csikszentmihalyi (eds.), Creativity and Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 91–138. Sternberg, R. J., Kaufman, J. C., and Pretz, J. E. (2003). A propulsion model of creative leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 14(4/5), 455. Torrance, E. P. (1962). Guiding Creative Talent. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice‐ Hall, Inc. Wallas, G. (1926). The Art of Thought. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Westby, E. L. and Dawson, V. L. (1995). Creativity: Asset or burden in the classroom? Creativity Research Journal, 8(1), 1–10. White, H. A. and Shah, P. (2006). Uninhibited imaginations: Creativity in adults with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Personality and Individual Differences, 40(6), 1121–1131. White, H. A. and Shah, P. (2011). Creative style and achievement in adults with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(5), 673–677.

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4 The Creative Community One, Big, Sometimes Dysfunctional, Family It seems to be one of the paradoxes of creativity that in order to think ­originally, we must familiarize ourselves with the ideas of others. George Kneller When you’re on the outside trying to gain entrée, the creative industries represent this limitless unknown – a vast array of agencies, companies, firms, and individuals. When you start your first job at a decent‐sized firm or agency, you’ll think you could never get to know the 90 people in the Boston office. Yet, after a few years on the job, you’ll realize you know hundreds of people, in many positions and places, all interconnected. Every single person, from the CEO to the receptionist (and everyone in between), to your clients, suppliers, and competitors, becomes part of your network as you become a member of the creative community. The concept of “community” has nearly become a cliché since the widespread diffusion of online social networks and recognition of the various “communities” they help to gather. However, as incredible as it may seem, social networks existed long before the internet, before online social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and thousands of others ever began. (They even existed before any of their founders, their parents, or even their grandparents were born.) Remember the Middle Ages, the craft guilds? What happens in Vegas may stay there, but nothing is a secret for long in the creative industries. Spend a few years working, and you begin to realize that even massive global creative enterprises operate like small towns. Everybody knows everybody in his or her respective creative field – advertising, design, gaming, the television industry, the movie industry, the music business, digital, and so on. What happens anywhere is felt everywhere. The creative industries represent a distinct community in the business world. Your success is inextricably linked to your participation in the larger creative community, or else you are invisible to others. Your career growth and development depends upon all those others. Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Leading in the creative industries means assuming a role that is played both inside and outside the organization where you work. A creative leader’s position brings a variety of people together and involves forces much larger than you, your staff, and your agency or creative group. You are part of the creative community. In this chapter, you’ll learn … ●●

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The characteristics of creative community and the numerous types of networks that comprise it The influence of leading professional organizations and institutions on individuals and creative industries How leaders impact the creative community, industry culture, and culture at large The positive – and negative – byproducts of creative communities

4.1 ­Creative Leadership Is Not Just an Inside Job The creative leader plays significant roles in two worlds: one inside the organization that employs you, and another, even larger role, outside of it. A creative leader interacts with clients and suppliers, and potential recruits. Every leader engages in public relations, as the “face” of his business in interactions with shareholders and competitors and the press. In creative industries, a leader is also a participant in her industry as a whole, a key player in professional groups and associations and an influencer in the larger culture into which your product is delivered. It is critical to your career success – as a creative and as a leader – to be aware of the threads and strands that interconnect all those people within and o ­ utside your workplace, and fully understand the intricacies and operations among and between them. If you’re not yet in creative leadership, here’s the painful truth: meritocracy in creative industries is a myth. Yes, you must start with creative talent and ability and be able to demonstrate it. (Otherwise, you’d probably be in finance or human resources.) Now, accept the reality that expertise, what you know, is but one small element of your success. Creative talent alone is insufficient for long‐term success in a creative career, and wholly inadequate in order to rise to leadership. Ironically, some great creative leaders are less talented than their peers (Chamorro‐Premuzic, 2013). You are no special snowflake. Remember, no matter how good you are at whatever you do, there are thousands of people out there who are every bit as talented – and some have far greater talent. They have the same aspirations and are after the same position that you are. If you want a thriving creative career, you cannot keep your nose to the grindstone and simply do the work. You must understand, inspire, and coach

The Creative Community

those around you. The creative leader’s job doesn’t even end when your teams do great work and clients are happy. You must take your place in the larger creative community, establishing the many different relationships that are essential to your own career success  –  and the career growth of your followers. Get actively involved in your industry from the very beginning of your career. It’s going to be really hard when you’re already putting in long hours to prove yourself, but it’s imperative in building a creative career. It isn’t just a nicety. Network science shows that the quantity, quality, and diversity of your professional relationships actually predicts how innovative you’ll be (Björk and Magnusson, 2009; Phelps, 2010). So, you need a broad professional network in order to be creative – and to get ahead. Distance yourself from lofty, yet illusory narratives like “It’s all about the work.” Be realistic. It isn’t. Success in creative leadership comes from talent, knowledge, persistence, and a host of other personal traits, skills, and behaviors we will discuss in multiple ways throughout this book. If communication is number 1 through 10, relationship building is number 11 (or 2, depending on how you’re counting). 4.1.1  Professional Networks 101 Professional social networks can include all those within your own industry, as well as others in related, similar, ancillary, subcontracted, and served businesses. Any network is a huge web that includes trade and professional groups, affinity groups, advocacy groups, company alumni groups, industry‐specific recruiters, the educational institutions that feed them all – and even lobbyists and government watchdogs for those industries – in addition to all those you encounter in and through your own organization. Take the advertising industry, as one example. The American Association of Advertising Agencies (the “4A’s”) primarily serves agency members. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) was formed by advertisers (brands and clients), but brings them together with agencies and media companies as well. The American Advertising Federation (AAF) engages agencies as well as numerous individuals working in agencies. AAF membership attracts people of many disciplines, especially at the district and local level. In Columbia, South Carolina, AAF of the Midlands members come from advertising agencies, web design firms, creative departments of big employers such as Blue Cross Blue Shield, SCANA, Palmetto Health, staff, faculty, and students from the University of South Carolina – and even marketers at the State Fair. Local chapters are often the only advertising trade group in smaller markets, so their membership is diverse. AAF creative members who are art directors and designers are often members of the local chapter of the AIGA as well.

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There’s the One Club and Art Directors Club, national groups primarily comprised of creatives, from all over geographically (agency people, directors, illustrators and photographers, even those from in‐house communications departments at “un” creative companies). They also include educators in the creative disciplines. In the UK, there’s the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and the British Designers and Art Directors Club. The latter has become global, and its membership aren’t all designers, nor are they only British. And then there are global organizations for creative people in those industries that have overlapping members, such as the NY Festivals and Cannes Festival and that form communities through their award shows. All those are predominately populated by practitioners in advertising. However, there’s also the American Academy of Advertising (AAAs) that consists primarily of advertising scholars, and serves as a bridge to the industry. 4.1.2  Formal and Informal Networks Networks consisting of organizational groups and network analysts make a science of studying the communication among and between those in them. The most important thing to know is that the centrality of your place in these networks has a direct impact on your power, influence, innovation – and success (Sparrowe et al., 2001). Departments, teams, divisions, and groups, and your own organization as a whole, all constitute formal networks. Formal networks are groups defined by organizational structures and reporting lines (Cowan, 2014, p. 49). Those include your relationships within your company and industry hierarchy, sometimes a holding company, and ancillary organizations. The most obvious formal network is your immediate company‐defined work group or team. However, if you’re a freelancer, your primary community may involve a more diverse coalition. If you’re a sound engineer in commercial production, your closest relationships may be with other union members  –  or found through a director who routinely hires you, and certain others, for her crew. The professional groups in your specific creative industry provide important formal networks for community building. Sometimes community is defined by specific industry conferences, such as the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) conference. Motion picture writers have the Screenwriters Guild. Architects might belong to AIA (American Institute of Architecture) the IDSA (Industrial Designers Society of America), or both. With other professional organizations, you’ll find overlapping or intersecting networks. The Computer Electronics Show (CES) used to be a conference for hardware nerds, but now draws participants from every corner of business, innovators, designers, and broad variety of others. SXSW originated as a music venue. Today, that is but one component of an extravaganza attracting people from media and technology, digital developers, fashionistas, and more.

The Creative Community

Even formal networks push the boundaries of singular creative industries. Then, you have affinity groups built around an issue or advocacy. Some organizations are formed within the parameters of a certain industry, like The 3% Conference (now Movement) founded to advance the role of creative women in advertising; and regional groups such as She Runs It (formerly known as AWNY), a New York organization for women in advertising and media. Also among the gender‐based groups is the international SheSays in the digital media space, and the Lean In Foundation founded by Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg to advance the cause of women leaders all across the boundaries of business. Similarly, there are affinity and advocacy organizations fostering racial, ethnic, and sexual diversity  –  some within individual creative industries, and others that are all‐encompassing. Community forms within agencies or companies when individuals seek like‐ minded others across formal lines, or when businesses form support groups on their behalf, such as diversity coalitions or nursing mother support groups. Formal networks are founded by design, and informal ones grow organically from individuals banding together, sometimes becoming formalized with time and expanding interest. Specialized networks are comprised of smaller nodes, or groups that connect around a sub‐specialty – and some of those participants will also be engaged in different networks that have a linkage not everyone in that industry will share. For example, within the gaming industry there will be people who are connected at the industry level, and others who connect primarily via a specialized skill or interest, like writers or coders or interaction designers. Then all those individuals may also connect with different networks in different kinds of organizations who are engaged in their specialty. Writers or animation artists who work in gaming are likely connected to other creatives who share their specialty outside the industry in which they work. The professional networks of app developers can take them from associations in Silicon Valley enterprises to startups to brand marketers and advertising creatives. Your professional community isn’t always what you think, or necessarily defined by the parameters of your creative industry. Informal networks include “friendships and neighbourliness” which often transcend formal networks (Cowan, 2014, p. 49). Sometimes your networks intersect in curious ways. Like when you’re sitting in the stands watching your daughter play soccer and start to chat with another parent and find his wife works at the fashion house you’ve been lusting to pitch. Or if you chat with the commuter sitting next to you and find you have professional contacts in common. If you’re having a hard time making sense of all that, no worries. It’s simply meant to demonstrate that professional community is a complex labyrinth and that you’re unlikely to be able to participate in every organization related to your career and interests. You will have to select a few that appeal to you, from which you can learn, and to which you can contribute your own expertise.

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There’s a list of leading trade groups and professional organizations among the creative industries found in the Appendix of this book. It is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a reference worth reviewing. If you can’t participate in every one, how do you know which are right for you? Ask your colleagues and mentors. To what groups do they belong? What are your specific goals for membership? That’s a start. Identify the best and the brightest in your field – and see where they belong. Follow suit. What topics do you want to learn more about? Identify thought leaders – in your own industry as well as others who fascinate you. Follow them. Then emulate them. 4.1.3  Networks and “Networking” Are Not the Same Professional networks are complex, multi‐layered, and represent something larger and more influential than the sometimes artificial connections among and between “friends” in online social networks, where nebulous connections go back to adjacent seats in high school English class or picking up a business card at a conference. Network is a noun. Networks are entities studied by scholars in business and organizational communication. Even if the formal definition cited above is bent and twisted a bit in common parlance. Networking is a verb, an activity that has a nasty connotation that comes from the pushy, glad‐handers who attend industry functions to mine the room like a politician, solely to advance their own personal aims. Imagine being a creative superstar and the drudgery of having to put up with sycophants at every industry gathering you attend. Or the pain of creative introverts being dragged by colleagues to awful cocktail parties, and being pressured to make small talk with influential strangers. That calculated torture is not what networking is, should or must be. Networking simply describes forming alliances, and the interconnection and activity that occur among professional relationships. According to the Routledge Handbook of Strategic Communication, networking is just “face‐to‐ face engagement” in order to lift an agency member along the “organizational hierarchy” and attain “professional advancement” (Holtzhausen and Zerfass, 2014, p. 377). 4.1.4  Many Industries, Many Kinds of Networks A myriad of types of networks and groups make up creative communities. The first and most obvious are professional and trade groups. These are defined by your particular creative industry, and you probably already know most of those that coincide with your talent and career interests. Just to name a few from the strategic communications circle: AIGA, ANA, AAF, The Ad Council, IABC, PRSA, The One Club, the D&AD, and the IPA.

The Creative Community

Every other creative industry has its own list that is as long, if not longer. So, do you just jump in and join the ones defined by the category your employer fits in? Hold on. What exactly is your creative industry? If you’re social media professional, is your network in advertising, or public relations groups – or both? If you’re a front‐end developer, should your network include design groups, tech groups – or both? Eight graphic designers work for the Museum of Modern Art, plus an entire social media team (Stinson, 2017). Where do they belong? 4.1.5  To Each Their Own. And Many Others Witness the evolution and convergence of the creative industries. R/GA was once a supplier for animated TV logos; now it’s a renowned digital agency that began developing products like Nike Plus a decade ago (long before there was Fitbit and apps became ubiquitous). Agencies have started producing physical products along with communications. Digital design firm Huge announced that it was going analog in 2016. (Huh?) There’s a whole new “thing” dubbed Brand Experiences, or “Storyscaping” as Sapient Nitro calls it (Legorburu and McColl, 2014). Brand content challenges the boundaries between advertising, journalism, public relations, technology, marketing, and entertainment – thus the boundaries of businesses and creators. This is no time for silos and rigid specialization  –  personally or professionally. You’ll find groups that align over jobs or roles, rather than just industry, like writers seeking support and commiseration with other writers. That common interest and talent will supersede what medium they’re writing for  –  be it books, articles, or websites. These are often called communities of practice. Communities of practice are social groups that arise around a shared identity and become places of shared learning (Wenger, 1998). Even inside your own organization, networks are formed. HR departments at places committed to increasing workplace diversity often establish formal, intra‐mural groups like women’s leadership groups or diversity councils. Informal support groups crop up, too, for new parents or stress‐reduction and mindfulness. Alumni networks play a significant role in creative community. In major cities, the Ivy League schools and other big universities often have physical clubs where alumni gather. Others have formal networks, but without physical space. Even without a “club,” informal networks exert much influence. Certain educational institutions have conduits to certain industries. A graduate degree from NYU Film School opens doors in the film industry. A diploma from Rhode Island School of Design gets you access to the best design firms. Beyond the “A” list, creative recruiters cruise some colleges and not others. Creative directors often seek new talent from their own alma mater. If you’re

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fortunate enough to have a strong alumni network, make use of it. If not, find your network elsewhere. 4.1.6  Community and Proximity: Creative Clusters Like seeks like. It’s how human beings make friends – and create ghettos. And creative clusters. Hollywood was where movie lots were, so every creative and craft person in the motion picture industry clustered around Los Angeles. New York’s Seventh Avenue came to define the entire fashion industry, literally and figuratively, just as the Triangle d’Or did in Paris. Those sectors formed decades ago, without deliberate effort. Ever since urban studies scholar Richard Florida wrote The Rise of the Creative Class (2002), sociologists, city planners, and economists have recognized that creative clusters drive economic growth. They realized that not only do creative people benefit from being in close proximity to each other, but other people do, too. Creative people don’t only enjoy being around one another. They find business opportunities in close proximity  –  freelancers, vendors, colleagues, and competitors. Neighborhoods full of creative people and industries like museums and theaters and art film houses have a magnetic attraction that draws other people, so numerous cities have made deliberate efforts to build creative clusters. Creative community forms online as well, via social platforms that allow like‐ minded people or people with the same interests to congregate virtually. Social media can be a great way to connect with others you might never bump into on the street or at a professional meeting. But groups can sometimes get hyper‐ defined, and that’s not always good. When we’ve got social platforms out there bound by city neighborhoods (such as Next Door), and others to share news and swap services, solely for the residents of a single building, like MyCoop – be wary. The tighter the group, the less diversity – and the greater the likelihood of “groupthink.” That’s not what you want when you’re in the business of creativity.

4.2 ­Approach Professional Networks Strategically Within and beyond the creative industries, different, related industries increasingly compete for the same talent. Social media marketers are hiring journalists. So is IBM. Google hires creative people from advertising. Alexa and Echo are bringing AI to the masses – so if you’re creating communications, should your network include tech people? Google and Amazon have hired advertising agency creative directors. So has Disney. Networking is one area where creative people shouldn’t be single‐minded or myopic. Be what organizational communication scholars call a boundary spanner. A boundary spanner is a person who “traditionally has the highest

The Creative Community

betweenness centrality in any organization.” In this case, “betweenness centrality” refers to how often an individual “lies along the shortest path between two others – that is, the extent to which an actor mediates between otherwise separate groups in the network” (Holtzhausen and Zerfass, 2014, p. 117). More simply, that’s the person who bridges many different networks and shares communication among them. 4.2.1  How to Choose Wisely Think broadly about all the different creative communities you find fascinating. Naturally, you’ll be likely to feel most at home among people who do exactly what you do. But don’t let your network stop there. Find your way to other groups that are less obvious and extend your reach. That is where and how cross‐pollination can occur, leading to greater creativity  –  and opportunity. As you pick and choose, here are some things to look for. Note that some of them probably have competing loyalties. For example, their mission might be more focused on lobbying on behalf of your creative industry, than providing direct services to their membership. Some are more focused on agency or company alliances than on individuals. Some are big‐market focused, which is great if you’re based in one, and not so great if you’re not. For instance, it will make face‐to‐face gatherings more difficult. However, it may confer status, prestige, and connections that will make it worth the distance. So participate where you can benefit the most. Approaching networking this way has even greater value in a creative world, where industries are converging and careers can take sometimes unexpected turns. A great creative leader has wider opportunities than ever before. The study of networks represents a huge stream of research in organizational communication. If you find it intriguing, there’s much more to learn. See the resources at the end of the chapter for some places to start.

4.3 ­Why Are Networks Critical to Leadership? Networking is fundamentally about information sharing – sharing knowledge and expertise among participants. It is also how people in any business learn about other people. Building a creative career calls for cultivating relationships, and continually expanding your professional network. Genuine networking means building mutually beneficial relationships with others in your own business and in related creative industries. It can even include business professionals outside the creative industries. Think strategically, but let relationships grow organically, and you will actually enjoy meeting other like‐minded souls. Ultimately – and even more importantly – you will

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begin connecting with folks who are different from you and your friends, and expand your professional circle. (Your mind, too.) Forging bonds outside your comfortable, familiar personal circle is how you learn something new, and is a behavior that makes for true personal and career growth.

4.4 ­You Build Expertise Through Your Networks, and Demonstrate It At its core, networking is about knowledge transfer. In creative fields, where change is perpetual, so is the need for keeping up with the new. Platforms, ways of organizing teams, issues, best practices, software, and office design iterate and evolve – and so must you. Networking is about learning and sharing in both formal and informal ways, depending on the venue. Professional conferences and training programs are two familiar formalized networking opportunities. So are trade groups that provide regular meetings, seminars, webinars, award shows, and conferences. You don’t just get formal lessons from these experiences. Spending time with those in your creative community is also how you learn the codes and culture of your industry – stuff you don’t often learn in school and won’t find on Lynda. com. Who’s who. What a place is really like to work for. How to get around the gatekeepers and get your foot in the door someplace. You acquire critical information. You also absorb the industry culture subconsciously  –  and begin to internalize it. You observe how industry leaders look and act and speak, and what they wear and drink, and so much more. Further, being a part of the creative community is essential in garnering industry recognition. Too many creative people (and women in particular) assume that their talents and merits will automatically get noticed and rewarded. That’s not going to happen. However, on every occasion when you network, you have a perfect, legitimate opportunity to demonstrate who you are and what you can do. Get noticed by your industry peers. If you don’t, you’ll be as invisible as the event wait staff. Regular participation in networking will help you practice and enhance your social skills, too. Those are fundamental to leadership, and increasingly important throughout the labor market (Deming, 2015). 4.4.1  Networks Bring Access to Opportunities Participation and recognition in your creative network gives you a competitive edge. In this community, you find support among peers, you meet potential mentors and mentees and sponsors, you identify rising stars and new hires. Of

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course, this won’t happen if you spend the whole time at the bar chit‐chatting with people you already know. Circulate, and listen more than you speak. You already know about yourself. Focus on finding out all that you can about others. That is much more valuable. 4.4.2  Communities Provide Leaders External Validation and Reputation Building Nothing is more powerful for building your career than the recommendation of an influencer. Third‐person validation has a ring of authenticity that tooting your own horn never will. Impress the powerful folks in your network with your actions and evidence, not by going around saying how wonderful you are. Have you ever been convinced of the merits of any braggart you’ve encountered? When you’ve got an opportunity to speak or to make a presentation, grab it. And make it count. Remember, you’re not just giving the audience information, you’re selling yourself by demonstrating mastery and competence with every minute. Make sure your audience is wowed by your insight and your presence as a leader. External validation and endorsement is how you build your reputation in the creative industries. It is also how you inspire and motivate others. You become a leader by being recognized as one. Your reputation grows from winning professional awards, and your work getting attention in the industry trade press. It also comes from being a recognized thought leader. 4.4.3  Thought Leadership Builds a Leader’s Network You don’t become a leader just by going to a few conferences or meetings and schmoozing. Remember, nobody likes “that guy.” Thought leadership builds a leader’s network both off‐line and online. It is an important building block in reputation building. How? By doing. ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

Presentations Webinars Being cited in the press, especially your industry’s trade publications Speeches Panels Writing: articles, books, and blogs

The internet provides many valuable channels for you to share knowledge and concomitantly establish expertise. But approach it thoughtfully and not scattershot. Just blathering a stream of consciousness on a blog won’t do much for you in establishing or demonstrating your expertise.

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According to David Pearl, business innovator and founder of a social media enterprise, “At a time when information is cheap and meaning is up for grabs, expertise is wisdom” (Kemp, 2016). So please, share wisdom, not just information. Never forget how much misinformation and useless blather is online. Follow one of the basic tenets of persuasive communication: “tell me something I don’t already know.” After all, the ultimate goal is advertising you, and selling yourself as an authoritative, respected leader. Becoming a well‐regarded thought leader in your domain doesn’t mean you’re done. You never know everything you need to know. Keep reading. That’s how leaders keep learning and acquiring mastery, along with what you’ll gather from your peers and mentors. 4.4.4  Networks Are Where You Find Mentorship and Sponsorship You wouldn’t have to look hard to find eight million articles on the importance of mentors in career success. The need for mentors is well established, even in industries that are much more quantifiable than creative ones. In creative industries, they are indispensable. Too much of success rests with all the intangibles outside your portfolio – the soft skills, the outside recognition, etc. 4.4.4.1  Need It, Want It, Do It. Always

It is important to be aware that mentors are not just for beginners, but for leaders as well. Whether you’re a new hire or a chief creative officer, you need a mentor. A mentor is one who can give you advice and guidance navigating your career at every stage. Who doesn’t need that? If you look for mentors only within your own organization, you could run out of people pretty quickly. But throughout your professional community, supplies are limitless. That’s important, because many experts think that having one mentor is not enough, that someone should have multiple mentors who can coach and guide you in varied ways (Baugh and Scandura, 1999). When you consider the breadth of knowledge, the multiple hard and soft skills needed for creative leadership, you would benefit from different mentors who are each the very best in one area, but may be less capable in others. 4.4.4.2  Sponsors Are Different from Mentors

To thrive in a creative career, and become a successful creative leader, you need more than a mentor. You need a sponsor, too. While there is some overlap between the role of a mentor and a sponsor, there are critical differences. Sponsors give advice and guidance, but they also come through on much more important fronts.

The Creative Community

A mentor is one with advanced experience and knowledge who assists a less‐ experienced and knowledgeable individual (protégé) with personal and professional development (Levinson, 1978). A mentor can be someone who takes you under her wing, or sees something of herself in you, and wants you to succeed. A mentor may offer wise counsel and advocate for you, but may not know how to, or be in a position to, “turbocharge” your career. A sponsor is someone who is wholeheartedly invested in your success, and willing to do the “heavy lifting” most mentors either can’t or won’t (Hewlett, 2013). Few people understand the distinction between mentors and sponsors better than Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of an entire book on the subject (2013). She earned her expertise academically as a well‐regarded leader in economics, and in a profoundly personal way: working her way out of a dirt‐poor Welsh mining town, through Cambridge and Harvard and a PhD, to being denied tenure, and then rising to a pinnacle of international recognition. What do sponsors do, that mentors don’t? They: ●●

●●

●●

Believe in your value and your potential and are prepared to link reputations and go out on a limb on your behalf. Have a voice at decision‐making tables and are willing to be your champion – convincing others that you deserve a pay raise or a promotion. Are willing to give you air‐cover so that you can take risks. No one can accomplish great things in this world if they don’t have a senior leader in their corner making it safe to fail. (Hewlett, 2013, p. 12)

The role of sponsor necessitates someone up the pecking order, someone who’ll go to bat for you, and take your career success as seriously as you yourself do. Finding one is not easy. In fact, one of the stumbling blocks creative women face in reaching leadership is a lack of sufficient sponsors. We’ll talk more about that in Chapter 10, when we tackle gender and diversity in leadership in the creative industries. For now, just realize that your sponsor needn’t be exactly “like” you, and sometimes different‐ness is actually advantageous. A sponsor just needs to believe in you. One way to operationalize building your network is by building your own “Personal Board of Directors,” described in the “Lessons from Legends” at the close of Chapter 12. With great talent, comes great responsibility. Not only should you have a sponsor, you must be one, too. Being a sponsor isn’t a nicety, it is a leadership imperative. Cultivating professional relationships isn’t all about you, after all. A leader’s primary function is to help others grow as professionals. A rising tide lifts all boats, pay it forward, and all that. They are truisms because they’re true.

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4.4.4.3  Networking Has Rules, IRL, and Online. But They’re Not Always Written Down

One develops professional relationships with care. They take care and feeding, time and effort to build and maintain, just like more intimate interpersonal relationships. This is not just about trading business cards and expanding your LinkedIn connections. Ignore professional etiquette and you’ll be “that guy.” Professional networking is not a free‐for‐all where anything goes. Each venue has its own appropriate behavior and acceptable practices. Some are common sense, like not prospecting for clients at the funeral of a colleague or looking for your next job while you’re with your company colleagues at an awards gala. Just as it is usually better to be over‐dressed than under‐dressed for an event, when in doubt, reserve and politeness are the best default networking behavior. Avoiding drinking more than a glass of wine or a pint can prevent the letting‐go inhibition that can be fatal to a career. Party with your friends on your own time, not when you’re trying to advance your career. 4.4.4.4  Online Networks: Less About the “Social” Part – And More About the Professional Part

Professional social networking comes with its own etiquette. If you don’t know the terrain or understand the protocol, you risk embarrassing yourself. Or worse, like losing your job. Just about everyone has heard stories about employees who called in sick then posted beach photos on Facebook, or vented about their idiot bosses or clients on LinkedIn. Yes, they got fired. If you grew up on Myspace or Facebook, your idea of social networking is likely a personal, intimate one involving friends and peers. As you grow into your career and leadership, social networking should convey a different persona than the one your pals know, one with a bit more reserve – even for people in wildly creative careers. As your online professional network grows, it will include an ever‐more diverse and disparate group. Some people may share one interest with you  –  but can have extremely different viewpoints concerning politics, sex, or religion. As a general rule, beware of over‐sharing as a leader. Each social media platform has its own set of unwritten “rules” for appropriate behavior. Stay attentive, even if you think you know the rules, because the codes can change over time. For instance, when LinkedIn first started, it was viewed primarily as a place to connect for reciprocal relationships. A student didn’t dare try to connect with industry big‐wigs so you could worm your way into an interview at their company, or you’d be considered an annoying gnat (kind of like a social climber). Today, people are much freer about with whom they’ll connect on LinkedIn, and HR people commonly use the platform as a recruitment tool. Even so, a request to connect typically implies some sort of common thread or mutual connections.

The Creative Community

LinkedIn is the social media channel where people go to “work,” metaphorically speaking. This is not the place for your political rant. Nor is it the venue for a narrative of random thoughts or photos of your new boots. On the other hand, writing knowledgeable essays or sharing articles on industry topics along with insightful commentary is a good practice, and a terrific way to garner recognition for your acumen on creative industry issues.

4.5 ­Community Is Currency Is the “Gig” Economy Numerous sociologists, economists, and creative industry leaders have seen a global, seismic shift from a world where reasonably long employer–employee relationships were the standard, to one of multiple moves within industries to career changes. At the same time, more and more consults, startups, and short‐term work are on the rise  –  and in creative industries project‐based work is becoming the norm (Friedman, 2014). The term gig economy emerged to describe this new “industrial revolution” where precarious part‐time, project‐based work is supplanting disappearing fulltime jobs with benefits (Nunberg, 2016). More than other businesses, the creative industries have seen a massive shift in their business model, increasingly leaving the employer–employee model behind and moving toward increased reliance on project‐based work and consultants and freelancers. Yes, there have always been freelancers, and many creatives prefer the independence of that way of life. Creative industries rise and fall on the talent and strengths of their employees. Their people, and their brains, are the businesses’ only asset. The growing importance of talent is why the term “The Talent Economy” was coined. Your unique talent, and ability to leverage it, gives you power. Talent makes you much less interchangeable with others of your job description, as would be the case with more codified, quantifiable skills like bank tellers or mechanics. There are lots of writers, but no two would tell a story the same way. Likewise, numerous landscape architects – but no two would design the same space the same way. Freelancing has plusses and minuses for individuals, workplaces, and creative industries as a whole. We’ll discuss more about the broader implications of project‐based work in Chapter 11. What is relevant here and now is what the gig economy means for creatives, and creative leaders: Networking is no longer a nicety. It’s mandatory. When you’re always looking for your next gig, or constantly hiring to fill short‐term needs, there is only one way to know what and who are out there: networking. Networking has also broadened your influence, and made every creative community a global one.

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FYI 4.1  Creative Communities and the Global Context: The Case of Australia by Jackie Dickenson The processes of globalization were operating long before 1788, when the British imposed themselves on the world’s oldest living cultures, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia1. These processes have escalated inexorably in the past few decades, propelled by the development of the internet. The response of Australia’s creative communities to the challenges of relentless globalization offers useful pointers for prospective creative leaders. This sparsely populated, island continent located thousands of miles from the “traditional” centers of Western creativity, has a long history of producing internationally successful creative leaders. The opera singer Dame Nellie Melba became one of the world’s first international celebrities. The actor Errol Flynn reached leading‐man status in Hollywood. Three factors shaped the responses of Australia’s creative communities to the pressures of globalization. First, the country’s far‐flung location compelled its actors, filmmakers, artists, writers, dancers, and musicians to look outward for inspiration. They eschewed unfamiliar, unsettling Asia, instead traveling to the Northern Hemisphere to develop and practice their craft. Returning to Australia, these creative leaders formed vibrant and diverse cultural communities in the major cities (the country is one of the most urbanized in the world). Both Sydney and Melbourne have long been centers of Bohemianism, considered by many to be a precondition for the emergence of a creative community2. The increasing ease of international travel and the unlimited connectivity now provided by the internet have enabled these creative communities to connect with similar communities around the world, linking into global creative networks. The second factor shaping Australia’s response to globalization is the country’s relatively small population. Australian creatives have to achieve more on tiny budgets. They have to fight harder for limited opportunities, and to develop multiple skills. In the case of actors, for example, they are often required to write, direct, and design, as well as act. These characteristics – persistence and flexibility – mean Australian creatives find themselves well placed to respond to the challenges of globalization. This explains, in part, their recent success overseas – the actors and directors working in Hollywood; the advertising creatives such as David Droga (founder of Droga5) making their mark on the international stage; the cohort of young creatives now flourishing in the US advertising industry3. The problems caused by the ‘tyranny of distance’ (as it is popularly known) and Australia’s sparse population were compounded by the country’s colonial history. Throughout the twentieth century, Australia’s then mostly white creative communities struggled to differentiate themselves from those of “the mother country,” Britain, and, later, the global hegemon, the United States4. By

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the 1960s, the country was in the grip of a so‐called “cultural cringe”. Its best creative brains rejected Australia as a cultural backwater, fleeing overseas. Many never returned5. Responding to this “brain drain,” the federal government formed the Australia Council for the Arts6. In the absence of a philanthropic tradition the Australia Council funds the creative industries and Australian creativity has flourished as a result; any recent success in the global creative industries can be traced back to this visionary investment. Uncertain economic times have placed this funding under constant pressure. Nevertheless, the potential of creative communities to assist the economic development of disadvantaged regional, rural, and, crucially, Indigenous Australian communities, is beginning to receive the attention it deserves7. Dr. Jackie Dickenson is a historian based at the University of Melbourne. She has published widely on labor history, political history, and advertising history 1 http://australia.gov.au/about‐australia/australian‐stor y/austn‐indigenous‐ cultural‐heritage. 2 Richard Florida, Cities and the Creative Class (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 122. 3 In July 2016, I conducted an informal email survey of Australian advertising creatives working in the US. For details of this survey, email [email protected]. 4 Australia is more diverse today and identifies as a multicultural society: www.dss.gov.au/ our‐responsibilities/settlement‐and‐multicultural‐affairs/programs‐polic y/ a‐multicultural‐australia. 5 The academic Germaine Greer, the writer Clive James, and the art critic Robert Hughes were examples of this. 6 http://australiacouncil.gov.au. 7 http://australiacouncil.gov.au/aboriginal‐and‐torres‐strait‐islander‐arts/chosen‐ expression‐of‐interest. Accessed 22 July 2016.

A nation so physically isolated provides a telling example of the importance and influence of creative communities. But they’re important everywhere.

4.6 ­Community Has Some Painful Side‐Effects, Too Engagement with your creative community sounds great. You have access to people who help you navigate the unknown  –  to mentor you. After you’ve worked for a while, demonstrated prized talent, and built a good reputation in your field, the fact that people have heard of you can be awesome and highly advantageous when you’re looking for another opportunity, or decide to go freelance. But all that interconnectedness can have both good and bad consequences. Creative leaders must be aware that tightknit communities also make for a number of unintended and painful consequences. First and foremost, do networks truly identify and reward those with the greatest talent, or just the most visible, or those who have opportunity?

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4.6.1  A Tightknit Community Can Be Impermeable The flip side of being “in with the in crowd” and enjoying all its benefits is being on the outside and banging on the door to get in. Think about the boundaries that form for those who do not attend the “feeder” schools to certain organizations. In creative industries, where employment is highly competitive, a brilliant student from an institution completely off a company’s radar is automatically disadvantaged. The codes of the industry that everyone absorbs from their community say “this is the way we do it.” Unfortunately, these industry practices are one of the primary reasons for a lack of diversity in creative industries. This is not by design, but because of unconscious bias absorbed right through your skin and work practices perpetuated without any examination of macro impact. For example, when a work environment is extremely competitive, men thrive and it disadvantages women (Duffy, 2016; Flory et al., 2010; Gill and Prowse, 2014; Gneezy et al., 2003; Mallia, 2017; Windels and Mallia, 2015). Throughout creative industries where creatives must first get noticed by leaders above them, it is easy to see how extroverts would just naturally get noticed more than introverts  –  putting introverts at a disadvantage, even if they are more competent and talented than their more vocal peers. When the whole team goes out for drinks after work, and you’ve got to pick up the kids at daycare or school, you lose out on all the bonding that takes place and potential advantages from being better known by your colleagues. Your career is subtly undermined. For real. This is fact, not opinion – supported by some very interesting research studies discussed in Chapter 10. Social networks and creative communities are comprised of all the people connected through common interests and goals – through a tangle of threads, shared experiences, interests, and interconnections. How inclusive is your community? 4.6.2  Perception Becomes Reality, Even If It’s Wrong The fact that everyone knows everyone else can have serious negative repercussions if you’re not highly regarded or if you’ve done something stupid. It is pretty self‐evident that if you’ve done some powerful someone wrong, “you’ll never eat lunch in this town again,” as we are warned by the title of producer Julia Phillip’s legendary Hollywood tell‐all memoir. The principle holds throughout the creative industries, and across the globe. Be aware that throughout your career, in your industry, your actions and reputation ­precede you. Perhaps less obviously, your name can become sullied for something you didn’t do as easily as it can for something you actually did. If an influencer in your field thinks poorly of you, and shares a negative judgment about you and

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your worth, if you’re dubbed a “hack” in a creative field, your next steps can get pretty rocky. It doesn’t matter if it’s not true. Like any gossip, professional word of mouth spreads and can soil a reputation, and sadly, the information doesn’t have to be true to damage a career. Just as the concept of meritocracy itself is a myth in the creative industries, get ready to embrace the truth in another hopeless cliché: perception is reality. So be wary. That’s why so many public relations professionals and coaches make a living selling image management for leaders. Be nice.

4.7 ­Chapter Summary The creative leader plays multiple roles inside and outside the organization – throughout the creative community. Creative community links organizations and individuals in complex relationships among multiple, different networks. It is critical to your career success – individually and as a leader – to understand and take your place among them. Remember what creative career coach Elaine Davis says: “I know more about me than I know about you.” So, focus on learning about and from others. Networking is not self‐serving. While it can help you grow, at its core, it is about reciprocity. Give and take. The give part is always harder. Mentoring and sponsorship are essential to leadership. Be mindful, too, that creative community can have negative consequences as well as positive ones. Leaders are key representatives of their organization – and the entire industry of which they are a part. The creative community includes formal professional and trade groups, as well as many related industries, and the community at large. Leaders in industries that create cultural products then also play a fundamental role in creating culture.

­References Baugh, S. G. and Scandura, T. A. (1999). The effect of multiple mentors on protege attitudes toward the work setting. Retrieved from http://search. proquest.com/openview/2e10e4127c887613ea61489af58ee255/1?pq‐origsite= gscholar&cbl=1819046. Björk, J. and Magnusson, M. (2009). Where do good innovation ideas come from? Exploring the influence of network connectivity on innovation idea quality. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 26(6), 662–670. Chamorro‐Premuzic, T. (2013). The five characteristics of successful innovators. Harvard Business Review (website), 25 October. Retrieved 27 March 2017 from https://hbr.org/2013/10/the‐five‐characteristics‐of‐successful‐innovators.

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Cowan, D. (2014). Strategic Internal Communication: How to Build Employee Engagement and Performance. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Deming, D. J. (2015). The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market (Working Paper No. 21473). National Bureau of Economic Research. Duffy, B. E. (2016). The romance of work: Gender and aspirational labour in the digital culture industries. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 19(4), 441–457. Flory, J. A., Leibbrandt, A., and List, J. A. (2010). Do Competitive Work Places Deter Female Workers? A Large‐scale Natural Field Experiment on Gender Differences in Job‐entry Decisions (No. w16546). National Bureau of Economic Research. Friedman, G. (2014). Workers without employers: Shadow corporations and the rise of the gig economy. Review of Keynesian Economics, 2(2), 171–188. Gill, D. and Prowse, V. (2014). Gender differences and dynamics in competition: The role of luck. Quantitative Economics, 5(2), 351–376. Gneezy, U., Niederle, M., and Rustichini, A. (2003). Performance in competitive environments: Gender differences. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(3), 1049–1074. Hewlett, S. A. (2013). Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor: The New Way to Fast‐track Your Career. Watertown, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. Holtzhausen, D. and Zerfass, A. (eds.). (2014). The Routledge Handbook of Strategic Communication. Florence, SC: Routledge. Retrieved from www. ebrary.com. Kemp, N. (2016). The end of ego: Why brands should embrace the expert economy. Campaign US (website), 4 October. Retrieved from http://www. campaignlive.com/article/ end‐ego‐why‐brands‐embrace‐expert‐economy/1411125. Legorburu, G. and McColl, D. (2014). Storyscaping: Stop Creating Ads, Start Creating Worlds. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Levinson, D. J. (1978). The Seasons of a Man’s Life. New York: Ballantine Books. Mallia, K. L. (2017). The creative career dilemma: No wonder ad women are mad women. In K. Golombisky and G. Kreshel (Eds.) Feminists, Feminism and Advertising: Some Restrictions Apply. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 117–206. Nunberg, G. (2016). Goodbye jobs, hello “gigs”: How one word sums up a new economic reality. NPR (website), 11 January. Retrieved from https://www.npr. org/2016/01/11/460698077/ goodbye‐jobs‐hello‐gigs‐nunbergs‐word‐of‐the‐year‐sums‐up‐a‐new‐ economic‐reality. Phelps, C. C. (2010). A longitudinal study of the influence of alliance network structure and composition on firm exploratory innovation. Academy of Management Journal, 53(4), 890–913.

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Sparrowe, R. T., Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., and Kraimer, M. L. (2001). Social networks and the performance of individuals and groups. Academy of Management Journal, 44(2), 316–325. Stinson, L. (2017). The fine art of designing for a museum, or why designers quit their agency jobs to work at MoMA. AIGA | Eye on Design (website) 15 March. Retrieved from: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/ the‐fine‐art‐of‐designing‐for‐a‐museum‐or‐why‐designers‐quit‐their‐agency‐ jobs‐to‐work‐at‐moma. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning as a social system. Systems Thinker, 9 (5), 2–3. Windels, K. and K. L. Mallia (2015). How being female impacts learning and career growth in advertising creative departments. Employee Relations: The International Journal, 37(1), 122–140.

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5 The Factors That Make or Break a Creative Leader And the most successful people are those who accept, and adapt to, constant change. This adaptability requires a degree of flexibility and humility most people can’t manage. Paul Lutus Leaders are human beings. As such, each is a sum total of her personality traits, behaviors, skills, and experiences. So research has examined leadership via all of those routes in an ongoing search for the truth of what makes great leaders –  and to find ways to identify people with that potential and to enhance their abilities. In this pursuit, research in psychology once again intersects with scholarship in leadership and management. Since many of the personal characteristics and behaviors associated with creative leadership coincide with the traits of creative personality, creative people appear to have an innate advantage for leadership  –  if they are open to acquiring and mastering the additional knowledge and skills required to become a powerful creative leader. That caveat is critically important here. First and foremost, becoming a leader in a creative organization means understanding the business of business – or you will remain an artist or craftsperson. All too often, creatives don’t bother to learn about leadership and management  –  let  alone finance or economics. FCB Chief Creative Officer Susan Credle succinctly summarized the fundamental skill difference between being a working creative and becoming a creative leader, “What got you here won’t get you there.” In Chapter 2, you learned about the basic leadership styles, and that creative leadership is one particular style of leadership. That was one way to understand leaders. Now let’s look at more ways to identify a great creative leader – and learn to become one. Leadership is in part about traits, but primarily about behaviors. The behaviors positively associated with creative leadership can be adopted, developed, and honed.

Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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In this chapter, you will learn about the traits and behaviors associated with leadership and success, so you can adopt the behaviors and sharpen the skills needed to lead in the creative industries. You will learn: ●● ●● ●●

●● ●●

More about the specific traits and skills needed for creative leadership The importance of self‐assessment How to identify essential skills you don’t have, and how to enhance your existing assets The leader behaviors that foster creativity in a group or organization Some potential blind spots and pitfalls to avoid disaster

5.1  ­Who You Fundamentally Are Affects the Leader You Will Be Before you can become a leader (or self‐actualize), it makes sense to do some personal assessment. Or, in the words of the ancient Greeks, “Know thyself.” Decades ago, psychology scholars identified five generally accepted dimensions of human personality, known as the five‐factor personality model (Goldberg, 1993): ●●

●●

●●

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Openness (Intellect) means the tendency to be informed, creative, insightful, curious, and having a variety of experience. Conscientiousness (Dependability) means the tendency to show self‐ discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement. It means planned rather than spontaneous behavior. Extraversion (Surgency) means to have energy, positive emotions, and the tendency to be sociable. Agreeableness means the tendency to be compassionate, trusting, and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic toward others. Neuroticism (Emotional stability) means a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability. (Northouse, 2007, p. 22)

More recently, researchers have examined how those basic personality traits are associated with effective leadership. A big meta‐analysis showed extraversion to be the most strongly associated with leadership, followed by conscientiousness and openness. Agreeableness didn’t matter much. And, not surprisingly, neuroticism was negatively associated with leadership (Judge et al., 2002). That makes sense, right? Conventional wisdom and stereotypes tell us that the most outgoing folks typically become leaders. But are they the best? Or do extroverts simply get promoted more frequently because they’re noticed and heard, rather than because they are somehow ideally suited for leadership? Are extroverts in fact ideal for leading in the creative industries?

The Factors That Make or Break a Creative Leader

It’s no secret that some of the most talented, creative people are introverts – or are both introverted and extroverted. Given their stellar subject and domain knowledge, should they be ignored – or encouraged to lead? Research suggests that when teams are proactive and thrive on autonomy (such as creative people), an introverted leader means better results (Grant et  al., 2011). Tracy Wong is a creative director who is both an introvert and highly successful. He relishes trouncing that leadership misconception (see his FYI 10.1). Perhaps not so coincidentally, introverts tend to have a high degree of emotional intelligence – an attribute now considered integral to leadership. Women also tend to have higher emotional intelligence than men, hence the popularization of books like The Female Advantage and The Athena Doctrine that highlight the positive traits and behaviors of women leaders. Both leaders and creative people tend to be smart. But remember, intelligence is comprised of more than accumulated subject knowledge and what is measured in IQ tests. And leadership, at its heart, grows from communication and relationships. So, another way of assessing leaders, especially their impact on creativity and creative people, is through the concept of emotional intelligence. We touched on this in the discussion on soft skills in Chapter 2, however, it is really important to take a deeper dive, since having a high degree of emotional intelligence plays such a critical part in leading creative people and for creativity. There’s a reason the subject has taken off in the popular consciousness and press. (You know it’s penetrated culture when somebody’s featuring a program for it on Living Social.) Emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions (Salovey and Mayer, 1990). Emotional intelligence encompasses four dimensions: 1) 2) 3) 4)

the perception of emotion the ability to reason using emotions the ability to understand emotion the ability to manage emotions

Emotional intelligence contributes to your ability to understand and harness your own emotions and those of others. Therefore it helps you to understand people more deeply and more accurately. These are integral to all interpersonal relationships, including your business relationships. People with autism lack the ability to empathize, but most others have some capability for empathy, or feeling from the perspective of others. Cognitive empathy is another way to describe this mental perspective‐taking process (Davis, 1996 in Smith, 2010), understanding emotions and using that perspective to guide your relationships with others. It is vital to authentic leadership, as that is built on identifying with your followers and with organizational values and goals (Kark and Shamir, 2002).

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Remember, leadership is essentially communication. A leader with a high level of emotional intelligence is capable of reading and understanding the feelings and motivations of others, regardless of whether their words are adequately expressed. It helps guide how you communicate with people, and plays a big role in leadership as it guides your understanding of people and your interactions with them. Leading in creative industries means “reading” the boss, clients, suppliers, your team members – as well as perceiving people’s needs and wants in ways that artificial intelligence (or engineers) are unlikely to comprehend. Leadership calls for teasing out complex, confusing opinions, and synthesizing meaning from ambiguous cues. It calls for understanding that often how you make people feel is more important than what they think, and that what you say is typically less important than how you say it. (Look to President Trump’s messaging success if you have any doubt about the power of feeling vs. intellectual argument.) Ultimately, identifying what kind of leader traits and behavior foster creativity is most important. Especially in creative industries, where the organization’s whole reason for being is to solve problems with breakthrough ideas for the clients and to do that in a way that optimizes creativity for your own business viability.

5.2 ­To Lead, You Need to Think Like a Leader and Act Like a Leader The first order of business for a new creative leader moving from the “factory floor” to the proverbial corner office is to consciously reframe your role at work – and recognize that it’s not all about you anymore. This can be one of the most important – and difficult – tasks for a new leader, recalibrating your thinking from “me” to “we.” It’s rarely on the radar of new leaders, with so much else coming at them. It’s especially challenging for creatives, because ego and self play such an important role in creative work and their creative identity. The need for a radical shift in self‐identity hit Samantha Bee when she moved from 12 years of being a team member on The Daily Show to leading a team for her own Full Frontal With Samantha Bee show. Early in 2017, she told Fast Company: I didn’t expect to have to think so much about leadership! At the beginning, it was just me and [head writer and showrunner] Jo Miller and [executive producer] Miles Kahn, and we would just laugh and send each other crazy emails. We still have a pretty tight staff, but when you’re trying to create a comedy show, which is a tremendous amount of work,

The Factors That Make or Break a Creative Leader

you actually have to manage people, and think about their lives, and make their lives livable, and think about their feelings, and manage their relationships. That was very new to me and has been the greatest learning curve. I don’t think I always succeed at it, but I always am trying to do better. Trust me, if you fail to grasp this principle, you will fail as a leader in any creative industry. Unless everyone on your team honestly believes that you truly have their best interests at heart and that their success is your job, rather than your own glory, you cannot lead for creativity. You may know some bosses who fail to grasp this tenet. They are managers, not leaders, and they churn and burn staff without regard, and they rarely succeed in the long run – except as entrepreneurs or playing in a one‐man band. Read the perspective of one who has lived, and learned much about, the transition from working creative to creative leader. Nancy Vonk and her partner, Janet Kestin, globally recognized creative directors, now coach other creatives in how to lead.

FYI 5.1  To Lead, You Must Learn to Let Go by Nancy Vonk Congratulations, you’re promoted! Now for the big transition from “me” to “we” – shifting focus from my success to making the ground fertile for the success of others. How hard is it to make? People all the way up to the CCO level still struggle with it. Part of the reason: when your sense of worth is deeply attached to “doing the work” and recognition for things you can see, hear, and touch, it’s hard to wrap your head around your greatest value being invisible to others, much of the time. Only after Janet and I were promoted to the top creative job at Ogilvy in Toronto after years as a creative team could I see at last what my boss had done for me. What the job really was. All the times he worked behind the scenes to clear the way for me/spared me from the bullshit. I now realized how hard it must have been for him to take his hands off the wheel to empower us. How hard it was to do far less of the “work” to do many new, thankless tasks. And now, we needed to learn a whole new skill set – as he had – as fast as we could. Here are the top 3 areas every new leader needs to get good at. Nail these and everyone is set up for success. Delegating. Every leader I know is a control freak. That’s part of the profile, I think. “I’d rather do it myself.” “It will be faster if I do it.” “Do it the way I would do it.” “It’s an important meeting – I’ll go.” But holding tight to the impulses to control to prevent failures couldn’t undermine success more – the employee’s,

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or yours. Recently a newly promoted creative leader told me his mindset around failure is, “Make a mistake and you’re dead to me.” Run with that and people will stay in little boxes. They’ll stay small when you show you don’t trust them. Let. Go. For the sake of better work, better retention, your sanity and your sustained employment. Giving opportunity. It’s typical for leaders to give the choice assignments to the stars to keep them happy. But this model is deeply broken. It leads to burning them out, and de‐motivating the vast majority. They get the signal they aren’t good enough, or you’re not fair. Potentially great people lose patience and leave. We gave opportunity to summer interns. When given a shot at the best projects they rewarded us with work that won Gold Lions, built business and our reputations as good leaders. Growing your own also saves a lot of money. Giving feedback. We resent not getting it and turn around and don’t give it when we become the leader. Who has time? And people know, right? That I think you’re great/I’m unhappy with that last meeting/you need to improve … Employees aren’t mind readers and your lack of feedback, or poorly delivered feedback, can send the opposite signal of what you intend. Giving motivating feedback is an undervalued skill, yet it’s the best way for people to learn continuously from mistakes and what works. They want to learn and grow more than anything else – especially true of Millennials and Gen Z, who say learning is their top reason to stay. People at every level need to know where they stand. Top tips on the best kind of feedback: Never miss a chance to praise or illuminate a problem, in the moment. Listen as much as you talk. And be sure they believe you’re in this together. Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin are partners in Swim, a Toronto creative leadership lab, and were counted among Ad Age’s 100 Most Influential Women for their many creative triumphs.

It’s no coincidence that some of the proscriptions on the list above reiterate many of the “To Do” items you read in Chapter 2. They are fundamental. 5.2.1  How to Think Like a Leader 101: THINK. Really Think One of the key differences between those who succeed and those who don’t is that successful creative leaders actually spend more time thinking than others do. In this crazy world of 24/7 connectedness, brilliant creative leaders carve out time to consciously unplug, to turn off the rest of the world and just think. Quietly. Alone. Even Silicon Valley types who eat and breathe tech. Here’s just a sampling from a recent article: Bill Gates takes a week off two times a year, every year, to just reflect. Executives at AOL are required to spend 10% of their

The Factors That Make or Break a Creative Leader

day, or four hours per week, thinking. Jeff Weiner, CEO at LinkedIn, actually schedules two hours a day for uninterrupted thinking time (Scudamore, 2016). Time spent thinking is key to reaching insight, innovation, and success. In addition to spending a considerable amount of time contemplating, creative leaders also think in multiple and flexible ways, using critical thinking, strategic thinking, and various creative thinking processes. Successful creative leaders often take a long‐range view of success, which sometimes means ignoring the “latest” thing and a quarterly profit mentality. Remember, decision making is fundamental to leadership and thinking leads to problem solving which leads to decision making. Surprisingly, research also tells us that sometimes not thinking results in better thinking and decision making. Neuroscientists have learned that brief periods of unconscious thought have been shown to improve decision making over just making an immediate decision (Creswell et al., 2013). “What we find is that our brains have colossal things happening in them all the time,” according to writer and neuroscientist David Eagleman (“Incognito,” 2011). So in addition to needing a “time‐out” for your brain to exercise creativity and find insight, it does other work: your unconscious plays an important role in goal‐directed behavior (Bargh et  al., 2001) and in making decisions (Soon et al., 2008; Strick et al., 2011). It’s important for leaders to remember that much of what goes on in your own head – and your creatives’ minds – is unconscious, whether it is applied to finding insights or to harboring biases. Disciplined concentration connects back to the lightning storms of activity occurring beneath awareness. Too often leaders get caught up in their tight calendars, to‐do lists, and daily “busyness.” So don’t forget that leading creatively, leading well, demands carving out time to think. And not. Make both a priority. 5.2.2  Know Thyself. And Thy Limits Who are you? Do you thoroughly understand your own personal strengths and weaknesses, as well as the strengths and limitations of your skills? In order to lead you must engage in some metacognition and self evaluation. Take stock of the person you are. Know which inherent strengths you can leverage, and what weaknesses you must overcome in order to become a leader. There are dozens of self‐assessment tests online. The most famous, and one you may have taken at some point during your schooling, is the Myers‐Briggs. There are numerous versions of “strengths finders” as well. A few are listed at the end of this chapter under Ideas + Action. Self‐aware leaders are authentic leaders. They know who they are, what they believe and value, and they act upon those values and beliefs while transparently interacting with others.

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Authentic leaders are defined as “those individuals who are deeply aware of how they think and behave and are perceived by others as being aware of their own and others’ values/moral perspective, knowledge, and strengths; aware of the context in which they operate; and who are confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, and high on moral character” (Avolio et al., 2004, p. 4). Self‐awareness also helps you know when someone else on the team might be more capable at a task than you would be, resulting in a better outcome – and, in the process, enabling you to build the loyalty of a team member. When a leader recognizes someone’s talents, it is highly motivating. Don’t be afraid to ask for help – from your network, or elsewhere. Acknowledge what you know and what you don’t. No leader is expected to know everything. And only those with fateful hubris would dare to think they do. Self‐awareness also tells you how others see you, and how you impact others (Kernis, 2003; Walumbwa et al., 2008). One of the most important things to think about is the essence of your role as a creative leader. What is your ikigai? Ikigai is a Japanese concept that means “reason for being.” At the risk of sounding like a 1960s hippie, you must find yours. This doesn’t come from a hunch or a flash of lightening, but from a long, methodical search of self‐awareness and examination of your unique strengths as an individual – and as a leader. Know why you are leading, and what kind of leader you want to be. How can you get where you’re going if you don’t know where you are – or where that is? 5.2.3 Focus Really focus. Attention is the basis of leadership skills – an essential pre‐ requisite to emotional, organizational, and strategic intelligence. Thanks to living in a 140‐character, quick cut, always‐on, ADD world, focus is neither easy nor automatic. Single‐minded focus requires concerted effort, or there wouldn’t be such a mushrooming of popular interest in “mindfulness.” (See how many hits that word turns up in a search engine. I got 55,600,000 at this writing.) Strive to strengthen your focus, in every direction: on yourself, on others, and on the world at large (Goleman, 2013a and b). Focus on yourself as a leader. Take time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t. Reflective thinking is essential to learning, and not repeating past mistakes. Never in history has attention been under greater assault. Daniel Goleman, author of an entire book on the subject, explains why focus is so crucial to great leadership: If leaders are to direct the attention of their employees toward strategy and innovation, they must first learn to focus their own attention, in three broad ways: on themselves, on others, and on the wider world.

The Factors That Make or Break a Creative Leader

Every leader needs to cultivate this triad of awareness, in abundance and in the proper balance, because a failure to focus inward leaves one rudderless, a failure to focus on others renders one clueless, and a failure to focus outward may cause one to be blindsided. The good news is that practically every form of focus can be strengthened. Focused leaders can command the full range of their own attention: They are in touch with their inner feelings, they can control their impulses, they are aware of how others see them, and they can weed out distractions and also allow their minds to roam widely, free of preconceptions. (2013b, p. 50) 5.2.4  Think Carefully. Your Every Decision Either Encourages Creativity, or Kills It Be decisive, judicious. Every leader decision impacts the creativity of subordinates in the short term and long term. Naturally, your decisions about work guide the creative process through critique and feedback, and affect the quality of the work itself. Those decisions also influence your staff and their creativity, inspiring or demotivating them on every future project as well as the one at hand. Decisions regarding how you organize people and teams directly impact creativity, from team size and the skills and personalities of the individuals involved to project timelines. (We will discuss this in depth in Chapter  8.) The main two resources that control creativity in business are time and money, and leader decisions on them are a zero‐sum game. There is no ambiguity in this research. “Deciding how much time and money to give to a team or project is a judgment call that can either support or kill creativity” (Amabile, 1998, p. 82). If you award projects or assignments through intramural competition among your people, that decision may negatively impact creativity (when and how is something we will discuss in Chapter 7). Each and every person you hire, and every individual that you promote, represent decisions that will permeate the entire organization – every single decision either fosters creativity or thwarts it. Likewise, every leader decision is potentially fraught with bias (conscious or unconscious), and carries with it a ripple effect of unintended consequences. Compounding one biased decision here, and another one there, day after day, leader upon leader, can contribute to the lack of diversity in an entire industry. It’s highly unlikely that all the producers and directors in Hollywood said, “let’s hire 95% white actors for every movie.” Yet, each decision compounded and led to the statistics behind the movement #OscarsSoWhite in 2016. A leader must clearly consider the micro and macro potential outcomes of various actions before taking them.

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But right or wrong, do make a decision. The creative industries move far too quickly for indecisiveness. As an unknown sage once said, “The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t make a decision.”

5.3 ­Act Like a Leader: Essential Behaviors to Lead for Creativity Leader behaviors play a direct role in the creativity of followers. Every single thing you do – and the way you do it – affects the quality of your team’s creativity, and can mean the difference between individuals just having creative potential and seeing creative realization in an organization  –  in productivity, talent retention, and reputation (Amabile, 1998; Helgesen, 1997). It almost goes without saying then, that your every behavior in turn impacts your own success as a creative leader. So learn the behaviors of successful creative leaders. Adopt them. And practice them. 5.3.1  Practice Persistence It should come as no surprise that “A” students don’t always end up on top in measures of success. That is especially true in the creative industries, where multiple intelligences and a variety of skills assume greater importance than in factories or bureaucracies. Beyond brains – and even creative talent – resides the great discriminator of the successful creative leader. Some call it persistence or pluck. Others dub it grit. There is no doubt anymore. Mountains of research show that persistence is what turns creative potential into creative realization, and what separates great creative leaders from mere managers. The literature on innovation is rich with support for old‐fashioned dogged determination. You might think it’s a personal trait. It is also a behavior that can be learned and sharpened. So never stop working and becoming. 5.3.2  Learn to Manage Yourself First: After Focus Comes Resilience A certain amount of chaos is inevitable. In creative industries, the status quo is jettisoned on a regular basis. When you’re at the helm in a deadline‐ and service‐driven business, circumstances aren’t entirely within your control as a leader. Certain decisions will not be your own, but come from clients, higher‐ ups, or holding companies. Yet you and your team have to embrace them and live with them. A leader must have grace under pressure and remain calm in a crisis – that’s who everyone looks to for reassurance and direction. The leader

The Factors That Make or Break a Creative Leader

cannot brood and sulk. You need to be the one to guide your team through the difficult times and circumstances. To embrace change and handle disruption successfully, you need resilience. What exactly is that? Resilience is most simply defined as an ability to cope with adversity, stress, and deprivation (Begun, 1993, p. 28). You surely have a certain amount of inborn resilience. Develop it with practice. Successful leaders have a deep reservoir of resilience. Like most positive leadership behaviors, it is a behavior that can be learned, and enhanced. You can also control the contextual factors that contribute to stress – your own and that which affects your followers. 5.3.3  You Have to Build Trust, and Earn It A promotion to creative director doesn’t make you a leader – only a manager. Leadership is a trust earned by your behaviors and awarded by those who follow you. When you make the leap from the “factory floor” to a position of leadership, you must begin to build trust from day one. Without trust, you cannot lead. Trust comes from both tangible and intangible factors. Among the tangible is your own talent and ability at the craft. There are some who argue that a manager can manage any enterprise; that’s not so for leaders in creative industries. Creative leaders must be recognized first for their expertise in order to have any credibility. Visibly, effectively demonstrating your own talent and earning peer and industry respect is how you get noticed by higher‐ups and peers in your own organization, and your creative industry as a whole. Genuine mastery of your craft is the price of entry that gets other highly talented people to pay heed. Leaders who are considered hacks don’t last very long. But in and of itself, talent is not sufficient to earn credibility as an effective leader. Trust isn’t easily given; it is earned daily, over time. It’s a two‐way process. You build your credibility one interaction, one decision at a time. How? Via the important intangibles demonstrated to elicit trust in followers: ●● ●● ●●

Through your creative judgment and skillful critique By your passion and enthusiasm for the work – and the team Through your relational behaviors  –  by encouraging and supporting your team. By having humility and demonstrating vulnerability. Through honesty, integrity, and transparency.

Be authentic. Unfortunately the word “authentic” has become almost trite from a decade of over‐use. Some scholars make an argument that authentic leadership is a unique style of leader – it is that important. Avolio et al. (2004) defined authentic leaders as “those individuals who are deeply aware of how they think and behave and are perceived by others as

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being aware of their own and others’ values/moral perspective, knowledge, and strengths; aware of the context in which they operate; and who are confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, and high on moral character” (p. 4). Others consider authentic behaviors characteristic of transformational leadership. No matter. Being authentic remains a very important leader behavior, one that is especially important in leading creative people. It means keeping your team in the loop, and valuing their role in your business, and inviting their input into decision‐making. Authentic leaders feel less threatened by the ideas and suggestions of others, and are more inclined to welcome their creative suggestions (Michie and Gooty, 2005). Authentic leaders directly impact the engagement, motivation, commitment, and involvement of their followers (Kark and Shamir, 2002) – all of which in turn affect their creative inspiration. Be warned. Smart, talented creatives can sniff stupidity and bovine excrement from miles away. They are also pretty adept at ferreting out Machiavellian behavior and the games of organizational politics. Do anything to undermine your credibility, and it will be difficult to regain. Reputations flow through your industry very quickly. A bad rap will follow you. 5.3.4  Observe People and Behavior. Find Legitimate Power Be curious, a student of humanity – an amateur anthropologist. Understand the cultures and subcultures that exist in societies and organizations, and the codes that govern their behaviors. Watch how people interact throughout your organization. See who has power and exerts influence. Hint: It isn’t always the “boss.” One of the key principles in understanding organizational behavior is the concept of power. Power is the ability to influence others. Who holds power in a group? How is it distributed? Do you see a pyramid hierarchy where you work? Or a flat organization, where many people share authority and leadership? A boss or manager is given positional or legitimate power – formal authority that is derived primarily from status in the organizational hierarchy. This is power that comes from a title and the concomitant rewards or punishments that someone in that position can impose. In autocratic or bureaucratic organizations, positional power (AKA formal authority) can be sufficient to influence others. That is decidedly not the case in creative industries, where informal or personal power plays a more important role. It comes from expert power – recognized knowledge, skills, or abilities. And referent power – the ability to influence others’ behavior because they like, admire, and respect the individual (Lunenberg, 2012). Informal power comes from your personal and professional credibility, and from having a compelling vision that attracts the buy‐in of others. Charisma contributes to it, and even the desire of some followers to want to be like the leader.

The Factors That Make or Break a Creative Leader

A leader can have both positional and personal power – but a brilliant, charismatic individual can be a leader without a formal title. You need power to lead. You get it by personal mastery and building good relationships, and it grows with trust. 5.3.5  Communicate with Clarity Having a vision gets you nowhere. Until you share it with others. Communicate up and down and sideways. Give clear direction. Give honest, helpful feedback. Speak with your teams, even when there’s no compelling project need. Checking in just to say hello goes a long way in communicating, “I care. I care about how you’re doing, even if you’re not doing something officially for me at the moment.” Share thanks generously. How do you communicate? Email? Telephone? Face‐to‐face? Sometimes there’s a tradeoff between being expedient and being better. Know when and how electronic communication is useful, and when face‐to‐face is needed. Monitor your language. If you select words on autopilot, you can inadvertently reflect bias or prejudice. Unless that’s your intent, be mindful of your phrasing. And remember, the most critical, misused human communication skill resides in the ears. 5.3.6  Listen More Than You Speak We cannot underscore it enough. Leadership is communication, up, down, and sideways. Written. Spoken. By far the most neglected communication is listening. Most people know that. But they don’t do it. They spend much of their time in listening just waiting to hear the breath that allows them to speak again. Leaders with a superb ability to communicate clearly succeed mightily. Make a habit of active listening. As a leader, you benefit from listening in two ways. Obviously first is information gathering. Each person has something to share that will help you understand issues, people, and the organization better – and be a better leader. But even more important is that listening makes people feel valued. Those who buy into your vision and feel respected and important will do anything for you. The reverse is every bit as true. 5.3.7  Cultivate Your Relationship Skills According to Yukl (1989), building relationships involves managing conflict, team building, supporting, and networking (Druskat and Wheeler, 2003).

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We’re not talking about getting everybody in a room to do those clichéd team‐ building exercises, like where you lean and fall into a partner to demonstrate trust. Not. How then do you build relationships? Be genuine. Be professional. Building meaningful business relationships is not about making friends (though that’s always nice), nor does it mean using people for your own benefit. It’s important to forge bonds and build reciprocal relationships, ones that are mutually beneficial. We’ll discuss how to build and support teams in Chapter 8, and how to approach conflict at length in Chapter 9. Recognize that there’s a difference between being liked and being respected. It’s great to be liked. But as a leader, it’s inevitable that some people won’t like you and that there will be times when people don’t like you, or like your actions. Accept it. This terrain is especially difficult to navigate if you’ve been promoted to lead those who were your equals yesterday. If your leadership is being challenged by a subordinate who was a peer not so long ago, you cannot ignore the situation and hope it will go away. Deal with it. Directly, firmly, and with the compassion you’d expect if the roles were reversed. Practice those relational skills. You’re going to need them plenty going forward. 5.3.8  Resist the Urge to Micromanage or DIY Everybody hates a micro‐manager. Creatives truly loathe them. Imagine yourself a respected graphic designer, among the best in your field. You’re asked to create a new logo for huge, global tech firm. This is the kind of challenge professional designers spend their career lives waiting to get their teeth into. (Okay, their fingers and Adobe Illustrator.) It’s the kind of project that seasoned craftspeople will work on for days, nights, and weekends, until their passion and training result in perfection. On the other hand, if you’re on a certain in‐house design team, your new CEO with a penchant for doodling calls you in to work the whole weekend, and blogs afterward, “I’m not a pro, but I know enough to be dangerous:) So, one weekend this summer, I rolled up my sleeves and dove into the trenches with our logo design team.” The response from insulted creative people across the entire planet? “Aaacck!!!” Yes. That’s what happened when Marissa Mayer took the reins at Yahoo, and committed the cardinal sin of clients and non‐creative directors (Pathak, 2013). That stings. It dismisses the worth of years of disciplined learning and design training. It minimizes the value of a professional’s work. No matter how delicately it’s handled, it demoralizes creative people who continue to have to work for you and find the motivation to do the next creative job. So don’t do it. Even if you are an accomplished creative director. Look at it this way: If you can’t do a better job than your subordinates, you shouldn’t be

The Factors That Make or Break a Creative Leader

in charge. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. It will backfire. To be effective in creative leadership, you have to learn to inspire and coach and stop playing on the court. Resist the urge to do, and understand that providing support is now the most important way you can contribute to creativity. Talented people don’t want you do their jobs for them, or micromanage. But they don’t want you to back off and do nothing, either. Creatives want and need you to provide direction, check in, consult, offer feedback, and guide them – in such a way that you teach and demonstrate confidence in your team and they own their ideas. They will soar. Here’s one masterful description that demonstrates exactly how that model works, and the joy to be found in leadership.

FYI 5.2  A Leadership Model for Encouraging Creativity and Innovation by Nic Goldsmith In the field of Architecture and Engineering one is required to work creatively with professionals who embody diversity in both their interests and their skills. There are creative designers who live in the world of concepts, some who inhabit an understanding of detailing and others that soar in the numerate world of engineering. In addition there are acousticians, lighting designers, and specialist consultants of all sorts that need to be complementary in the design process and focus on the goal. The building cycle requires this inherent diversity and that diversity generally attracts different mindsets. A designer is often more interested in the poetry of space, while an engineer is more attuned to the prose of structure. As a creative leader, a part of my job is to create a safe environment where ideas can float freely through space, where no idea is a bad idea, and where every member of the team can “let their hair down” without fearing repercussions. By having no fear of “the bad,” “the silly,” or “the weird,” everyone is willing to say what they feel and creativity can take flight. When this exhilarating process begins we don’t know as a team where the design is headed, but I know that a process is in place that has a proven track record of creativity. This in turn gives the team confidence. Teams love challenges and by clarifying the challenge, the design team is able to solve problems with new designs that embody innovation and creativity. Teams that have a track record working together are easier to facilitate as they understand where their strengths lie and what they can best contribute. Once the design process is rolling, sometimes the best leader pulls back and lets it happen; it is a joy to watch and one that makes the leadership role meaningful. Nic Goldsmith, FAIA LEED AP 2016, is Senior Principal, FTL Design Engineering Studio, New York.

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5.3.9  Stay Open, and Well Ahead of the Pack As a leader, it isn’t enough to simply “keep up” with a fast‐changing world. That’s pretty much treading water. To lead, you’ve got to be in front of trends and culture and be able to sniff out developments before they’ve arrived. You’ve got to foretell what’s next and where your creative product can go when today’s iteration is obsolete. Stand still, and your expertise evaporates. It means knowing and applying educated critical analysis. You can’t go chasing every bright and shiny object. You need to learn, filter, and predict with good judgment born of information and experience. Great leaders are perpetual students – discovering in every direction: inside themselves, what’s going on with others and the world at large. Then, leaders reflect (remember focus?) and synthesize it all to make sense of it for their followers, and guide them and their organizations toward the future. 5.3.10  Start Modeling Although you must have heard this a few thousand times, it bears repeating: Lead by example. Once you know who you are and who you want to become, live it. Be it. Show others the way. Leader behaviors not only guide creativity and creative processes, they set the tone for the entire organization in ways great and small. Take timeliness, for example. Great leaders respect and value everyone’s time. Most consider five minutes early “on time.” If you want the troops to show up on time for a meeting, you’d better be there yourself. This is not always obvious to creative people who are not typically rule followers. Demonstrate the work ethic you demand of others. If you expect your team to pull an all‐nighter for a new business pitch, you can’t disappear at 5 p.m. Be there to feed them, troubleshoot, and show your support for their effort. If you have to leave before they do, make sure to tell them you’re leaving, that you trust their autonomy, and make it clear when and how you can be reached if needed. Admit your own vulnerability and own your mistakes  –  that’s how you will encourage the risk taking that leads to great creativity. You create the codes and norms of your group, and your organization. Do it by design. If not, you’ll just be doing it by default. 5.3.11  Stop Being a Perfectionist A creative leader must fight perfectionism, that innate trait that brought you to creative work, as well as the urge to do it yourself. These behaviors backfire in many ways, the two most important would be (i) driving your people crazy, and

The Factors That Make or Break a Creative Leader

(ii) doing work the “old‐fashioned” slow way, wasting time, and being less competitive than your creative peers. A growing number of creative operations are taking a page from Silicon Valley and working “in beta,” or iterating product ideas and testing them. You can’t do that if you’re too much of a perfectionist. Lead by learning when to push and when to stop. 5.3.12  Observe. Learn. Repeat Daily Read voraciously. Learn the business of business. Not just the intricacies of the specific industry you work in, but understand business in general: marketing, management, economics, leadership, and international relations. Right now, this will make you a better creative professional. And it prepares you to assume leadership, and makes you stand out ahead of your peers and competitors. It’s not just a suggestion, it is essential. 5.3.13  Watch Out for the Creative Asshole. Especially If It’s You Yes, they are out there. Creativity industries have more than their share. Some are born that way, and find it difficult to make that me‐to‐we transition we mentioned. Others bear the insecurity of premature promotion. They are the 20‐somethings who were responsible for some amazing ideas or products and were thrust into leadership, unprepared. They have no leadership skills, and do every “don’t” in the leadership book. ●●

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Don’t use bombastic orders to try to seize and demonstrate authority  –  instead of earning it. Don’t claim credit for others’ work, rather than acknowledging team members and sharing the recognition. Don’t skim off the best projects for yourself and assign the drudge work to your subordinates. Don’t play favorites among your people (doesn’t everyone hate that brother or sister that mom liked best?) Don’t play surreptitious political games to achieve your personal aims.

Managers use some of those tactics. But successful creative leaders don’t. When supervisors act like blowhards, it is typically to mask their own doubts and insecurities. These tactics may work sometimes, or achieve short‐term objectives. But they eventually backfire. Seriously. Who’s going to jump through hoops on the next project for a guy who’s screwed him? Creative businesses are too small to hide in, and successful creative leaders understand the value of openness and authenticity early on. The “lone wolf ” won’t fly far in the age of collaboration. Creative industries simply don’t work that way anymore – they can’t.

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5.3.14  Be Humble To echo one of mantras that underpin the success of famed creative agency Wieden+Kennedy, “Don’t act big.” Look up videos of Wieden+Kennedy co‐ founder Dan Wieden on YouTube for inspiration. You will observe a brilliant, modest, gentle man who has become one of the giants of creative leadership in the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries. Whether he knew it, or it just came naturally, his humility is an important factor in his – and his agency’s – meteoric and sustained success. Leadership scholars report many times over that humility is among the leadership behaviors that have positive effects on team performance (Gelfand et al., 2012; Liden et al., 2014; Schaubroeck et al., 2011; Yaffe and Kark, 2011). Lay hubris aside, and you will find greatness. 5.3.15  Saber‐Rattling Starts Wars and Doesn’t End Well When creative output starts to dwindle, or ratings decline, or a creative business loses luster, CEOs often want to shake things up, and bring in new leaders in an effort to improve the creative product. These new leaders charged with change usually fire a lot of people, and bring in their own, or creatives with a hot‐shot reputation. Big mistake. Like gangrene, tension permeates the atmosphere and motivation takes a dive among every employee but the handful of new hires. If you’re the new guru, you’re in a stew. Everyone hates you except the new sycophants. Mistrust pervades. The culture crumbles. If you’re the new leader hired or promoted to turn a ship around, be careful. Tread lightly. Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear. Your very presence can demotivate the troops and undermine their ability, so it is extremely difficult to get an accurate assessment of the landscape. Poor creative work or lack of innovation is rarely the fault of one creative director, except if it’s a very small shop. On the whole, bad work is seldom due to lack of talent on the part of those who will fall victim to any house‐cleaning layoffs under new management either. (Unless prior leadership hopelessly mismanaged all their hiring.) Few individuals can do great work in an unsuitable environment. The source usually lies with poor leadership of entire organization, its culture, codes, and processes, and sometimes its clients. We will discuss the powerful effects of organizational culture and environment more in Chapter 7. For now, remember empathy and judgment. 5.3.16  Embrace Change and Become a Chaos Filter You’ll have to make peace with constant change, or you will not survive. Constant, rapid change is inevitable in creative industries, in startups, and in

The Factors That Make or Break a Creative Leader

many other quarters of today’s world. Change brings chaos. And chaos brings a palpable need for creative leadership. Or creativity will be paralyzed. Design and communication businesses have morphed considerably, in adopting or adapting to digital processes. So it’s no surprise that several Harvard Business Review studies have argued that unpredictable (Read: creative) work drives leadership style, and that leaders in the rest of the world can learn much from design (Dunne and Martin, 2006; Lester et al. 1998). (Okay, they say “manager,” but it applies to creative leaders as we know them.) In the unpredictable world of research and design, neither the flow of the development process nor its end point can be defined at the outset. The shape of the new product changes, often dramatically, as the effort to create it proceeds. A strictly mechanical approach to management, with its stress on clearly defined objectives, roles, and structures, would kill the creativity that lies at the heart of design. Success in new‐product development requires a different kind of management and a different kind of manager. (Lester et al., 1998) Without even realizing it, they made the case for creative leadership, decades ago. Look at that date again. Call it a design, creative, or entrepreneurial mindset – it means preparing for the unexpected as a matter of routine. Creative people can become impotent from too much upheaval. That means their leader has to be the flack‐catcher and stand between them and whatever will interfere with their creative productivity. Get comfortable with change, and anticipate a fair amount of chaos. A creative leader is a juggler – juggling multiple moving parts on multiple fronts, to say nothing of multiple personalities. A creative leader knows something unforeseen will happen. She just doesn’t know when. 5.3.17  Creativity Needs Regular Feeding – Yours and Theirs If you stretch your people to the nth degree, they will reach a point of diminishing returns. We’ve already discussed that the brain needs down time to be creative. It also needs to be exposed to new things or it gets predictable and stale. Perhaps the wildest example of how you can do this comes from the boss at Chandelier Creative who took his entire 42‐person staff to Japan, instead of doing the usual holiday festivities in 2015. Founder and creative director Richard Christiansen is keenly aware of how taking people outside their comfort zone for a novel experience fuels their creativity: “… there is something incredibly transformative about cultural displacement … about going somewhere where no one speaks your language” (Coffee, 2015).

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5.4 ­Chapter Summary Leaders either encourage creativity, or inhibit it – through the ways they think and behave. Leaders need to think critically, creatively, and reflectively in order to understand their role in creative organizations. They need to analyze the potential impact of their decisions. Creative leaders need a high degree of emotional intelligence to be successful, and must reframe their own identity from “me” to “we.” Authentic leadership grows from self‐awareness, relationships, trust, and transparency. Numerous leader behaviors influence creativity, including communicating well (listening!), persistence, mental focus, resilience, delegating without micromanaging, flack‐catching, being humble, getting comfortable with chaos, and actively feeding creativity in their people with coaching and experiences. Follow the original W+K rules, engraved on their Twitter ID: Don’t act big, no sharp stuff, follow directions, and shut up when someone is talking.

­Lessons from Legends The Four Ingredients of Grit by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval Failure is how we learn – it’s how we develop and acquire grit. From our own experiences, and those of the countless successful people we have worked with across a wide array industries, from writers and CEOs to lawyers and Broadway performers, we can say it is grit that got them, and us, where we are. Our research and experience tell us that grit can be broken down into four essential components: Guts – Grit begins with the courage to take on a tough challenge, and not falter in the face of adversity. General George S. Patton famously defined courage as “fear holding on a minute longer.” Guts is what gives you the confidence to take a calculated risk, to be daring (without being reckless). Guts is about putting yourself out there, declaring your intention to triumph, even if victory appears to be nowhere in sight. Resilience – Some of the world’s most notable high achievers have flunked or dropped out of school, been fired from their jobs, evicted from their homes, or dealt some other major setback that forced them to hit bottom. But they bounced back. Jerry Seinfeld got booed off the stage during his first stand‐up gig. It took three attempts before Steven Spielberg was accepted by a film school. But neither let humiliation or failure diminish their conviction. Studies

The Factors That Make or Break a Creative Leader

show that people with a high degree of grit are able to stay focused and motivated, whatever failures, obstacles, and adversities get in their way. George Foreman was a retired, overweight former two‐time heavyweight champion when the threat of bankruptcy drove him to take up boxing gloves again at age forty‐five. But he triumphed and reclaimed his heavyweight title, using his winnings to pay off his debt and launch George Foreman Grills. Today he’s worth an estimated $200 million. Resilience is what gives grit its elasticity. It’s what makes you follow opportunity to the ends of the earth  –  even if it reroutes you to North Dakota after you bought a ticket for Maui. Initiative  –  By definition, initiative  –  being a self‐starter  –  is what makes grit dynamic, what sets it in motion. Leaders are often judged by their ability to take the initiative. But some of the most compelling examples of initiative are found far from the boardroom or the battlefield. One of our favorites took place on the African savanna, where thirteen‐year‐old Richard Turere was devastated to discover that lions had killed his family’s bull. What could prevent such an attack in the future? When the Masai boy patrolled the cattle pasture at night in an effort to keep the herd safe, he noticed that the prowling lions were scared off by the bouncing beam of his flashlight as he walked. Tinkering with scavenged solar‐charging cells and flashlight parts, he created a “lions light” fence that effectively keeps the predators away. The moral of this story? You don’t have to outweigh or outrun an opponent if you can outsmart them first. Tenacity – Tenacity is the relentless ability to stay focused on a goal. This is perhaps the most recognizable trait associated with grit. You see it in every athlete who overcomes a setback or a loss to win an Olympic medal or a championship ring; in every Nobel winner who has sweated through thousands of failed experiments and dead ends before making some groundbreaking discovery that has changed her field; in every entrepreneur who spends years fighting to launch a new service or product that ends up changing the way we live. Tenacity requires industriousness and determination, a value that, in the wake of the Great Depression, brought America to its industrial peak in the twentieth century. But it is a quality that seems in shorter supply in today’s digital age. Studies by people such as K. Anders Ericsson at Florida State University have shown it takes a minimum of ten years – and the right kind of focused attention  –  to master a skill at the highest levels and realize one’s full potential. World‐renowned cellist Pablo Casals, asked at the age of ninety‐three why he continued to practice three hours a day, replied, “I’m beginning to notice some improvement.” The science of success is only beginning to be explored. And there is much to learn. But the great thing about grit is that working harder, smarter, more passionately, and longer is something we control, unlike the community we

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grew up in, the high school we attended, the money and resources our parents have, company politics, or the current state of the economy. It is attainable by each and every one of us. Even if we’re not the smartest or most talented person in the room. Right now, there are millions of people who have the potential to become world‐class musicians, bestselling authors, or professional athletes if they are able to draw upon the guts, resilience, initiative, and tenacity necessary to realize their potential. Could you be one of them? (Excerpted from Thaler and Koval, 2015, pp. 23–26) Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval are bestselling co‐authors of From Grit to Great and several other books. In addition, Linda is a much‐awarded creative director and chairman of Publicis Kaplan Thaler. Robin is CEO and President at Truth Initiative, the largest nonprofit dedicated to creating a culture that rejects tobacco use.

5.5 ­Ideas + Action Myers‐Briggs test: https://www.mbtionline.com. Watch a master in action. See Dan Wieden speak on nontraditional advertising: https://vimeo.com/124906628.

5.6 ­Some Great Reads + Resources Amabile, T. M. (1998). How to Kill Creativity (Vol. 87). Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing. Eagleman, D. (2011). Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. New York: Random House.

­References Amabile, T. M. (1998). How to Kill Creativity (Vol. 87). Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing. Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Walumbwa, F. O., Luthans, F., and May, D. R. (2004). Unlocking the mask: A look at the process by which authentic leaders impact follower attitudes and behaviors. The Leadership Quarterly, 15(6), 801–823. Bargh, J. A., Lee‐Chai, A., Barndollar, K., Gollwitzer, P. M., and Trötschel, R. (2001). The automated will: Nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 81(6), 1014–1027.

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Begun, A. L. (1993). Human behavior and the social environment. Journal of Social Work Education, 29(1), 26–35. Coffee, P. (2015). Why this New York agency is taking all 42 of its employees to Japan for the holidays. AdWeek (website), 25 November. Retrieved from http:// www.adweek.com/creativity/why‐new‐york‐agency‐taking‐all‐42‐its‐employees‐ japan‐holidays‐168342. Creswell, J. D., Bursley, J. K., and Satpute, A. B. (2013). Neural reactivation links unconscious thought to decision‐making performance. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8(8), 863–869. Davis, M. (1996). Empathy: A social psychological approach. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Druskat, V. U. and Wheeler, J. V. (2003). Managing from the boundary: The effective leadership of self‐managing work teams. Academy of Management Journal, 46(4), 435–457. Dunne, D. and Martin, R. (2006). Design thinking and how it will change management education: An interview and discussion. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 5(4), 512–523. Gelfand, M. J., Leslie, L. M., Keller, K., and de Dreu, C. (2012). Conflict cultures in organizations: How leaders shape conflict cultures and their organizational‐ level consequences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(6), 1131. Goldberg, L. R. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality traits. American Psychologist, 48(1), 26–34. Goleman, D. (2013a). Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. London: A&C Black. Goleman, D. (2013b). The focused leader. Harvard Business Review, 91(12), 50–60. Grant, A. M., Gino, F., and Hofmann, D. A. (2011). Reversing the extraverted leadership advantage: The role of employee proactivity. Academy of Management Journal, 54(3), 528–550. Helgesen, S. (1997). Women and the new economy. Leader to Leader, 1997(4), 34–39. Incognito. (2011). “Incognito”: What’s hiding in the unconscious mind. NPR (website), 31 May. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2011/05/31/136495499/ incognito‐whats‐hiding‐in‐the‐unconscious‐mind. Judge, T. A., Heller, D., and Mount, M. K. (2002). Five‐factor model of personality and job satisfaction: A meta‐analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(3), 530–541. Kark, R., and Shamir, B. (2002). The influence of transformational leadership on followers’ relational versus collective self‐concept. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2002(1), D1–D6. Kernis, M. H. (2003). Toward a conceptualization of optimal self‐esteem. Psychological Inquiry, 14(1), 1–26. Lester, R. K., Piore, M. J., and Malek, K. M. (1998). Interpretive mangement: What general mangers can learn from design. Harvard Business Review, 76(2), 86–96.

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Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Liao, C., and Meuser, J. D. (2014). Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance. Academy of Management Journal, 57(5), 1434–1452. Lunenburg, F. C. (2012). Power and leadership: An influence process. International Journal of Management, Business, and Administration, 15(1), 1–9. Michie, S. and Gooty, J. (2005). Values, emotions, and authenticity: Will the real leader please stand up? The Leadership Quarterly, 16(3), 441–457. Northouse, P. G. (2007). Leadership Theory and Practice (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Pathak, S. (2013). Marissa Mayer put in a weekend’s worth of work designing new Yahoo logo. AdAge (website), 5 September. Retrieved 7 March 2017 from http://adage.com/article/digital/ marissa‐mayer‐yahoo‐s‐logo‐i‐helped‐design/243990. Salovey, P. and Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9(3), 185–211. Schaubroeck, J., Lam, S. S. K., and Peng, A. C. (2011). Cognition‐based and affect‐based trust as mediators of leader behavior influences on team performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(4), 863–871. Scudamore, B. (2016). Why successful people spend 10 hours a week just thinking. Inc.com (website), 7 April. Retrieved 7 March 2017 from http://www. inc.com/empact/why‐successful‐people‐spend‐10‐hours‐a‐week‐just‐thinking. html. Smith, A. (2010). Cognitive empathy and emotional empathy in human behavior and evolution. The Psychological Record, 56(1). Retrieved from http://opensiuc. lib.siu.edu/tpr/vol56/iss1/1. Soon, C. S., Brass, M., Heinze, H.‐J., and Haynes, J.‐D. (2008). Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nature Neuroscience, 11(5), 543–545. Strick, M., Dijksterhuis, A., Bos, M. W., Sjoerdsma, A., van Baaren, R. B., and Nordgren, L. F. (2011). A meta‐analysis on unconscious thought effects. Social Cognition, 29(6), 738–762. Thaler, L. K. and Koval, R. (2015). Grit to Great: How Perseverance, Passion and Pluck Take You from Ordinary to Extraordinary. New York: Crown Business. Walumbwa, F. O., Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Wernsing, T. S., and Peterson, S. J. (2008). Authentic leadership: Development and validation of a theory‐based measure†. Journal of Management, 34(1), 89–126. Yaffe, T. and Kark, R. (2011). Leading by example: The case of leader OCB. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(4), 806–826. Yukl, G. (1989). Managerial leadership: A review of theory and research. Journal of Management, 15(2), 251–289.

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6 Creative Work Never Ends Neither Does Creative Leadership The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know. Albert Einstein The creative world isn’t binary. The creative process has been vividly described by poets, philosophers, musicians, artists of all kinds, and creative leaders. In the words of one: It’s messy, it has no rules, no clear beginning, middle or end: it’s kind of a pain in the ass, and when you’re done, you’re not sure if the pig is clean or even why you were washing a pig. (Sullivan, 2003) In the rank and file of creative industries, you can live with a certain amount of chaos as long as you deliver the goods – brilliant designs, ads, movies, whatever. Unfortunately, shooting‐from‐the‐hip work doesn’t make for great leaders. Leadership in a creative business calls for harnessing and managing turbulence and bringing some focus and clarity. To do that, you need to know “If this, then that.” If you’re going to be the guide – and take others to places no one has ever been  –  you need to know where you’re headed, be able to navigate the best route (watch out for blind curves and land mines!), and make sure that everyone arrives at the end happy and successful, with the best possible work. That feat takes continuous effort and some serious self‐analysis. Books like this are a good start, but mastering creative leadership reaches way beyond internalizing “how to” tips. It requires training yourself to view your world differently. Seeing like a leader takes commitment, discipline, and regular exercise. In this chapter, you will learn: ●● ●● ●● ●●

The leader’s imperative to learn, think, and do, always Where mentorship intersects with leadership in creative industries How your relational behaviors contribute to an ideal creative environment How to identify, recruit, and retain the best talent

Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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6.1 ­Leadership Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint Every day, a leader is constantly “becoming.” Evolution and growth doesn’t lie in the hundreds of daily decisions you’ll make, but in your ability to recognize how they all add up in the end – in connecting the proverbial dots. It lies in thinking beyond the day‐to‐day of your creative business, looking outward, and stepping into the unknown with confidence. Get into training for leadership, and stay fit. Don’t ever stop.

6.2 ­Learn, Think, Do. And Don’t. The Habits of Great Leaders Once you realize that as a creative leader, your every decision, action, and interaction reverberates in the creative process, for better or worse, you understand the necessity of an informed foundation. We’ve already discussed the urgency for ongoing learning, and the need to make it a habit. But what do you need to read? How do you learn? Out of the gazillions of digital pages, blogs, books, etc. how does your head not explode? Take small bites. Start with your industry, the latest intel, everything relevant to your particular discipline. Read all the trades. Follow a range of thought leaders on social media. (You will need to become one yourself, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hear what others are saying.) Attend conferences where your mind is stimulated by new ideas, new technologies, and new people. But remember, everyone else in your position will be doing that, too. Unless you stretch yourself, you can’t be innovative, and you won’t be any better than the rest. Become a student of culture, technology, philosophy, economics, everything. The most storied leaders you’ve heard of, from Warren Buffet to Richard Branson, devour books. Follow the advice of Mary Wells Lawrence, co‐founder and former president of Wells Rich Greene, and legendary creative leader: You can’t just be you. You have to double yourself. You have to read books on subjects you know nothing about. You have to travel to places you never thought of traveling. You have to meet every kind of person and endlessly stretch what you know. (Taube, 2014) Watch TED talks, webinars, and YouTube tutorials. Go to lectures and museums and events. Deliberately read publications outside your comfort zone. You may not achieve expert status in every arena, but you cannot lead for creativity from a myopic focus solely on your own particular creative business – or you will stifle your creative ability and judgment. No creative leader can afford that.

Creative Work Never Ends. Neither Does Creative Leadership

Whenever experience gets comfortable, it becomes limiting. Work at staying open to new information and ideas. Think you’re too busy? Surely, you aren’t busier than Warren Buffet or Richard Branson. Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (the fourth largest company in the US) estimates that he has spent 80% of his career reading and thinking (Parrish, 2013). Eighty percent. These guys understand how knowledge is acquired, and how fresh ideas are formulated. A sizeable body of research underscores the value of reflection in both learning and creativity (Clayton, 2012; Kitchenham, 2008; Mezirow, 1997). 6.2.1  Listen, Listen, Listen That sage advice first given by ancient Greek philosophers is often reiterated, most recently at Cannes Lions’ leadership panel by Geoff Edwards (Zanger, 2017). In the words of spiritual teacher and author Ram Dass, “The quieter you become, the more you can hear” (Dass, 1978). Not surprisingly, many great leaders tend to listen more than they speak. Attentive listening is how you learn from others, explicitly and implicitly – from superiors, peers, clients, competitors, newbies, even strangers on a plane, and people at the next table at lunch. Creative leaders never forget that great ideas can come from anywhere. Even from below. Hear from every direction – above, below, and sideways. Leadership doesn’t grow from one‐way communication; it is nurtured by a continuous feedback loop. And hubris is a leader’s ticket to oblivion. 6.2.2  Give Your Microprocessor a Spin: Sit and Have a Think Just as it works for creative development, sometimes doing your best work as a leader requires not doing anything – engaging in focused mindfulness. In this always‐on world, constant busy‐ness is a creative leader’s worst enemy. As Seth Godin cautions in The Purple Cow (2003), you have a choice to either pay attention to what you’ve done and reap all the benefits from analyzing what you’ve learned – or you could just keep on failing. All that feedback and information you’re taking in is nothing more than a worthless pile of unsorted filing, rubbish, unless you hit the pause button, take time to internalize all that you’ve read, all that has occurred, and reflect on your experience. Reflection is a powerful learning tool widely recognized in learning theory (Clayton, 2012; Mezirow, 1997), one that is all too often neglected. In fact, it is known as transformative learning theory, and considered essential for professional development (Moon, 2013). The most prolific creatives, and the most stellar creatives, all make time  to  unplug and just think. Many do it for a portion of every single day.

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Some put offline hours for thinking into their calendars. As mentioned earlier, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner schedules hours of uninterrupted thinking time into each day, and has written about how critical focus and reflection are: That thinking, if done properly, requires uninterrupted focus; thoroughly developing and questioning assumptions; synthesizing all of the data, information and knowledge that’s incessantly coming your way; connecting dots, bouncing ideas off of trusted colleagues; and iterating through multiple scenarios. In other words, it takes time. And that time will only be available if you carve it out for yourself. (Weiner, 2013) The founder of Twitter and Square, Jack Dorsey, is a serial wanderer, because it helps him concentrate: “The best thinking time is just walking” (he also runs 3–5 miles a day) (Savitz, 2012). Others set aside time to get off the grid entirely, for a week or more. Bill Gates is famous for taking a week off twice a year just to reflect deeply without interruption (Scudamore, 2016). There is no small irony in the fact that leaders of high‐tech businesses make a regular, concerted effort to shut out technology. So turn off all your “push” notifications and focus for a bit. Reflective and critical thinking is how you will divine truth and inspiration from blather that is hackneyed, bullshit, or outright lies. A good solid think keeps you in prime shape for leadership. It also enables you to make a conscious decision to let go of bad habits or practices that aren’t working, and acquire new ones (see Figure 6.1 for some suggestions). Dump your baggage along the way, and you’ll move forward with greater purpose and agility. What should you think about?

6.3 ­Question EVERYTHING. Regularly. Rinse and Repeat Stop working on autopilot, and question everything that is part of your creative business. From where you recruit new hires, to team organization (to be discussed in depth in Chapter 8), to how people work, where people work, timelines, deadlines, rewards, and more  –  evaluate regularly. In fast‐moving industries, mistakes get made. You’ll assuredly perpetuate them if you don’t preempt them, or at least identify them. Be proactive, not reactive. Anticipate. 6.3.1  What Business Are You In? Be warned, that’s a trick question. Question everything. In the 1970s, R/GA was in the business of making animated titles for movies. Each time the company has iterated, it has leapfrogged to the forefront of media and technology. Before

Creative Work Never Ends. Neither Does Creative Leadership

Figure 6.1  Frank isn’t just the founder of Sonnenberg & Partners and a prolific author on marketing and management. He’s a crusader on behalf of character, values, and personal responsibility.

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other digital agencies did so, R/GA created a product for Nike – Nike+ (Nudd, 2012). It built community around technology, before earlier adopters – even before apps. Yep. In this time of nonstop iteration, great creative leaders know that a year from now, they will not be in the same business they are currently. Google went from search engine to data miner to “broadcaster” when it acquired YouTube. In 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods. Is Amazon now in the grocery business? Or the delivery business? Think about your creative enterprise. What will it look like in 5 years, and 10 years, and how will you get there? Advertising and graphic design have seen seismic change in the past two decades, and many say they are moving from client service to innovation. Does your agency reflect that? If you’re in fashion, how much longer will brick‐and‐mortar retail be a part of your industry – and what part of it? Question your creative processes and where and how they intersect with other aspects of doing business. Question how you organize people, and your office space. The “state of the art” is evolving constantly in architecture and interior design. Make sure your concepts are grounded in research, not whim (remember than Chiat\Day disaster referenced in the Introduction). 6.3.2  Who Are You with and to Others? Don’t just think about work. Think about yourself, too, and how you relate to others. Think positively, have a positive outlook  –  and you will actually improve your empathy and relational skills, both of which are crucial to effective creative leadership. Just as with a physical workout, a concerted practice of thinking positively can actually grow the brain circuits that enhance social skills. Research at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, demonstrates that regular mental practice of positive thoughts toward other people actually grows the circuitry for caring and concern (Goleman, 2017). They’re doing fascinating, ground‐breaking work in this area, as well as on the positive effects of mindfulness. Mindfulness can also help with impulse control – which is why it’s good to hone as a creative leader. It’s an attribute many creative people don’t come by naturally. 6.3.3  What Does “Success” Look Like in Your Head? And What Do You Want in Your Obituary? Seriously. What are you looking for? Existentially, and literally. What do you want for yourself? What do you want from and for your people and teams? If you don’t know who are you and what you expect, you’re not ready to lead.

Creative Work Never Ends. Neither Does Creative Leadership

Are you ambitious and competitive, and reaching for nothing less than to master the universe – or do you want to lead a team of people who do really nice work, that gets admired – but doesn’t keep them from their families most days? Define and distill your expectations. If you’re going to expect people to deliver creative work that is exceptional and effective – you need to articulate exactly what that looks, sounds, or feels like for your followers. You’re the leader, so you get to decide. Is your standard for “great work” only the cutting edge, at all costs – time and money be damned? Nothing less than award‐winning? Or is superbly crafted, workmanlike work that satisfies the client, that you’re not embarrassed to admit ownership of, enough? Is it beautifully and gracefully rendered – or executed with a hammer and a shout that cannot be ignored? There are zillions of ways to operationalize what a leader expects, so be clear and precise. Show your followers examples of what you admire from others, and award‐winning work you wish you’d done. If you’re not brand new to your industry, you’re already aware that no two places are alike. Each creative business builds its vision from industry norms, organizational leadership, and the culture they create, and all the individuals who come together to work there. As a leader, you must set the norms, standards, and templates by which you will judge success – and let creative work out the door. Even masters at their craft will disagree on style and executional elements, even if they are in strategic agreement. Does a Frank Lloyd Wright building look like Saarinen’s? Does Dior look exactly like Comme des Garçons? Just saying “make it great” is way too ambiguous and open to interpretation, to say nothing of time‐wasting and unsatisfying. There are infinite answers when the directive is unclear, or feedback is ambiguous. Know exactly what you want, and communicate that clearly to every single person who will touch that creative product in any way, shape, or form. Write it down. Creative director Norman Berry always said, “Give me the freedom of a tight strategy,” and that’s why so much effective, award‐winning work was done by those under his tutelage.

6.4 ­The Mentorship Mandate How did you get your job? In all likelihood, it wasn’t through a want ad or website. Creative jobs begin when someone, already established, reaches out and lends a hand – by giving you a lead, sharing your resume, making an introduction. It’s payback time. Leaders have a personal motive, and a moral imperative, to mentor young talent. First, self‐interest. When you answer the call of the young, you can identify the up‐and‐comers, and recruit that rare and special talent before others do. Your guidance can help mold them to your vision.

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In mentoring, you have the power to mold the entire future of your creative craft and industry as you see fit. It’s how you build a diverse, powerful team. It’s how you instill industry codes and perpetuate values in the next generation. Building positive relationships is how you keep your team motivated and growing. You do that with coaching and mentoring, which is a visible form of consideration. Some researchers even found that the right kind of mentors had a significant impact in alleviating their mentees’ stress levels (Sosik and Godshalk, 2005). Another found that great relationships with mentors led to fewer health problems and less burnout (Rose, 1998). If you extended yourself, your mentees will reciprocate. When things get tough or crazy, you’ll have loyal followers eager to deliver what you need. Conversely, if you are only concerned about yourself and your ambitions, that short‐sightedness will catch up with you in the end. Oh, yes. See Hamlet. 6.4.1  Do It. You Really Have No Choice It’s hard to find time to mentor. You feel as if you can barely get your “day job” done, let alone worry about someone else’s career. Then, the higher you move up the rungs of the proverbial career ladder, the more woefully outnumbered you are by those downstream who need your counsel. But mentor you must. Mentoring is part and parcel of your success as a leader – and theirs. And your organization’s. Mentorship and sponsorship are crucial to leadership development. How you approach developing new leaders can have a direct, positive impact on the quality of leadership within an organization (Clayton, 2012; Seibert et al., 2017). And if you recall, the quality of leadership profoundly impacts the creative work. In many cases, mentorship involves lessons in understanding the codes of business, rather than hard skills. Steve Marino explains what that means in production in FYI 6.1. 6.4.2  Leadership Is Not Pie Surely you’ve seen the meme, all over the internet. “Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It’s not pie.” It’s true in life. The same is true of power in creative leadership. You personally lose nothing by embracing a talented subordinate and helping them succeed. You must. Your own success, and the future of your creative industry depends on getting your followers ready to take your place. It’s the crux of servant leadership.

Creative Work Never Ends. Neither Does Creative Leadership

FYI 6.1  Technology Does Not Replace Being a Mentor by Steve Marino Thanks to leaps in creative technology, young professionals will never know the joy of being stuck in a fully blackened camera room shooting a main title sequence on a “cutting edge,” 5″ floppy‐drive‐computer‐controlled, Oxberry Master Series Animation Stand for an entire day. Great, huh? Not entirely. Evolution in technology has changed education, the steps in building a career, and created a huge gap in mentoring in media production. Getting started required a tougher skin and being humble enough for picking up the owner’s laundry, or, in my instance, driving the broken‐down c­ ompany pick‐up truck to “not the best location” in Newark, New Jersey, for supplies for the model/set design shop. You advanced slowly, first night‐shift machine‐room operator, or overnight phone operator, then day‐shift machine‐room op. Choosing the next career path would follow: Production, or Post (either Editorial or Design/VFX). The ensuing stages of your career would slowly progress, being guided and mentored by the seasoned professionals who had done the exact same thing, years before you, until you took their place or worked at their sides. Without even realizing it, creative people learned important lessons in every step of that journey – more than just craft skills. Today, with AVID, Premiere, After Effects, and Cinema 4D, for example, students learn the same tools that are used professionally. So, beginners mistakenly believe they know it all. A junior editor once asked me why he was representing another editor (a senior and respected individual I have worked with for years) when he was editing himself. “I do the same thing he does.” I was incredulous. Horrified. Why and, more importantly, how could this junior editor remotely think he was on the same level? That episode illustrates why creative leaders must mentor young talent. Mentor, mentor, mentor. Fill the training gap between wrist skills and everything else creative success requires  –  and fast‐forward those lessons. Embrace students who are talented, respectful, and show willingness to learn. Teach them. But understand the challenge you face in doing so. This junior editor was promoted way too soon. The owner of the company found short‐term profit in billing his time out as an “editor” rather than letting him continue to learn and grow as an apprentice. Needless to say, it backfired when he lost the company clients. He did not have the skills developed in knowing when to say no to clients, when to try their ideas and build upon them, or even when to ask for help. He needed a mentor. Steve Marino is a Director, Executive Creative Director and Visual FX Supervisor, who has helmed work on feature films, commercials, broadcast projects, music videos, long format, and now cross‐platform content creation.

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6.5 ­Remember: It’s Not Business, It’s Personal Of all businesses, creative businesses are typically the least “business‐like,” the most intensely personal organizations around. There is incredible power in human emotion, in the way you can make another human being feel. Many smart leaders know that. The CEO who writes 7400 personal birthday cards every year knows it (Weller, 2017). TBWA\Chiat\Day CEO Rob Schwartz sends a personal email to every staffer once a week. On the other hand, you have the proverbial creative asshole type leader. Which do you want to work for? Or be? If you cultivate your humanity and authentic leadership, you will develop that rare organization that has a great leader and an environment where the most talented people are dying to work – because the best work is visible to your entire industry. You will become a magnet for the best talent. As you recall from Chapter 5, emotional intelligence is a hallmark of great leadership and it’s critically important in the creative industries. High levels of leader support are essential for creativity. The right kind. Embrace your feminine side (empathy, support, relational behaviors). It’s where many feel the future of leadership lies (Gerzema and D’Antonio, 2013). How do really you feel about people? Are you in search of lasting relationships and loyalty, or do you consider creative people a disposable commodity  –  understanding that there will always be ones who want your job if somebody leaves? You are waging a constant battle against the enemies of creativity. Ego. Data. Bean counters. Negativity. Insecurity. How will you inspire your team? Show your humanity at work. How you interact with followers is often more important than what you say. Polish your relational behaviors. 6.5.1  Be Nice Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval sold millions of copies of a book called The Power of Nice (2006). Don’t snigger. This is for real. Research demonstrates that negativity is the enemy of creativity especially when it comes from the leader, and in the form of negative feedback and blame (Amabile, 1998; Cunningham, 2015). As a creative leader, how you communicate – especially in giving meaningful feedback – is a fundamentally important vehicle for making people feel safe to create and happy in their work. It’s even more important than doing great work. Some other tips from Harvard Business Review: Make Creatives Feel Important. Creatives crave recognition. You need to recognize everyone, not just a handful of favorites or a select coterie. Consult, don’t micromanage. How do you make people feel respected? Begin by listening attentively to what they have to say.

Creative Work Never Ends. Neither Does Creative Leadership

Encourage people’s sense of ownership and competence in the work, which leads to deeper, more motivated involvement in the work (Amabile, 2003; Chamorro‐Premuzic, 2013a). Creative people are often insecure. At some point, just about everyone feels a twinge of “imposter syndrome.” Creative people need to know that they are valued – and that creativity is truly valued in your organization. Numerous research studies have found that when people know that creativity is important they are more likely to actually be creative (e.g. Manske and Davis, 1968; Shalley and Gilson, 2004; Speller and Schumacher, 1975). Wow. Don’t Pressure Them. Creative people need a high degree of freedom and autonomy to explore ideas, to find unexpected solutions, and to do their best work (Amabile, 1998; Chamorro‐Premuzic, 2013a). Make sure they have enough time – and downtime. Every creative industry has deadlines, especially when pitching new business or responding to sometimes unrealistic client expectations. Creative people can, and often do, work at a punishing pace for a certain amount of time, but human beings have physical and mental limits. Every race can’t call for perpetual sprinting. Burnout is real. Creativity MUST have downtime. Encourage people to set boundaries. Transformational leadership behaviors have been demonstrated to alleviate stress, burnout, and even health issues (Gill et al., 2006). The gaming industry offers a terrific example of how leaders can put all those principles together in practice, in FYI 6.2 from Ryan Verniere of Riot Games.

6.6 ­Talent: Finding, Encouraging, and Keeping the Best People Perhaps the single most important decision a creative leader can make is who to bring to the team. Which person, which personality, at what level, with what track record, strengths, weaknesses, from where, and for how much money. We are all shaped and informed by our previous experiences. There’s never enough stellar talent to go around. There are few giants. And many brilliant creatives are invisible because they’re introverts, or unskilled at self‐promotion. So the search for talent is a perpetual one for leaders in the creative industries. First, you have to know what you’re looking for. Keep an open mind. That may not be what you first envision. Are you looking for a “mini‐me,” or someone with complementary skills and personality who will counterbalance your own strengths or those of a team mate? Every leader in your industry is probably pulling from pretty much the same talent pool. Be guided by sound, tested parameters – not gut instinct.

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FYI 6.2  The Leader’s Role in Thematic Cohesion’s DNA: Design, Narrative, and Art by Ryan Verniere Deeply affecting games rely on thematically cohesive executions of technical gameplay, story, and aesthetics. Each of these elements is the product of a highly skilled contributor. Together, these individuals form the creative DNA (Design, Narrative, Art) of a given project, and admittedly, this is on‐the‐nose shorthand for a much larger working philosophy – a philosophy that, in practice, has helped align creative leaders at Riot to face highly challenging problems, including project ownership, vision holding, and the ever‐paralyzing “Who has the final say?” Inexperienced contributors may become protective of their work. This preciousness often runs against the creative needs of the team as a whole and can negatively impact deliverables. While passion is necessary to succeed in the competitive games industry, it needs to be positively channeled by creative leaders. Each member of the team needs to trust that they are surrounded by peers and that their shared authorship, if successful, will give their products a feeling of seamlessness. Failure, by contrast, often results in a disjointed horror more appropriate to a Mary Shelley novel. So, how does a creative leader shepherd all of these talented designers? I begin with a well‐defined workflow coupled with time‐boxed deliverables. Not only does this force you to successfully articulate your development strategy, but it will aid team members in structuring a healthy work–life balance by eliminating ambiguous goals. For example, a new Champion for League of Legends is developed in six phases. Discovery: Here, we highlight underserved roles to better identify the ideal opportunity space. Ideation: It’s during this phase that an initial idea is solidified into a working character concept. Once a character is realized well enough, we can begin to build proxy game assets. Pre‐Production: The DNA is married to a pod. In other words, a designer, a writer, and an artist partner with a multidisciplinary team in order to execute on their shared vision. The development of final assets begins. Production: All assets are completed and made ready for bug fixing and polish. Post Production: Marketing efforts are delivered, and the product is released into the wild. Sustain: Make sure the Champion remains healthy. Lists and well‐documented timelines will only get you so far. Inspired creative leaders must possess artistic instincts, including the ability to empathize with both their fictional works and the staff responsible for creating them. To simply wave one’s hand and declare “Make it great!” is woefully disrespectful to both one’s collaborators and potential consumers. Engage, or be disengaged. Ryan Verniere is Champion Lead Team at Riot Games.

Creative Work Never Ends. Neither Does Creative Leadership

6.6.1  Who Are You Looking for in Hiring? Specialists? Generalists? Since technology invaded the creative industries, there’s been a sea change in what is considered the “ideal” creative. Talent needs continue to evolve and expand. No creative director in the 1970s could have imagined that “creative” and “technologist” would ever be put together in a job title. For decades, the industry standard for creative jobs called for deep expertise and craft skills in one area of the creative process. In advertising, for example, the traditional creative team was a pair: one copywriter, one art director. They had the vision, but art studio staff implemented their concepts into layouts, and set and kerned type. Art buyers identified photographers or illustrators to implement the finished ad. They hired photographers to shot original photos for them and retouchers to retouch them (Mallia and Windels, 2011; Windels and Stuhlfaut, 2017). That old division of labor has gone the way of the buggy whip. Codified, narrow, traditional roles were blown apart by two things: (i) increased financial pressure on agencies, and the need for fewer people to do more work, and more kinds of work; and (ii) creating for digital media demands different skills, at different intervals to produce work. Enter desktop publishing, CAD, apps, websites, social media – lots of technology is now intertwined with the act of creation. Creative industries rushed to respond, hiring IT geeks and acquiring companies. Most realized through trial and error that it was easier to hire great creatives and marketers and teach them technology than the other way around. But the paradigm shift calls for everyone to be different than the twentieth‐century creative worker, with what is known as “T‐shaped talent” (Boynton, 2011). While he may not have coined the term T‐shaped talent, IDEO CEO Tim Brown certainly popularized it (2005). The metaphor describes the new kind of creative person that many now consider essential for the twenty‐first‐century workforce (see Figure 6.2 for reference). Essentially, it means a person who has deep expertise in one area (the vertical shaft of the “T”). The crossbar demonstrates curiosity, empathy, and ability in a number of other related areas, and willingness to collaborate and take on a variety of roles (Brown, 2005; Malbon, 2010). According to Brown, “People who are T‐shaped are well‐rounded and versatile. They are better able to contribute their ideas to a discussion and are able to take on a variety of roles” (Brown, 2005). Why does IDEO, a renowned industrial design firm, seek out T‐shaped talent? “They are able to explore insights from many different perspectives and recognize patterns of behavior that point to a universal human need. That’s what you’re after at this point – patterns that yield ideas,” says Brown. “We look for people who are so inquisitive about the world that they’re willing to try to do what you do” (Brown, 2005).

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T-shaped talent Broad knowledge and diverse skills

Figure 6.2  “T‐shaped talent” describes people with deep expertise in one arena and a breadth of knowledge in many others – enabling them to be great collaborators.

Deep expertise in a discipline

Other leaders have suggested that “I‐shaped talent” might be a better metaphor to describe the ideal creative person, on the grounds that technical demands today are so great that an “I” more accurately represents the depth of expertise that is called for. The I‐shaped person learns by continually drilling deeper into her discipline, while the T learns by connecting ideas from different disciplines (Boynton, 2011). Not to be outdone, Edelman Digital Global Strategy Director, David Armano, coined his own talent metaphor, “Sunshaped Expertise” (Armano, 2007). This is shown in Figure 6.3. Call it what you will, those at the forefront agree that creative people need to be flexible, nimble, and multi‐talented. A drop‐dead designer who can also shoot an amazing product still life. A motion‐graphics maven who can create social posts that engage thousands of followers. A creative jack of all trades, and master of one. Gone are the days when conceptual skills and ideas were enough to build a career in the creative industries. “Just being ‘conceptually’ smart, just being ‘an idea guy’? That doesn’t cut it anymore,” says Luke Sullivan (Cleveland, 2011). Leaders will find this kind of creative person is invaluable when resources are limited, according to one California creative director, “If they choose to manage and nurture these multidiscipline creatives, to leverage them differently on each brief, they can be far more flexible with their staffing plan and more competent in terms of the work they produce on a smaller budget” (Read, 2015). 6.6.2  Where Do You Look? If this is the new talent paradigm, where do you find these nimble “T’s”? The rate of change in education lags the industry. Tech companies have been poaching many of the students coming out of the best creative programs, and

Creative Work Never Ends. Neither Does Creative Leadership

Figure 6.3  The “I” is another visual metaphor illustrating the kind of talent needed for creative work. Source: © David Armano.

luring them with equity and 20% time that few design firms, agencies, and studios can typically offer (Parish, 2008). That’s why the broad, liberal arts graduate is enjoying a renaissance in popularity with business recruiters (Dix, 2017). (English majors!) And why creative industries have to get creative in their talent search. Does that new kid really have to know Dreamweaver and InDesign? Or, is it more important that she has an inquisitive mind, broad interests, and passion for making stuff? It  is much easier to teach a well‐read, brilliant English major than it is to make a myopic coder have broader interests and master soft skills (Anders, 2015). Especially considering the billions of dollars that poor writing and communication skills are estimated to cost businesses (Moore, 2016). When you build a culture of creativity and excitement, word gets around, and the spiral keeps going. Recruiting the crème de la crème gets easier. The chief technology officer at R\GA has attracted developers from technology companies where they’ve become bored working years on one narrow, specific challenge (Parish, 2008). When you’re open to candidates from all backgrounds, and consistently produce great work, you become a magnet for all manner of creative spirits – those who didn’t fit into others’ square holes and just want to create.

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6.6.3  Recruiting the Best Talent Means Relentless Monitoring and Cultivating Step one in creative recruitment is relentlessly monitoring the young’uns coming from the top schools that feed your field. But, beware of myopia with those “feeder schools.” Remember that classic definition of insanity: If you keep doing the same thing and expect the outcome to be different, you are insane. If you keep looking in the same places, you’ll find the same old same old kind of people. Different fresh talent is hiding in different places. If you go beyond the obvious, you’ll find diverse talent in unexpected places. Make time to attend industry events and introduce yourself to newbies. Seek out events that attract people in different creative industries from your own. Follow the trade press, college and university newsletters. Industry awards and publications provide intel on who’s doing what creative work that’s getting attention. But that’s just a small percentage of a much broader pool of promising talent. And, remember, every leader in your field is reading about them. Monitor social media, especially Instagram and Pinterest, where a variety of people showcase their talent. Very often, people with enormous potential haven’t yet had the opportunity to demonstrate it. Dig a little deeper to identify those with little more than great promise. One of the biggest mistakes managers make, a decision that consistently undermines diversity, is to hire on demonstrated results, rather than promise (Hanan, 2016; Saner, 2016). Hire people with potential. In the creative industries, the creative portfolio is often the “coin of the realm.” Unfortunately, in today’s wide‐open internet, you’ll find a lot of people claiming ownership for the same project. (Far more than the number who truly came up with the idea). That’s the hard part, and you don’t want the person that filled in the color inside lines fashioned by the real brain behind it. Make sure to do thorough research on a candidate, and not rely solely on a slick portfolio. Build a reputation with “headhunters.” Recruiters specialize. They spend all day doing all of the above on your behalf. But just recognize that any one person is likely to have unconscious bias and filter candidates accordingly. Stay on top of expectations. Never forget that the turbulence in the creative industries can shift again, calling for a different kind of skill set. Your future needs in staffing will likely be different than they are today. 6.6.4  Beyond Hiring: Worry About Retention You may not think retention is worth worrying about, since lure of the creative industries is legend and the supply of bright young talent seems endless. Beware of that mindset. It is far more expensive to recruit and hire new talent than it is to keep people happy (O’Connell and Mei‐Chuan, 2007). Leaders have a vested interest in finding ways to make people want to stay (Asplund, 2016).

Creative Work Never Ends. Neither Does Creative Leadership

Especially if you could be the reason they leave. Yes, you, the leader. Are you training and mentoring them? According to 360i chairman Bryan Wiener, “The number one reason people leave companies, certainly the number one reason people leave 360i, is not money,” he said. “It’s because they feel that their manager is not looking out for them and where they are going” (Dua, 2015). It’s no secret that there’s a high level of movement in the creative industries … Ever wonder why? Or, even more curious, why certain creative places keep people for way beyond the typical turnover rate? How you make people feel contributes to how creative they are, how much they achieve  –  and whether they are motivated, happy, and fulfilled. Deep down, creative people want one thing more than any other: to create. You’re going to lose them if they are thwarted, or feel that their work isn’t valued. Remember, creative people are driven by intrinsic motivation (Amabile, 1996, 1998; Csikszentmihalyi, 1996), and the creative leader needs to provide the support that makes them feel that they are in a place where they can do their best, where their work has meaning, and ultimately that is inspired when they feel appreciated (Amabile et al., 2004; Amabile and Khaire, 2008; Chatman and Cha, 2003; Shalley and Gilson, 2004). Says veteran creative director Evan Fry: Everyone’s going to get itchy feet here and there, and anyone who’s doing good work is going to get courted. But keeping your culture healthy is huge. You have to understand it’s not just about money as these people are being courted. It’s always about culture. Culture is what retains talent. (Fera, 2013) 6.6.5  Revolving Doors Are Expensive and Unproductive You need to monitor who stays and succeeds. Who leaves? Identify patterns. Is there something in your culture, personality, or work practices that contributes to who succeeds and who doesn’t? Be careful of the natural tendency to view someone from afar with a rosier lens than someone you know, who’s been on your team for a while. Don’t ignore those with their nose to the grindstone in favor of a flashy new person whose greatest asset is newness. Remember, it costs more to recruit and hire new people than it does to retain and develop talent. If they’re good, why would you want them to leave? How do you keep creative talent? By being a great leader. Keep them excited, engaged, and inspired – by providing them with meaningful work. This rule can also be applied to other employees: everyone is more creative when driven by their genuine interests and a hungry mind (Chamorro‐Premuzic, 2013b). Another huge contributor is small triumphs – seeing progress, however small, in their work (Amabile and Kramer, 2011).

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6.6.5.1  Enable Your Staff to Take Your Job

If you’re doing your job right, you will be a role model for your followers. You should also train your subordinates to be leaders, as there is no better heir than one who learned from a master. If you follow David Ogilvy’s best guidance and hire those smarter than yourself, there’s no reason not to. Thanks to a phenomenal training practice that began with Ogilvy’s “Magic Lanterns,” you can find David’s legacy in leadership positions throughout the advertising industry, across the globe. 6.6.6  Prepare to Drive Change, and for Inevitable Disasters You must force yourself to think beyond the day‐to‐day. Think big. THINK. In the twenty‐first century, the hallmark of a leader is change management – and being able to see the big picture surrounding big issues: technology, telework, privacy, the environment. Take technology, for example. Technology gave the creative industries many gifts – from desktop publishing to video games, CAD programs for architects and designers. But each of those has a dark side that leaders must understand, and may choose to wage war against. The compulsion (or mandate) to be “always on” from email to IM to Slack. While these tools certainly aid in project management, they can undermine genuine leadership and face‐to‐face communication. See how many words have been written on perceptions of being overworked and overwhelmed in today’s world. The societal and personal implications wrought by the “gig economy” are another example. Short‐term business needs often demand extra creative minds and hands, so creative industries engage freelancers during busy periods. However, when an increasing number of people are engaged in uneven, precarious employment (and that is indeed the case), the practice has broader implications, for healthcare, the economy, for having children, and more. Change is constant. Understand it. Anticipate it. Embrace it. And be prepared for disaster. Because the more you push to the edge of creativity, the more likely you will be to fail sometimes. So, get comfortable with failure and have a plan in place before it finds you. Your team will be relying on you to bring them through it. Be the leader your younger self would have wanted to have.

6.7 ­Chapter Summary Leadership is mastered via every interaction, every conversation, everything you read, every person you hire and train, every idea you inspire. Day‐to‐day interactions may be the first thing that come to mind with creative leadership, but they’re the least of it. Fundamentally, leadership is about who you are, how

Creative Work Never Ends. Neither Does Creative Leadership

you are – and who you are becoming. Successful creative leaders read voraciously. They commit to continuous self‐improvement and make a habit of reading and reflecting. No leader can do it all alone. Leadership depends on finding followers who share your vision, and who are ideally smarter, and better, than you. Creative leaders play a pivotal role in identifying and training the next generation, in both domain skills and in leadership skills.

6.8 ­Some Great Reads + Resources Check out all the cool things they’re doing in Leipzig: http://www.cbs.mpg.de/departments/social‐neuroscience. For how to refocus your thinking, see Start with Why by Simon Sinek (London: Penguin, 2011). The Purple Cow by Seth Godin (New York: Penguin, 2003) hit the bestseller lists in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week. There’s a reason. You succeed by standing out.

­References Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in Context: Update to the Social Psychology of Creativity. New York: Avalon Publishing. Amabile, T. M. (1998). How to Kill Creativity (Vol. 87). Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing. Amabile, T. M. (2003). Five questions about … How leaders influence creativity. Harvard Management Update, 8(12), 3–3. Amabile, T. M., Schatzel, E. A., Moneta, G. B. and Kramer, S. J. (2004). Leader behaviors and the work environment for creativity: Perceived leader support. The Leadership Quarterly, 15(1), 5–32. Amabile, T. A. and Khaire, M. (2008). Creativity and the Role of the Leader. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing. Amabile, T. M. and Kramer, S. J. (2011). The power of small wins. Harvard Business Review, 89(5), 70–80. Anders, G. (2015). That “useless” liberal arts degree has become tech’s hottest ticket. Forbes.com (website), 29 July. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/ sites/georgeanders/2015/07/29/liberal‐arts‐degree‐tech. Armano, D. (2007). T‐shaped and sun‐shaped people. Logic + Emotion. 12 April. http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2007/04/tshaped_sun_sha.html. Asplund, K. (2016). Are the creative industries at risk of losing new talent? Retrieved from www.creativereview.co.uk/ why‐the‐creative‐industries‐might‐need‐to‐shape‐up‐their‐treatment‐of‐ new‐talent.

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Boynton, A. (2011). Are you an “I” or a “T”? Forbes.com (website), 18 October. Retrieved 29 August 2017 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ andyboynton/2011/10/18/are‐you‐an‐i‐or‐a‐t/#2e057bc86e88. Brown, T. (2005). Strategy by design. Fast Company (website), 1 June. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/52795/strategy‐design. Chamorro‐Premuzic, T. (2013a). Embrace work–life imbalance. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 12 February, 2–4. Chamorro‐Premuzic, T. (2013b). Seven rules for managing creative‐but‐difficult people. Harvard Business Review (website), 2 April. Retrieved from https://hbr. org/2013/04/seven‐rules‐for‐managing‐creat. Chatman, J. A. and Cha, S. E. (2003). Leading by leveraging culture. California Management Review, 45(4), 20–34. Clayton, H. (2012). The changing leadership landscape. Strategic HR Review, 11(2), 78–83. Cleveland, B. (2011). Luke Sullivan on the art of obsession. AdAge (website), 5 July. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/small‐agency‐diary/ luke‐sullivan‐art‐obsession/228547. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). The creative personality. Psychology Today, 29(4), 36–40. Cunningham, L. (2015). Guidance for the negative thinker in all of us. Washington Post (website), 20 August. Retrieved from https://www. washingtonpost.com/news/on‐leadership/wp/2015/08/20/ brene‐browns‐guidance‐for‐the‐negative‐thinker‐in‐all‐of‐us. Dass, R. (1978). Be Here Now. New York: Lama Foundation. Dix, W. (2017). A liberal arts degree is more important than ever. Forbes.com (website), 16 November. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ willarddix/2016/11/16/a‐liberal‐arts‐degree‐is‐more‐important‐than‐ever. Dua, T. (2015). 360i Chairman Bryan Wiener on the agency training crisis. Digiday (website), 27 October. Retrieved from https://digiday.com/ marketing/360i‐bryan‐wiener‐training. Fera, R. A. (2013). 10 tips for managing creative people. Fast Company (website), 17 September. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany. com/2683221/10‐tips‐for‐managing‐creative‐people. Gerzema, J. and D’Antonio, M. (2013). The Athena Doctrine: How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Gill, A. S., Flaschner, A. B., and Shachar, M. (2006). Mitigating stress and burnout by implementing transformational‐leadership. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 18(6), 469–481. Godin, S. (2003). Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. London: Penguin. Goleman, D. (2017). Powering the circuits of emotional intelligence. LinkedIn (website), 24 July. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ powering‐circuits‐emotional‐intelligence‐daniel‐goleman. Hanan, A. (2016). Five ways to get more female creatives to the top in advertising. Creative Review (website), 8 March. Retrieved from https://www.

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creativereview.co.uk/cr‐blog/2016/march/ five‐ways‐on‐how‐to‐get‐more‐female‐creatives‐to‐the‐top‐in‐advertising. Kitchenham, A. (2008). The evolution of John Mezirow’s transformative learning theory. Journal of Transformative Education, 6(2), 104–123. Malbon, B. (2010). Are you ready to form Voltron? On the value of “T‐shaped” people. BBH Labs (Blog), 9 June. Retrieved from http://bbh‐labs.com/ are‐you‐ready‐to‐form‐voltron‐on‐the‐value‐of‐t‐shaped‐people. Mallia, K. L. and Windels, K. (2011). Will changing media change the world? An exploratory investigation of the impact of digital advertising on opportunities for creative women. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 11(2), 30–44. Manske, M. E. and Davis, G. A. (1968). Effects of simple instructional biases upon performance in the unusual uses test. The Journal of General Psychology, 79(1), 25–33. Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative learning: Theory to practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 1997(74), 5–12. Moon, J. A. (2013). Reflection in Learning and Professional Development: Theory and Practice. Oxford: Routledge. Moore, K. (2016). Study: Poor writing skills are costing businesses billions. Inc.com (website), 31 March. Retrieved 28 August 2017 from https://www.inc.com/ kaleigh‐moore/study‐poor‐writing‐skills‐are‐costing‐businesses‐billions.html. Nudd, T. (2012). How Nike+ made “Just Do It” obsolete. AdWeek (website), 20 June. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/brand‐marketing/ how‐nike‐made‐just‐do‐it‐obsolete‐141252. O’Connell, M. and Mei‐Chuan, K. (2007). The cost of employee turnover. Industrial Management, 49(1), 14–19. Parish, N. (2008). Recruiting: The next generation. AdAge (website), 1 July. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/feature/recruiting‐generation/ 128061. Parrish, S. (2013). The Warren Buffett formula: How you can get smarter. The Week (website), 6 September. Retrieved from http://theweek.com/ articles/460783/warren‐buffett‐formula‐how‐smarter. Read, D. (2015). How to master jack of all trades creative talent. CampaignLive (website), 22 July. Retrieved from http://www.campaignlive.com/article/ master‐jack‐trades‐creative‐talent/1356968. Rose, M.R. (1998). An integrative of job stress, situational moderators and group‐level patterns within the leader–member exchange model of leadership. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B 58.11. Saner, E. (2016). Cindy Gallop: Advertising is dominated by white guys talking to white guys. The Guardian (website), 26 June. Retrieved from http://www. theguardian.com/media/2016/jun/26/ cindy‐gallup‐advertising‐white‐men‐sex‐tapes. Savitz, E. (2012). Jack Dorsey: Leadership secrets Of Twitter and Square. Forbes. com (website), 17 October. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ ericsavitz/2012/10/17/jack‐dorsey‐the‐leadership‐secrets‐of‐twitter‐and‐square.

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Scudamore, B. (2016). Why successful people spend 10 hours a week just thinking. Inc.com (website), 7 April. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/ empact/why‐successful‐people‐spend‐10‐hours‐a‐week‐just‐thinking.html. Seibert, S. E., Sargent, L. D., Kraimer, M. L., and Kiazad, K. (2017). Linking developmental experiences to leader effectiveness and promotability: The mediating role of leadership self‐efficacy and mentor network. Personnel Psychology, 70(2), 357–397. Shalley, C. E. and Gilson, L. L. (2004). What leaders need to know: A review of social and contextual factors that can foster or hinder creativity. The Leadership Quarterly, 15(1), 33–53. Sosik, J. J. and Godshalk, V. M. (2005). Examining gender similarity and mentor’s supervisory status in mentoring relationships. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 13(1), 39–52. Speller, K. G. and Schumacher, G. M. (1975). Age and set in creative test performance. Psychological Reports, 36(2), 447–450. Sullivan, L. (2003). Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Taube, A. (2014). 15 awesome quotes about creativity from advertising legends. Business Insider (website), 20 May. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider. com/15‐quotes‐about‐creativity‐2014‐5. Thaler, L. K. and Koval, R. (2006). The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness. New York: Crown Publishing Group. Weiner, J. (2013). The importance of scheduling nothing. LinkedIn (website), 3 April. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/ pulse/20130403215758‐22330283‐the‐importance‐of‐scheduling‐nothing. Weller, C. (2017). Why CEO writes 7,400 employee birthday cards a year. Business Insider (website), 19 June. Retrieved 2 August 2017 from http://www. businessinsider.com/ ceo‐writes‐7400‐employee‐birthday‐cards‐each‐year‐2017‐6. Windels, K. and Stuhlfaut, M. (2017). New advertising agency roles in the ever expanding media landscape. Unpublished conference paper. Zanger, D. (2017). Saturday Morning leaders on being a great creative. The Drum (website), 27 June. Retrieved from http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/06/27/ saturday‐morning‐leaders‐being‐great‐creative.

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7 Leadership and the Environment for Creativity The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it’s to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they’re valued. Ken Robinson You’re probably too young to have seen the 1980 movie Nine to Five, so order it now. You need to see it. The screenplay by Patricia Resnick and Colin Higgins comes to life with Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, and Dolly Parton. The three women stage a workplace coup, hold their autocratic boss (Dabney Coleman) hostage, and reimagine every aspect of the office environment. The film is comic genius. But also quite telling. The “before” environment shows you the kind of atmosphere that can kill every inch of creativity and autonomy in your staff. Nearly 40 years later, many offices still (unfortunately) look exactly like that set’s expansive sea of gray cubicles. And despite all the evidence that argues against that kind of environment and leadership practices, you can still see signs of them in some creative industries. At least one advertising agency actually has a time‐card machine for employees to punch in and out. (Needless to say, you don’t often see those folks at Cannes.) It’s important to recognize that building an environment for creativity isn’t simply about interior design, or physical attributes of the space (although those do play a part in the process). An environment for creativity involves the entire context, the whole ether of an enterprise – its mission and culture and unwritten codes, its ways of working, values of the organization, the personalities and values of its leaders, as well as the relationships among and between all its players – those inside the group or agency as well as those shared in the larger domain we discussed in Chapter  1. Just as a toxic environment surrounded those who worked in Nine to Five, thanks to the “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” at the helm, an environment for creativity is built and sustained –  or changed – by the leader.

Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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In this chapter you will learn: ●● ●● ●● ●●

What factors contribute to the context for creativity The leader’s impact on context and culture How cultural and organizational codes affect creativity The relationship between physical environment and creativity

7.1 ­Context Is Created Before Anything Else Is Think for a minute about the penultimate hotbeds of innovation you have heard of – the organizations often held up as examples of “the best” in their respective creative field. Inevitably, they are intertwined with a strong creative leader. Apple, Steve Jobs. DDB, Bill Bernbach. Pixar, John Lasseter. Branding, Walter Landor. Each enterprise was begun and built on the creative vision, talent, personality, and values of a single leader. So it’s pretty easy to see how the company embodied all that. But as a creative business grows, as leadership inspires followship, an individual personality transforms into an organizational culture. Even creative organizations that don’t have a singular individual from whom to pattern take on the values and codes that their leaders define. Ideally ­environment is viewed holistically and built by design. If it isn’t, it still forms from every little business decision compounding and building a default environment. Neither creativity nor leadership take place in a vacuum. Context is one of the key factors for creativity that is with a leader’s control. And, as we have learned, the context for creativity is central to both individual and organizational creativity. So control it. Make context conform to your vision. Context affects productivity, motivation, morale, hiring, retention  –  all of which combine to make a big pool of agar that creativity swims in and grows in. An organizational culture is a living, breathing organism, and it is a key contributor to the quality of creative work. The creative leader’s most important job is getting it going, putting the right material into that petri dish. And keeping it growing and growing and growing – no matter what else transpires that might interfere with its thriving. Amabile’s componential model of creativity (1983, 1996, 1998, 2012) is one of the most influential and widely cited theories of individual and organizational creativity. It says that four components are necessary for creativity to occur. Three components of creativity lie within the individual – domain‐relevant skills (expertise in the field), creative skills (the cognitive and personality processes conducive to novel thinking), and intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is desire to engage in an activity because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable or personally challenging. The fourth is the surrounding environment in which the individual is working, in particular the social environment.

Leadership and the Environment for Creativity

Creativity and innovation occur at the sweet spot where all these influences intersect. Breakthrough work occurs when every component is the best it can be: when a person with great expertise in her field, a high level of creative thinking skills, and great passion for her task works in an environment that exhibits all the elements known to support creativity. Clearly, leaders control the social, cultural, and physical environment of a creative enterprise: It is the focus of this chapter. But it’s important to recognize that the leader can also contribute to factors inside staffers as well. For example, when a leader facilitates ongoing training for creative people, he/she influences their domain mastery. When leaders themselves understand the cognitive and personality traits that contribute to creativity they can structure the characteristics of the job to be most beneficial. But of all the individual components of creativity, the leader exerts the most control – and can make the biggest difference – in spurring intrinsic motivation (Amabile, 1998). Never forget that there is a huge distinction between people having creative ability and demonstrating that creativity. The prosperity – and survival – of a creative organization is built on the creativity of every individual in it. 7.1.1  A Good Environment Isn’t a Perk. It’s a Requirement for Creativity Step into a creative business and you don’t just see evidence of what kind of work they do. All your senses receive input and begin unraveling a story of what this place is like. In a digital agency or gaming company, you’ll see multiple images moving on multiple screens. You’ll hear a soundtrack. Get past the reception desk, and the buzz grows louder. At many creative firms today you’ll see wide open spaces, young people in headphones facing big Mac screens, elbow to elbow, maybe at long communal tables or clustered in hives. There are small rooms around the perimeter or inside the open space, and small groups are gathered, conversing, working together away from the fray. You’ll see people moving quickly. You don’t just sense the pace; you begin to feel the drumbeat of the deadlines viscerally. To a certain point, tension in the act of creation is invigorating, inspiring – a rush that’s contagious. You’ll see many other things you won’t find on Wall Street or in the average suburban office park: espresso machines, foosball tables, electronic drums, video games, et cetera. Those are there for more than esthetic reasons. They help foster creativity, and play an integral role in ideation. As you remember from Chapter 3, generating great creative ideas requires mental downtime. After a period of time actively engaged in research and reading, ideating and concepting, the mind needs some diversion and downtime to let things percolate in the subconscious – to allow new connections to combine in unheard of ways.

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7.1.2  Leaders Create Context, Culture, and the Environment for Creativity Leaders create context in an organization. That context derives from a host of factors: characteristics of the job, the work setting, and the relationships among and between coworkers and leaders (Shalley et al., 2004). Every leader decision, every leader behavior, every aspect of when, where, why, and how the work gets done, all comprise those factors. Be careful before you dismiss culture as nothing more than a touchy‐feely experiential kind of construct. It is not only critical to fostering creativity in an organization, but increasingly responsible for business success or failure. Research indicates that culture has taken the lead as the primary driver of long‐ term business relationships. Or, in the words of gyro CEO Christoph Becker, “Business decision makers want to know if your company has a soul.” Leaders create the culture of an organization. Organizational culture is the “shared basic assumptions, values, and beliefs that characterize a setting and are taught to newcomers as the proper way to think and feel” (Schneider et al., 2013, p. 362). Culture is communicated through the myths and stories people tell about how the organization came to be, how it is distinct from others, and how it guides life in an organization. Organizational climate is how the place feels. Organizational climate is defined as “the meanings people attach to interrelated bundles of experiences they have at work” (Schneider et al., 2013). So building an environment for creativity isn’t just about leader behavior or office space or work practices. It’s about all of those. The leader produces a creative climate by orchestrating every element of what, when, where, and how creative work gets done, by whom, creating a perfect synergy among and between all those moving parts. Think again about the work space where creative people have time to step away from their task and chill for a bit. It takes more than toys to permit that. It takes a leader who understands that such interludes aren’t “goofing off ” but part and parcel of creating. It also takes a leader who assures that staffers have deadlines that allow for that ebb and flow. Otherwise, you’ll have to lower your expectations and settle for creative work that’s good enough. Sometimes the leader gets right in to the proverbial trench and slogs shoulder to shoulder with her team. Or, to use John Maeda’s analogy, the leader plays along with the jazz ensemble. In some organizations, that can work. In other creative occupations, having a leader working with subordinates can have a negative impact on morale and motivation. When creative people feel threatened by a leader competing against them on the same project, especially when only one team can “win,” their motivation can be undermined, having a debilitating affect their ability to be creative – not just on the current assignment, but the next one and the next.

Leadership and the Environment for Creativity

Leaders who feel the need to keep their hands in the creative work – yet want to encourage ideal conditions for creativity – must consider their role in the work carefully. Should it be a direct role in the project? Or just facilitating the work of individuals or teams? The “right” answer to the dilemma will be subjective – and depend on a host of factors, the codes of the organization, and the individuals involved, among others. With apologies to John Maeda and his preference for jazz‐inspired leadership, most people use the orchestra conductor metaphor for the work of a creative leader. For while musicians play their instruments, the conductor leader contributes to making brilliant music by “playing” the orchestra itself.

7.2 ­How the Leader Builds Culture and Climate: Inspiration, Motivation, Implementation If you look at case studies or research on creative “All Stars,” you’ll notice that while they are all highly successful and all do a level of work envied by their peers, they got to the pinnacle in different ways. The most creative organizations, however, do tend to share one commonality that is much bigger than best practices or any nuts and bolts. They all began with a philosophy that values creativity and innovation, simply and clearly articulates and defines who they are and what they stand for, and creates an internal climate where talent and ideas circulate freely. Everything else about leadership flows from that. The role of a creative leader can be summed up in three words: inspiration, motivation, and implementation. These come from the leader characteristics and behaviors discussed in Chapter  2, as well as the way a leader lays the groundwork for an environment where people feel they can do their best work  –  and where they actually can. Look at Figure 7.1 and see where the leader’s job fits into the creative process. 7.2.1 Inspiration Of course, leading for creativity starts with a vision. No need to beat that to death. You already know how critical that is. Be positive. Be optimistic. Make that your modus operandi for life and your approach to work. (Especially if it doesn’t come naturally.) Throughout history, you are unlikely to find an inspirational leader who made a huge difference in her organization who isn’t considered “optimistic” (Avolio et al., 2004). Behavior that encourages innovation and open communication inspires creativity.

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THE THREE COMPONENTS OF CREATIVITY

Expertise

Creativity

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ade

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Motivation

Creativethinking skills

Figure 7.1  Amabile’s components of creativity – and where the leader and environment connect.

7.2.2 Motivation First, leaders inspire. Their personal force and vision compel followers to them. Then, in creative industries, leaders need to activate creative people to do what needs to be done. Be wary about how you approach that leadership task. If you recall, creatives are clever, independent, and entrepreneurial. Creative people are intrinsically motivated, so the usual carrots and sticks and Pavlovian techniques won’t do much good. Just try to be controlling with creative people, or dangle rewards in a way that makes them feel you’re dictating to them or attempting to bribe them. No way. It doesn’t work. And boom! It’s likely to backfire, undermine what you’re trying to accomplish, and end up de‐motivating your team. So how do you motivate creative people? Research shows that certain types of rewards can be effective, notably rewards that confirm their competence, such as recognition of the value of their work (Amabile, 2012). What human being doesn’t want a token of appreciation? That is especially true for creative personalities. For all the bravado they may demonstrate, as perfectionists they often doubt the caliber of their talent  –  especially in highly competitive arenas where you’re only as good as your last ____. (You can fill in the blank for any number of creative works: design, screenplay, ad, fall line, et cetera.) The other types of rewards that will motivate creatives are those that allow them to get more deeply involved in work they love, like giving them additional resources. This is called motivational synergy (Amabile, 1993).

Leadership and the Environment for Creativity

Creative people are moved by challenges. So provide them. Make sure the work itself is challenging and motivating. Present them with problems to solve. Know that they are driven more by enjoyment and passion than money, praise, pressures, or rewards (Amabile, 1996), and lead accordingly. The most important thing to remember is that if you provide the right environment, one where creative people feel valued and are surrounded by the conditions that enable them – generating a climate where they feel they can do their best work – their motivation swells from within. 7.2.3 Implementation Leaders at the top play a critical role in creativity, because “turning ideas into commercial reality requires persistence and discipline, and overall effectiveness ultimately depends on top management being able to find the right balance between corporate creativity and efficiency” (Leavy, 2005, p. 38). In a creative industry, that yin and yang is inherent in every leader decision that gets made every single day, from top to bottom. The values, norms, and beliefs that play a role in creativity and innovation can either support or inhibit creativity and innovation depending on how they influence individual and group behavior (Martins and Terblanche, 2003).

7.3 ­Culture Building Basics: Start with a Philosophy Everything that leaders do matters – and contributes to the organizational culture. So does what leaders don’t do. So it almost goes without saying that all leaders must be culturally competent, if they are to be the builders and guardians of organizational culture. Before you build a creative climate, it helps to articulate a philosophy. Otherwise, it would be like trying to build a house without blueprints. (Not a good idea.) Research and case studies on recognized innovators like 3M, IDEO, and P&G’s recent revitalization effort shows that these companies share at least four common factors that contribute mightily to their creativity and innovation: 1) Placing of people and ideas at the heart of the management philosophy. 2) Giving people room to grow, to try things, and learn from their mistakes. 3) Building a strong sense of openness, trust, and community across the organization. 4) Facilitating the internal mobility of talent. (Leavy, 2005)

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You’d be hard‐pressed to find a creative powerhouse that doesn’t exhibit those best practices. Wieden+Kennedy underscores the validity of these factors in the advertising industry. The agency coined “Fail Harder,” to encourage risk‐taking and foster a climate that breeds award‐winning creative ideas, celebrates openness and community, and enjoys fierce loyalty among employees. Build a culture that encourages risk‐taking. It could be the most important decision you make, as permission to fail is one of the most powerful motivators for creativity. Keep reminding creative people that failure is not an end, but an inevitable step toward genuine creativity. Keep reminding yourself that, too. FYI 7.1  How Can Leaders Encourage Creative Risk Taking? by Kasey F. Windels Creativity is the production of ideas that are both novel and appropriate (Amabile, 1997). That expectation of novelty, of an idea being different from what has been done before, means creative ideas necessarily involve risk and uncertainty of outcomes (El Murad and West, 2003). Managers develop an orientation toward risk, or an “acceptable risk” level, which influences and is influenced by organizational norms (de Tienne and Mallette, 2012; Zaheer, 2000). Research has shown a strong correlation between managers who encourage risk‐taking behaviors and organizations with strong reputations for creativity (Windels and Stuhlfaut, 2013). Managers can take several important steps to encourage creative risk taking. First, having a clear and identifiable creative philosophy or creative identity encourages risk taking. Research has shown that having a well‐defined creative code – that is a clear sense of what does and does not represent creative excellence within the organization  –  increases creativity (Stuhlfaut andWindels, 2012). A well‐defined creative code does so by acting as a foil against which creatives can push for new ideas. Second, employees notice whether organizational leaders truly desire groundbreaking ideas, and they act accordingly. Managers can demonstrate the desire for risky creative work by applauding people when they come up with new ideas, but also by noting when work is too expected or derivative; by moving groundbreaking ideas forward to client review; by working to sell novel, risky work to clients; by supporting teams who bring forward creative ideas, even when they fail; by seeking out clients who are willing to take risks; and by fostering trust in client relationships (Windels and Stuhlfaut, 2013). When employees do take creative risks, the behavioral consequences for those actions influence their subsequent willingness to take risks (Dewett, 2004), so managers should praise even those risky creative ideas that ultimately fail.

Leadership and the Environment for Creativity

What are the first steps for leaders? Assess your organization’s creative identity or philosophy to determine whether strongly shared creative values exist. Managers of organizations with a weak or undefined creative identity should seek clarity and a point of view about what represents creative excellence for their organization. Once a definition has been established, it can be communicated by recognizing and rewarding work that exemplifies creative excellence and by showcasing exceptional creative work in lobbies or internal award shows. Managers can also articulate the values of creative excellence in the organization and more actively communicate why certain ideas were approved while others were not. Finally, managers can hire new employees whose work is similar to the organization’s representation of creative excellence, and can further encourage new employees to look to recent work produced by the organization to further develop their sense of what represents creative excellence (Windels and Stuhlfaut, 2013). Kasey F. Windels, PhD, is an associate professor of digital advertising at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on the organizational and environmental influences on creativity, and the underrepresentation of women in advertising.

7.3.1  Practice What You Preach Building a creative culture is leadership in action. With one strong leader, like a founder, it is easy to orchestrate. As organizations grow and time passes, several people often share leadership, so it becomes essential that they are all on the same page. So, after you articulate a culture, internalize it. Live it. And don’t let actions that deviate from it continue. Don’t tolerate a prima donna if you believe creativity must be collaborative. The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate. (Gruenert and Whitaker, 2015, p. 36) Culture building is conscious and unconscious. We discussed the importance of modeling the behaviors you want to encourage in Chapter 5. Culture isn’t always at the top of one’s mind when the deadline clock is ticking, or a crisis hits. But it needs to be. Leaders do much of their culture building in the worst of times. So heed the advice on how to handle that in FYI 7.2.

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FYI 7.2  Creative Leadership on Deadline: Lessons from the Newspaper Design Desk by Matt Haught Sometimes creative work has to happen in minutes, not days. For several years I worked at a newspaper that published on the afternoon cycle; we got to work at 5 or 6 in the morning and had the entire paper designed by 9:30 a.m. Our market was small, but very competitive, with a morning newspaper and two weekly newspapers, and TV and radio stations vying for breaking news in our city, which was the state capital. Our tagline for several years was “Local. Different. Today’s news today.” Living up to that motto, though, meant a lot of creative challenges. We were a team of seven. We usually had about 40 pages of newspaper to fill, and about 10 pages needed heavy creative/design work, some with concept art, some with graphics, some with photos, and of course breaking news. Living up to our motto, we primarily used locally written stories for our paper, printing only a few from wire services. And we had to have a different approach than our peers. Faced with these goals, our creatives sought to maximize efficiency and empower good people to do good work. Here are a few lessons I learned from our creative‐collaborative process. 1)  The power of We. In no reality does collaborative creativity work without ­collaborators. Trust your team. Know one another’s strengths and challenges. Communicate. Bond. Trust. Connect. Creative work goes beyond one’s skills; it takes personality. Knowing the experiences and personalities of other team members lets you delegate better. 2)  Adjust for chaos. Murphy’s Law is real. Some days, chaos happens and you can’t avoid it. The good creative collaborative accepts this reality and works to compartmentalize the drama. When you act as a team, one or two members can fill the void if someone is struggling. 3)  Plan ahead. Sometimes, good creative can come in a box, like a cake mix. We had several pre‐packaged elements we used every day. And we had one called “End of World” that was the ready‐to‐go template for major, world‐changing news. I used it once on a morning deadline when we had a chemical factory explode following Barack Obama’s acceptance of the Democratic nomination for president, and the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s presidential running mate on the Republican side. With all that breaking news, having something ready‐made to suit my needs made my creative task possible. 4)  Live and let live. Realize that not everyone on your team works like you, or solves problems like you do, but their solution works, too. The former owner of our newspaper donated money to install a multi‐colored LED light display on one of the bridges in the city. The city turned it on at 5 a.m., perfect for our deadline. Our photographer got some photos of the bridge lit in each color

Leadership and the Environment for Creativity

of its rotation, and the front‐page designer decided to run them all stacked vertically to show each color on the bridge. I watched from my desk, plotting how I would do the layout differently. Ultimately, her idea worked, and I had my own layouts to do. Being in that creative‐collaborative situation, I had to trust others to execute their creative visions, just as they trusted me to do my own. It can be difficult, especially with big‐egoed creatives (guilty!), but this teamwork approach requires trust and cooperation. 5)  Know the limits. Not every creative is good at the same things. While some of us were designing pages, others were writing headlines, designing interactive web content, building photo galleries, editing videos, and managing social media accounts. Different people on the team have skills in different areas. The beauty of creative collaboration means that people can play to their strengths, and members of the team can defer to teammate expertise and skills. Managers need to know how to delegate responsibility to members of the team to maximize productivity and usefulness. Managers of the creative collaborators need to be able to see beyond talents, passions, and connections. They need to be able to see collaborators for their best abilities and put them where they can make the greatest impact. Only to an extent is a collaboration like this a system of interchangeable parts. Teams do have some redundancy, but individual team members rarely have the same skills and passion for different aspects of creative work. One last word of caution: Managers need to understand creatives and creative work. But, the manager of creatives does not necessarily need to be the most creative person on the team. My team leader was one of the least creative people in our department. Her superlative skill: chaos management. Matthew J. Haught, PhD, is an assistant professor of creative mass media at the University of Memphis.

7.3.2  How to Generate the Right Climate for Creativity Number 1 through 10: 1)  Communicate 2)  Communicate 3)  Communicate 4)  Communicate 5)  Communicate 6)  Communicate 7)  Communicate 8)  Communicate 9)  Communicate 10)  Communicate

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You get the idea, because you read Chapter  2. So, communicate well, and often. First, communicate your vision and the organization’s. In creative work, everyone needs to know that the organization stands for. Be clear. Are you going to be the hot, brash design firm that will do anything to create work that gets talked about – good or bad? Are you the venerable advertising agency that has long‐ standing relationships between top brass and clients  –  and would rather get another team to do another campaign than arm wrestle a client to sell work? Articulate where you want to go as well as how you want to get there, your values. Second, communicate an openness to people and ideas. Actively encourage knowledge sharing among all stakeholders  –  everyone involved, inside and outside the organization. Recognize that good ideas can come from anywhere. Welcome ideas from everyone. Including the doorman. Be open, and you create an atmosphere where everyone becomes a participant to the creativity work. The organization will be better and the work will be better. And you will start building an atmosphere where people feel engaged in decisions and feel valued. That openness should extend beyond the work, to everything that goes on in an organization. Walk the halls and talk to people. Ask questions. You’ll be surprised what you learn if you capture ideas from all avenues. Once you communicate your openness to people, implement their ideas. Make sure you have the mechanisms in place to bring them to fruition. Nothing will sour people like being ignored, or feeling used. If all your decisions are safe, it will be rather difficult for anyone to believe your vision of creativity. If your decisions become predictable, they’re following a pattern and ipso facto, not novel or innovative. Third, make sure you’re communicating what you intend to communicate. Self‐monitor regularly. Solicit feedback. And enlist a peer who is brutally honest to let you know if you’re not being clear or fair. Fourth, communicate honesty. That builds trust, and creative leaders have to have it. Creative people are keenly intelligent and intuitive. So what works for politicians won’t fly in creative industries. Tell the truth or you will be outed in short order  –  by your actions, if not your words. Be disingenuous, and you effectively kill trust among your team. There are likely occupations where that could be tolerated; perhaps it wouldn’t be fatal. Not in the creative industries. Here, a climate of trust isn’t just an ethical imperative, but a business imperative for creativity. Creative people must feel at ease to be open – and must be open in order to be creative and do their jobs. The creative mind cannot work when it lives amidst mistrust, uneasiness, or suspicion. On the other hand, be honest and give creative people what they want and need, and they will lay down their lives for you. Building a climate for creativity is simple if you’re honest and transparent.

Leadership and the Environment for Creativity

Fifth, communicate empathy. More and more research underscores the value of emotional intelligence in leadership. Once again, in a creative occupation its importance is elevated. The way you speak to people when critiquing their work is crucial. It is important to do so professionally, and kindly. Michael Scott at Dunder‐Mifflin may have made in The Office entertaining television, but he would crush creativity. Contrary to prevailing myth, there’s no place for the cruel jerk in creative leadership (you know the “a” word). If you want to lead for creativity, the research concerning what works best rests on the diametric opposite side. Harsh criticism is a confirmed killer of creativity. Remember that what you don’t say communicates, too. Your silence on an issue sends a message, and depending on the circumstances, that can be as clear as words might have been, or ambiguous. Avoidance sends a message, too. When the office is buzzing with rumors of a merger or potential layoffs, you’re in a delicate situation – because sometimes saying nothing at all reinforces the grapevine. The tenor of your every communication conveys meaning as well. An abrupt tone “speaks” more than any words it carries. Be wary of hurried, harried texts – they often come off as authoritarian and brusque. Sixth, communicate your commitment to creativity with actions as well as words. The context for creativity is comprised of the characteristics of the job, the nature of the work itself, organizational policies, workplace culture, and unwritten codes (Shalley et al., 2004). All of those are the bailiwick of the leader and communicated, either by design or by default. The former is preferable. A leader’s commitment to creativity is stated in how she articulates goals. In project timetables. If the leader works efficiently, and leaves on time (more or less) that communicates something about the workplace culture and what is expected of everyone there. On the other hand, among the creative industries there are numerous places where 80‐hour weeks are not uncommon, such as RGA and other firms that wear a high level of work “intensity” as a badge of honor. Their creativity and innovation in digital media work is widely recognized. It would seem that these places defy all the research that tells us that that kind of unrelenting work is unsustainable and counterproductive for creativity. Generally, a certain amount of adrenaline and pushing in the zone has a positive effect for individual creativity, up to a point. But past that, research shows that stressors like that have a negative effect on creativity. So what’s going on here??? In all likelihood, team members are effectively functioning like runners in a relay race, one picking up when the other’s creativity is beginning to wane. They are also not engaged in creative work 100% of the time they are putting in those long hours, as many are devoted to implementation and production tasks rather than ideating. On an individual level that is a recipe for burnout. Many organizations function on the “churn and burn” of legions of young creative people who can sustain that pace for a couple years in order to build a portfolio and a

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reputation, in order to make a career jump up and out. Some rare anomalies aside, creative minds require regular “feeding” of culture and interesting diversions in order to have raw material to work with and to do their best, and 80‐ or 90‐hour weeks just don’t allow for that (and a reasonable amount of sleep – also needed for optimal creativity. Seventh, communicate expectations. Clearly. What do you want, when, and on what terms? Don’t be that worst type of creative director who cannot articulate a focused brief and clear parameters for a project. That spins the wheels of people who will only become frustrated when they deliver what they think you asked for – only to discover you didn’t really know what you wanted until they presented their concepts. Eighth, work practices communicate your values. Is telework allowed – or is everyone chained to their office desk? While telework is lauded in many industries, when she took over as CEO, Marissa Meyer made every Yahoo employee show up at the office based on the rationale that proximity breeds ideas. Whether that is fact or fiction is really irrelevant for this discussion. What’s important is that she articulated that she valued teamwork and collaboration above individual freedom to opt out of commuting to the office. (We’ll delve deeply into the pros and cons of flexible work elsewhere in this book, as there are strong arguments and complex issues involved.) Are creatives entirely autonomous while they’re working on an assignment as long as they get the work done on time? Or do project managers (or worse, you) constantly check in and pester creative people for frequent status updates? Know that creative people highly value autonomy and some degree of autonomy is important to facilitate their creativity. Providing it is an essential way of demonstrating that you value the creative process and your creative people – and trust them. Do you value outcome over process? There are many agencies and firms with mantras like, “It’s all about the work.” If you value the caliber of the work above all else, you’re free to step on toes, push noses out of joint, pit teams against one another and engage in dysfunctional leader behaviors that do not contribute to a climate of creativity. However, if you value each individual, then he or she should be at the forefront in all decision making. Both empirical research and the exemplary leadership of SAS demonstrate that valuing individuals first contributes to a climate of greater creativity and in turn, great success. When you get right down to it, “innovation depends on ideas, and the primary source of ideas is talented individuals” (Leavy, 2005, p. 40). If you really want to help nurture great ideas, discourage people from multi‐tasking, because it interferes with creativity and concentration. Ninth, you communicate the nature of working relationships. Leader behaviors spell out the hierarchy of a creative organization. Are there many internal levels of approval? (Of course, that is not ideal in leading for creativity.) The leader sets the tenor for relationships with subordinates through factors such

Leadership and the Environment for Creativity

as mutual trust, how much autonomy people enjoy in their work, and in how teams are formed and function. Every new hire you bring in carries their previous work style and work culture with them (unless they’re just out college), so that impacts peer‐to‐peer relationships  –  whether they are similar and assimilate smoothly or create friction from differences. Discourage office politicking, gamesmanship, and favoritism. Those are toxic for creativity. Leaders control work processes, and relationships in turn. Do you impose tight deadlines, and excessive pressure along with it? Do you fight on behalf of your subordinates – in order to protect them? Are you flexible? How do you team people? In dyads, larger project groups? Larger, more diverse groups are associated with greater collaboration and creativity. What kind of creative work process is ideal for the kind of creative work your organization does? Since the universal dissemination of digital media, more and more creative firms are adopting the “agile” process for digital development from the tech world, rather than the traditional “waterfall” work process. Agile describes an iterative way of work that includes a larger team comprised of more disciplines, typically including visual design, copy, UX architects, developers, IT (backend), analytics, content creators, project management, and creative directors all brainstorming together. The waterfall process is just as it sounds, where work goes in a continuous stream from creative, then to production, step by step to completion, without circling back. There are aficionados of each, and a continuum of hybrid processes in between. The process you use will create a cascading effect through other aspects of organizational culture and climate. Work practices can also have unintended consequences. Take the film and television industries for example. Scholars have found that individualistic and competitive structures of the new economy have gendered consequences, and are inherently biased toward men. The great proportion of the work involves freelancing, a practice that further exacerbates gender bias in favoring men (Wing‐Fai et al., 2015). Tenth, leader behavior communicates culture. If you want to develop a hotbed of creativity, you need to actively encourage new ideas and new ways of thinking. When top management supports a clear creative vision and climate of innovation, the environment is that ideal agar. One of the most important aspects of a creative climate is found in its level of risk tolerance. A leader needs to encourage risk taking – since real creativity can only come when a leap is taken. If you’re not pushing yourself and your team, if you’re willing to accept the status quo, you’ll destroy organizational creativity. To lead for creativity, you must let everyone know that failure is inevitable when you aim for the stars, that the most talented people had some hideous flops, and that even Michael Jordan missed his share of free throws. Leaders are humans, and all humans have biases  –  both conscious and unconscious. Biases are inevitable, and great creative leaders are mindful of the

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serious work it takes to overcome them. Gender bias comes up in stereotypes that presume men know more about beer. A bias toward a certain type of humor can prevent a creative leader from seeing the value in a storyboard that is dramatic or poignant. Leaders can have bias toward (or against) a certain archetypal style or visual framework or color. Leaders need to make a concerted effort to hear everyone, especially the introverts who may be reluctant to speak up – and whose ideas may be drowned out by more extroverted peers. In order to avoid homogeneous or derivative work, it takes vigilance on the part of a leader to step away from familiar terrain, and consciously choose to be open to alternative ways of seeing and being. You should have noticed by now that all of the above leader behaviors involve communication, from inspiration to motivation and implementation. Most companies have mission statements. You’ll find them on the home page of any organization’s website. But they are little more than empty words, unless leaders embody the culture of an organization and live it. As the aphorism says, lead by example. With every word and action, leaders disseminate the values and unwritten codes that become a work environment. They do it with their tone, and their attitude – whether they are welcoming a team member to chat or annoyed at an interruption or bad‐mouthing a peer. Leaders generate climate.

7.4 ­Let’s Get Physical The physical work environment also plays a considerable part in establishing an environment where creativity can flourish. Leaders need to consider the impact of many different layers of “environment,” some of which may be beyond your control. You still have to understand how they work and what impact they may have on what’s possible in your organization. 7.4.1 Geography Think about how much the geographic setting plays in creating an environment for creativity. Go on, try to open a gaming enterprise in International Falls, Minnesota. Or a motion picture studio in Bangor, Maine. Both may be lovely locations, but they aren’t associated with those industries in any way, shape, or form. Certain places just have critical mass for certain industries. New York equals advertising. Paris means fashion design. Los Angeles and Tokyo, animation. Silicon Valley is the indisputable center of technology. This is not to say that you cannot have a successful creative business outside those typical bounds, but it will be a lot harder to establish credibility and to recruit talent than you’d it would be at the epicenter of any given industry.

Leadership and the Environment for Creativity

The same is true with the urban–suburban environment. There’s a reason most creative industries are in cities. There’s an energy, a pulse that invigorates creative people, as well as the multiple venues of art and entertainment on which they thrive outside work. There’s a critical mass where “like attracts like,” and competitors like to poach. Of course some of that may be more about image than necessity in our web‐connected world. But can you imagine Anna Wintour running Vogue in a suburban office park? 7.4.2  Layout and Design Move inside and take in the internal physical environment. At the beginning of the chapter, we noted the prevailing trends for long tables lined with computer monitors or hives housing teams. While business leaders will publicly espouse the value of proximity for collaboration among creative people, the biggest driver of current office interior design is price per square foot, not creativity. Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise, because there is no research that says tightly clustered people in their own little headphones‐world advances creativity. If you want the ideal physical space for creativity, keep down the noise, the busy‐ness, and the distractions. Creative people need to think and brainstorm ideas. Most individuals find that difficult in open environments. Those who are more production‐focused, however, may find it easier. That “long table” concept came from software production, not those primarily engaged in ideation. Some creative industries have open space surrounded by a perimeter of small workrooms or conference rooms where creative people can camp out and get away from the fray. Space also speaks of class and hierarchy. Sometimes, a center of open spaces holds a perimeter of private offices for a select few leaders. When space isn’t allocated democratically, it communicates how upper management views the rank and file. Like minions. In other instances, private offices are reserved only for those whose jobs demand confidentiality, like human resources or finance. Playful looks and vibrant colors are often employed to feed the atmosphere with a creative look. That impresses clients. It also does have an effect on the mindset of those who work there.

7.5 ­External Influences on Culture and Climate Most of the factors that contribute to a great creative environment rest in the hands of the leader. But not all of them.

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National, and sometimes regional, culture impacts the organizational culture. Think about the competitive, individualistic nature of those in the US, the more relaxed attitude of South Americans, and the more collectivist nature of the Chinese. The same type of creative industry will undoubtedly exhibit a different climate based in each of those locations. Those that are part of global enterprises will have culture impacted by that internationalism. And do not forget the critical role of the “domain” in creativity. Each creative industry has its own distinct culture and codes that manifest across firms, often due to the cross‐pollination of employees moving from one to another and a high proportion of freelance talent hired for short contracts. In big enough firms, even departments can develop their own micro cultures. This is notable in advertising, where creative departments are recognizably different from brand management or research or media planning groups. And then, there are clients. Clients also contribute to a creative culture – in one direction or another. Which is why it is so important as a creative leader to understand and manage external relationships, too, and recognize how important those are to your ability to lead for creativity back “home.” In the end, a creative environment is the sum total of what you, the leader, make it.

7.6 ­Chapter Summary A leader contributes mightily to building an environment for creativity, orchestrating a host of variables that allow creative people to achieve their best work. The leader inspires, motivates, and implements, and in each case communication is central to how she/he fulfills those tasks. The means by which leaders build a creative climate are by: communicating a vision, demonstrating openness to people and ideas, assuring that communications are intended, communicating empathy and a commitment to creativity, conveying clear expectations, values, the nature of working relationships, and culture. Physical aspects, such as location and office space, national culture, and the domain, each play a part in the creative climate and culture.

7.7 ­Ideas + Action What makes a successful leader? Is it talent? Not according to Angela Duckworth. Watch her TED talk, “Grit: The power of passion and perseverance,” https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_ passion_and_perseverance.

Leadership and the Environment for Creativity

Have you got grit? Take this test and see: http://angeladuckworth.com/ grit‐scale.

7.8 ­Some Great Reads + Resources Goffee, R. and Jones, G. (2000). Why should anyone be led by you? Harvard Business Review, 78(5), 62–70. Goffee, R. and Jones, G. (2013). Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. Neumeier, M. (2006). ZAG: The #1 Strategy of High‐performance Brands. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

­References Amabile, T. M. (1983). The social psychology of creativity: A componential conceptualization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(2), 357–376. Amabile, T. M. (1993). Motivational synergy: Toward new conceptualizations of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the workplace. Human Resource Management Review, 3(3), 185–201. Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in Context: Update to The Social Psychology of Creativity (Vol. 18). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Amabile, T. M. (1997). Motivating creativity in organizations: On doing what you love and loving what you do. California Management Review, 40(1), 39–58. Amabile, T. M. (1998). How to Kill Creativity (Vol. 87). Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing. Amabile, T. (2012). Componential Theory of Creativity. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School. 3–4. Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Walumbwa, F. O., Luthans, F., and May, D. R. (2004). Unlocking the mask: A look at the process by which authentic leaders impact follower attitudes and behaviors. The Leadership Quarterly, 15(6), 801–823. De Tienne, D., and Mallette, P. (2012). Antecedents and outcomes of innovation‐ oriented cultures. International Journal of Business and Management, 7(18), 1–11. Dewett, T. (2004). Creativity and strategic management: Individual and group considerations concerning decision alternatives in the top management teams. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 19(2), 156–169. El‐Murad, J., and West, D. C. (2003). Risk and creativity in advertising. Journal of Marketing Management, 19(5–6), 657–673. Gruenert, S. and Whitaker, T. (2015). School Culture Rewired. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

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Leavy, B. (2005). A leader’s guide to creating an innovation culture. Strategy & Leadership, 33(4), 38–45. Martins, E. C., and Terblanche, F. (2003). Building organisational culture that stimulates creativity and innovation. European Journal of Innovation Management, 6(1), 64–74. Schneider, B., Ehrhart, M. G., and Macey, W. H. (2013). Organizational climate and culture. Annual Review of Psychology, 64(1), 361–388. Shalley, C. E., Zhou, J., and Oldham, G. R. (2004). The effects of personal and contextual characteristics on creativity: where should we go from here? Journal of Management, 30(6), 933–958. Stuhlfaut, M. W. and Windels, K. (2012). Measuring the organisational impact on creativity: The creative code intensity scale. International Journal of Advertising, 31(4), 795–818. Windels, K. and Stuhlfaut, M. W. (2013). Confined creativity: The influence of creative code intensity on risk taking in advertising agencies. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 35(2) 147–166. Wing‐Fai, L., Gill, R., and Randle, K. (2015). Getting in, getting on, getting out? Women as career scramblers in the UK film and television industries. The Sociological Review, 63(51), 50–65. Zaheer, S. A. (2000). Acceptable risk: A study of global currency trading rooms in the US and Japan. In P. T. Harker and S. A. Zenios (eds.), Performance of Financial Institutions. New York: Cambridge University Press. 462–495.

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8 Collaboration, Teams, and Creativity Ideas, like large rivers, never have just one source. Willy Ley Abbott and Costello. The Rat Pack. Lerner and Lowe. John Lasseter and George Lucas. The Algonquin Round Table. Second City. Upright Citizens Brigade. And so many more. The creative industries have a long history of storied teams and partnerships, both formal and informal. An artist’s atelier or a scientist’s lab may produce the exceptional revolutionary breakthrough. But in the creative industries, individual genius is rare and collaborations abound. Creative work has a long history of brainstorming, dialogue, and discussion, and has become an increasingly collaborative affair. Since the concept of brainstorming was popularized in the mid‐twentieth century (Osborn, 1953), collaboration has become the darling of education and business. In just the last two decades, the amount of work time spent on collaborative activities has expanded by 50% or more – with employees at some companies spending up to three‐quarters of their day communicating with others (Cross et al., 2016). Even as it is considered an individual and economic necessity, one article on collaboration wears the succinct title, “Collaborative Overload” (Cross et al., 2016). Economists, sociologists, management gurus, educators, tech gurus, and creative experts all agree: Collaboration is essential in getting work done in today’s world. So why do so many people groan when they hear committees are being formed? The disdain is nicely summed up in the oft‐cited critique, that a camel is “a horse made by a committee” (Issigonis, n.d.). Sir Alec Issigonis, famed designer of the BMW Mini, is recognized as much for that quote as for his brilliant body of work. An old aphorism echoing the same perspective is visualized in Ken Krimstein’s cartoon, Figure 8.1.

Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Figure 8.1  It won’t be the first time you will find truth in an old saw. Source: Reprinted with permission of The New Yorker.

In collaboration, the ideal and the real world diverge. While it should provide the wisdom and creativity of many, collaboration sometimes falls short. Unfortunately, too many people mistakenly assume that teamwork is as simple as putting a few people together, giving them a task and a deadline, and letting them go off to figure things out. Not. That’s one approach you can rule out immediately. The rest of what is known about successful collaboration, teaming, and creativity is far more complex, nuanced, and dependent on a host of variables that we will discuss. In this chapter, you will learn: ●● ●● ●● ●●

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Where leadership, teams, and teamwork intersect Ways of teaming for creative work The impact of team formation and creative processes on creativity Factors to consider in hiring, teaming, and fostering collaboration: –– Individuals –– Processes –– Motivation –– Communication Characteristics of highly successful creative teams

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Leading for creativity begins when your responsibility shifts from player to coach. To facilitate the most productive collaboration – and the best creative work – you need to be both a great leader and a good manager. We will overview principles that underlie successful teaming for creativity and various ways it can be done. (There isn’t one right answer.) The variables include the type of organizations, the type of task/creative product being developed, organizational culture, group norms, and imbedded practices.

8.1 ­Where Leaders, Teams, and Teamwork Intersect One leads people, and manages processes. Leadership and management are distinct yet inextricably linked when it comes to marshaling minds on varied creative tasks and getting brilliant outcomes. Both are important to leadership in the creative industries. Leading a group of creative professionals calls for understanding team members as individuals, being sensitive to individual skills, aspirations, and work styles. “Creatives are individual people and have unique things that motivate them. So, when you respect and understand that, that’s a pretty good cocktail,” says Evan Fry, Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s executive director of creative development (Fera, 2014). Leadership style plays a vital role in making teamwork work and fostering individual and group creativity. An authentic or transformational leadership style is considered ideal. Teams working under transformational leaders orient their individual goals for the good of the team; are more cohesive; and increase their focus on achieving team goals (Bass, 1999). Authentic leaders have a unique capacity to generate hope, through identification with their followers (Avolio et al., 2004; Avolio and Walumbwa, 2014), and this has a profound impact on the success of their teams. It is difficult to overstate how important it is to know your creative people as individuals, as well as to understand how each of those individuals functions and interacts in groups. Motivating, guiding, cheerleading, and shepherding  –  we have clearly established that those are a leader’s responsibility to her followers. In FYI 8.1, Donald Brenner provides a perfect illustration of how he masterminds teamwork in theater, yet the core principles apply to any collaborative endeavor. A creative leader also needs to guide teams in group processes. Teams don’t function well intuitively or automatically. Collaboration must be facilitated and grounded in proven practices, or it is bound to result in groupthink and mediocrity. Hence, creative leaders should understand team dynamics and practices, and train their people in how great teams work. They do this by sharing relevant information and by modeling successful behaviors. Fostering creativity often requires that leaders radically change how they build and interact with work groups (Amabile, 1998).

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FYI 8.1  Building the Team/Starting the Bonfire by Donald Brenner Theater is a totally collaborative art that can only be accomplished by forming a community of artists who are then encouraged to bring their own ideas, skills, and imaginations to the collaborative table. My primary function as a stage director is to choose and facilitate the formation of this creative community. The first step in selecting a creative team is to determine whether a potential member would be an appropriate contributor to the team: ●●

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Does their level of experience and production aesthetic history make them compatible with the other members of the team? Do they understand the visual and/or literary style of the piece? Do they demonstrate an apparent passion for the piece beyond a resumé credit or paycheck? Does the financial compensation needed match the allocated spending line in the production budget? Do they demonstrate responsibility and the active listening skills that prove them to be someone with whom I personally want to work?

Once the individual members of the team are in place, the director’s next task is to light the group’s creative bonfire: to compile a Directorial Production Concept that ignites a communal, collaborative passion and instills a sense of importance by arousing shared feelings of worthiness and enthusiasm for the project. The Concept Document should illuminate the play’s relevance to the world we live in and include a statement of what the play personally means to the director. Other questions to address might include: ●●

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What facts regarding the playwright’s life are relevant for a clearer understanding of the play? Why is this an important script on which to work? What is unique about this work? How does the author use language in an innovative way? What theatrical conventions are utilized. Is the play’s structure distinctive? How are the play’s national roots reflected in the script? What are the play’s prominent and underlying themes? What shared objective motivates the characters of this play? What acting style is appropriate to the specific time and particular place? What kind of world is this? What spiritual and practical forces are at work within this world of the play? What values or standards hold true within the confines of this world? What is the wholeness of the play’s effect on an audience? Why do I personally want to direct this play?

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Once the Concept Document has been distributed to the collaborative team, allow the team a “go away period” to cogitate and assimilate the challenges facing them. Encourage them to take the creative ball and run with it, exploring their own interpretive ideas for bringing the project to life. Ultimately, the goal is to meet the challenges of the piece efficiently and with original solutions, arrived at through a meeting of creative minds in a supportive, artistically nurturing environment. Donald Brenner is a professional stage director in New York City and a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. He has directed over 130 theatrical productions.

In FYI 8.2, director Peter Christ provides another cogent example of how the leader guides team formation and collaboration in production. And demonstrates how great teams iterate ideas.

FYI 8.2  Creative Collaboration in Production by Peter Christ For a video production to be successful, creative collaboration is essential. The producer and director must understand the scriptwriter’s vision. They must assemble the right talents. They must listen to and engage with this team to make the script come alive. A Personal Example I directed two award‐winning 3D stereoscopic videos for a pharmaceutical firm. Shot entirely from the patients’ point‐of‐view, they dramatized a heart attack and stroke. The Pre‐Production Phase Closely collaborating with my long‐time producing partner, Mike Grenadier, we assembled our team. Starting with the ad agency’s original scripts, we worked with a casting agency, chose the talent, and reviewed their readings with the agency team for approval. The casting session revealed some word changes would be needed. The agency revised the script. We needed an outstanding animation team to visualize what happens inside the body when you have a heart attack and stroke. We put together Tony Payne and Chris Marshall in the UK and David Gregg in the US. Tony and his brilliant storyboards captured the key frames perfectly. Chris animated the storyboards in ways that were both beautiful and frightening. David Gregg took this animation and gave it 3D stereoscopic depth that was riveting.

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We chose our shooting team: Jerry Panzer, director of photography, had a feel for dramatic action; Jason Goodman, engineer, because of his past experience in stereoscopic work and his custom 3D camera rigs; Ned Hallick, lighting director, experienced at creating a wide range of mood settings. The Production Phase: Collaboration on the Move, a Great Story No matter how tight the script, once shooting starts you have to look for ways to make it even better. Example: The actor having the heart attack was supposed be admitted to the hospital on foot. Jerry, Mike, and I realized that bringing him in on an ambulance gurney would be more visually compelling. We strapped Jerry onto the gurney wearing the patient’s pants and shoes. The 3D rig was loaded onto his chest. Our engineer and grip were hanging off the sides of the gurney. The result was an exciting 3D shot of the patient being hauled by ambulance staff into the ER. The Post‐Production Phase: Collaboration in the Edit We edited the piece with quick cuts to enhance the sense of urgency. We intercut the animations to build anxiety and sync with the patients’ symptoms. Taken to a fine cut, collaboration with the agency and pharmaceutical client resulted in nuanced editorial revisions – affirming the medical points were accurate, marketing points shined through, and the video was dramatic, clear, and involving. At every stage of production, collaboration adds value. Peter Christ is founder and president of Shout Out Communications, doing video, animation, and interactive programs for the medical and arts communities.

Leaders play a central role in team formation and assigning work to individuals and teams, and how they do these will have a profound effect on the level of creativity that is possible – and not just on the immediate project in question. Leaders may unwittingly undermine teams, and the careers of individuals, if they are blind to the ripple effect that their decisions have. Put two egotistical alpha males on the same team, and see what happens. Keep assigning all the best projects to the same people, and watch the enthusiasm and productivity of the rest of your team take a nosedive. Let’s start with team formation. Oh, wait. Who says a team is necessary, or desirable? 8.1.1  Who Says You Need a Team? Despite the prevalence of workforce collaboration, some psychologists argue that creativity is inherently an individual process. Certainly, Picasso didn’t need any help. Nor did Mozart. Yet, the artist Christo did some of his best work with Jean Claude. In the 1950s and 1960s, some of the best music and biggest hits came from collaborations inside the Brill building in New York City.

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When do you need a team? When creative work is complex, takes many minds and work hours, and requires divergent expertise unlikely to be found in any one person, or would take one person way too long to complete alone. Generally speaking, there is “wisdom in the crowd.” An inspired team is greater than the sum of its parts, and a boatload of research supports the value of collaboration when it’s done right. If ever there was a place for the “lone wolf ” creative in the creative industries, it is long gone. So, you really only have to worry about putting the right people together with the right charge at the right time under the right conditions. 8.1.2  Things to Consider Before Building Teams What constitutes “a team”? What size group? Is it to be a long‐term arrangement, or a short‐term, project‐based team? What considerations factor into this arranged group marriage? Every step of the process is about balancing satisfaction with business needs. In order to be creative and productive, human beings need to have their needs met. As the leader, you need to enable that at the same time you serve business needs for client satisfaction, profit (for light and AC and paying salaries and vendors and such), and building the company or agency brand. A team can be comprised of people from your own organization or a loose coalition from different sources who are pulled together for this particular effort or project. Forming teams of independent individuals for a proscribed period of time to work on a specific project has been described as the Hollywood model. In theory, it gives a leader the opportunity to tailor each and every skill need for that project with the individual most perfect suited. In the gig economy, it is increasingly common. Creative freelance brings unique challenges to leadership, and how it is handled affects both the work and the relationships of team members. Teams have different dynamics when they are short‐term, and bringing in freelancers affects the organizational climate. It can, and does, work in some organizations, in some instances. From a talent perspective, it’s ideal. It puts talented people to work when you need them. On the other hand, temps inherently lack some of the characteristics that boost group creativity, such as a safe psychological space, and relationships among individuals who have history and experience working together. In Hollywood, though production teams are hired on a project basis, leaders habitually bring in people with whom they’ve worked before or regularly. (Good for camaraderie, but not diversity.) Independent contractors may be brilliant, and bring fresh perspective to creative problems, but they will naturally be driven more by self‐interest than the common good (Gill and Pratt, 2008; Gill, 2007). Your business needs will likely dictate which situation is best. When you build teams, remember that you’re not just looking to satisfy short‐term needs – but long‐range objectives as well.

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8.1.3  When Teams Work, Wow! When collaboration is done right, it yields enormous benefits. The biggest is enhanced creativity. When people share ideas in groups, individuals each bring unique knowledge and ways of thinking to the interaction (Paulus, 2000; Stasson and Bradshaw, 1995). Innovative solutions are most likely to occur when group members are diverse, and bring their different knowledge and experience to the team (Jackson et  al., 1995; Moreland et  al., 2013; Paulus, 2000). But – and this is a big but – diversity only brings this effect when (i) all team members are able to share their ideas, and (ii) when everyone actually listens to the ideas of others. Neither happens unless those practices are built into the team’s collaborative process. That is why the leader’s skill, guidance, and training are essential for successful teams. If your goal is building the perfect team, however, forget it. As George Krstic explains in FYI 8.3, there’s no such thing. But as someone who has been assembling alliances among writers for more than two decades, he has some pretty good guidance to offer. FYI 8.3  The Myth of the Perfect Team and How to Win at Dungeons and Dragons by George Krstic I’ve been building writing teams for over 20 years now – for television, games, digital, product lines, etc. and I have yet to find a perfect team, and that’s exactly what I find so exciting about the collaboration that is writing with others – each team is unique, as is each project. But, having just said that there is no perfect creative team, much like a successful Dungeons & Dragons party of adventurers, or a League of Legends pro line‐up, there are roles that I’ve found to be essential to a project’s successful manifestation – a perfect “team comp.” And as they say, steal from the best – I stole this formula from one of the writer’s groups that inspired more than a few of us with their works: The Inklings. I was working on a show for Disney when I stumbled across Diana Pavlac Glyer’s excellent book, The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community. In it she described the roles that various members took and how each role evolved and affected the team as well as the work. This was a revelation – of course! Of course – when you build a party to go into the Caverns of the Underdark, you have to have at least one tank, one wizard, a thief, a cleric, etc. (Usually a lot more, but you get the idea). And as it is in Heaven – build your team with clear roles, expectations, and goals, with the understanding that you’re looking for balance, not perfection. The strong plot guy or gal who is weak on dialogue needs to be backed up by a writer who may be a horror‐show in the

Collaboration, Teams, and Creativity

room, but whose lines break your god‐damned heart and make you feel a fraud. (In other words – make sure your Wizard has a meaty Tank to absorb some damage and protect the spell‐slinger). Know that there are very few perfect writers, or writing teams – but that’s OK, just build a solid, balanced team that can cover any situation, be it a level 40 Lich‐mage, or a live‐action episodic procedural, and you’re guaranteed more often than not that you’ll be getting out the dungeon alive, or maybe even another season. Good luck and good hunting! George Krstic is a supervising writer, and director of story and franchise development at Blizzard Entertainment.

When the stars align, when the magic happens, a team experience is exponential joy. Or in the words of Francis Ford Coppola, “Collaboration is the sex of creativity” (2017).

8.2 ­Building Great Creative Teams There are many factors to consider in building great creative teams. Unlike the old cliché for ordering Chinese food, you don’t just pick one from Column A and one from Column B. If you want to foster creativity, team building needs to be a thoughtful process, working through many variables that will inevitably contribute to the team’s success or failure. How do you select who works with whom? Based on desires or requests? Individual skill set? Personalities? Existing relationships? Seniority? Diversity? Proximity? Yes. All of the above. The factors to consider in team‐making echo the 5‐W’s (and one “h”) of good journalism: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6)

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

8.2.1  WHO Should Be on the Team? Choosing the Right People Whether you’ve just been promoted to leadership, or have been hired from outside to lead, chances are, you’re not starting from scratch – but will be working with a number of creative people already in place. You’re also working within the constraints of many organizational practices in place long before you arrived. If you’re the head honcho, chief creative officer, congratulations! You’ll have a bit more autonomy and leeway than a first‐ or second‐level creative leader.

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Keep in mind that every new hire or new member shifts the dynamic of a team. Teams are living, breathing organisms. Each new person has a domino effect impacting others on the team, and others throughout the organization, and most importantly, the quality of the creative work done. Positivity can be contagious, so can negativity, and a host of other individual behaviors. What should you look for in a team member? Begin at the beginning, of course. Job‐relevant “craft” skills, soft skills, and group “fit” will be all be considerations. Just be careful with that last one, and consciously open your mind to and for the “others” – in race, gender, age, background, and experience. If you keep looking for kinship, in the same places, you’ll get the same results. Divergent thinking is needed here. Make sure you get to know the people already on staff on more than a surface level. Besides the formal role you’ve seen them play, you might be amazed at what other talents they can bring to a team. How much do you know about each of them? Are they being stretched? Are they being allowed to bring all their talents to their job? Unless you really know them, you might never know that your admin has killer skills at gaming, that the kid in production is an amazing illustrator, or that the new AE has been doing community theater since she was a kid and is destined to be a knockout presenter. Remember, just like great ideas, great people can come from anywhere. 8.2.2  Team Diversity and the Medici Effect Frans Johansson’s The Medici Effect (2006) illustrates how breakthrough ideas occur most often when people bring concepts from one field into a new, unfamiliar territory. He relates many, many examples of innovations that are the product of diversity in teams. Many creativity researchers support the value of bringing team members from different disciplines, with different experiences, into teams (Pentland, 2012; Shin et al., 2012; Woehr et al., 2013). Diversity takes many forms. A person’s biology, chemistry, and history all come with them to the workplace, and to the team. And that’s a good thing. Team diversity is essential in the creative industries. Having individual diversity within groups is recognized as one of the key contributors to team creativity (Viki, 2016). Research demonstrates that teams with women on them have been demonstrated to be smarter (Thompson, 2015; Woolley et al., 2015). Unfortunately, research also indicates that women get less credit for team work (Heilman, 2005). Both underscore why leaders need to understand team makeup and dynamics. Team diversity includes more than the obvious differences you can typically see – like gender, ethnic, and racial diversity. Diversity can be invisible. Individuals have different ways of thinking, so look also for cognitive diversity. Research has found that combinations of divergent thinkers in groups can lead to higher levels of idea generation (Brown et al., 1998), and, as you already know, breakthrough creativity starts with generating hundreds of ideas.

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But diversity only works with one proviso: breakthrough ideas won’t happen unless all group members share their knowledge in an effective way. Meaning that every team member must be given an opportunity to speak, that every group member engages in attentive listening as well, and that there is enough common ground between group members for all to understand each other (Paulus, 2000). In two studies involving hundreds of people, researchers at MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Union College discovered that “‘collective intelligence’ of teams is not strongly correlated with the average or maximum individual intelligence of group members, but is correlated with the average social sensitivity of group members, the equality in distribution of conversational turn‐taking, and the proportion of females in the group” (Woolley, 2010, p. 686). Got that? Groups with more women are smarter (Thompson, 2015). Let’s look at several other ways diversity contributes to team performance and creativity. 8.2.3  Skill Diversity Is Essential for Creative Teams The precise skills needed from each team member, and at what level of proficiency in each skill, has been a subject of discussion and debate across the creative industries in the past few years. What do individuals on your creative teams need to know? More than ever – in breadth and depth. Creative people can no longer get jobs or succeed on conceptual ability alone. Along with the disruption that digital media and digital tools brought to creative industries, there came an urgent need for new types of skills and talents, and new conceptions of the level of expertise that is needed across other disciplines beyond one’s own. This is especially true for designers and art directors. As you read in Chapter  6, many describe the ideal twenty‐first‐century creative staffer as “T‐shaped talent.” In groups, these kinds of people bring more than their own mastery to the party. Working together, T‐shaped people have a positive impact on the success of the entire team. Research shows that teams comprised of people with diverse but overlapping knowledge domains and skills have been found to be the most creative (Dunbar, 1995; Paulus, 2000). Wow. Teams of T‐shaped people ignite synergy and greater creativity. It makes perfect sense. When talented but very dissimilar people work together, they need to be able to speak  –  and understand  –  each other’s language. With enough divergence in their skills and experience, but enough common knowledge about the work their teammates do (the essence of being a “T”), innovation blooms. Experience diversity matters, too. This includes diverse experiences in work and life. Designers who have spent a number of years in menswear could bring

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fresh perspective to a lingerie team. People who’ve directed documentaries would approach online video with a different perspective than those who have shot music videos. Bringing together people from multiple and different domains is one of the many factors for the meteoric success of digital powerhouse R/GA. Many agencies now say they are looking for talent outside the usual resources, because recruiting creative talent in the same places year after year breeds similar thinking – and more predictable results. In creative pursuits, homogeneous thinking is not good. Then there is diversity in level of experience, and recognizing how much mastery is acquired through years of doing a job. Some claim the “10 000 hour” formula is needed to master anything. But that doesn’t – can’t – account for beginner’s luck, or predict how a fresh eye (or mind) will see something that more experienced people will overlook. There is no formula, or listsicle, that can tell you which to do. It will depend on the nature of the work, the nature of the product, the nature of all those who join the creative process. Personality diversity matters, too. For example, creativity correlates highly with introversion, yet extraversion is often preferenced in creative industries – especially for leaders (Mayo, 2017). If creativity favors people who might not always volunteer, or be heard amidst the din of their more vocal colleagues, it is vitally important to engage introverts in team work. Encourage quieter group members to speak, if you want to get their contribution. In some instances, younger or newer team members may be reluctant to voice their thoughts in groups with more experienced colleagues. Without intervention from a team leader, the ideas of some team members can be overlooked. Beyond the personal disrespect that represents, it can also undermine group creativity if all voices aren’t heard in ideation and decision making. So, it’s pretty clear: Form creative teams of people who each have a strong, deep expertise in their own discipline, and more than a passing knowledge of the skills every other teammate contributes. 8.2.4  WHAT Type of Team Is Needed? The first decision in teaming is what kind of team you want or need. Teams can be permanent or ad hoc. They can be assigned by some category  –  like the brand or client they will work on, or the season they design. Sometimes people are assigned from a pool or stable, on a project basis, as new work comes in. Sometimes, even dedicated teams work on more than one brand or project at a time. That’s good for creativity. Analyses of the incubation process suggest that it is important to be involved in a variety of activities – rather than just one. “Individuals who are most prolific in the production of important insights commonly engage in many varied projects simultaneously” (Simonton, 1995, p. 484).

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There are more considerations. Are all members of the team fulltime employees? Are all your team members independent contractors or vendors, as in the Hollywood model mentioned earlier – or comprised of some combination of the two? There are positive and negative consequences to each kind of team. Sorry for the ambiguity, but there are no absolutes. The variables are many and possibilities almost infinite. Therefore, a leader needs to know the options and what factors to weigh, and decide for herself. 8.2.4.1  What Size Is Right? Two Enough? Eight Too Many?

The size of the ideal team is another area that is less than clear cut. And evolving as learning about collaboration grows. Generally speaking, smaller teams are more productive. Jeff Bezo’s “two pizza” standard for the ideal team size is grounded in research (Choi and Clear, 2016). As we’ve already discussed, digital media wrought changes to traditional creative teaming – adding participants and increasing team size, because the work demanded it. But there are limits. Unless each participant has a defined role, the productivity of each individual goes down as team size goes up. This is known as “the Ringelmann effect” (Ingham et al., 1974). The most widely accepted “ideal size” for a working team is five people. Bigger teams encourage social loafing and reduce individual accountability and performance. Too few people can result in skill gaps, or some awkward team dynamics (Knowledge@Wharton, 2006). 8.2.5  WHEN Do Teams Work? When Should They Work? One of the downfalls of most team work in college is the delusion that all the work actually gets done when the team meets. Au contraire! Experienced creatives and researchers of creativity and innovation will tell you that the best teams have an ebb and flow, a tidal process of coming together, discussing work, and then going back to get the “real work” done by themselves. Individually (Paulus, 2000). A serial process of working together for a time, and then alone, back and forth, works best (Putman et al., 1999). You will want to orchestrate that team and individual time in order to maximize the effect of that interplay between individual thinking and team time. Some research suggests that group interaction has the most positive benefit early in the process (Nystrom, 1979; Paulus, 2000; Viki, 2016). You can feel it when you experience it, whether it’s at a brainstorming session or a launch meeting. The initial burst of energy, enthusiasm, and idea‐sharing is infectious and highly productive. If it is managed by a deft leader. The leader plays a pivotal role in igniting team creativity, as Donald Brenner recounted in FYI 8.2. He also unwittingly provided further support for a team with a diversity of experience.

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Another critical “when” in teamwork is when assignments are due. Workfront’s Jada Balster echoes what creativity researchers and professionals all know: “Creativity is a factor of time. More – and better – ideas flower when there is sufficient time to research, collaborate with colleagues, reflect, and develop concepts” (Balster, 2017). Amen. Yes, in the creative industries, deadlines are inevitable. But they don’t always have to be fixed in stone and time influences creativity. The most important gift a leader can give a creative is sufficient time to do brilliant work. Not unlimited time  –  just enough to allow a bit of idleness for creative ideas to incubate. Some creativity researchers even suggest formally scheduling idle time into projects (Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer, 1995). 8.2.6 WHERE? People often say real estate value is dependent upon location, location, location. Productivity and creativity are influenced by it, too. Where teams work matters. Some are tethered to their assigned work space, sometimes clustered in pods, or shoulder‐to‐shoulder at long tables in some of the trendiest places. Some spend all day in a sunless conference room. Others migrate around the organization, reserving rooms for group work. Some teams take off for the nearest Starbucks. And for big jobs, or special occasions, there is the much‐ maligned offsite retreat. For better or worse, environment and location impact both individuals and teams. Where teams work is driven by the price of real estate, when and how the space was designed, organizational work policies and expectations, such as those that mandate working in the office or allow remote work (or flexi‐place) of some sort. Flexi‐place may be allowed for everyone as needed, or all the time, or at a specific interval (like one or two days per week), or only through individual negotiation. Some companies have no offices at all, and employees either work from home or gather at co‐working spaces. Remote work is a tricky affair. It has powerful advantages, and some disadvantages, for all involved – creative organizations, teams, and individuals. Some benefits of flexible work include a positive effect on sustainability (McPherson, 2016) from the need for less square footage to the carbon savings in reducing commutation (Pflueger et al., 2016). Flexible work increases employee motivation and loyalty, even productivity. Contrary to old‐fashioned suspicions, most employees put in more hours when they work from home rather than less (Fried and Hansson, 2013; Regus, 2012). In creative endeavors, all those intrinsically motivated people are the most likely to be engaged in their work, and often become consumed by it. On the other hand, remote team work can cause complications – especially for global groups meeting virtually across time zones. It can make wrangling

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teams and colleagues more difficult, unless procedures are articulated and managed well. Many people love it – for the flexibility and autonomy it provides, especially men and women with child‐ or elder‐care responsibilities. Some miss the sociality of being in an office; others are delighted to avoid the inevitable interruptions. Those who argue against it cite the lost opportunity for serendipitous collaboration. Leading virtual creative teams is a unique challenge. It necessitates building a connection that maintains identity and community in order to achieve creativity (Duarte and Snyder, 2006; Martins et al., 2004; Nemiro, 2016). Face time  –  being present in the office, where people can see you working – has benefits. Remote work can be career suicide when most others go to the office. According to one Sloan study, “… employees who work remotely may end up getting lower performance evaluations, smaller raises, and fewer promotions than their colleagues in the office – even if they work just as hard and just as long” (Elsbach and Cable, 2012). Woah. Before you kill flexi‐place policies and demand everybody show up in the office every day, like Marissa Meyer did when she became CEO of Yahoo, you should know that it can be done – and done well. It just takes planning, intrinsic motivation – and leadership commitment to controlling the issues described above. 8.2.7  HOW Do You Orchestrate Successful Teamwork? With genuine leadership – steering, facilitating, and coaching teams in all the ways this book has already recounted, setting them up for success, and then doing one of the hardest things required of many creative leaders: getting out of the way. Gently guide collaboration. A leader needs to guide the inner workings of the group, as well as overall creative workflow. The team also needs autonomy to be creative, or it’s bound to result in groupthink. Groupthink describes a group’s tendency toward premature decision making, and conformity to group values and ethics. It’s more likely to occur in a highly cohesive group that spends too little time seeking information and exploring alternatives (Janis, 1982). What is the single most important thing you can do to facilitate teams? Establish positive group norms that allow for “psychological safety,” “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk‐ taking” (Edmondson, 1999). That belief is the X factor, the one attribute overriding all others in team success, in numerous studies of hundreds of teams and their interactions, including Google’s four‐year Project Aristotle (Duhigg, 2016; Woolley et al., 2010). Steal what it took Google four years of research to uncover. Establish positive norms for group work. You, the leader, establish the codes and norms. These are often more powerful than official policies. The norms

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that guide group behavior are critical for team success. Foster mutual respect and collegiality, and make the team a safe space for failure. Encourage every individual to participate. You won’t hear diverse perspectives if everyone isn’t sharing their ideas with the group. And the team won’t experience the benefits of stimulating ideas and compounding impact unless everyone is listening to each other’s contributions (Brown et  al., 1998; Paulus, 2000). A collaborative, participative style is essential for creativity and innovation (Anderson and King, 1993; Hill and Amabile, 1993). And whether participation is face to face or virtual, the same applies: social awareness is critical to smart teams. Some call it “Theory of Mind,” a general ability to consider and keep track of what other people feel, know, and believe (Engel et al., 2014). Enable team communication. Researchers at MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory went in search of the “It Factor” that defined successful teams. They studied a variety of similar work teams, and observed a palpable buzz among those that clicked. Sensors on participants measured things like tone of voice, body language, whom they talked to and how much, and more. They found it: communication (Pentland, 2012). More importantly, it wasn’t just specifically project communication that made for great teams, but a complex array of conversations and energy among members, both within and outside of formal meetings. Leaders must establish norms for group communication that will help enable teams in real time, in real life. Face to face is most valuable, when everyone on the team and listens in equal measure. Videoconferencing is next best (Pentland, 2012). There are numerous valuable platforms to facilitate connectivity, cohesion, and collaboration, such as wikis, that are especially helpful for distributed or virtual teams (Kussmaul et  al., 2006). They can have a variety of benefits, depending upon how they’re used: the simultaneous sharing of ideas means no blocking; anonymity can reduce fears of being judged with every idea shared (Paulus, 2000). Electronic communication can also encourage accountability and discourage social loafing (Paulus and Dzindolet, 1993; Shepperd, 1993). But no technology platform can foster virtual creativity without someone actively orchestrating the process and developing connection. Be flexible, responsive. Pivot. Creative work flow and ideation are never linear, and often unpredictable. That’s why mechanical, managerial approaches to teamwork don’t fly well in the creative industries, and what worked yesterday may not today. Consider your current team and workflow methods, and be sure they are still ideal. Remember that classic definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If the work has changed, you might need a process change (Pentland, 2012; Vermeulen et al., 2010).

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That was certainly demonstrated in the post‐digital advertising industry. Digital media has wrought changes in teaming – increasing team size, because new work demanded it. Digital agencies took their cue from the tech world, employing bigger teams of various skillsets, and brought agile workflow to communications. With the cross‐pollination between digital media natives and traditional shops, countless varieties for teaming have resulted (Mallia and Windels, 2011; Stuhlfaut and Windels, 2017; Tait, 2017; Windels and Stuhlfaut, 2017). Bringing digital content into the equation almost decidedly demands agile flow, or changes and mistakes will be costly. Be positive. Of course, that means encouraging risk‐taking and letting each team become a psychological safety zone. We know those are essential for realizing creative work. But there is more. You have to be positive. At the risk of sounding like Pollyanna, it means a leader must be a positive person (or become one if you aren’t already). Positive leaders exert enormous impact, and mood spreads through a team like an infectious virus (Goleman et al., 2002), so make sure you aren’t a “nattering nabob of negativity” (Bunch, 2009). We’ll continue discussing collaboration in Chapter  9. Whole books are devoted to the subject of teams and collaboration, and you should read them. One or two chapters can only begin to tell you what you’ll need to know.

8.3 ­Chapter Summary By now you should have a pretty good idea of the multiple parts played by a leader in the creative industry. The most fundamental and important is the relationship with your followers and teams. It governs your ability to inspire and enable all around you to do their best work. Variables among the five W’s and one H (who, what, when, where, why, and how) all play a role in team success. How a leader facilitates and organizes teams impacts their outcome, the most important being the establishment of positive norms for group behavior. Participation and communication among members and leader flexibility and positivity are all essential to successful creative teams delivering the most splendid creative work.

8.4 ­Some Great Reads and Resources George Krstic mentioned it. There’s a reason. Get Diana Pavlac Glyer’s excellent book, The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2008).

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Duhigg, C. (2016). What Google learned from its quest to build the perfect team. The New York Times. 25 February. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes. com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-theperfect-team.html. Dunbar, K. (1995). How scientists really reason: Scientific reasoning in real‐world laboratories. In R. J. Sternberg and J. E. Davidson (eds.), The Nature of Insight. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 365–396. Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative science quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. Elsbach, K., and Cable, D. (2012). Why showing your face at work matters. MIT Sloan Management Review (website), 19 June. Retrieved from https:// sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why‐showing‐your‐face‐at‐work‐matters. Engel, D., Woolley, A. W., Jing, L. X., Chabris, C. F., and Malone, T. W. (2014). Reading the mind in the eyes or reading between the lines? Theory of mind predicts collective intelligence equally well online and face‐to‐face. PLoS One, 9(12). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0115212. Fera, R. A. (2014). 10 Tips For Managing Creative People. Fast CoCreate. 27 February. Retrieved from http://www.fastcocreate.com/1683221/ 10-tips-for-managing-creative-people. Fried, J. and Hansson, D. H. (2013). Remote: Office Not Required. New York: Crown Business. Gill, R. (2007). Technobohemians or the new Cybertariat? Understanding contemporary new media work. Retrieved from http://www.networkcultures. org/_uploads/17.pdf. Gill, R. and Pratt, A. (2008). In the social factory? Immaterial labour, precariousness and cultural work. Theory, Culture & Society, 25(7–8), 1–30. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., and McKee, A. (2002). Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. Heilman, M. (2005). Men receive more credit than women for joint work on stereotypically male tasks. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(5), 11. Hill, K. G. and T. M. Amabile. (1993). A social psychological perspective on creativity: Intrinsic motivation and creativity in the classroom and workplace. In S.G. Isaksen, M.C. Murdock, R.L. Firestien, and D.J. Treffinger (eds.), Understanding and Recognizing Creativity: The Emergence of a Discipline. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. 400–432. Ingham, A. G., Levinger, G., Graves, J., and Peckham, V. (1974). The Ringelmann effect: Studies of group size and group performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10(4), 371–384. Issigonis, A. (n.d.). Retrieved 15 March 2018 from https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/ design‐quote alec‐issigonis‐design‐by‐committee/. Jackson, S. E., May, K. E., and Whitney, K. (1995). Understanding the dynamics of diversity in decision-making teams. Team effectiveness and decision making in organizations, 204, 261.

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Janis, I. L. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Johansson, F. (2006). The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts, and Cultures. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Knowledge@Wharton. (2006). Is your team too big? Too small? What’s the right number? Retrieved from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/ is‐your‐team‐too‐big‐too‐small‐whats‐the‐right‐number‐2. Kussmaul, C., Howe, S., and Priest, S. (2006). Using wikis to foster team communication, cohesion, & collaboration. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 21(6), 66–68. Mallia, K. L. and Windels, K. (2011). Will changing media change the world? An exploratory investigation of the impact of digital advertising on opportunities for creative women. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 11(2), 30–44. Martins, L. L., Gilson, L. L., and Maynard, M. T. (2004). Virtual teams: What do we know and where do we go from here? Journal of Management, 30(6), 805–835. Mayo, M. (2017). If humble people make the best leaders, why do we fall for charismatic narcissists? Harvard Business Review (website), 7 April. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/04/ if‐humble‐people‐make‐the‐best‐leaders‐why‐do‐we‐fall‐for‐charismatic‐ narcissists. McPherson, S. (2016). How to build a social good company from the start. Forbes. com (website), 25 August. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ susanmcpherson/2016/08/25/how‐to‐build‐a‐social‐good‐company‐from‐ the‐start/#7b7958687893. Moreland, R. L., Levine, J. M., and Wingert, M. L. (2013). Creating the ideal group: Composition effects at work. Understanding group behavior, 2, 11–35. Nemiro, J. E. (2016). Connection in creative virtual teams. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, 2(2), 814. Nystrom, H. (1979). Creativity and Innovation. New York: Wiley Osborn, A. F. (1953). Applied Imagination (rev. ed.). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Paulus, P. B. (2000). Groups, teams, and creativity: The creative potential of idea‐generating groups. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 49(2), 237–262. Paulus, P. B. and Dzindolet, M. T. (1993). Social influence processes in group brainstorming. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(4), 575–586. Pentland, A. S. (2012). The new science of building great teams. Harvard Business Review (website), April. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2012/04/ the‐new‐science‐of‐building‐great‐teams. Pflueger, J., Gibson, S., and Normand, C. (2016). The sustainable benefits of the connected workplace. 1–56. Retrieved from http://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/ corporate/corp‐comm/en/Documents/telecommute‐study.pdf.

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Putman, V. L., Paulus, P. B., and Leggett‐Dugosh, K. L. (1999). The effects of facilitators and task instructions on productivity in group brainstorming. Unpublished manuscript, University of Texas at Arlington. Regus. (2012). Flexibility drives productivity. Retrieved from http://www.danskhr. dk/media/1606/full_report_flexible_working.pdf. Shepperd, J. A. (1993). Productivity loss in performance groups: A motivation analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 113(1), 67–81. Shin, S. J., Kim, T. Y., Lee, J. Y., and Bian, L. (2012). Cognitive team diversity and individual team member creativity: A cross‐level interaction. Academy of Management Journal, 55(1), 197–212. Simonton, D. K. (1995). Foresight in insight? A Darwinian answer. In R. J. Sternberg and J. E. Davidson (eds.), The Nature of Insight. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 465–494. Stasson, M. F. and Bradshaw, S. D. (1995). Explanations of individual‐group performance differences: What sort of “bonus” can be gained through group interaction? SAGE: Small Group Research, 26(2), 296–308. Stuhlfaut, M. W. and Windels, K. (2017). Altered states: The effects of media and technology on the creative process in advertising agencies. Journal of Marketing Communications, 1–27. Tait, I. (2017). You’re no longer the genius – you’re the idiot. Creative Review (website), 27 July. Retrieved from www.creativereview.co.uk/ youre‐no‐longer‐the‐genius‐youre‐the‐idiot. Thompson, D. (2015). The secret to smart groups: It’s women. The Atlantic (website) 18 January. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ archive/2015/01/the‐secret‐to‐smart‐groups‐isnt‐smart‐people/384625. Vermeulen, F., Puranam, P., and Gulati, R. (2010). Change for change’s sake. Harvard Business Review (website), June. Retrieved from https://hbr. org/2010/06/change‐for‐changes‐sake. Viki, T. (2016). Why diverse teams are more creative. Forbes.com (website). Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/tendayiviki/2016/12/06/ why‐diverse‐teams‐are‐more‐creative/#394c8f7a7262. Windels, K., and Stuhlfaut, M. (2017). New advertising agency roles in the ever‐expanding media landscape. In American Academy of Advertising. Conference. Proceedings (Online) (p. 57). American Academy of Advertising. Woehr, D. J., Arciniega, L. M., and Poling, T. L. (2013). Exploring the effects of value diversity on team effectiveness. Journal of Business and Psychology, 28(1), 107–123. Woolley, A., Malone, T. W., and Chabris, C. F. (2015). Why some teams are smarter than others. New York Times (website), 16 January. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/opinion/sunday/why‐some‐teams‐are‐ smarter‐than‐others.html. Woolley, A. W., Chabris, C. F., Pentland, A., Hashmi, N., Malone, T. W. (2010). Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. Science, 330, 686–688.

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9 Motivation, Competition, and Conflict It’s a bizarre but wonderful feeling to arrive dead center of a target you didn’t even know you were aiming for. Lois McMaster Bujold (1996) Like the Blues Brothers, great creative teams think they are “on a mission from God.” They are powered by passion. Intrinsic motivation is high in creatives, and has greater influence on them than extrinsic motivators. That might lead you to simply leave everyone alone and let them do their thing. Big mistake. Because total freedom can only work when creative peoples’ interests are 100% identical to those of the business, and that isn’t often the case. Somewhere between laissez‐faire and micromanagement lies the sweet spot in motivating teams for success in creative industries. To inspire creativity, leaders must actively align everyone’s interests, spark the inherent entrepreneurial spirit of each individual, and enhance teamwork. What motivates is not unfettered freedom, but goal direction and enough autonomy to feel in control of your work and success. (And your life, but we’ll get to that later.) In this chapter, you will learn: ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

How to enhance motivation for creative teams What kills motivation in creative people How competition can motivate and activate When competition destroys creativity and a creative climate The role of conflict in creative teams Factors that contribute to harmful conflict

Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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9.1 ­Motivation Through Shared Leadership and Autonomy The concept of shared leadership or shared power is hardly new to the creative industries (Smircich and Morgan, 1982). Coinciding with a trend toward flatter organizational hierarchies, a collaborative approach to leadership is becoming increasingly commonplace. When leaders give teams more independence, creative people thrive. Freedom is motivating – and spurs intrinsic motivation. The key to creativity is giving people the right kind of autonomy. According to research, that means autonomy of means, of process – how to solve the problem – but not necessarily the ends. “People will be more creative, in other words, if you give them freedom to decide how to climb a particular mountain” (Amabile, 1998, p. 81). Leaders at Spotify aptly demonstrate striking that chord. Gabrielle Herrera tells you how. FYI 9.1  Leading Through Autonomy at Spotify by Gabriel Herrera Autonomy is a word that comes up in lots of different contexts at Spotify. Early on we wanted to avoid having teams blocked and waiting on each other to ship. In order for us to keep scaling up in size without slowing down we needed to organize ourselves around problems in the most parallel way possible. Our solution was to organize into small highly autonomous teams empowered to solve problems however they see fit. This probably sounds chaotic, and it can be, but leadership plays a large role in managing that chaos and providing an environment where people don’t feel lost or have to rely on being told what to do. It means that leaders may need to work harder on alignment than they would at most companies, but this is the tradeoff we’ve made to stay competitive in a fast‐changing industry. Leaders at Spotify spend a lot of time empowering teams to build up enough local context to decide what to focus on without needing to tell them what to do. A few key activities supporting that include setting the focus for the team, agreeing what they are responsible for, and how they will measure progress. What should we focus on? The team’s mission and vision provide the boundaries of where they should focus their efforts. A mission that is too broad can make it difficult for that team to know how to prioritize their work and manage stakeholders. A mission that is too narrow may limit the potential for that team to make a bigger impact. A clear and inspiring mission helps guide the team with a long‐term focus that is adaptable enough to stay relevant under changing circumstances.

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What Are We Responsible For? With over 150 tech teams running at full speed, it’s likely there will be some overlap in responsibilities. This can be the biggest source of confusion when it’s unclear which team to talk to in order to get something done. We’ve invested a lot of effort in tracking ownership of services and data, but teams typically decide their own responsibilities by looking at what they can support autonomously or not. If a responsibility can’t be reasonably scaled in one team, for example monitoring all services, we might make it a responsibility of all teams to monitor their own services and build up infrastructure to lower the burden for all teams to own that responsibility. How Do We Know We’re Making Progress? Teams measure their own progress on their mission and it’s important that they set goals that are well aligned with Spotify’s high‐level goals. We track metrics to measure progress on these goals and they are available to everyone. Teams are expected to align their priorities with these metrics and are responsible for tracking the impact of their changes on these high‐level metrics before shipping a change. These are a few of the different ways we set up the context for the team to work in. This high degree of autonomy can be frustrating if you prefer working with clear responsibilities, but it’s optimized for pushing decision making closer to the teams responsible for solving them. It recognizes that we are doing complex work in a fast‐changing environment and a “one size fits all” approach can grow more and more restricting as the context shifts over time. This is why leaders at Spotify don’t give orders, we give context and feedback, and we trust empowered teams to know best how to solve from there. Gabriel Herrera is a technical program manager at Instagram, working on the machine learning and recommendation platform. At the time of this writing, he was at Spotify, supporting teams with feature experimentation across the product.

Giving teams discretion in assignments or work hours or other activities is among the concrete ways a leader can provide autonomy to teams  –  and in turn influence the intrinsic motivation of creatives.

9.2 ­Other Motivators Leader support and organizational commitment to creativity are also important in motivating teams, as we have discussed in earlier chapters. These include norms that make it safe to experiment and permission to fail. Creative people love challenges. New projects keep them energized. Provide challenge to all. Every single one of these factors is demonstrated to influence intrinsic

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motivation and creative accomplishment (Amabile, 1997; Carucci, 2017; Goleman et al., 2013; Mallia et al., 2013; Sinek, 2014; West and Farr, 1990). Bring the right people to the team. Certain personal characteristics are found to be more conducive to team creativity: high extraversion, high openness to experience, low conscientiousness, high neuroticism, low agreeableness (really!). Researchers found that when you put people with these characteristics together, their creativity is enhanced, thanks to synergy, bigger than any one of them could produce individually (Baer et al., 2008). Obviously, putting together people of a certain type together is not exactly a recipe for diversity. Though it might be homogenous from a personality standpoint, there are numerous other ways to infuse diversity into teams: age, gender, experience, race, ethnicity, and cognitive diversity, to name a few. Research tells us that diverse teams are much more creative and innovative, an outcome well worth designing into the process. Provide time to explore. Allow individuals and teams time to explore and to overcome self‐doubt, time for creativity to blossom. Aziz Ansari speaks of his time living in Italy as life‐changing, and having a direct impact on his creativity and his series. “… how many more years of my life am I going to have where I don’t have anything that keeps me tied down? I just want to explore living in these places. It helps me creatively. You always hear that people come up with ideas in the shower – when I live in these places, it’s like living my whole life in the shower.” (Ryzik, 2017, AR section, p. 8) Keep it fresh. Michael Lebowitz, founder of digital powerhouse Big Spaceship, described how he keeps creativity and morale high – doing things differently than a traditional advertising agency would. Our people are happier, more passionate, get more diversity of work. They’re not attached to single accounts, which is really, really, slippery slope if you ask me. Because asking a young person … say a young art director for instance, to come in and work on one brand all the time – they’re going to get tired, bored, stale. They’re going to lose inspiration even if it’s a great brand. Diversity leads to more inspiration, more fresh thinking. Not having permanent assignments keeps teams fresh and motivated. Another approach is keeping team membership fluid, and redeploying people in different configurations. This will bring in team members from outside the domain they’re accustomed to, and energize the creative process. Provide recognition and rewards. Just because intrinsic motivation is paramount in creative accomplishment doesn’t mean there is no place for rewards. First and foremost, praise and recognition are powerful. These never fail to motivate, as long as they are genuine, and shared among peers and higher‐ups. The right kind of financial rewards have their place as well (Erat and Gneezy, 2016).

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As more and more jobs require group work, distributing credit becomes increasingly difficult. Make it a practice to share glory. It’s up to the leader to assure that all participants get the recognition they deserve. It’s also important to be adamant about encouraging people to claim the credit they deserve for themselves (Torres, 2016). Doing that tends to be easier for males and extroverts, so encourage your mentees to do so – as well as boosting their people, and your business (Bennett 2017). Share the kudos within and outside the organization. Treasure and acknowledge your high achievers, but beware of favoring only some of your “children,” or your behavior will backfire in fierce “sibling” rivalry. External recognition also comes from industry awards – and leaders can provide the resources and opportunities to enter and participate. Peer recognition and industry validation are powerful motivators, growing creatives’ self‐worth. Money is always good. While it won’t work in the absence of intrinsic passion or many of the previously mentioned motivators, bonuses and raises given for obvious effort and exertion do motivate those who have worked hard to do it again.

9.3 ­Tried and True Ways to De‐motivate Creative Teams (Use with Caution) Be negative and highly critical. A leader’s communication and interaction has a powerful impact on team outcomes. If you want to destroy creativity, live and breathe negativity. Otherwise, foster positivity. It’s contagious and you want it to spread deep and wide. Because research demonstrates its effectiveness (Amabile, 1998; Goleman et al., 2013). Nothing kills motivation faster than stealing the limelight. For highly successful, naturally competitive creative people taking a back seat to their teams can be really hard. It means repositioning your whole raison d’être, you know, “One for all, and all for one,” like the three musketeers. Your own mental framing is critical to leadership, recognizing that your career and your success are no longer about you – but your teams. To be a catalyst for creativity, you have to enjoy the triumphs of your teams, learn to live in reflected glory. Take credit for your teams’ work. Everyone knows (and hates) highly ambitious and egotistical creative leaders who have done this – taking the work of young teams under them and literally passing it off as their own. Presenting work to upper management or clients as your own, without due credit, is a soul crusher. It will to be awfully hard to inspire and motivate your people when the next assignment comes along. And, rest assured, creative thievery will ultimately come back to bite you. People with genuine talent will rise in the industry … and remember your moves.

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Hold too many fire drills. Consistently imposing false, unrealistic, or extreme deadlines are a recognized motivation‐killer. (Remember Aesop’s fable about the boy who cried wolf?) False deadlines demonstrate a lack of trust that your teams will deliver, and trust is essential to creative leadership. Be truthful. Be realistic. Remember that you are building relationships, not just shunting assignments through a modern‐day assembly line. Keep doing your own creative projects. One of the more hotly contested issues in creative industries is the desirability for leaders to continue working in their craft while supervising others. Newly minted creative leaders often find it difficult to step out of the day‐to‐day creative process. Some industry folks favor leaders in the fray, as a way of keeping up “your game” and continuing to flex your creative muscles. CPB takes this approach, described by Evan Fry and Dave Swartz to Fast Company: “We will be called in as a creative team, so not only do we have our duties running the design department and helping art directors, we’re thrown into a pitch and will run those things and set the tone, and that helps. It’s leading by example … And it helps when it comes to people respecting what we do. If we have a suggestion, they know it’s because we’re also experiencing the process day to day” (Fera, 2013). Not surprisingly, Crispin Porter Bogusky is widely known for great work, as well as being a “sweatshop” where there is high turnover among creative staffers. Others prefer to assume the mantle of mentor‐creative director and only lead. Have you ever seen a sports coach put on a uniform and play with the team – or, against his team? Imagine how de‐motivating it could be if you outshine a team member who is putting heart and soul into a creative project, and momentarily stuck. A good creative leader – a conductor, a coach – will guide a team to the “right” answer, not do it for them. Most research on team creativity recommends a leader playing the role of orchestra conductor and not sitting in with the band  –  if you want optimal creativity and innovation. Leader/staff competition can poison the relationship, yet it is often done in the interest of expediency when deadlines are tight and multiple ideas needed. Worst‐case scenario? Competing with subordinates AND simultaneously being the one who judges their work. There’s a guaranteed ticket to resentment. Of course, you can do better than your subordinates, or you wouldn’t be the creative director. But should you? Doing your own assignments muddies your role as leader, and impedes your objectivity in judging the work of your subordinates. Before you jump into the trenches, consider the long‐term impact on team motivation and creativity, and not just answering the immediate task. If you and your organization want to develop a culture of loyalty and longevity, leader/staff competition is probably not ideal.

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9.4 ­Making Collaboration Magic As a leader, you will mastermind team collaboration. You will show, and tell, teams how to work. The process is both active, via coaching and formal training, and passive, by modeling best practices. Read how one stellar creative leader guided a breakthrough brainstorming session, and learn from a master. FYI 9.2  Anything Can Happen in Brainstorming. So, Let It by Jason Wagenheim When I became Publisher of Conde Nast’s Teen Vogue in 2011, the first thing I did was lock myself and our six most creatively talented people in a room for eight hours, with plenty to eat and drink, naturally. We had stacks of competitive magazines, three white boards, a few dozen dry erase markers, and an endless supply of imagination. The goal: Figure out how to revive Teen Vogue after a three‐year slump in print ad revenue while kickstarting our events, digital, social, and mobile program offerings. The ground rules were simple: Nothing is impossible, there are no bad ideas, and dream big. From this creative jam session Teen Vogue’s Back‐to‐School Saturday was born – a first‐of‐its‐kind national shopping holiday that drove tens of millions of dollars in new ad revenue for the brand and took Teen Vogue to record profitability. We sold in more than 50 major beauty, fashion, and retail brands; generated national press attention from the likes of The New York Times, CNBC, and Bloomberg; elevated our social, digital, and event game; and mostly for our ad partners, inspired 10 million young women to get out and shop for back‐to‐ school in some 40 000 participating retail stores across all 50 states. In the end, we literally invented a new national shopping holiday and galvanized our audience and advertising partners to participate in a new retail movement. In my 20‐year career as an ad revenue team leader for Maxim, Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, Teen Vogue and now, Bustle.com, I’ve learned the difference between simply winning, and winning really, really big comes down to how long a leash I choose to give my creative leadership. There are often those nay‐sayers in the room  –  the people who always start with “no, that can’t be done,” followed by some silly excuse to squash the idea before it even has a chance to come to life. There’s a time in every creative process to thoughtfully consider things like cost, execution, lead time, and resources, but it’s not at the beginning, and certainly not with those nay‐sayers present. Back‐to‐School Saturday changed our business and it was all because a young, super‐talented member of our marketing team just blurted out: “What if we said we were creating ‘Black Friday’ for the back‐to‐school season, and told everyone to get out and shop on one Saturday in August?” It sounded like a basic, unexciting idea at first – maybe even something that couldn’t be done. But no one that day

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said so, and instead, it inspired hours of the most energized, creatively driven thinking I’ve ever experienced in my career. Every creative brainstorm should start with the willing suspension of disbelief, just like when you walk into a movie theater to see a film. Anything can happen, so let it. Jason Wagenheim is Chief Revenue Officer, Bustle. He was previously publisher at Conde Nast, for Teen Vogue, Vanity Fair, and other titles.

9.4.1  Building Camaraderie and Team Culture With the rise of project work, a leader may confront special challenges in building community among freelancers who may well be strangers, and integrating them on projects with full‐time team members. Leaders must take the time to onboard newcomers and be clear about not just what they will do, but how. It is critical to team success. Creative leaders may also face challenges of virtual organization, and leading virtual teams. While the same team principles apply to telework, issues of ego, autonomy, and affiliation may be exacerbated. Angela McRobbie (2016) has done extensive research in this area, and notes the need for developing stronger and more protective industry associations to fill the need for creative safety and community integral to creative work. For young and growing creative organizations, co‐working spaces offer both flexibility and the sense of community that freelancers or those starting out often miss from larger offices. Some co‐working spaces are intentionally designed to foster the collaboration and peer support needed in the creative industries (Williams, 2016). 9.4.2  When Collaboration Kills Creativity Yes, you can have too much of a good thing. Despite the prevalence of collaboration in the workplace, it can have negative consequences when poorly handled. Hence, the importance of the leader’s role in collaborative processes. Research among more than 300 organizations revealed that 20–35% of value‐added collaborations come from only 3 to 5% of employees (Cross et al., 2016). Some call these folks “extra milers” (Li et al., 2015). As you can imagine, talented people who are willing and able to help others get noticed pretty quickly. Recognition spurs them to continue and they rapidly find themselves in great demand. Sounds great? You depend on your superstars – especially when others fumble. Unfortunately, if a leader leans on a handful of go‐to people too much, her top talent will rapidly burn out from being such good citizens (Bolino et al., 2004; Cross et al., 2016). Creative leaders “must learn to recognize, promote,

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and efficiently distribute the right kinds of collaborative work, or their teams and top talent will bear the costs of too much demand for too little supply” (Cross et al., 2016). When it wastes valuable thinking time, too much collaboration also becomes the ultimate de‐motivator for creative people. Discourage meetings that are too frequent. Curtail meetings that are unproductive. Actively guide collaboration and teams.

9.5 ­Creative Industries Are Rife with Possibilities for Conflict With the rise of collaboration and flattened hierarchies has come the imperative to manage more and more kinds of organizational relationships. In addition to those between client and agency, there are now multiple vendors, businesses, and people across the globe who participate in the building and success of a brand. Every one of these relationships is built on different dynamics, definitions, and motivations, and more relationships mean more opinions, more agendas, more personalities  –  and exponentially greater opportunities for conflict. The paradigm shift in integrated marketing communications has brought additional organizational challenges to those industries (Vernuccio and Ceccotti, 2015). At the root of organizational conflict lies a constant struggle for attention and authority – among people and teams within an organization, as well as in the relationships shared with clients and competitors (Malefyt, 2003; Miller, 2003). Social scientists who study organizational behavior recognize the inherent political tensions, power struggles, and negotiated relationships that can contribute to conflict (Eisenberg and Thompson, 2011; Farh et al., 2010; Grant et al. 2012; Hackley and Kover, 2007). In creative industries, big egos spell big conflict and lots of jockeying for attention. Leaders need to orchestrate those characters and regulate their influence on the creative process (Mumford et al., 2002). 9.5.1  Sometimes, Conflict Can Enhance Creativity Since openness plays such an important role in creativity, you might imagine that conflict would automatically be disruptive. Yet certain types of differences of opinion can in fact help the creative process – especially disagreements over work issues and goals (James, 1995; Kurtzberg and Amabile, 2001). A clash of ideas brings sparks – and that’s good. Harness good conflict by actively encouraging and hearing different viewpoints and openness to diverse and unconventional ideas. A certain amount of creative tension is essential on

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the road to breakthroughs. So building an effective team requires fostering mutual respect, and helping people feel comfortable challenging each other (Bryant, 2015). Diversity drives innovation, but team diversity can also generate conflict. As Kurtzberg and Amabile poetically state, “Conflict is a volatile condition” (Kurtzberg and Amabile, 2001, p. 291). If there are too many differences among team members and no common ground, they will literally be speaking over and around each other, and not to each other. Individuals can be resistant to others’ ideas, especially if they hold strong feelings arising from differing values (Woehr et al., 2012). Diversity only brings positive benefits if the collaborative process is carefully managed by team leadership. Work to preempt negative conflict. Hire talented, nice people, and promote a culture of mutual respect. Some creative scholars hold that 99% of creativity is social in nature (Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer, 1995). And prima donnas are just not worth the work it takes for a good leader to handle. Bad conflict arises in the absence of mutual respect and understanding. It can take many forms. Personal jealousy. Intercultural ignorance and prejudice. Intergenerational tension. (Who hasn’t read at least one of the hundreds of articles published on the tensions millennials brought to the workplace?) FYI 9.3 offers guidance for navigating generational conflict, but the principles transcend the borders. Dysfunctional conflict arises whenever there’s a disconnect between individual goals and organizational goals. That is why the leader plays such an important role in team success: from team formation, to fostering a collaborative culture, and making sure that individual and business goals align. Sibling rivalry has been around since Cain and Abel, and the workplace equivalent isn’t far behind. You can, and should, discourage it – and avoid decisions that inflame it. For instance, don’t skim off all the best projects and give them to one or two favored teams. Creative teams who feel overlooked, under‐challenged, or resentful of peers getting better assignments will become discouraged – and become incapable of achieving their creative potential. By being perceived as unfair you can kill careers, by destroying motivation and sending talented people into a defeating, downward spiral. Older, more experienced creatives may resent young talent rising above them, especially too fast. Childless women in the workplace harbor resentment against working mothers. Those who take leave for caregiving often face prejudice, too. And if you think this only concerns women, you’ve prejudged. An EY study indicated that over 70% of new fathers changed jobs to find better work/ life balance. Work/life conflict isn’t a gender issue or a millennial issue – it’s a human issue (EY, 2015). Let’s examine how one kind of conflict can be resolved in today’s workplace. It is important to differentiate the kinds of conflict that

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can occur, in order to understand when conflict can help – and when it can destroy creativity. 9.5.2  Types and Kinds of Conflict Matter Conflict researchers use three categories to describe the types of conflict that can occur among teams and groups. They are: 1) Task‐based conflict. Conflict that pertains to discussions and debates about the work being done. 2) Relationship‐based conflict. Conflict that arises from interpersonal interactions among group members. 3) Process‐based conflict. Conflict that pertains to the strategies, plans, and division of roles and responsibilities. (Jehn, 1997 in Kurtzberg and Amabile, 2001) Task conflict and interpersonal conflict while different, are related and feed on one another (Chen, 2006). When there are negative relationships with a long history in an organization, it is likely that the parties will regularly disagree on approaches to the creative work, and the value of alternative solutions. Conflict is not to be feared or stifled. It is inevitable in a healthy, diverse creative environment, where fluent team members will have multiple viable alternatives to solve any given creative problem. However, one instance where task conflict could be problematic would be when a team divides right down the middle, with two sides holding strong opinions on two different approaches (Harrison and Klein, 2007). That’s when conflict demands active intervention and agreeable actions. Leadership training in conflict resolution is invaluable. Beyond action and reaction, though, fostering a positive team climate can moderate and limit conflict. This again underscores the power of building and creating a good organizational culture and fostering a sense of shared purpose (Bolino and Turnley, 2003).

9.6 ­A Little Healthy Competition? The creative industries are notoriously competitive, infused with multiple kinds of competition – outside business competition vying for prestigious clients and contracts, competition with industry peers for recognition and awards, internal competition among teams and individuals for plum assignments, and intra‐mural competitions involving creative teams on a single project.

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FYI 9.3  Intergenerational Value Conflicts in Creative Industries Are Inevitable by Natalie Smith The wonderful thing about working in the creative space is that creativity does not discriminate against age. Creative ideas can stem from a bright‐eyed junior designer or from a seasoned innovator who is middle‐aged. Unfortunately, conflict may seep into the cracks of a creative environment when different generations collide and when one or both parties let their hubris do the talking. Interpersonal conflict, in any arena, tends to develop when there is a scarce resource, a difference in meaning, an improper transfer of message (poor communication) or a value divide. Value conflicts (unlike conflicts based on meanings and assumptions) are much harder to diffuse through compromise since most people are unwilling to let go of their beliefs. These beliefs make us who we are, thus we fight hard to defend them. If you consider an intergenerational value conflict occurring in a creative company, where opinions and ideas are strong and frequent, the participants have to be wise enough to recognize the starting points (i.e. where we grew up, our culture, our family structure, etc.) of each person in order to forge ahead. Understanding the notion of our unique starting points in the world is a particularly useful tactic when analyzing disputes because it gives the conflicting parties the chance to be empathetic. On a simple level, a basic value divide exists when there is a large age gap between two people. For instance, Millennials and Generation X came of age at two separate times in history. Millennials were educated on computers, the internet and social media – Gen Xers were not. Friction and tension can then come between these two populations as a result of their differing backgrounds and the ideals they subscribe to. Other examples include overall work ethic, loyalty to a company, retirement strategies, participation in a project, etc. When one of these issues arises between two employees at the opposite ends of the age spectrum, it can be tough to bridge the gap because of their varied starting points and their effect on how we process, filter, and assimilate information into our minds and the evolving narrative that is our life. The first step in finding a resolution and more peaceful state when faced with intergenerational value conflict is to simply recognize the issues, try to understand your combatant, and move forward with an empathetic attitude. You may never agree with the other person, but by walking around in their shoes for a while, you’ll reduce your stress level and can continue a more productive relationship. Natalie Smith has an MA in Conflict Resolution, conducting workshops in managing workplace conflict. At the time of this writing, she was Operations Associate Manager at SoDA, the Society of Digital Agencies.

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Like testosterone‐driven sports coaches, some creative leaders consider competition necessary to spur the best creative work. Is it true? Sometimes. Under some circumstances. For some people. Before you decide for or against competition, review what the literature says about it. First of all, if your sole concern is getting great work, regardless of the human toll, go for competition at every level. There is some evidence that a little completion spurs intrinsic motivation, and creativity along with it. There is also ample evidence that competition can exert a debilitating effect on creativity. Competition has a more negative impact on women’s ability to be creative, so women are disadvantaged in highly competitive environments. Therefore, cultures of competition are inherently gender biased, a deck stacked against most women from the get‐go.

9.7 ­When Competition Turns into Conflict Face it, regular competition is wearing for all but trained Olympians. If it becomes a routine way of working, you risk burning out your talent. And when you pit your staff against one another on a regular basis, you cannot expect cooperation and camaraderie – you are creating conflict. On the other hand, when all your team is on the same side, and competition is with external competitors, you can expect a cohesive “us” versus them. This naturally occurs with new business pitches. Creative people work tirelessly when the stakes are high, and the potential for a win tantalizes. Encourage your people to compete with others in their industry. That is both motivating, and validating. Industry recognition is one extrinsic reward that really activates creative people. 9.7.1  Averting Dysfunctional Conflict Within and Among Teams Individual diversity is essential to foster team creativity, yet differences in values and opinions also lead to conflict. Surmounting that conundrum calls for well‐trained creative leadership. Make sure all voices are heard. Conflict can arise when some team members aren’t heard or acknowledged. Everyone must speak – and everyone must listen to all voices and all ideas. Share the credit and take the blame single‐handedly. As more and more jobs require group work, distributing credit becomes more and more difficult. Be magnanimous. Share the credit widely among all participants, and teach them that self-promotion isn’t immodest. Doing that tends to be easier for males and extroverts. Research demonstrates that women get less credit for teamwork (Torres, 2016). So make sure to encourage your mentees to be vocal

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about their accomplishments – and, as a leader, make sure to publicly acknowledge your more reticent team members. When in the process conflict occurs is important. In the early stages of group work, conflict is much more easily managed. Consensus on a direction and solution must be reached in order to move forward with creative development and complete projects on brief and on time. Brilliant ideas are vapor if they never come to fruition. So, avoid “analysis paralysis.” Reach agreement and move on. Ideas only translate into creative outcomes when there is sufficient agreement on the ultimate solution to implement (Farh et al., 2010). 9.7.2  When Freelance Collides with Staff There is no doubt that we live and work in a gig economy. The precarious nature of business in the technical age has driven more fluidity and flexibility in staffing, bringing a surge of creative freelancers. Some gig work is personally driven, by a quest for greater work autonomy, or a desire for more flexible work. Some of it comes from the pressure to drive down costs in a quarterly‐ profit‐driven organization. Creative industries are fraught with yin and yang in work flow; sometimes drizzle, sometimes monsoon. In response to an erratic, frequently changing business, some believe you need versatile teams, fluid ones rather than those that are fixed. That often means anorexic permanent staffing and beefing up with freelancers or contractors when business is booming. This may make for business survival in uncertain times, but it brings unintended consequences. Sociologists like Rosalind Gill have published a wealth of research to suggest that the rosy ideals of “technobohemians,” often hide negative societal and personal impact more akin to a “New cybertariat” (Gill and Pratt, 2008; Gill and Rossiter, 2007). We’ll revisit these ethical considerations in Chapter 11. For now, recognize that not only are you meeting a business objective when you organize your teams for creative work, but you play a role in supporting or supplanting the gig economy. Bringing in highly paid, hired guns as freelancers is a time‐tested way of dealing with urgent staffing needs – in pitching new clients, when you win new business, when any crisis or pressing need arises for more work than regular employees can possibly deliver in the time allowed. Yes, it gets the job done. But how does that impact all your teams, their camaraderie, their performance, their loyalty? There is little doubt that it will. You need to think about it. The mood and motivation of your teams is vitally important, and shows directly in their creativity and productivity. 9.7.3  Sometimes, Amputation Is the Only Answer In a good creative business relationship, clients are team members, too. Not dictators for order‐takers. One of the most difficult team members to manage

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can be a toxic client. The best creative leaders spend time cultivating trust and good relationships with clients, and that can be a factor in longer and better relationships. But sometimes, no amount of leadership skill is enough to protect your teams from toxic conditions – and you’ve got to fire a client. Deutsch NY CEO Val DiFebo described firing a bad, but profitable, client as the toughest conversation she ever had: The business was with a sexy, coveted brand that creatives dream of working on, and it was highly profitable for the agency. But, the client? A rude micro‐manager who stifled creativity and amused himself by humiliating his managers and our team. He made a sport out of making every interaction uncomfortable. His micro‐managing tendencies were notorious and he was destructive to the creative process. I took a serious look at how his behavior impacted our people, created unnecessary distress and made the creative product suffer. When I fired him, he didn’t believe that we would walk away from the business. But we did, and in hindsight it was also one of the easiest decisions I ever had with a client because it was the right thing to do for my people, and our business (Bennett, 2017). Take note of how many of that client’s behaviors you read about under “de‐motivators.” Sometimes the toxic individual is your employee or colleague, one who stirs conflict, poisons an otherwise collegial culture, or breeds dissent. When you need to amputate the gangrene to save the rest of the body, do it. But work with human resources on a plan to do it ethically and compassionately.

9.8 ­Chapter Summary Team work has long been a mainstay of the creative industries, but collaboration is surging in prevalence and being applied in different ways. Creativity calls for teaming individuals with diverse skills, backgrounds, and ideas – but increased diversity brings with it the potential for increased conflict among disparate opinions and ideas. Managing and motivating group creativity calls for leadership priming the collaborators for openness to ideas, developing systems to optimize good conflict, avoid distruptors, and for active resolution of negative conflict. Creative leaders can be more successful if they take on the role of coach and mentor rather than compete with subordinates and, like a good parent, learn to love reflected glory.

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Fera, R. A. (2013). 10 tips For managing creative people. Fast Company (website), 17 September. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany. com/2683221/10‐tips‐for‐managing‐creative‐people. Gill, R. and Pratt, A. (2008). In the social factory? Immaterial labour, precariousness and cultural work. Theory, culture & society, 25(7–8), 1–30. Gill, R. and Rossiter, N. (2007). Technobohemians or the new cybertariat? New media work on Amsterdam a decade after the web: Report. Institute of Network Cultures. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., and McKee, A. (2013). Primal leadership: Unleashing the power of emotional intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. Grant, I., McLeod, C., and Shaw, E. (2012). Conflict and advertising planning: consequences of networking for advertising planning. European Journal of Marketing, 46(1/2), 73–91. Hackley, C. and Kover, A. (2007), The trouble with creative: Negotiating creative identity in advertising agencies. International Journal of Advertising, 26, 63–78. Harrison, D. A. and Klein, K. J. (2007). What’s the difference? Diversity constructs as separation, variety, or disparity in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 32, 1199–1228. James, K. (1995). Goal conflict and originality of thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 8, 285–290. Jehn, K. A. (1997). A qualitative analysis of conflict types and dimensions in organizational groups. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42, 530–557. Kurtzberg, T. R. and Amabile, T. M. (2001). From Guilford to creative synergy: opening the black box of team‐level creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 13(3–4), 285–294. Li, N., Zhao, H. H., Walter, S. L., Zhang, X., and Yu, J. (2015). Achieving more with less: Extra milers’ behavioral influences in teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 1025–1039. Malefyt, T. D. (2003). Models, metaphors and client relations: the negotiated meanings of advertising. Advertising Cultures. Oxford: Berg. 139–164. Mallia, K. L., Windels, K., and Broyles, S. J. (2013). The fire starter and the brand steward: An examination of successful leadership traits for the advertising‐ agency creative director. Journal of Advertising Research, 53(3), 339–353. McRobbie, A. (2016). Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries. Cambridge, MA: Polity. Miller, D. (2003). Advertising, production and consumption as cultural economy. Advertising Cultures. Oxford: Berg. 75–89. Mumford, M. D., Scott, G. M., Gaddis, B., and Strange, J. M. (2002). Leading creative people: Orchestrating expertise and relationships. The leadership quarterly, 13(6), 705–750. Ryzik, M. (2017). Aziz Ansari on the return of “Master of None” and that “S.N.L.” monologue. New York Times (website), 12 May. Retrieved from https://www.

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nytimes.com/2017/05/12/arts/television/aziz‐ansari‐on‐the‐return‐of‐master‐ of‐none‐and‐that‐snl‐monologue.html. Sinek, S. (2014). Leaders eat last: why some teams pull together and others don’t. London: Penguin. Smircich, L. and Morgan, G. (1982). Leadership: The management of meaning. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 18, 257–273. Torres, N. (2016). Proof that women get less credit for teamwork. Harvard Business Review (website), 9 February. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/02/ proof‐that‐women‐get‐less‐credit‐for‐teamwork. Vernuccio, M. and Ceccotti, F. (2015). Strategic and organisational challenges in the integrated marketing communication paradigm shift: A holistic vision. European Management Journal, 33, 438–449. West, M. A. and Farr, J. L. (1990). lnnovation and creativity at work: Psychological and Organizational Strategies. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 265–267. Williams, E. (2016). Co‐working Spaces for Creatives in the UK. Creative Review (website), 12 August. Retrieved from www.creativereview.co.uk/ co‐working‐spaces‐for‐creatives. Woehr, D. J., Arciniega, L. M., and Poling, T. L. (2012). Exploring the effects of value diversity on team effectiveness. Journal of Business and Psychology, 28, 107–121.

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10 Diversity and Creativity It’s Everybody’s Problem. And It’s Big Everyone who thinks they can skip this chapter, raise your hand. Forget it. Even if you’re egalitarian, or an advocate, you need to stick around. And especially if you’re a disillusioned white man. Everyone will find surprises here, and more than a few cherry bombs that will explode your expectations, and conventional wisdom on the subject. Diversity. Think about what it means. Perhaps you envisioned workplace issues of gender or race or ethnicity? Think harder. Maybe sexual orientation comes to mind? You’ve barely scratched the surface of what warrants discussion. The diversity problem goes broader and deeper than whatever you might imagine. Unless you have a personal connection, you probably didn’t think of psychological diversity, or people who are differently able, or negative stereotypes against overweight or older people in our cultural and creative industries. Diversity is complicated. You may you look around and see a woman or a member of a racial minority in a significant leadership role. Or you see numbers showing representation improving over what they were a decade or two ago. That could lead you to believe that diversity is a non‐issue. Problem is solved, right? Wrong. That line of thinking is formally known as “exceptionalism,” and it masks hard truth. Exceptions do not make the rule. The fact is, unless a minority has at least 35% representation in a group, they are tokens and suffer from “tokenism,” meaning they face a whole host of barriers that members of the majority don’t. Formally, the concept is known as Kanter’s (1977) Theory of Proportional Representation. In the creative industries (and many others), white men essentially have a stranglehold on major decision‐making. Therefore, genuine equality may never be achieved unless they buy into the necessity for it, big time. It’s no accident that the UN attempted to engage men on behalf of women with the global #HeforShe initiative kicked off by actress Emma Watson (Zara, 2014) or that The 3% Movement embraces “manbassadors.” Lean In adopted a similar strategy with its #MentorHer initiative (Fast Company, 2018). Without the

Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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engagement and endorsement of key decision makers, organizational and cultural change could take forever. In this chapter you will learn: ●●

●●

●● ●● ●●

The many kinds of diversity that need to be considered, some not so obvious The cultural and structural factors that impact diversity in the creative industries Explicit and hidden biases to watch out for How diversity benefits creativity and the creative industries What creative leaders can do to encourage and cultivate greater diversity

10.1 ­Trade Popular Fiction for Cold, Hard Facts Diversity often gets a bad rap, even from good guys. Primarily that stems from some fundamental misconceptions. Let’s examine some widely accepted falsehoods. The first untruth is that diversity problems were solved by legislation, litigation, and progress, and we live in a post‐racial, equal opportunity world. Unless you were in a coma through 2017, incessant news coverage and social media conversations brought gender and race to the fore. It began slowly, with the 3% Movement launched in 2012 to shine a light on the woeful underrepresentation of women in creative leadership, evolving in 2017 to highlight the color line as well. Social media advanced the movie industry’s #OscarsSoWhite movement (Ryan, 2016). The October 2017 accusations against film mogul Harvey Weinstein exploded the #MeToo movement, highlighting sexual harassment and criminal behavior, resulting in accusations against 83 high profile men media and entertainment (Hollywood Reporter, 2017; Kantor and Twohey, 2017). When a whisper network list of dangerous men in media went public (Donegan, 2018), women of color complained they had been excluded (Wortham, 2017). Time’s Up echoed through the 2018 Grammy awards. A second fiction is that advocacy on behalf of diversity unjustly favors some “others,” someone else, and not you, and that when an “other” rises, someone else must suffer. Genuine equality lags because of this “warped understanding of equality as a state of ‘reverse’ discrimination” (Thomas, 2017, 10). Figure 10.1 may be a playful rebuttal, but its claim is true. In reality, data shows that when more women join the workforce, everyone’s wages rise (Weinstein, 2018). Lowering the barriers to inclusion has a multitude of benefits to individuals, companies and economies (Parilla, 2018). Everyone prospers in diverse organizations – employees, leaders, shareholders, and clients. Catalyst and others have published reams of research demonstrating that companies with more women on boards and in leadership benefit

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Figure 10.1  Diversity is not Pie. Source: © Greg Bates.

financially (Catalyst, 2017; Eastman et al., 2016). In the creative industries in particular, a diverse workforce benefits everyone, the entire industry, as it is essential to creativity and problem‐solving. As the global consumer becomes more diverse, creative industries will succeed only by understanding wide‐ ranging minds, values, mores, and expectations. The last fiction is perhaps the most disturbing, because good people really, really want to believe it. This is the sincere belief among many individuals that they are free of prejudice and bias, and fair to everyone. No one is. That’s a fact, substantiated by reams of research. Most telling was Goldin and Rouse’s (2000) study of orchestra auditions demonstrating that when juries saw candidates, fewer women were selected than when all the candidates were hidden from view. Other hiring research affirms that “when an individual is female or nonwhite, they are rated worse than when their race or sex is obscured” (Johnson et al., 2016).

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10.2 ­Reality Check: Some Painful Truths, and (Real) Numbers Perhaps the biggest threat to achieving real diversity is the overestimation of how “far” women or minorities have come. Some of the creative industries have seen modest improvement in representation of women and people of color, while others, like gaming and digital tech, actually are getting less diverse over time (Conor et al., 2015). Beware of twisted statistics. Some companies like to report overall numbers in discussing diversity. Yet totals typically hide the fact that women and/or minorities dominate the bottom rungs of an organization, while leadership and power remain predominately white and male. The ad industry gives us one glaring example. Despite 50/50 representation in the industry as a whole, women are scarce among the creative elite. Female representation among varied Halls of Fame show women 11% in the One Club, 8.6% in AAF, and 12% in the Art Directors’ Hall of Fame (Mallia and Windels, 2018). In agency creative departments, women still have token status, comprising 24% of US creatives, yet only 11% of creative directors (Grow and Deng, 2014; Mallia, 2017; Mallia and Windels, 2018). In some locales, representation is even worse. Not so long ago, there was one woman creative director among 55 agencies in New Zealand (Barnett, 2010). Despite affirmative action, lawsuits, and legislation, and two long‐standing diversity programs in the US, representation of racial and ethnic minorities remains dismally low as well (Boulton, 2015; Thomas, 2017; Wheaton, 2016). In its 138‐year history, the Metropolitan Opera has staged operas written by women exactly twice (Lunden, 2016). There are but a handful of African‐ American principal dancers in a major ballet companies (NYTimes, 2015). Public relations is firmly skewed toward women, but they dominate the lower ranks (Risi, 2016). In large publishing houses, most senior positions have long been held by men (Weiss, 1995). The #OscarsSoWhite movement shined a light on Hollywood’s persistent whiteness. Women make up a mere 7% of all directors who worked on 250 highest grossing releases in 2016, which is a 2% drop from the previous year (Lang, 2017). The gender divide in Hollywood has a demonstrated impact on film (Friedman, et al., 2016). There’s a persistent lack of diversity in TV as well (Khaleeli, 2014). Despite a surge of interest and coverage in women’s sports, representation of women in sports media has declined, showing “the bleakest of realities” (Burton, 2014, p. 5). 10.2.1  Meritocracy Is a Lovely Myth. But That Is All Most creative people honestly believe that success is “all about the work.” No, no, NO. It is not. Look closely at the leaders in any creative organization.

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Do they mirror the diversity of the larger culture, or does one “type” dominate the pack: Color? Gender? Age cohort? Nationality? Class? Fact: creativity does not biologically favor any race or gender. So, if indeed success was solely the result of creative brilliance, everyone should have an equal chance, and creative industries should mirror the whole population. They assuredly do not. As a whole, the creative and cultural industries show stark patterns of exclusion, segregation, and inequality in class, disability, race, and ethnicity (Holgate and McKay, 2009; Randle et al., 2007; Thanki and Jeffreys, 2006–2007). In this regard, the CCI are worse than other economic sectors (Conor et al., 2015). In the UK, women represent 46% of the overall workforce, but just 25% of those in creative occupations (Henry, 2009).

10.3 ­Why Has So Little Changed in So Long? Inclusion is a complex, multi‐layered, global morass, and those engaged in the struggle have been fighting tanks with peashooters. Cultural, structural, and psychological barriers serve to undermine earnest efforts, and thwart progress. 10.3.1 Culture We are all thoroughly immersed in culture, and we internalize its norms without question. Most of us genuinely believe in three powerful cultural values: equal opportunity, meritocracy, and personal responsibility. These are specious beliefs, and yet we cling to them. Educational institutions and creative industries continue to perpetuate these myths, even as the realities of the workplace render them hollow. In the US (and the creative industries) these beliefs are so powerful they hide the realities of context and structure that protect the status quo (Bush, 2011; Catalyst, 2007; Lawrence et al., 2004). Cultural norms are embedded at every level and across institutions: nation, industry, organization, religion, society, ethnicity, race, and family. Without exposure to a range of alternatives, we each live immersed and unquestioning in our own narrow reality. This keeps stereotypes infinitely durable. Longitudinal research found that gender stereotypes at work are every bit as strong as they were in the 1980s (Haines et al., 2016). Stereotypes tell us many lies: That women are less creative than men, or that men are innately better at technology. That race makes one better or worse at certain tasks. That creative people over 35 are old hacks. That mothers are less dedicated to their careers. Or that creative leaders must be gregarious and extroverted. All wrong. FYI 10.1 should crush that extrovert bias for you.

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FYI 10.1  Introverts and Advertising Don’t Mix. Or Do They? by Tracy Wong Advertising history has been gifted with so many colorful, flamboyant, outlandish characters. To name a few: David Ogilvy. Mary Wells. Jerry Della Femina. Jay Chiat. The Saatchis. Donny Deutsch. Surely all extroverts. Given the glamorous, high‐dollar nature of the business, you would think it must take an extrovert to succeed. Which goes double for starting your own agency. (All of the above have.) I am no David Ogilvy. I don’t even own red clothing or suspenders. But I worked for him and other well‐known brands (Goodby, Silverstein, etc.) with some success. Enough to start my own shop, WONGDOODY. Stop the presses: I am a classic introvert! How did I defy an unwritten advertising ruled carved on some hidden industry tablet, that introverts can’t cut it? I believe these are the three biggest misconceptions about introverts: Introverts shy away from the limelight. Honestly, I’ve always liked the attention, but it’s about the work I’ve done. Not about me. I have just enough ego to want what I make to be famous. But not enough to have it be about me personally. I do dread industry cocktail receptions. But that’s usually where they keep the limelights. Introverts can’t lead. We’re shy, reclusive, and therefore unfit to take charge. Leaders need to be vocal, decisive, and strong. Extroverts, right? Not necessarily. An officer from West Point once said, “There are two kinds of leaders. Ones that push you into the fire. And ones you follow into the fire.” The latter? That’s an introvert. I tend to be more thoughtful (because I spend more time alone thinking) than other “fiery” leaders I’ve known. That thoughtfulness is rooted in empathy and gives me a better understanding of the people I’m in charge of. I listen more. Which I use to lead better. Introverts don’t speak up. For themselves. For the agency. For the work. Extroverts make the best advocates and therefore, the best sales people, because they are extremely vocal and their passion can take over a room. It’s their nature. But I have just as much boiling blood to push like an extrovert. It just comes in smaller, more potent doses. Aim more. Shoot less. P.S. Don’t think my first‐person narrative applies solely to the ad industry. I do think that this unwritten prejudice casts a shadow on any field involving creativity and business. Personality is such a big part of the game. But more often than not, it’s the quiet recluses that will shock and surprise you. Tracy Wong is Chairman, Executive Creative Director, and founder of WONGDOODY, a repeat winner of Ad Age’s Small Agency of the Year and multiple other awards.

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10.3.1.1  Bias Persists – and Replicates Itself

Because culture surrounds us like the air we breathe, we accept the status quo. So when our expectations (and biases) are violated, we get uncomfortable. We are disconcerted, disturbed. There is backlash. Strong women are perceived negatively for the selfsame characteristics applauded in men. Implicit and explicit attitudes toward female authority undermine women in the workplace (Acker, 1990; Heilman and Eagly, 2008; Ibarra et al., 2017; Rudman and Kilianski, 2000; Rudman et al. 2012). This is why contemporary research puts much greater emphasis on invisible bias, rather than intentional bias, to account for the struggles of women in achieving leadership. Scholars call this second‐generation gender bias, biases “that arise from cultural assumptions and organizational structures, practices and patterns of interaction that inadvertently benefit men while putting women at a disadvantage” (Ibarra et al., 2013). It creates a context where women are pre‐ ordained to fail. Leader decisions can perpetuate stereotypes and systemic organizational biases, such as with gendered work assignments, where men are assigned to beer, car, and sport brands, and women are assigned the social pages or yet another article on cooking or losing weight. Sex segregation is seen in music, magazine publishing, and television  –  throughout the cultural industries – where men dominate creative and technical roles, and women dominate production coordination, public relations, and social media (Duffy, 2016; Gill, 2007; Grow and Deng, 2014; Hesmondhalgh and Baker, 2015). Leaders must be ever vigilant to the potential influence of stereotypes on their judgments, choices, and actions (Haines et al., 2016). 10.3.1.2  Ageism Is Unlike any Other Prejudice

Some call it the experience penalty: ageism. Unlike prejudices that people have against some “other,” we will all join this group some day. Hence, some psychologists believe ageism grows from a deep‐seated psychological terror of our own mortality (Greenberg et  al., 2017). Ageism gives rise to some powerful organizational dynamics in the workplace, and is increasingly studied in organizational behavior and psychology (North and Fiske, 2015). FYI, there is little evidence that age causes a decline in creativity. Einstein didn’t come into his own until he was past 60. Many artists, musicians, and others have painted, composed, and invented well into advanced age. The creative productivity of older workers can decline, however, if they’re not given organizational support  –  thus producing a self‐fulfilling prophecy (Binnewies et al., 2008). Ageism gives rise to bias and intergenerational tensions (North and Fiske, 2015, 2013). It needn’t be that way. Some recent research provides evidence of a gray resistance on behalf of creative aging (Klimczuk 2017, 2015).

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10.3.1.3  Vive la Difference!

Of course, there are some genuine differences between and among humans. That’s good. And why creative industries need diversity, especially in an increasingly global economy. While the brains of men and women may be identical on an MRI, there is some evidence that their brains function somewhat differently. Broadly speaking, those differences enable men to dive deeper into problem or project to the exclusion of all else, and women to integrate more between the left and right hemispheres (Haupt, 2016). Both are critical to creative problem‐solving. Most importantly, there are no gender differences in creative ability. Differences in creative accomplishment are largely owing to environmental factors inhibiting women (Amabile, 1990; Averill, 1999; Baer and Kaufman, 2008). Women tend to communicate differently, and have higher levels of emotional intelligence. (So do introverts.) The data show that women on average perform better than men on nearly all competency measures of leadership (Goleman, 2016). Women‐led organizations are often designed differently to the benefit of both men and women (Lublin, 2016; Scott, 2014). Race and ethnicity bring valuable cultural competencies, experiences, and perspectives, as do generational differences – all good for creative competency and fluency. The same is true for other differences, like different ways of thinking (neurodiversity). Yet, how many of you have a colleague on the autism spectrum? Not many. Despite many having IQs well above average, at least 80% of adults with autism are estimated to be unemployed (CBS News, 2018). How many folks in fashion, or television, or Hollywood are differently able, overweight, or missing a limb – even behind the cameras? 10.3.2  Systems Play a Bigger Role Than Originally Thought Western culture paints success and achievement as an individual story. This contributes to an inability or unwillingness to recognize systemic barriers (Mallia, 2017). This is why Sheryl Sandberg’s initial cry that women and minorities should “lean in” and work harder was loudly criticized (Slaughter, 2012). Individual focus fails to acknowledge very real – and powerful – systemic barriers blocking success, and explains why Lean In’s later research acknowledges those barriers (Blair, 2015). Minorities continue to have token representation in the creative industries and in tech largely due to systemic barriers built by management practices and leadership gaps that (unwittingly or not) perpetuate the status quo (Gill, 2011, Gregory, 2009; McLeod et  al., 2009; Mallia, 2017; Nixon and Crewe, 2004; Windels and Mallia, 2015). When we take the way work works for granted, we forget that the entire model was created by and for men, hundreds of years ago, built on masculine assumptions, codes, and practices inherently biased (Hewlett, 2007;

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Windels and Mallia, 2015). Invisible biases run the gamut from what the “ideal” leader looks and sounds like, to rigid time demands, to even the temperature in the office. Because HVAC is calculated by formulae based on men’s bodies, women are often uncomfortably cold in the workplace (Belluck, 2015). Advocating for yourself, or for diversity, can backfire. Echoing what many have concluded, Harvard Business Review reported, “For all the talk about how important diversity is within organizations, white and male executives aren’t rewarded, career‐wise, for engaging in diversity‐valuing behavior, and nonwhite and female executives actually get punished for it” (Johnson and Hekman, 2016). Hear that? Nonwhites and women get punished for promoting diversity. That certainly has to change. 10.3.2.1  Creative Culture Can Be Exclusionary

In the name of openness and creativity, some creative workplaces permit things that horrify other industries. Here’s one example: the informality of office life allowed strident forms of masculinity and homosociability to flourish. In its more benign form this might include male practitioners playing football down the office corridors, while more problematic manifestations included horseplay such as decorating the office Christmas tree with condoms and sanitary towels, having Barbie dolls in bondage pinned to office doors and deploying derogatory and highly sexualised epithets for female colleagues. (Nixon and Crewe, 2004, pp. 134–135) A masculine climate is widely recognized to directly undermine women’s careers, and is blamed for their high attrition rate, particularly in tech and creative industries. The negative effects of minority status can impede minority creatives from becoming leaders in important ways: by crushing their creativity, undermining their productivity, and preventing them from getting the career groundwork that will prepare them for leadership. Established systems favor and perpetuate homogeneity. African‐Americans and Hispanics frequently cite lack of diversity as a reason for leaving, illustrating the unease of being an outsider (Boulton, 2013; Mallia, 2017; Windels and Mallia, 2015). 10.3.2.2  Hiring and Promotion

How companies hire and promote are among the important systems impacting diversity. It is widely known that people tend to favor and promote those who are similar to them. Unfortunately, such practices automatically reinforce stereotypes, perpetuate homogenity and inequality (Apfelbaum et al., 2014; Ibarra et al., 2013; Johnson and Hekman, 2016).

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Retention can be even more critical to building and maintaining a healthy diversity. Women in journalism, tech, advertising, and other male‐dominated industries exit before achieving leadership positions (Dahlerup, 2006; Dent, 2017; Everbach and Flournoy, 2007; Gregory, 2016; Mallia, 2017, 2009). Droves of talented minority creatives leave when industry makes them feel like outsiders or they don’t get promoted, contributing to an expensive cycle of recruiting, training, and then starting all over again to sustain a diverse workforce. Think about why that is, and you’ll quickly return to the culture and codes of the organization. If you’re in power, there is little incentive to change a system that’s working for you – unless you are driven by vested personal interest, or great altruism. Therefore many people believe that systems are so entrenched and intractable, that genuine equality is unachievable without fundamental disruption and transformation of workplace culture and systems. 10.3.2.3  Creative Process Itself Contributes to Disparities

Work/life balance is challenging for all creatives, but especially punishing for care‐givers and single parents. Not coincidentally, these groups tend to be disproportionately female and minority. When a system is set up to reward long hours and having few outside interests, those who do are either punished or self‐select out of the profession when they find “emotional labor” untenable or incompatible with the job. Flexible work has both benefits and penalties of which Leslie et  al. (2012) offer a good review.

10.4 ­Why the Creative Industries Need Diversity More Than Individuals Do For creative industries, diversity is a business imperative as much as an ethical one. There is ample evidence of the impact of diversity on creativity and work. Diversity makes us all smarter, and more creative. Anita Woolley, Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory at Carnegie Mellon investigated what makes teams productive. She found gender equality was more important to increased collective intelligence than individual IQ scores (Woolley et al., 2010). Research demonstrates how socially diverse groups of all kinds – race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation – are more innovative than homogeneous ones. It’s not simply their personal knowledge and experience that impacts the outcome. There’s a synergy effect, too: “Simply interacting with individuals who are different forces group members to prepare better, to anticipate alternative viewpoints and to expect that reaching consensus will take effort”

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(Phillips, 2014). Figure 10.2 drives home how foolish it would be to ignore women – but the same is true for people of color. Diversity makes us all richer. Racial and gender diversity combined with commitment to equitable participation unleashes an undeniable competitive advantage (Richard et  al., 2013). And it pays off financially. McKinsey & Company found that companies with a diverse workforce are “35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians” (Hunt et  al., 2015). MCSI research demonstrates that companies with “strong female leadership” enjoyed a 36.4% greater return on equity over a five‐and‐a‐half year period than companies without a critical mass of women at the top (Eastman et al., 2016). The Brookings Institution even reported that, beyond the benefits to workers and organizations, cities benefit economically from inclusion as well (Brookings, 2017). Business is global. Your outlook has to be. Understanding culture and global aspects of diversity is essential to the creative industries. Those who continue to perpetuate homogeneity and an ethnocentric view will be left hopelessly behind.

Figure 10.2  Source: © Monica Byrnes.

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10.4.1  Steal from the Best, and Watch for Landmines You’re not the first one interested in enhancing cultural competency and diversity. Review, engage – even copy – the best practices of others. In the UK, the IPA is taking a leading role in diversity, and provides a tool kit on its website (http://ipa.co.uk). In the US, the Art Directors Club launched a pioneering program in 2013, described in FYI 10.2. Find trade groups and partners in your industry. There are organizations everywhere – even the YMCA – to help people learn about LGBTQ, racial, and gender equity, as well as persons with disabilities. Build bridges. Social media is a great tool, and it can add international perspective. It would be rather foolish to try things that have already failed. Learn what strategies work, and which tactics may be problematic. Be mindful of unintended consequences. One common move for disillusioned minorities is to freelance or start their own agencies. For all the appeal of self‐ employment, this does not solve the problem for the industry – just the individual involved. “Separate but equal” didn’t work in 1950s US schools nor does it work in creative industries. Female and minority agencies are built on the promise of some innate greater understanding of “their kind.” This line of reasoning undermines real equity and inclusion by setting up sectors and silos, continuing to marginalize minority talent as only capable of a select kind of work, and preventing greater representation at the “big table.” “Good” practices often carry a double‐edged sword. The gig economy and flexible work are the darlings of contemporary conversation and digital nomads. Flexible work is highly desirable, yet it can undermine diversity. The gig economy favors the in‐group; established networks call upon “pals.” Freelance is especially challenging for older workers in creative industries (Hennekam, 2015). Working from home was once thought to be the holy grail for working mothers, yet most recent research highlights the negative consequences of remote work on the careers of both men and women (Bernard, 2016).

10.5 ­What You Can Do to Foster Diversity Value diversity, and make it known. Widely. Don’t try to make everyone conform to the same cultural ideal – or standards – to be successful. Value diversity in all its forms – ideas, personalities, every kind – and make it abundantly clear throughout the organization. Make it public. Make it a mandate. Formalize mentorship and sponsorship. People need to learn the codes of the industry to grow and prosper. Mentors and sponsors are critical for diversity, a key factor in the career success of underrepresented groups. Studies show men naturally tend to mentor junior male talent, thus earmarking them for

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FYI 10.2  The ADC Did It. You Can, Too by Jennifer Larkin Kuzler Diversity was much discussed in our business. But for decades, nothing changed. So in 2013, the Art Directors Club1 created a call to action to the advertising industry, by setting a goal of equal participation for women and men on award show juries, boards of directors, and event panels and speaker lineups. We proclaimed our goal right in the name: the Let’s Make the Industry 50/50 Initiative. Its mission is to effect drastic and measurable change in the roles and participation of women within the creative industries. The initiative was born of a conversation between the ADC and founding 50/50 committee member Cindy Gallop, seeking ways to get more women involved in our community, beginning with our juries. We decided that we needed to make a public statement to both inspire and hold like organizations accountable for making a drastic change in how they approached their programming. Too often we kept hearing “but I don’t know that many female creatives” or, “there just aren’t that many women in the industry,” in response to why speaker lineups, juries, and the like were so woefully unbalanced. A typical award show jury consisted of a few token females – never approaching anything resembling 50%. We wanted to physically demonstrate that those statements simply weren’t true. So we launched the initiative with a photo shoot in the ADC gallery in NYC, where we put a call out to all female creatives in the area to come by to get in the picture. With very little notice, more than 150 women showed up that day, including leadership from the Clios and ANDY Awards. Women weren’t nonexistent. They just weren’t always as visible as their male counterparts. We think equal representation is important for not only this show but all shows. A balanced jury noticeably transforms the conversation in the jury room. The perceptions and interpretations are wonderfully disrupted, unconscious biases are (hopefully) exposed, and the work of the jury becomes part of a larger cultural and social conversation on creative communications. Yes, it is challenging to constitute a truly diverse jury – culturally, regionally, and creatively speaking. You want the best cross‐section of talent in the room to evaluate and hold up the best from the vast array of work entered. In order to achieve a 50/50 gender balance, you have to work harder, sometimes dig a bit deeper  –  since talented female creatives are not always as visible or vocal as men. They do fewer public appearances  –  usually because they simply aren’t invited. Once you open that door you find you’ve opened a floodgate in the best possible way. It opens a positive cycle  –  you increase exposure, you increase participation, which in turn increases exposure and awareness in your industry.

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We did it. Each year, the ADC has four juries, traditionally consisting of anywhere from 50 to 70 total jurors. For the past four years, we’ve achieved that 50/50 balance on each and every jury  –  a feat that has been immensely satisfying. While achieving true gender equality in the creative industries (or any industry for that matter) is definitely a long game, there are tangible, effective things we can all do right now to get that process started: ●●

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Start. If you don’t ask women to join, the dynamic will never shift. If you don’t ask, they’ll never say yes. Do it. Women need to embrace opportunity and not be tentative.

After we had our first set of 50/50 juries, the initial (unsolicited) responses to this change came from several male jurors. Every one thanked me and the club for bringing such an amazing group together. Just as we anticipated, the experience changed the way they viewed the work and how they viewed themselves in that kind of setting. Your turn. Jennifer Larkin Kuzler was the Director of Awards Programs at the ADC at the time of this writing. She is currently a producer at Dedalus VII and a board member of the non‐profit DecadesOut. 1

 The Art Directors Club is a professional group founded in 1920.

leadership (Hanan, 2016; Valerio and Sawyer, 2016). The only way to equalize opportunities is for men to mentor women and people of color. Formally orchestrate mentorships and sponsorships. Engage everyone in cultural competence. But NEVER do “diversity training.” According to The Economist, diversity training is reportedly perceived as on par with root canal, and that’s not exactly a productive frame of mind with which to approach the topic (Woolridge, 2016). Put the “D” word on a conference program, and see what the session attendance looks like: a handful of women and people of color and a whole lot of tumbleweeds (Akwue, 2016; Mallia, 2017). You’ve got to overcome diversity fatigue as well as resistance in order to make a difference. So be creative. Do podcasts. Start a book club. Make understanding human differences interesting and engaging, and make sure everyone knows how they benefit from participation. Panels and diversity officers are just window‐dressing. Structural inequality requires major renovation. The Great British Diversity Experiment found it essential to reassess the traditional creative director role, and retrain leaders. Not surprisingly, they found that the most successful teams

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were led by empathetic, careful facilitators, “… with the best leaders facilitating ‘messy’ debate rather than dominating discussion based on their own judgment” (McQuarter, 2016). Change frequently takes a little social engineering. Primary care for a newborn or adopted child most often falls on women. Even when offered parental leave, many men are reluctant to take it, for fear of being perceived as less dedicated or unambitious. Sweden overcame that hesitancy by imposing penalties for not taking it, and now 85% of Swedish fathers take parental leave (Bennhold, 2010). Policy can help change culture. Rethink recruitment. If you look in the usual places, you’ll end up with the usual suspects. Seek talent in unexpected places. The director of strategy at Space150 suggests that creative industries remove four‐year college degree requirements as a way of expanding the talent pool (Iverson, 2016). You’ll find greater diversity at community and technical colleges. Remember, some of the most creative men and women in history weren’t traditional “A” students. Internships and apprenticeships. Minorities and first‐generation college students cannot afford unpaid internships. If you want diversity, pay them. Pay a living wage for placements. Otherwise, you’ll get a continuing stream of privileged young people who have parental support. Create an apprenticeship program, or collaborate in forming one. In the UK, Google partnered with Livity in its Advantage Programme. Completion of the free course leads to fully paid 12‐month digital marketing apprenticeships at some top UK companies. Recognize that others are not like you. Jonathan Akwue is not surprised by how long it has taken to attract ethnic minorities. “… the industry is so flakey that no first‐generation immigrant in their right mind would want to join it. Instead, they would naturally veer towards more established professions such as accountancy or medicine, leaving it to the second or third generations to indulge their creative impulses” (Akwue, 2016). Others can be unaware of career opportunities in the creative industries, which is why The Ideas Foundation focuses on 13–19‐year‐olds. (http://ideasfoundation.org.uk). Think pre‐recruitment. Don’t let optics deceive you. Do not for a minute believe that, just because you see a woman or a minority in a leadership role, bias or stereotyping does not exist. Remember that is exceptionalism, and it masks realities. Five female superstars may get a lot of visibility, but that belies the distorted numbers in the music industry. Make retention of diverse talent a priority. Every year, the creative industries hemorrhage some of their best talent, and lose minorities to other businesses, because they feel they don’t “fit in.” Creative work itself is tough enough when you’re among colleagues and leaders who like and recognize you. Imagine working like a jackass and being overlooked. You wouldn’t stick around either.

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Rethink how you measure performance. Diversity won’t happen if it’s not a measured objective, and rewarded (or failure punished). When leaders are “excused” for harassment or insensitivity, because they’re talented, and victims are paid off or punished, that sends a message loud and clear announcing that creativity trumps humanity. That undermines every other effort at diversity. Say goodbye to “face time” as a KPI. If you want an environment that welcomes balanced people, rethink how you measure performance. Measures will need to be less time‐based and more value‐based. Listen more than you speak. Open your eyes and your ears. Openness is as essential to building a great diverse workforce as it is to creativity. You will learn much from others who don’t live like you or think like you. Build an environment where everyone feels free to discuss even tough topics like race. Walk the talk. You can’t say you value work/life balance and be a workaholic role model. When CMO Andrea Sullivan realized that her employees weren’t striving to be her, she made significant changes, and now says, “Hey it’s five o’clock, I’m leaving. I’m going home to be with my family” (Scott, 2014). Resistance is futile. Genuine equality in the creative workplace is long overdue.

10.6 ­Chapter Summary The diversity issue is bigger and broader and deeper than most people realize. Despite numerous efforts to overcome inequities in creative industries, serious problems remain  –  especially in leadership. Beware statistics and exceptionalism. People and organizations must overcome persistent individual and industry biases (explicit and invisible), and dogged, dated cultural stereotypes. True diversity requires commitment and sustained action, awareness and diligence, as well as re‐examining industry practices. Action includes many concrete steps concerning hiring, evaluation, promotion, retention, and leadership. Gender, racial, ethnic, and skill diversity are all essential to creativity and business success.

10.7 ­Some Great Reads + Resources Sexual harassment doesn’t even have to involve sex. Read this 2018 account of job loss and rapid career implosion to understand how treacherous these waters can be. Copaken, D. (2018). How to lose your job from sexual harassment in 33 easy steps. The Atlantic, 9 March. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/ archive/2018/03/how‐to‐lose‐your‐job‐from‐sexual‐harassment‐in‐33‐easy‐ steps/555197. Bohnet, I. (2016). What works: Gender equality by design. London: Belnap/ Harvard University Press.

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­References Acker, J. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender & Society, 4(2), 139–158. Akwue, J. (2016). Why are we still walking about diversity? The Drum (website), 24 March. http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2016/03/24/ why‐are‐we‐still‐talking‐about‐diversity. Amabile, T. M. (1990). Within you, without you: The social psychology of creativity, and beyond. In M. A. Runco & R. S. Albert (Eds.), Sage Focus Editions, Vol. 115. Theories of Creativity (pp. 61–91). Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications, Inc. Apfelbaum, E. P., Phillips, K. W., and Richeson, J. A. (2014). Rethinking the baseline in diversity research: Should we be explaining the effects of homogeneity?. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(3), 235–244. Averill, J. R. (1999). Individual differences in emotional creativity: Structure and correlates. Journal of personality, 67(2), 331–371. Baer, J., and Kaufman, J. C. (2008). Gender differences in creativity. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 42(2), 75–105. Barnett, T. (2010). Tracey Barnett: Mad Men boys’ club fails to capture a female market. New Zealand Herald, Business, 20 March. Retrieved from http://www. nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10632860. Belluck, P. (2015). Chilly at work? This office formula was devised for men. New York Times (website), 3 August. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/science/ chilly‐at‐work‐a‐decades‐old‐formula‐may‐be‐to‐blame.html?emc=eta1. Bennhold, K. (2010). In Sweden, men can have it all. The New York Times (website), 9 June. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10iht‐ sweden.html. Bernard, T. S. (2016). The unspoken stigma of workplace flexibility. The New York Times (website), 14 June. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/your‐money/ the‐unspoken‐stigma‐of‐workplace‐flexibility.html. Binnewies, C., Ohly, S., and Niessen, C. (2008). Age and creativity at work: The interplay between job resources, age and idea creativity. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23(4), 438–457. Blair, E. (2015). Anne‐Marie Slaughter’s “Unfinished Business.” The New York Times, 23 September. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/ books/review/anne‐marie‐slaughters‐unfinished‐business‐women‐men‐work‐ family.html. Boulton, C. (2015). Under the cloak of whiteness: A circuit of culture analysis of opportunity hoarding and colour‐blind racism inside US advertising internship programs. Triple C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 13(2), 390–403. Boulton, C. (2013). The ghosts of Mad Men: Race and gender inequality inside American advertising agencies. The Routledge companion to advertising and promotional culture, 252–256.

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Gill, R. (2007) Postfeminist media culture: elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10, 147–166. Gill, R. (2011). Sexism reloaded, or, it’s time to get angry again!. Feminist Media Studies, 11(1), 61–71. Goldin, C. and Rouse, C. (2000). Orchestrating impartiality: The impact of “blind” auditions on female musicians. American Economic Review, 90(4), 715–741. Goleman, D. (2016). Women leaders get results: the data. LinkedIn (website), 8 March. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ women‐leaders‐get‐results‐data‐daniel‐goleman. Greenberg, J., Helm, P., Maxfield, M., and Schimel, J. (2017). How our mortal fate contributes to ageism: A terror management perspective. Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice Against Older Persons. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 105. Gregory, M. R. (2009). Inside the locker room: Male homosociability in the advertising industry. Gender, Work & Organization, 16(3), 323–347. Gregory, M. R. (2016). The Face of the Firm: Corporate Hegemonic Masculinity at Work. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Grow, J. M. and Deng, T. (2014). Sex segregation in advertising creative departments across the globe. Advertising & Society Review, 14(4). Haines, E. L., Deaux, K., and Lofaro, N. (2016). The times they are a‐changing … or are they not? A comparison of gender stereotypes, 1983–2014. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40, 353–363. Hanan, A. (2016). Five facts that show how the advertising industry fails women. The Guardian, 3 February. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/ women‐in‐leadership/2016/feb/03/how‐advertising‐industry‐fails‐women. Haupt, M. (2016). Masculine & feminine, left‐ & right‐brained thinking compared. Medium (website), 18 January. Retrieved from https://medium.com/ twenty‐one‐hundred/ the‐complex‐differences‐between‐masculine‐feminine‐energy‐ede6a021f332. Heilman, M. E. and Eagly, A. H. (2008). Gender stereotypes are alive, well, and busy producing workplace discrimination. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1(4), 393–398. Hennekam, S. (2015) Challenges of older self‐employed workers in creative industries: The case of the Netherlands. Management Decision, 53, 876–891. Henry, C. (2009). Women and the creative industries: Exploring the popular appeal. Creative Industries Journal, 2(2), 143–160. Hesmondhalgh, D. and Baker, S. (2015). Sex, gender and work segregation in the cultural industries. The Sociological Review, 63(1_suppl), 23–36. Hewlett, S. A. (2007). Off‐ramps and On‐Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. Holgate, J. and McKay, S. (2009). Equal opportunities policies: how effective are they in increasing diversity in the audio‐visual industries’ freelance labour market? Media, Culture & Society, 31(1), 151–163.

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Hollywood Reporter (2017). Notable Entertainment Figures Accused of Sexual Misconduct in Wake of Harvey Weinstein. 30 November. Retrieved from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/ hollywood‐media‐men‐accused‐of‐sexual‐misconduct‐and‐harassment‐post‐ weinstein‐1057193. Hunt, V., Layton, D., and Prince, S. (2015). Why diversity matters. McKinsey&Company (website), January. https://www.mckinsey.com/business‐ functions/organization/our‐insights/why‐diversity‐matters. Ibarra, H., Ely, R., and Kolb, D. (2013). Women rising: The unseen barriers. Harvard Business Review, 91(9), 60–66. Ibarra, H., Carter, N., and Silva, C. (2017). Why men still get more promotions than women. Harvard Business Review (website), September. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2010/09/why‐men‐still‐get‐more‐promotions‐than‐women. Iverson, B. (2016). Five ways agencies can dismantle systems keeping diversity out. Advertising Age, 29 June. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/agency‐ viewpoint/agencies‐dismantle‐a‐system‐diversity/304738. Johnson, S. K. and Hekman, D. R. (2016). Women and minorities are penalized for promoting diversity. Harvard Business Review, 60(2), 771–797. Johnson, S. K., Hekman, D. R., and Chan, E. T. (2016). If there’s only one woman in your candidate pool, there’s statistically no chance she’ll be hired. Harvard Business Review, 26(04). Online at https://hbr.org/2016/04/ if‐theres‐only‐one‐woman‐in‐your‐candidate‐pool‐theres‐statistically‐no‐ chance‐shell‐be‐hired. Kantor, J. and Twohey, M. (2017). Harvey Weinstein paid off sexual harassment accusers for decades. New York Times (website) 5 October. https://www. nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey‐weinstein‐harassment‐allegations.html. Khaleeli, H. (2014). Lenny Henry: diversity in the TV industry “is worth fighting for,”, The Guardian, 20 June, available at: http://www.theguardian.com/ culture/2014/jun/20/lenny‐henry‐interview‐diversity‐tv‐industry. Klimczuk, A. (2015). Silver, creative, and social economies as positive responses to population ageing. In Economic Foundations for Creative Ageing Policy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. 75–107. Klimczuk, A. (2017). The emergence of the creative ageing movement. In Economic Foundations for Creative Ageing Policy (Vol. II). New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. 103–166. Lang, B. (2017). Number of female directors falls despite diversity debate, says study. Variety (website), 12 January. Retrieved from http://variety.com/2017/ film/news/female‐directors‐hollywood‐diversity‐1201958694. Lawrence, K., Sutton, S., Kublisch, A., Susi, G., and Fulfright‐Anderson, K. (2004). Structural Racism and Community Building. Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute, Roundtable on Community Change. Leslie, L. M., Manchester, C. F., Park, T. Y., and Mehng, S. A. (2012). Flexible work practices: A source of career premiums or penalties? Academy of Management Journal, 55(6), 1407–1428.

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Lublin, J. (2016, September 27). How companies are different when more women are in iower. Wall Street Journal (website), 27 September, Business. http://www. wsj.com/articles/how‐companies‐are‐different‐when‐more‐women‐are‐in‐ power‐1474963802?utm_content=bufferd3e2c&utm_medium=social&utm_ source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer. Lunden, J. (2016). “Half of humanity has something to say”: Composer Kaija Saariaho on her Met debut. NPR Music (website), 3 December. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2016/12/03/503986298/ half‐of‐humanity‐has‐something‐to‐say‐composer‐kaija‐saariaho‐on‐her‐met‐ debut. Mallia, K. L. (2009). Rare birds: Why so few women become ad agency creative directors. Advertising & Society Review, 10, 5–14. Mallia, K. L. (2017). The creative career dilemma. No wonder ad women are mad women. In K. Golombisky and P. Kreshel (eds.), Feminists, Feminisms and Advertising (Vol. 1). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 117–206. Mallia, K. L. and Windels, K. (2018). Female Representation among Advertising’s Creative Elite: A Content Analysis of the Communication Arts Advertising Annual. Advertising & Society Quarterly, 18(4). McLeod, C., O’Donohoe, S., and Townley, B. (2009). The elephant in the room? Class and creative careers in British advertising agencies. Human Relations, 62(7), 1011–1039. McQuarter, K. (2016). Great British Diversity Experiment finds that agencies should embrace “messiness” and consider scrapping creative director role. The Drum (website), 26 May. Retrieved from http://www.thedrum.com/ news/2016/05/26/ great‐british‐diversity‐experiment‐finds‐agencies‐should‐embrace‐messiness‐ and. New York Times (2015). For black principal dancers, rarified air. New York Times (website), 30 June. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/30/arts/ dance/black‐principals.html. Nixon, S. and Crewe, B. (2004). Pleasure at work? Gender, consumption and work‐based identities in the creative industries. Consumption Markets & Culture, 7, 134–135. North, M. S. and Fiske, S. T. (2013). Act your (old) age: Prescriptive, ageist biases over succession, consumption, and identity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39, 720–734. North, M. S. and Fiske, S. T. (2015). Intergenerational resource tensions in the workplace and beyond: Individual, interpersonal, institutional, international. Research in Organizational Behavior, 35, 159–179. Parilla, J. (2018). Opportunity for growth: How reducing barriers to economic inclusion can benefit workers, firms, and local economies. Brookings (website), 28 September. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/ opportunity‐for‐growth‐how‐reducing‐barriers‐to‐economic‐inclusion‐can‐ benefit‐workers‐firms‐and‐local‐economies.

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Phillips, K. W. (2014). How diversity works. Scientific American, 311(4), 42–47. Randle, K. R., Kurian, J., and Leung, W. F. (2007). Creating difference: overcoming barriers to diversity in UK film and television employment. Creative Industries Research & Consultancy Unit, Business School, University of Hertfordshire. Richard, O. C., Kirby, S. L., and Chadwick, K. (2013). The impact of racial and gender diversity in management on financial performance: How participative strategy making features can unleash a diversity advantage. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(13), 2571–2582. Risi, J. (2016). Public relations agencies are dominated by women. So why are all their leaders men? Quartz (website), 8 March. Retrieved from https:// qz.com/631499/ public‐relations‐agencies‐are‐dominated‐by‐women‐so‐why‐are‐all‐their‐ leaders‐men. Rudman, L. A. and Kilianski, S. E. (2000). Implicit and explicit attitudes toward female authority. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1315–1328. Rudman, L. A., Moss‐Racusin, C. A., Phelan, J. E., and Nauts, S. (2012). Status incongruity and backlash effects: Defending the gender hierarchy motivates prejudice against female leaders. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 165–179. Ryan, P. (2016). #OscarsSoWhite controversy: What you need to know. USA Today (website), 2 February. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/ life/movies/2016/02/02/ oscars‐academy‐award‐nominations‐diversity/79645542. Scott, L. (2014). The work/life balance of advertising practitioners. Advertising & Society Review, 14(4). doi:10.1353/asr.2014.0002. Slaughter, A. (2012). Why women still can’t have it all. The Atlantic (website), July/August. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ archive/2012/07/why‐women‐still‐cant‐have‐it‐all/309020. Thanki, A. and Jeffreys, S. (2006–2007) Who are the fairest? Ethnic segmentation in London’s media production. Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation 1 (1): 108–118. Thomas, K. D. (2017). Privilege: The neglected obstacle in attaining equity in the ad industry. Journal of Advertising Education, 21, 10–14 Valerio, A. and Sawyer, K. (2016). The men who mentor women. Harvard Business Review (website), 7 December. Retrieved from https://hbr. org/2016/12/the‐men‐who‐mentor‐women. Weinstein, A. (2018). When more women join the workforce, wages rise – including for men. Harvard Business Review (website), 31 January. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/01/ when‐more‐women‐join‐the‐workforce‐wages‐rise‐including‐for‐men.

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Weiss, E. (1995). Women Writing: Views and Prospects 1975–1995 (Panel Session: Publishing Fact and Fiction). Retrieved from http://www.nla.gov.au/ events/weiss.html. Wheaton, K. (2016). Black (ad) lives matter: The industry’s biggest diversity problem. Advertising Age (website), 1 June. Retrieved from: http://adage.com/ article/ken‐wheaton/ black‐ad‐lives‐matter‐industry‐s‐biggest‐diversity‐problem/304238. Windels, K. and K. L. Mallia (2015). How being female impacts learning and career growth in advertising creative departments. Employee Relations: The International Journal, 37(1), 122–140. Woolley, A. W., Chabris, C. F., Pentland, A., Hashmi, N., and Malone, T. W. (2010). Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. Science, 330, 686–688. Woolridge, A. (2016). Diversity fatigue. The Economist (website), 11 February. Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/news/ business/21692865‐making‐most‐workplace‐diversity‐requires‐hard‐work‐ well‐good‐intentions‐diversity. Wortham, J. (2017). We were left out. NY Times Magazine, 13 December. The Reckoning series of essays. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/ interactive/2017/12/13/magazine/the‐reckoning‐women‐and‐power‐in‐the‐ workplace.html. Zara. C. (2014). Emma Watson UN speech: HeForShe feminist campaign attracts thousands of men to take pledge. International Business Times, 22 September. Retrieved from http://www.ibtimes.com/ emma‐watson‐un‐speech‐heforshe‐feminist‐campaign‐attracts‐thousands‐ men‐take‐pledge‐1692910.

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11 A Look at Ethics and the Big Picture When regard for the truth has been broken down or even slightly weakened, all things will remain doubtful. St. Augustine Are you the Chief Integrity Officer? Is anyone? Who in your organization chooses which decisions and policies are appropriate and examines their implications? By and large, creative leaders are too busy day‐to‐day to ponder philosophical questions and values, unless they’re looking at mission statements or confronting a crisis. They depend on individual integrity, hoping for the best. That is perilous thinking. Remember 2017. Remember Harvey Weinstein? The high‐profile Hollywood power broker was accused of sexual assault and rape by numerous women who had previously been afraid to speak out, and was later indicted for crimes against two victims (McKinley, 2018). In the eight weeks immediately following the public accusations against Weinstein, comedian Louis C.K., Pixar’s John Lasseter, and 38 other high‐level men were accused of sexual misconduct ranging from lewdness to rape (Almukhtar et al., 2017). The creative industries were glaringly over‐represented. The most tragic revelations demonstrated how numerous others witnessed horrendous behaviors and failed to speak up. It’s much easier to ignore issues than to address them. A valuable, talented man with power gets cut more than a little slack by those who value success and profits over a victim’s psyche. This represents more than an ugly anecdote. Unethical behavior reverberates far beyond perpetrator and victim. It sickens the entire organization, the industry, and ripples through society until it ultimately impacts culture by normalizing inappropriate behavior. Every US taxpayer was (and is) impacted by harassment, by contributing to a dedicated Treasury fund that pays off claims against members of Congress.

Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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All of this underscores the necessity for conscious consideration of ethics. Leadership is built on trust, and trust is built on integrity. Character alone is inadequate preparation to guide ethical leadership. In this chapter, you will learn: ●● ●●

●● ●● ●●

Why creative leaders need to consider ethics Some of the ethical, sustainable, and moral considerations that arise in highly competitive, fast paced, creative industries A framework for making decisions among competing interests and values The dark side of contributing to the gig economy The relationship between good creative and social good, and the imperative for caring

11.1 ­Ethics Can No Longer Be the Last Thing on the Mind of Creative Leaders Most creative leaders don’t think much about ethics. Few even recognize that they should consider the ethics in their behaviors and decisions. That blind spot could account for why so many major dilemmas never get resolved. A glaring example? It is widely accepted among scholars from anthropology to communication and sociology that the process of cultural production – and the products of creative work, such as photos, films, advertisements, and such  –  create and influence culture. Yet few people in these industries acknowledge that. Every creative industry influences culture, by design or default. The relationship between the fashion and beauty industries and self‐perception and eating disorders is well documented (Etcoff et  al., 2004; Kilbourne, 1994, 2012). Television abhors wrinkles. Most Hollywood actors over 40 vanish into oblivion. People follow the lead of creative industries in fashion trends and fads, music styles, dance moves, ideas, and language – both consciously and unconsciously. Creative leaders need to think beyond the immediate. Working on autopilot, or making easy, comfortable decisions, cannot be trusted to result in wise or just actions. Every leader serves many masters, and each has his or her own competing interests  –  sometimes at diametric odds. The question then becomes, whose wellbeing is paramount, and when? Second only to the organization’s welfare should be that of its employees, and creating an ethos and a shared sense of purpose. Radio host of On Being, Krista Tippett spent decades seeking the wisdom and the secrets of enlightened leadership. She reports that leading is an active, conscious process: “Just because you have a great mission doesn’t mean that you have wise leadership or an organization that’s infused with [institutional] character” (Moran, 2017).

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Certainly, there is growing acknowledgment that Millennials and Gen Y‐ers seek greater purpose in their work and lives (Strauss and Howe, 1991), and that more businesses are seeing and feeling the impact of shifting generational traits and values (Howe and Strauss, 2009; Kowske et  al., 2010; Parry and Urwin, 2011; Twenge and Campbell, 2008). A growing number of companies are building values into their missions and cultures, from early adopters like Ben and Jerry’s to Method and Seventh Generation to advertising agencies like Baldwin& (Sherwood, 2017). It is increasingly difficult for people to separate work and life. Fewer people choose to leave their personal convictions outside the office door. They bring their “whole selves” to work with them (Moran, 2017). Happily, an increasing number of leaders, brands, and creative companies are recognizing the value of embracing values beyond P&L. This trend began percolating widely around 2013 with the beta version of Aaron Hurst’s The Purpose Economy. Hurst, founder of the Tap Root Foundation, set forth the thesis that we’ve moved from (i) the agrarian economy, through (ii) the industrial economy, and (iii) the information economy, to the current system he calls the purpose economy (2014). 11.1.1  It’s Not That Hard All actions have consequences. We all live downstream from an ongoing explosion of rapid technological change. Yet, how many creators pause to consider how their technological innovations affect, even change us, as human beings? Solving ethical dilemmas isn’t about conforming to rules and codes, but a deliberative process. Leadership and ethics scholar Donna Ladkin argues that being able to respond ethically requires developing moral perception and moral imagination – and a process of aesthetic evaluation very much like creative judgment (Ladkin, 2015).

11.2 ­What Is Valued, by Whom? Just as people do, organizations have values. In successful creative organizations, values are articulated, clear, and consistent. An organization’s culture is an expression of its values, typically a representation of its founder(s) mission and values. What is “right” is rarely cut and dried (except perhaps for murder). “Right” is established by interpretation, reasoning through multiple factors, and infused with individual and societal values, norms, and beliefs. One of the elementary tenets of ethical decision‐making is weighing a decision against the “greatest good.”

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A “winning is all” culture is in part to blame for the very public Uber meltdown in 2017, according to replacement CEO Dara Khosrowshahi who was brought in to clean up the mess. He told Fast Company (Weissman, 2017a), “… winning gave some excuses for bad behavior.” Uber’s entire culture is built on 14 “company values” which are ambiguous at best, and which resulted in a “Hobbesian environment” that pitted workers against one another (Isaac, 2017; Weissman, 2017b). The bruising workplace culture at Amazon is another cogent example in ethical discussions of means and ends (Kantor and Streitfeld, 2015). Great culture and great success needn’t be mutually exclusive. The enviable work culture at Zappos was crafted by a CEO who believes that if you get culture right, everything else will fall into place (Warrick et al., 2016). The culture at wildly successful entertainment company Netflix is the antithesis of most others in Silicon Valley, making it one of the most sought‐after places to work. Yet even a culture that works well may not play well overseas. That is something acknowledged by Netflix, so translating that prized culture is a major consideration in its expansion plans (Fairchild, 2016). 11.2.1  The Value of Values, and the Value of Creative Work Who does the company culture work for? It’s a mistake to assume that the goals of the followers are identical to company’s goals. Likewise, individuals’ values and ethical standards are as diverse as the population. Leaders decide whether staffers’ or shareholders’ interests are primary. They need to examine how organizational culture dovetails with industry and national culture. Does it privilege some and disenfranchise others? Will it travel with global expansion, or require adaptation? As the leader, you have to see decisions as more than just individual actions and weigh their consequences. Even in a creative world, the basic law of physics applies: for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. Descriptions of Silicon Valley “bro” culture parallel the “locker room” and “boys’ club” atmosphere reported in many creative industries. In such an industry culture, the talented genius, or the “creative asshole,” may be excused for sexist or rude behaviors. Unfortunately, ignoring and tolerating bad behavior and decisions implicitly communicates that the organization values talent over the comfort and security of those negatively affected. These are cultures of exceptionalism. The value you and your industry place on creative work is important. How is idea ownership or theft discussed and handled? The internet spawned open season on copyright violation, and then came Pinterest. One person’s showcase became another’s garden, ripe for the picking. Instagram and social media compounded that, added speed and influencers. With that, some argue that currently,

A Look at Ethics and the Big Picture

[Photography] is less about producing quality content and more about producing quick content, or [it’s about] who you know and can get your content out to versus what kind of content you’re actually creating. Photographers have to be a brand now, too. (Schiffer, 2017) While that was said in reference to photography, clearly it resonates throughout the creative industries. Leaders play a significant role in how creative work is or isn’t valued, and have a stake in taking actions that elevate rather than undercut creative work. FYI 11.1  Where Do YOU Stand on the Issue? by Robert Crawford, PhD Making the right decision can be tough. Sometimes you know it straight away, other times it takes years or even decades to find out if you were right. This situation was presented to me a decade ago when I interviewed a former advertising executive about the 1970s. The interview was staged at his glorious home, which boasted spectacular views of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. As I was setting up, he asked if it was OK to smoke. I had no issue; it was his house. As he lit up, he explained how he had previously fought against the Australian government’s imposition of restrictions on tobacco advertising. Noting that he was addicted to smoking, he sullenly confessed that he had been completely wrong to oppose these bans. Two years later, he had passed away from cancer. Of course, ethical decisions aren’t always life‐or‐death situations. But they do require reflection. Pretending to agree with a client’s viewpoint might be necessary to ensure that the business keeps rolling in, but what if these views are potentially harmful to others? Or simply obnoxious? How do we treat a client whose business is indirectly associated with underhand but legal practices? What if it is their parent company that is engaged in such practices? Providing a definitive answer is difficult – each case is different, as are our personal viewpoints. However, this doesn’t mean that we throw such questions in the too‐ hard basket or simply ignore them. As research shows that unethical practices do not necessarily enhance a firm’s marketing success, it is important to take ethics seriously. Moreover, as a leader you have an obligation to think about these issues because your decisions count both in the short and long term. If you face an ethical quandary, you might firstly consult the corporate social responsibility statement of your firm or your client. It is also worth examining the relevant industry codes of practice. Such statements may provide a measuring stick for determining what is acceptable. Organizations such as the International Business Ethics Institute or the Institute for Business Ethics offer

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links to publications and research that might provide further ideas or tools for dealing with your issue. Working out where you stand can be challenging and confronting, but if you devote serious effort to considering the issues surrounding your issue and arising from it, you will be in a better position to make an informed decision and therefore an appropriate one. Robert Crawford is Professor of Advertising and Communication, and Associate Dean for Research & Innovation at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

11.3 ­Disagreement Is Good for Creativity – and Ethical Decisions Conformity, especially in creative industries, should raise suspicion. There is only one place where everyone agrees on what is “right”: Fantasyland. If everyone in an organization routinely agrees on a course of action, you’re seeing “groupthink” in action. Be ready for disagreement. An ethical quandary often arises quickly; crises don’t typically come with an introduction. Primal instinct can cause panic and knee‐jerk reactions. True leaders face the line of fire with a calm, analytical head, presenting and considering alternatives including unpopular ones. Ethics scholar Shannon Bowen wrote this advice for public relations professionals, but her recommendations apply for all creative leaders: Encourage your ability to engage in “conscientious and professional disagreement” with those in power. Guiding questions and potential perspectives to consider: 1) 2) 3) 4)

It could work, but what if it doesn’t? Expect a backfire, and have a plan. Be the doomsayer, and think through “What’s the worst that can happen?” Check for leaky faucets. Even the most ethical organizations won’t want trade secrets, management issues, or all ethical concerns to be public. 5) Use critical thinking, and view the issue as an outsider. Viewing the decision from outside perspectives can reveal numerous flaws or how it could be used against you. 6) Test the validity of an answer, by being an intellectual contrarian. A consensus needs rigorous scrutiny, even if it does become the final decision. (Bowen, 2017) 11.3.1  Doing Good Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Be Great. Good Is Good for Business If you assume that doing good makes you a goody‐two‐shoes, a hack, or worse, you would be wrong, wrong, wrong. Doing good is good for business. David

A Look at Ethics and the Big Picture

Droga founded one of the world’s most creatively lauded, and successful, creative firms in recent memory. He and his company provide ample evidence that exceptionally good work is possible while also contributing to a greater good. When the Cannes Lions asked eminent creative directors for their “creative commandment,” David Droga said, “We are good if our peers think we’re great. We are great if the real world thinks we’re good. And there’s a huge difference” (2017). He is not alone. Several years ago, TBWA\Media Arts Lab launched a separate social impact division called MAL\For Good. Its purpose? Focusing on marketing and advertising designed to make the world a better place, and taking a gold Cannes Lion in 2015 in the process (Beer, 2017). Remember that you live in the real world, a world beyond your industry. A world that demands a higher purpose from those doing business in it. A 2016 study found 80% of global consumers believe that businesses must play a role in addressing societal issues (Edelman, 2016). That comes as no surprise to those who already recognize that the greater good is a fundamental value of Millennials and they are perhaps the most influential generation right now. Be ambitious. Be successful. Be good. Let’s put things into perspective and examine some of the persistent ethical dilemmas facing leaders in the creative industries. 11.3.2  Teasing Out Truth, Lies, and Everything in Between The creative industries have wrestled with the ethics of a number of well‐ known, long‐standing issues. Some thorny ethical issues are related to how corporate culture impacts employees, others are broader, external industry issues that impact society as a whole. Tolerance for the “creative asshole” appears to be dissipating. There was a time when certain bad behavior – pretty much anything short of murder – was tolerated in a creative if he was brilliantly talented. Some creatives basked in wearing the description “asshole” as part of their mystique. If you’ve seen Mad Men, you get a clue as to what went on in advertising and production in the 1950s and 1960s. Plenty of drinking and sex were abundant in motion pictures and music and fashion and comedy, judging by the flood of accusations by Time’s Persons of the Year (Zacharek et al., 2017). But some things seem to have changed, in part due to the megaphone of social media: there’s less tolerance for bad behavior. Is there room for the creative asshole, or is it giving way to collaborative kumbaya? (Schenck, n.d.) Sorry, there is no Santa Claus. Or meritocracy. In the creative industries, few lies are bigger than the myth of meritocracy. You know the one – how talent is all it takes to get ahead and success is all about the work. Not. Sorry. Despite pervasive belief this noble, glorious ideal, that is not how business really works.

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Even a creative business. An enormous body of research confirms that meritocracy in hiring and promotion is illusory at best, and that belief in it actually contributes to the racial and gender inequities in the creative industries (Boulton, 2013; Castilla and Benard, 2010; Conor et  al., 2015; Eichler, 2012; Gill, 2002; Gregory, 2009; Mallia, 2009, 2014, 2017; Simpson and Kumra, 2016; Windels and Mallia, 2015 – just to name a few), including a myriad of deliberate and unconscious biases from the male lens, to cultural conceptions of beauty, your sense of humor, your preference for certain colors, and too many more to mention. The most telling rebuttal of bias was a study done with orchestral auditions, demonstrating even those who felt they weren’t unbiased were – as demonstrated by startlingly different gender outcomes when the auditioning musician was seen and not seen (Golden and Rouse, 2000). A disproportionate share of extroverts gets promoted to leadership. That is decidedly not because that characteristic makes them superior leaders in any way. The dominance of extroverted leaders is due to our Western cultural bias for the “hale‐fellow‐well‐met” and the Harvard Business School production line molding students into the Western “ideal” leadership style (Adams, 2013; Cain, 2013). The experience penalty. Digital natives have a greater affinity for, and proficiency in, technology – right? Wrong. That is just another example of prejudice in the workplace. It is every bit as false as assuming that men are funnier or better sales people or biologically better at math. Or that creatives lose their mojo with age. Not. True. Yet, just when you have honed your skills to perfection and are at the top of your game professionally, you confront the bean counters  –  the numbers‐ driven people who figure they can get two young upstarts to work 80 hours a week to replace you, and still come out ahead financially. So what if they don’t have the depth and breadth of expertise that comes from experience? Bean counters figure “if you throw enough shit against the wall something will stick.” Ageism abounds, particularly in youth‐driven creative industries (Carrigan and Szmigin, 2003; Hennekam, 2015). Internships and placements. Or child abuse? The allure, the romance of the creative industries makes them highly competitive and draw people to work for subsistence wages – or nothing at all – in order to break in and “prove” themselves. You can readily take advantage. It’s easy. Thousands of talented beginners will work for free, especially if they get university credit, just to get their feet in the door and their faces in front of someone they can impress. Forget whether it’s legal or not. This is hardly ethical. Even if it’s how you started out. Remember, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Do not repeat that tired maxim about working your way up from the bottom. The bottom today is much lower than it used to be – not enough to pay the rent and eat.

A Look at Ethics and the Big Picture

Most entry‐level creative jobs pay less than those for starting nurses, teachers, firefighters – less than anything but acting. The system forces them to work day and night to “prove” themselves to higher ups. The lure of the creative industries and the price of “success.” The perceived “glamour” of working in the creative industries is something of an illusion manufactured by the media’s depiction of it. Brooke Erin Duffy examined the glamorization of the “multi‐skilled, always‐on, digitally networked creative worker,” concluding, “Media trend pieces, by pairing passion with (worker) profit, glamorize labor conditions that are far less remunerative and gratifying than hyped” (Duffy, 2015). With this romantic lure, creative leaders can easily take advantage of the creative’s burning ambition and innate tendency to become consumed by work, and produce a culture of workaholism. Many researchers, psychologists, and creatives believe it is all but impossible to achieve work–life balance in a creative field. This is not new news. Jane Maas, one of a handful of creative women to rise to agency presidency in the 1960s, attributed her success to her stated priorities: “My mantra was always: Job first; husband second; children third” (Maas, 1986; Personal correspondence, 2012). It’s worth noting that Maas said this decades before the internet and mobile phone 24/7 connectivity tethered humans to their workplace. Add in demands from within and without to be “always on.” Combine that with routinely tight deadlines and an industry culture that applauds extreme hours and rewards competitiveness and you’ve got a perfect recipe for burnout. Super‐human workloads, and unwritten codes normalizing overwork can create a toxic culture, stretching mental and physical health to the breaking point. Is that your problem? Yes, if you are an ethical creative leader. Burned out creative people don’t do their best work. Remember, too, the importance of trust and loyalty in your followers impacts your success as much as theirs. Freelance. We live in an age of employment uncertainty. No one expects employment for life any more, but shorter job tenure and the rise of the gig economy, freelance and project work have created some harsh realities (Brownstone, 2014; Conor et  al., 2015; Gill, 2007; Nunberg, 2016). These include individual and business implications, as well as broader economic and societal repercussions. The gig economy shifts more of the burden of economic risk from employers to workers as they lose all the social insurance programs that used to come with employment (Beck, 2000; Gill and Pratt, 2008; Friedman, 2014). From there flows a waterfall. Each time you or any other creative leader contracts a freelancer (especially an old pal, a friend of a friend), you create ripples that perpetuate inequities in gender, race, class, age, and persons with disabilities. The Pew Research Center is conducting ongoing research on the changing nature of work and employment, as do numerous economists and social scientists, some of which are cited here (Beck, 2000; Duffy, 2016; Duffy and Pruchniewska, 2017; Gill, 2002,

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2007, 2014; Gill and Pratt, 2008; Perrons, 2007; Pratt, 2002; Ross, 2003; Smith, 2016). Big concerns connect back to precarious work, reverberating in decisions about having children, child and elder care, affordable housing and home ownership, and health care and health insurance, just to name a few. Crazy, huh? And you thought bringing in a freelancer was just an expedient fix for that crunch period. Cultural influence. Media, especially social media, have outsize influence on cultural norms and values. The impact on the 2016 US presidential election offered one glaring example of both the lack of source transparency (messages from actors posing as bogus individuals and groups) and the potential for influencing the results of the election. Late in 2017, Facebook was called out for potentially illegal content and targeting in job advertising to those 25–36 (Braiker, 2017). This could constitute illegal age discrimination, in addition to raising ethical concerns for hiring managers and industry leaders. ProPublica found evidence of racial discrimination by twice purchasing ads for real estate rentals with filters to keep blacks from seeing them (Braiker, 2017). Publishers face accusations of manipulating viewers, from fashion’s influence on anorexia to propaganda. Ad Age reported that a plethora of emotional advertising raised accusations of advertisers “trying too hard to make you cry,” and that the American Council of Emotionally Manipulative Advertisers (ACEMA) issued a special directive to its brand and agency members instituting a moratorium on so‐called “cry before you buy” commercials (Dumenco, 2017). Further, there is growing concern about the psychological – and social –  impact of social media and technology. You know things are pretty dire when tech leaders who created social media platforms say they’re scared. Chamath Palhapitiya, Facebook’s former VP for user growth, “told an audience at Stanford Graduate School of Business that he feels ‘tremendous guilt’ about the company he helped make,” because it is “ripping apart the social fabric of society” (Braiker, 2017). Whose idea is it anyway? Ownership of ideas should be fiercely protected in creative industries. As a creative you are your ideas and your work; your whole career rides on ownership of them. Decades ago, you’d have to drag your portfolio around, and you knew who’d seen it – and who you could blame if your idea popped up on someone else’s reel or in their portfolio. The web has made stealing ideas soooo easy. Art directors and designers can troll the world like kids in a candy store, plucking photos, concepts, type  –  everything. As soon as creative work is online, its owner is vulnerable. Sure, every creative looks around for inspiration. That’s a necessary part of feeding the creative mind. But there is fine, dangerous line between taking inspiration as a building block for something novel of your own, and outright

A Look at Ethics and the Big Picture

theft. In such a world, everyone needs high ethical standards, and copyright laws can only be enforced if owners identify offenders – not easy when every human with Wi‐Fi has become a digital publisher. One person can make a snowball. The reasons that these and so many other questionably ethical practices persist in the creative industries is because they can. But it needn’t continue. The world is undergoing a sea‐change in the relationship between human beings and work, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the industrial revolution. Employees of all kinds want more autonomy and freedom. Men want paternity leave to bond with their children. Fewer folks are willing to work in soul‐crushing environments. They want to work in places that do great work – and do good. Creative leader David Droga built Droga 5 on that proposition, and it attracts like‐minded talented souls. People are less willing to give 110% of themselves to their jobs, but instead seek balance. Take a look at the explosion of interest in mindfulness, self‐care, and yoga. Is your organization perpetuating behaviors damaging to mental and physical health, or wellness? Sustainability is built into the mission of companies like Method and Seventh Generation. What about yours? Be the change you wish to see in the world. Become an agent of change for good and leave your industry better than you found it. 11.3.3  A Framework for Ethical Decision‐Making. It’s a Process No one can predict all the ethical challenges a creative leader will face. That is why it is important to understand how to examine issues. Ethicists provide a framework for making ethical decisions such as that provided here by Shannon Bowen in FYI 11.2. Leading ethically requires mastery and practice, too. Your ethics “muscle” needs flexing and ongoing training just as your creativity does. 11.3.4  Weighing the Impact of Tough Decisions on People – and Creativity The leader serves many masters – which is paramount? Under which circumstances? Life or death decisions can be considerably easier than ferreting out resolution in complex or more ambiguous circumstances. These require time to ponder. Your first instinct regarding ethics and layoffs probably would be to gauge its impact on the people involved and on your organization. In the creative industries, the repercussions echo farther, wider, and deeper. Consider Amabile’s account of the intense effect of downsizing on creativity:

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FYI 11.2  Leadership: Making Ethical Decisions by Shannon A. Bowen, PhD Arguably the most important role of a leader is as ethical decision maker. The choices made during difficult times will resonate throughout the organization and offer an example of behavior to be valued and followed by others. Ethical dilemmas often prove to be a defining moment for leaders. For two decades, my research has studied ethical behavior among the leaders of organizations – including the most ethical companies and the largest ethics transgressors in recent memory. In addition, Kantian moral philosophy offers rigorous guidelines for analyses. There are a few key components that can summarize the best approaches to ethical decision making from empirical research and moral philosophy. Rationality is key. In your deliberations as a leader, seek to distance yourself from the heat of pressured decisions and arguments so that you can gain a clear perspective. Often, ethical decision‐making requires time to collect data on the issue from the perspectives of many different groups and weigh them as objectively as possible. Reflection, rational analyses, and careful deliberation pay dividends by resulting in more thorough and well‐considered resolutions that create fewer problems than quick decisions. Consider rights and the respect owed to others. In making decisions, seek to determine what basic rights and values drive the priorities of others affected by the issue. Have you heard and respected those views enough to rationally consider the merit of each approach? Costly problems, such as disaffected employees, lack of motivation, or lawsuits, can be averted by leaders who take care to respect the rights and equality of others. What is the underlying moral principle that drives your decision? Consider the values that are inherent in ethics: honesty, equality, responsibility, dignity, good intention, duty, rights, equity, character, fairness, integrity, knowledge, and virtue. This list is not exhaustive, but is a good start to consider and use in determining other values that might be specific to your organization, such as teamwork, kindness, or safety. Once a potential resolution is at hand, consider it thoroughly before implementation. Ask yourself if the solution is reversible: is your decision one that you would also want to see implemented by others? Could you be happy on the receiving end of the decision? Finally, leaders should act with good intention in facing ethical challenges. Often, the intention to do the right thing is enough to maintain relationships even when unexpected outcomes taint an action. Doing good by doing well can inspire others to follow suit and foster more ethically responsible behavior throughout a team, department, and organization. Shannon Bowen is a professor at the University of South Carolina, and the author of several books and numerous articles on ethics and public relations.

A Look at Ethics and the Big Picture

Creativity suffers greatly during a downsizing. But it’s even worse than many of us realized. We studied a 6,000‐person division in a global electronics company during the entire course of a 25% downsizing, which took some incredibly agonizing 18 months. Every single one of the stimulants to creativity in the work environment went down significantly. Anticipation of the downsizing was even worse than the downsizing itself – people’s fear of the unknown led them to basically disengage from the work. More troubling was the fact that even five months after the downsizing, creativity was still down significantly. Unfortunately, downsizing will remain a fact of life, which means that leaders need to focus on the things that get hit. Communication and collaboration decline significantly. So too does people’s sense of freedom and autonomy. Leaders will have to work hard and fast to stabilize the work environment so ideas can flourish. (Breen, 2004) Tread carefully. Downsizing is just one of the circumstances that has an outsize impact on creative industries. Remember, psychological safety and trust are critical to a climate of creativity. If those are up‐ended by mergers, acquisitions, and other uncertainties, people will be affected even if they are not ones axed. And the work will suffer.

11.4 ­Chapter Summary Trust is essential to building a climate where creativity will flourish. Since you can’t build trust without integrity, a moral compass is needed for great creative leadership. Or, as Zig Ziglar (2014) puts it, “integrity alone won’t make you a leader, but without integrity you will never be one.” Creative leadership demands conscious consideration of ethics as well. An ethical leader views important decisions through a rational, thoughtful framework, assessing long term success versus short‐term outcomes, means versus ends, and anticipating unintended consequences. Leaders in the creative industries are faced with a number of persistent ethical dilemmas, and some newer challenges. Among these are repercussions related to the gig economy and employment uncertainty, ownership of ideas, global cultural challenges, and industry codes at odds with work–life balance and mental and physical wellbeing. Good decisions can be reached with good intention, through a rational, ethical framework, or underlying moral principle. Set a stellar example. As a leader you will no doubt witness ethically questionable behavior. Don’t be afraid to speak up. If you sense that troubling behavior is endemic in an organization and you are powerless to change it, leave.

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Ethics is in no way incompatible with creativity or success. Great creative leaders inspire good work – and good in their followers. Make great work, and a better workplace.

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Castilla, E. J., and Benard, S. (2010). The paradox of meritocracy in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55(4), 543–676. Conor, B., Gill, R., and Taylor, S. (2015). Gender and creative labour. The Sociological Review, 63, 1–22. Duffy, B. E. (2015). “Yuccies,” “Slashies,” and the digital economy’s valorization of the multi‐skilled, always‐on creative. Culture Digitally (website), 18 June. Retrieved from http://culturedigitally.org/2015/06/yuccies‐slashies‐and‐the‐ digital‐economys‐valorization‐of‐the‐multi‐skilled‐always‐on‐creative‐worker. Duffy, B. E. (2016). The romance of work: Gender and aspirational labour in the digital culture industries. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 19(4), 441–457. Duffy, B. E., and Pruchniewska, U. (2017). Gender and self‐enterprise in the social media age: A digital double bind. Information, Communication & Society, 20(6), 843–859. Dumenco, S. (2017). No more tears: Are advertisers trying too hard to make you cry? AdAge (website), 21 August. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/ media/are‐advertisers‐trying‐too‐hard‐to‐make‐us‐cry/310174/?utm_ source=email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=creativity& ttl=1503999199. Edelman. (2016). 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer Annual Global Survey. Retrieved from https://www.edelman.com/insights/ intellectual‐property/2016‐edelman‐trust‐barometer. Eichler, L. (2012). Debunking the myth of meritocracy in business. Women 2.0 (website), 3 June. Retrieved from http://www.women2.com/2012/06/03/ debunking‐the‐myth‐of‐meritocracy‐in‐business/. Etcoff, N., Orbach, S., Scott, J., and D’Agostino, H. (2004). The real truth about beauty: A global report. Retrieved from http://www.clubofamsterdam.com/ contentarticles/52%20Beauty/dove_white_paper_final.pdf. Fairchild, C. (2016). Netflix is on a path to dominate the world, but will its culture survive? LinkedIn (website), 20 June. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin. com/pulse/netflix‐redefined‐american‐company‐culture‐do‐same‐abroad‐ fairchild?trk=eml‐b2_content_ecosystem_digest‐hero‐14‐null&midToken=AQ FgFUpbCoCTuQ&fromEmail=fromEmail&ut=0zx5u_pG7vYTg1. Friedman, G. C. (2014). Workers without employers: Shadow corporations and the rise of the gig economy. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/276191257_Workers_without_employers_Shadow_corporations_ and_the_rise_of_the_gig_economy. Gill, R., (2002), Cool, creative and egalitarian? Exploring gender in project‐based new media work in Europe. Information Communication and Society, 5(1), 70–89. Gill, R. (2007). Technobohemians or the new cybertariat? New media work in Amsterdam a decade after the web. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. Retrieved from http://www.networkcultures.org uploads/17.pdf.

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Gill, R. (2014) Unspeakable inequalities: postfeminism, entrepreneurial subjectivity, and the repudiation of sexism among cultural workers. Social Politics 21(4), 509–528. doi: 10.1093/sp/jxu016. Gill, R., and Pratt, A. (2008). In the social factory? Immaterial labour, precariousness and cultural work. Theory, Culture & Society, 25, 1–30. Goldin, C., and Rouse, C. (2000). Orchestrating impartiality: The impact of “blind” auditions on female musicians. American Economic Review, 90, 715. Gregory, M.R. (2009). Inside the locker room: Male homosociability in the advertising industry. Gender, Work & Organization, 16(3), 323–347. Hennekam, S. (2015). Challenges of older self‐employed workers in creative industries: The case of the Netherlands. Management Decision, 53, 876–891. Howe, N., and Strauss, W. (2009). Millennials rising: The next great generation. New York: Vintage. Isaac, M. (2017). Inside Uber’s aggressive, unrestrained workplace culture. New York Times (website), 22 February. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes. com/2017/02/22/technology/uber‐workplace‐culture.html?_r=0. Kantor, J., and Streitfeld, D. (2015). Inside Amazon: Wrestling big ideas in a bruising workplace. New York Times (website), 16 August. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside‐amazon‐wrestling‐ big‐ideas‐in‐a‐bruising‐workplace.html. Kilbourne, J. (1994). Still killing us softly: Advertising and the obsession with thinness. In P. Fallon, M. A. Katzman, and S. C. Wooley (Eds.), Feminist perspectives on eating disorders. New York: Guilford Press. 395–418. Kilbourne, J. (2012). Can’t buy my love: How advertising changes the way we think and feel. New York: Free Press. Kowske, B. J., Rasch, R., and Wiley, J. (2010). Millennials’ (lack of ) attitude problem: An empirical examination of generational effects on work attitudes. Journal of Business and Psychology, 25, 265–279. Ladkin, D. (2015). Mastering the ethical dimension of organizations: A self‐ reflective guide to developing ethical astuteness. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Maas, J. (1986). Adventures of an advertising woman. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Mallia, K. L. (2009). Rare birds: Why so few women become ad agency creative directors. Advertising & Society Review, 10, 5–14. Mallia, K. L. (2014). Women Now 11% of Ad Agency Creative Directors, Hooray? Media Report to Women, 42(4), 24–22. Mallia, K. L. (2017). The creative career dilemma: No wonder ad women are mad women. In K. Golombisky and P. Kreshel (eds.), Feminists, Feminisms and Advertising (Vol. 1). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 117–206. McKinley, Jr., J.C. (2018). Harvey Weinstein indicted on rape and criminal sexual act charges. New York Times (website), 30 May. Retrieved from https://www. nytimes.com/2018/05/30/nyregion/weinstein‐indicted‐rape.html.

A Look at Ethics and the Big Picture

Moran, G. (2017). Radio host Krista Tippett on the elements of wisdom. Fast Company (website), 20 March. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany. com/3068657/radio‐host‐krista‐tippett‐on‐the‐elements‐of‐wisdom?utm_ content=buffer983a4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook. com&utm_campaign=buffer. Nunberg, G. (2016). Goodbye jobs, hello “gigs”: How one word sums up a new economic reality. NPR (website), 11 January. Retrieved from http://www.npr. org/2016/01/11/460698077/goodbye‐jobs‐hello‐gigs‐nunbergs‐word‐of‐ the‐year‐sums‐up‐a‐new‐economic‐reality. Parry, E., and Urwin, P. (2011). Generational differences in work values: A review of theory and evidence. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13, 79–96. Perrons, D. (2007) Living and working patterns in the new knowledge economy: New opportunities and old social divisions in the case of new media and care‐work. In Gendering the Knowledge Economy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 188–206. Pratt, A. C. (2002). Hot jobs in cool places. The material cultures of new media product spaces: the case of south of the market San Francisco. Information, communication & society, 5(1), 27–50. Ross, A. (2003) No collar: The humane workplace and it hidden costs: Behind the myth of a new of utopia. New York: Basic books Schenck, E. (n.d.). Asshole is not another word for creative genius. Communication Arts. Retrieved from https://www.commarts.com/columns/ asshole‐is‐not‐another‐word‐for‐creative‐genius. Schiffer, J. (2017). Confessions of a fashion photographer: “I don’t know anyone who isn’t owed thousands of dollars.” Glossy (website), 4 March. Retrieved from https://www.glossy.co/fashion/ confessions‐of‐a‐fashion‐photographer‐i‐dont‐know‐anyone‐who‐isnt‐owed‐ thousands‐of‐dollars. Sherwood, I‐H. (2017). My Career in 5 Executions: David Baldwin. Campaign US, 1 June. Retrieved from http://www.campaignlive.com/article/ career‐5‐executions‐david‐baldwin/1435223. Simpson, R., and Kumra, S. (2016). The Teflon effect: When the glass slipper meets merit. Gender in Management: An International Journal, 31, 562–576. Smith, A. (2016). Gig work, online selling and home sharing. Pew Research Center (website), 17 November. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet. org/2016/11/17/gig‐work‐online‐selling‐and‐home‐sharing. Strauss, W., and Howe, N. (1991). Generations: The history of America’s future, 1584 to 2069. New York: William Morrow and Company. Twenge, J. M., and Campbell, S. M. (2008). Generational differences in psychological traits and their impact on the workplace. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23, 862–877.

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Warrick, D. D., Milliman, J. F., and Ferguson, J. M. (2016). Lessons learned from Zappos on what it takes to build high performance cultures. Organizational Dynamics. Weissman, C. G. (2017a). Dara Khosrowshahi says Uber was winning too much to fix its broken culture. Fast Company (website), 9 November. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/40494063/ dara‐khosrowshahi‐says‐uber‐was‐winning‐too‐much‐to‐fix‐its‐broken‐ culture. Weissman, C. G. (2017b). This is what caused Uber’s broken company culture. Fast Company (website), 27 February. Retrieved from https://www. fastcompany.com/3068475/ this‐is‐what‐caused‐ubers‐broken‐company‐culture. Windels, K., and Mallia, K. (2015). How being female impacts learning and career growth in advertising creative departments. Employee Relations: The International Journal, 37(1), 122–140. Zacharek, S., Dockterman, E., and Edwards, H. (2017). TIME Person of the Year 2017: The silence breakers. Time Magazine (website). Retrieved from http:// time.com/time‐person‐of‐the‐year‐2017‐silence‐breakers. Ziglar, Zig. @TheZigZiglar. (2014). It is true that integrity alone won’t make you a leader, but without integrity you will never be one. Twitter, tweet, 5 September. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/TheZigZiglar/status/515311838838657024.

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12 Now What? If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. John Quincy Adams Read. Learn. Discuss. Think. The business of creativity requires being at the forefront of your craft. But beware the bright and shiny object, the buzzword, the transitory trend (remember the virtual office) that will lead you to a disastrous, expensive, demoralizing mistake. When it comes to fundamental issues underpinning creativity and culture–major decisions that impact your business and human lives–mistakes can be costly. There are some times when being first is not best. Be bold. Jump when creativity requires a big leap. But don’t be stupid. In this chapter, you will learn: ●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

Actions that will enable you to build a sustainable creative career Ways to build a professional reputation and personal brand How to tell if you’re ready for leadership Potential pitfalls in creative leadership That the end is just the beginning

12.1 ­How to Build an Enduring Creative Career Like life, a career is a marathon. Sure, there are times that require a bold move, or a sudden sprint. For the majority of decisions and actions, take a deep breath, and pace yourself. Train well. Burnout is all too real for those who flame too fast. Become increasingly self‐aware. Work on it, consciously. Know yourself and how others see you. According to the Harvard Business Review, research ­demonstrates that self‐awareness has a host of profound reverberations. Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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When we see ourselves clearly, we are more confident and more creative. We make sounder decisions, build stronger relationships, and communicate more effectively. We’re less likely to lie, cheat, and steal. We are better workers who get more promotions. And we’re more effective leaders with more satisfied employees and more profitable companies. (Eurich, 2018) How could you ignore that? Know where you’re going and how to get there. Know your business inside out, and know what you want. Know what you need in your portfolio and on your resume to get the position you want now, and next. Know who does the work you admire. Go to the right place(s) for you. That may be a grueling environment where you will be pushed beyond your limits. Or, it might be more important to go where you will learn and be able to grow, and still have time for other pursuits. Go where you will be appreciated in toto. Be valuable. Go well beyond the expectations and parameters of your position, whatever it is. Your worth extends well beyond your job description. Do what only you can, add value to your presence in your position, and make yourself a respected member of the team. In the process, you are building your industry reputation. Get comfortable with change. It is guaranteed. Learn to embrace it, to manage it, to capture the best of it. And, sometimes, to create it. Become great, but don’t get a big head. Become a master at your craft, but stay humble. Remember where you came from, how you got there, and the role played by luck or serendipity. Having both great talent and humility will make you a precious commodity in the ego‐abundant creative industries, and in great demand. Be confident. You may think that is the opposite of humility, but it is not. Self‐assurance is in your head. Too often, creative people alternate between confidence in their talent and self‐doubt and imposter syndrome. Throughout the workforce, women display a confidence gap relative to men. Trust your abilities, and don’t let naysayers or negativity erode your conviction in them. Demonstrate resilience in the face of challenges. Defy limitations. Especially self‐imposed ones. Be brave. Never be afraid to fail. Remind yourself of what the poet T.S. Eliot said: “If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” Break your boundaries. Learn to negotiate and advocate. Both are skills that require practice, but will propel your success. Be enthusiastic. Sure, it sounds Pollyanna‐ish. But research demonstrates that positivity benefits your career and your organization. A positive attitude begets positive feedback and vice‐versa. It’s infectious. People will want to work with you, and for you.

Now What?

Live in the larger community. If you’ve read this far, you know you must seek mentors, sponsors, and find your tribe. But don’t let your networking stop there, and inhabit a closed‐circle career. Stretch outside the boundaries of your own industry. Stretch across communities and interests and domains. That enables important creative cross‐pollination. Work for the greater good. Here’s another reminder that your career is not all about you. If it is, you’re not an ideal candidate for leadership. Your colleagues will sniff out self‐centeredness when you keep using “I” instead of “we.” People catch on quickly. Begin “giving back” by mentoring and sponsoring others. No matter your rank, there’s someone out there who knows less and needs your help. Don’t be too busy for college students or new grads seeking guidance  –  and not just because they could be your boss in a few years. No one ever forgets the person who gave them a hand and expected nothing in return. Leadership means doing good that extends outside the company and the industry, too, in society at large. Do pro bono work wherever your passion lies. Sir Ken Robinson’s 2006 talk on the need for creativity in education is still among the most‐viewed TED talks. Social responsibility is important for companies as well as individuals. Increasingly, people want to work for, and do business with, businesses that are purpose‐driven. When people find joy and meaning in their work, they give it their all. And it doesn’t feel like “work.”

12.2 ­Create Your Story: Actively Shape Your Professional Reputation Beware invisibility. Launching a creative career involves much more than getting a job and doing the work well. If you stop there, you will tread water for years to come, and see equally – even less‐ – talented people fly past you. You are only as good as your ability to sell yourself. If you have ambition, take a proactive role in building and sustaining your career. You do that by establishing your expertise, fostering your professional reputation, and evolving a personal brand. 12.2.1  Thought Leadership: Know It, Then Share It There is no question that our world is awash in information, but insight and wisdom are far less abundant. According to business innovator David Pearl, “at a time when information is cheap and meaning is up for grabs, expertise is wisdom” (Kemp, 2016). If you keep growing, keep expanding your knowledge and the depth and range of your expertise, you are golden. When you

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demonstrate your insights, your career trajectory will rise. But not if just you, your mother, and a handful of co‐workers know. Influencers in your industry need to know you and your story to recognize your value. Who better to tell the world than you? Like it or not, building a creative career includes creating and curating your professional presence online nowadays. When they attain high‐level positions (and paychecks), some savvy creative leaders contract public relations professionals to manage their personal brand. Thought leadership means saying something with insight and meaning, not adding to the data smog bragging about what restaurant you’re at or what celebrity you’re working with. You have (or should have) a unique competence. Pitch articles or opinion pieces to respected publishers. Blog. Write something worth reading. Shoot something worth watching that demonstrates your creativity and talent, and at the same time communicates your unique perspective, your PoV. Be mindful that you wield power and influence every time you post on social media. Its reach has made everyone “statistically significant.” Social scientists have found that lies spread faster than the truth and false information reached far more people than the truth, raising worldwide concern about social media influence (Vosoughi et  al., 2018). This chilling news also underscores how important accurate information is to our political, economic, and social wellbeing. High‐quality thought leadership can help guide your industry, build your reputation, and spread expertise in that sea of drivel and lies. It begins with taking a strategic approach to the digital landscape, and being attuned to the currents of culture and change. IBM’s Alex Sinclair offers tactical advice in FYI 12.1. FYI 12.1  Digital You by Alex Sinclair Before you hit the social media and release that creative steam, take a moment to breathe deeply. Leadership and success are as much about intent and focus as ingenuity. First of all, why should anyone, online or off, spare you one second of their precious 1440 daily minutes? What’s in it for them? Before you add to the world’s digital exhaust make sure it earns a place: ●●

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Have a PoV: Whether it’s politics, storytelling, branding, tech, goats, or brewing, focus on one area that becomes your signature. Check out Todd Brison, a master online storyteller. Follow the leader: Discover, like, share, and repost popular creators, publications, organizations. Put your spin on theirs with key words and hashtags aligned to your interest. Make sure to tag them a thanks. Be interesting: Provide value, and humor if you’re able. Per Howard Gossage “People don’t read ads. They read what interests them and sometimes that’s an ad.”

Now What?

Now you’re warmed‐up and focused on the prize, some tactics: ●●

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Physical‐to‐digital: Attend events, shake hands, and show interest. Make eye contact, ask questions, and listen more than you talk so you can learn, share (with tags), and grow your following. Data is knowledge: Use tools that track, measure, and refine your actions at a granular level for greater insight and ongoing learning. Leave your comfort zone: IBM CEO Ginni Rometty says growth and comfort don’t co‐exist. Embrace fear: take a UX course. Learn about Blockchain and machine learning. Do improv to help your presentation skills. Find a mentor. And share it all. Be consistent: Pick a medium or three and post short bytes or images daily: Blog, vlog, tweet, Instagram. Familiarity breeds an audience. Design counts: Source beautiful images from free sites such as unsplash.com and pexels (and credit to the photographer). Link up: Connect your posts to your other accounts. You may be mostly on Twitter but connect to your FB and Instagram and LinkedIn. Be accessible: Make it easy for people to reach you, “like” your stuff, know who you are, and share your content. Video: A picture speaks a thousand words. Make video. Post video. Share video. It’s how the world is digesting content. Their or they’re? Spellcheck and Grammarly are free. Use them.

Finally, be the person online you’d want to meet offline. The internet doesn’t change that. You may have an amazing story but how creatively you tell it will determine your eminence. And remember, it’s not really about you. It’s about the experience you deliver. Give your audience the greatest reasons to stop and listen. Alex Sinclair is a former journalist, a storyteller, and strategic content lead at IBM iX who gives complex technology a human face.

12.2.2  Reputation Promotion and Brand Management The term personal branding has gotten a bit overused, but until there’s a better alternative, we’ll use it. Personal branding is essential to a creative career these days. You build your brand identity with communication – your every interpersonal, nonverbal, oral and written, mediated and unfiltered communication. You start construction with your education, your portfolio, and resume. You continue with interviews and meetings, mentors and colleagues, hallway conversations and emails, videos, publications and online rants. Manage “Brand You” wisely. Consult mentors and sponsors. Make sure you are known among industry groups (in a good way), and among headhunters – even if you’re currently not looking for another job. Consider the guidance Doug Melville offers in FYI 12.2 as you build and sustain Brand You.

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FYI 12.2  Use Breadcrumbs to Build Your Brand by Doug Melville Think you’re ready to jump on the net and start branding yourself because you’re creative and you’ve got a logo? Not so fast. I’ve found that many ­people  –  even small companies  –  make some common branding mistakes in online branding. First, they try to tell their whole story. That’s not going to work, unless your goal is to confuse people. Figure out what you’re great at – the one thing you can do like no other. Distill your story and tell it well. Another mistake is obsessing over creativity and writing and design, and overlooking the importance of search in online communication. Take search optimization seriously. Have you thought about leaving digital breadcrumbs? You know, little bits of your identity that will guide people to your digital presence, like key words and hashtags. If you want to be seen, use this handy cheat sheet, from A–H. (That’s enough. You’d never remember it all if I did all 26. Probably wouldn’t even read them.) A.  Attend events. Even with all opportunities for networking online, there’s no substitute for shaking hands, rubbing elbows, and sharing a drink. Get out there delivering a face‐to‐face, real taste of Brand You. B.  Blog. Sharing your insights and ideas makes you valued, respected, and recognized. That’s thought leadership. You can demonstrate your creativity in a myriad of other ways from jokes to graphic novella. C.  Create case studies. Don’t brag about who you are and what you’ve done. Let the work speak, and demonstrate your talent with a few relevant stats. D.  Data is king. Get comfortable with data. Google Analytics, search engine optimization, social analytics – all will tell you something about your reach and your impact. E.  Everything counts. With search, everything does matter. Every word. How many. Which ones. F.  Facebook and Four Square. They’re great for targeting and getting to know the local ecosystem. G.  Google alerts. Find out if you, or your heroes, are covered in the press. If the place you want to work or pitch is in the news. H.  Hashtag everything. The Twitterverse has exploded. You want to show up in a search and a trend list. Stand out. Get noticed. Doug Melville has worked in the music business, the Weinermobile, and other creative endeavors. He′s currently Chief Diversity Officer at TBWA North America.

Now What?

At the end of this chapter, Elaine Totten Davis counsels on the importance of building your own “Personal Board of Directors” to coach your career. Along the way, your board can play a key role in building your brand as well. 12.2.3  LinkedIn and Other Platforms Social media once was once a channel for communicating your personal brand, but today it IS your personal brand. Resist impulsiveness and over‐sharing – in a world where those are all too easy. Discretion is an important part of leadership, increasingly critical the higher you go. Practice it from the get‐go. At the time of this writing, LinkedIn is perhaps the most important platform you can use to stake a professional reputation. There are entire books written on how to leverage LinkedIn for thought leadership, networking, job hunting, and recruitment. You should get one. And stay abreast of whether a new platform supplants its importance, as social media trends and shifts are rapid. 12.2.4  Be Open to Seeing Opportunities in Unexpected Places If the average college freshman will be working in a job that hasn’t been invented yet, you’d better be prepared to pivot a few times in your life. Think about your next move in a broader context. When a text messaging service launched 2006, no one would have imagined that a technology company would become a communication platform and Twitter would be offering creative apprenticeships little more than a decade later. IBM has gone from a staid computer company dubbed “Big Blue” to a creative powerhouse. The New York Times’s T‐Brand Studio is developing brand content. Creative strategists work in big consulting firms. Hundreds of brands and companies have in‐house social media hives. Mommy bloggers morphed into Instagram mavens and are making big bucks as style‐setters and social influencers. Bookstore‐turned‐delivery‐service Amazon has recruited dozens of advertising creative directors and designers. You can follow pundits and prognosticators, but no one can really tell you where creative jobs will be a decade from now. Disruption continues. So be open. In where you look for your next gig – and in where you seek talent. More and more “not creative” industries want creative inspiration and talent. Successful people are open to opportunities and new experiences. They think, but don’t overthink. They aren’t afraid to take a risk and trust their instincts when the left brain would say “no.” 12.2.5  Know What Is Possible When the landscape is always changing, aim your radar wide. You must be a Renaissance thinker to make an impact – able to seamlessly go from discussing the latest blockbuster movie to the benefits of blockchain (and speak with

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authority). Your creative mind enables you be a sponge for a wealth of different information and cultural observations, but you need to do it. Never stop observing, or seeking out intel. 12.2.6  Know When to Stop Okay, moderate that last recommendation. In the long view, by all means, keep exploring. However, in the day‐to‐day frame, retreat once in a while to reflect. Author Theodore Roethke Cameron put the reason succinctly, “A mind too active is no mind at all” (Cameron, 1992, p. 11). Give yourself breathing room. Incessant busyness is no good for creativity or the soul. Block out quiet time on your calendar, otherwise it won’t happen. “The imagination needs moodling  –  long, inefficient happy idling, dawdling and puttering,” as writer Brenda Ueland (2014) says. Respect that time as a leader, as well. It’s important to give others the freedom to carve out some time to think as well. Sometimes people need more than a momentary time out. It can be for mental health. For a side project. To be a caregiver for a while. Psychologists, creative researchers, and management scholars recognize how important those accommodations are for individuals, employee retention, and society at large. Most creative businesses haven’t got the memo yet, though. It is possible to take a sabbatical, and still be ambitious, dedicated, and valuable. It’s time to bury the prejudice that rewards workaholism and contends that desiring time away from work means someone is less invested in their work or career. The evidence says otherwise. Giving people what they need to be whole pays back many times over in motivation and loyalty. Perhaps you could take the lead in moving the culture shift that will be required.

12.3 ­Are You Ready for Leadership? First, you must be exceptional at whatever creative endeavor you love. Good is not good enough for creative work, or leadership. Having (presumably) read this book, read it again. Read your trade press before breakfast. Read books. Follow the musings and writing of leaders who span fields – technology, design, psychology, economics, politics – and more. Be ahead of your peers in your ability to see: see what is happening in culture and your industry and related industries. Be able to connect disparate influences and ideas to see the future. And be able to do what others are unable to do or afraid to do. Then, make sure you want to lead. Just because you have great skill in making a creative product, doesn’t mean you must move on to leadership. It’s a personal choice, and many brilliant creatives enjoy the process of creation too

Now What?

much to step up and back to inspire and guide others. If that’s you, find or build an organization with a flat hierarchy that rewards talent as much as management, and enjoy yourself. (You’d make a lousy leader anyway.) There is no failure in not having the desire or temperament for leadership. If you have the skills and the desire, plot your path – to the place where you will find fulfillment. Perhaps the most important factor in your happiness and success will be a good cultural fit between person and place. While it is never too soon to lead, it may be premature for a high‐level position. Brilliant, ambitious people may not recognize that themselves. Take the polarizing example of Phillip Picardi. In three years, he went from Condé Nast intern to Anna Wintour’s golden boy, launching Them, an LGBT digital platform, and becoming chief content officer of Teen Vogue at 26. A genius? Maybe. But think about how many highly talented people in fashion and publishing resent his meteoric rise, and are hoping to see him crash and burn. The Daily Beast questioned the wisdom of having a white male at the helm of a platform for intersectional feminists. Your success, or the success of someone you promote, rides on many other people in your organization and your industry. When someone leapfrogs the expected timetable, they aren’t the only one affected. Of course, creative careers aren’t built on time in rank like the military, and highly talented people frequently shoot past others. But do remember, it takes a village to run a creative business – when you’re the leader, you’ve got to think about context and the broad impact of decisions. If you don’t there will be plenty of pundits and experts using the internet to remind you. 12.3.1  You’re Already Leading Here’s a sign you’re ready for leadership: you’re already leading, regardless of your position or title. Are you viewed as a mentor in your company and your industry? Leaders assume authority because of their talent, grit, and ability to build up others while building their own career. When peers or more junior creatives seek your counsel, you have demonstrated the hard and soft skills needed to lead in your industry. Those who are compelled to leadership will inevitably demonstrate their expertise, by going about their business and leading horizontally. People will notice. Your transition to leadership will evolve, in formal and informal ways. Like chess, it takes a few moves before you’re crowned. 12.3.2  Do You Want to Change the World? Creative leaders don’t just bring insight and innovation to their work; they long to make an impact, to change the world. Remember, transformative leaders transform things – the way things work, the way we live. Steve Ells, the founder

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of Chipotle, changed how people saw fast food. Steve Jobs changed human– computer interaction. Netflix’s Reed Hastings transformed the way we watch “TV.” That is heady stuff. Social justice, workplace justice, and environmental issues are all impacted by leadership actions or inactions. Have passion. And be ready for great responsibility. 12.3.3  Where Do You Want to Go? Do you see yourself as a chief creative officer in one of the big‐name firms in architecture, design, fashion, or advertising? Is international peer recognition a mandate for your view of success? Do you see your name on the door of your own firm? Are you aiming for the big‐time at all costs – or are other things as important to you as your career ambition? Would running a small consultancy in a small city with small clients satisfy your leadership ideal? There’s no right answer on this quiz. Just as individuals define success in a myriad of ways, great creative leadership takes many forms and occurs in a myriad of types of places. 12.3.4  Danger Lurks Out There. Be Aware Power is heady, addictive. Competition can bring out Machiavellian behavior, power struggles, and mind games in the creative workplace. Tread lightly around those whose egos make them susceptible to corruption. Steer clear of people who exhibit a thirst for power, or relish abusing it. Many wildly talented people have been blind‐sided by competitors that were more adept at organizational politics. Be mindful of human behavior and motivation. Emotional intelligence is invaluable in navigating these waters. Power (or powerlessness), not sex, lies at the root of sexual harassment, rape, hazing, and other abuses. It makes bullies. It is primarily, but not exclusively, a masculine tendency. As documented in Chapter 10, harassment and prejudice in the workplace are ongoing problems, especially in creative industries. Until a volcanic culture shift arrives, be careful out there. And be mindful of your own propensities. Watch for the heady feeling you might get with power, which could change who you are. Leaders are gradually beginning to recognize the importance of the human element in sustaining a positive workplace culture, and in business success. Some leaders have overtly stated that they endeavor to recruit people who are talented and nice. That’s one bandwagon you can safely get on.

12.4 ­From Seeing the Future to Being the Future Higher order critical thinking and creative thinking will be a person’s greatest asset in building a future‐proof career. As Plato said, “Ideas are the source of all things.”

Now What?

You, the next generation of creative leaders, face enormous challenges – and one of the most exciting, rapidly evolving landscapes in human history. You must inspire new ways of thinking, and doing. Prep your garden for a whole new level of cross‐pollination. Collaboration will extend beyond the boundaries of your field as you currently know it. As a leader, you will write the future of your industry. You can right wrongs and re‐balance and eradicate injustices. It’s easy. Just hire, develop, and promote the right people – and be the change you wish to see. 12.4.1  Growing Pains and False Gods The status quo of business in general, and the creative industries in particular, has been in a state of disruption and disorder since personal computing and the internet dawned. As different industries converge, they each bring their own cultures and practices – resulting in quite a clash. Journalists are entering advertising with “brand content,” and tech minds now reside in the digital media and publishing space. Different people, with different learning and experiences, see things differently. In turbulent times, each industry looks to its leaders. The challenge is to harness that conflict, capture the sparks of the new and the next, and guide your people into uncharted territory. A brave soul and a creative mind are absolutely essential for this challenge. Will you be replaced by a robot? How will artificial intelligence affect your field? How many companies are farming illustration and animation out to low wage earners overseas? As you adopt new technology and new ways, carefully consider the potential for unintended consequences. One of Facebook’s founders, Justin Rosenstein, the guy who invented the “Like” button is now speaking out about the addictive properties built into social media platforms, and questioning the human impact. Few people would trade the computer in their pocket for an old cell phone, yet a growing chorus of researchers is warning of the psychological and social fallout. Before we pollute humankind as we have the earth, do consider macro implications in decision‐making. Few creative leaders give it enough thought. With tight budgets and leaner staff, it seems perfectly logical to increasingly rely on freelancers. But what does your quick fix participation in the gig economy contribute to a downward spiral of people without full‐time work, without health insurance and without retirement savings? Of course, you are responsible for your own success, and that of your followers and your organization. But don’t forget the rest of the world and your future grandchildren. 12.4.2  Be Responsive. But Remember That Naked Emporer Creatives seek novelty, making them especially prone to seizing the latest, newest shiny technologies and technique. Even creative mind minds can be susceptible to following the herd, though it’s often a wilder, more stylish one. Before

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you jump on an industry trend, remember the wisdom of the children’s story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Leadership calls for winnowing the trends and finding promising new ideas. Curation. Look at one example of what happens when leaders see what they want to see: the proliferation of open office plans in the creative and tech industries. Noticing a few high‐profile charismatic architects transform dull 1960s neutral offices into colorful playgrounds, creative firm after agency and 20‐something CEOs followed suit – with little if any real evidence that creativity or collaboration were enhanced as promised. Creatives who have worked in varied environments will give you an earful on the consequences. Growing evidence shows noise and activity forces people to bury themselves in their headphones or leave the office to get any real thinking work done. See what could be the ultimate expression of reactionary inward retreat in Figure 12.1. Due to mobile phone conversations intruding on public space, many new‐ tech versions of the old fashioned telephone booth have been debuting. Restaurants, clubs, and offices are beginning to install them, in an effort to recapture privacy and civility. See an example in Figure 12.2.

Figure 12.1  In 2016, Ukrainian design firm Hochu rayu was asked to create small, quiet spaces for Skype meetings in a client’s office. Instead of wasting valuable square footage, they created the Helmfon helmet, an active system of sound absorption. It blocks exterior sound, and keeps the noise from escaping, so people can make “soundless” phone calls without leaving their desks (Hochu rayu, n.d.).

Now What?

Figure 12.2  One of the many styles of reinvented “phone booths” cropping up to provide the privacy and quietude people are desperately seeking.

The creative industries offer many other vestiges of unintended side‐effects. Society will be impacted by your decisions. Just like your parents told you, actions have consequences. Hone your radar to discern which moves will drive you in front of the pack. Yes, you must be responsive to rapid change and embrace the future, but use your head. You can still take a little time to consider history, patterns, and potential implications before barreling ahead. Make good decisions. 12.4.3  It’s About People, Stupid. Not Technology Be human, inside and outside the workplace. Nurture people and relationships. You know that relational leadership has gone mainstream when the Harvard Business Review publishes an entire line of books with titles like “Happiness,” “Resilience,” “Mindfulness,” and “Empathy.” That’s quite a shift from the business school model that prompted some to believe that the biggest problem in the creative industries was people with MBAs, who find it difficult to remember that creativity is an art as well as a science. As management guru Peter Drucker quipped, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

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No matter how much we want to make business all about “the work,” every creative industry is very personal. Don’t ever forget that creativity comes only from the human mind, and is of, for, by, and about people. Cave people had their tools. Technology gives us tools, nothing more or less. Artificial intelligence may offer the world some useful instruments. But it will never surpass or supplant the magic made in the human mind. With creativity, anything is possible. Never stop asking “why?” Give more than you take, in your career and to your world. Be the best version of yourself. Hire good people – people smarter and more talented than yourself, inspire them, and let them loose to create. Go forth.

12.5 ­Chapter Summary To lead, you must re‐frame your aspirations from thinking “job” to imagining a career, embrace a long view, and think. Think more deeply and broadly than you ever imagined, in order to tease out genuine innovation from distractions and dangers. Selling yourself is as important to a creative career as being great, so you must leverage opportunities in real life and online to build and manage your professional reputation. Creative leadership is intoxicating and rewarding. It also brings great responsibility to other people. All of them. Be good.

­Lessons from Legends Every Creative Leader Needs a Personal Board of Directors by Elaine Totten Davis Companies have an executive management team or Board of Directors to support and guide them with their mission. QUESTION: As a creative leader, who guides you to see the bigger picture and bring you and/or your team more success? ANSWER: Your own Personal Board of Directors (PBOD). By definition, a BOD or a PBOD are the same thing. They are a diverse collection of individuals that offer guidance, encouragement, accountability, and inspiration when making decisions that potentially can affect a goal or a successful outcome. When you collaborate with your own PBOD, you have the opportunity to gain greater perspective and make clearer decisions to support the bigger picture. Who are they? The influencers and advisers that make up your PBOD can be divided into four categories. They are:

Now What?

●●

●●

●●

●●

Cheerleaders  –  People who truly root for your success. They encourage and support you for what you are trying to accomplish. They want you to be happy. Experts – People who have expertise in areas where you may need help. You can navigate these challenges, but why reinvent the wheel? These folks offer strong insight, intelligence, and talent that may not be in your wheelhouse. Plus, they are happy to share their knowledge with you. Connectors – People who are really networked, highly productive, and love it! While you describe your business issues, they are thinking about who they know, how to connect you, and what the potential advantage is to you and their connection. They are highly intuitive and make appropriate, strong, and most often, lasting introductions. They see opportunities and love to make things happen. The better you are able to communicate what you are doing, the better they are able to lend their support. Leaders – Individuals who have risen to a level of success in areas that interest you or those you admire for their journey and achievements. They are highly inspirational. They are supportive, share tips or information in ways to build upon your strengths, and offer suggestions about how to deal with challenges along the way. They are the “pied pipers of good stuff.”

Building Your PBOD You most likely have people on your PBOD already and some of them, potentially, fit in all four categories. The benefit of creating categories is to help you to easily identify and actively engage your PBOD. How you build your PBOD is up to you, but here are a few things to consider: ●● Diversity – Young/old, male/female, involved or no involvement in advertising industry, linear/creative, anyone from whom you can gain fresh insight. Remember, you ultimately make the decisions, but gathering the perspectives of others affords you the opportunity to make more clear and well‐ founded decisions. ●● Formal vs. Informal – You can make a PBOD as formal or as informal as you like. Formally, you can set up times for ongoing discussions to reconnect with individuals or meet as a group. Formally, you can set up rules and guidelines for a PBOD. Informally, you can approach people when you reach a sticking point and you need support to, strategically, move forward. There are so many ways to approach establishing a PBOD and all can be uniquely based on your management style. ●● Know vs. Don’t Know Well – It is, for many reasons, less complicated to approach people you already know. If there is someone you would like to approach that you may not know, you might consider asking someone for an introduction, or write a formal letter/email. Approach people in a way that makes you feel most comfortable. When you are your authentic self, you are more confident and therefore people will be more comfortable in trusting and ultimately

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supporting you with what you are trying to accomplish. Relationship building never ends and is an important ingredient in building a PBOD. ●● Now + Later – Your PBOD is always evolving. There are people in your past that you may not be connected to in the same way now, and you will connect to new people in the future. Your life evolves, your goals evolve, and the people you want to spend your time with evolves. Keep in mind the types of people you want engage with now and as you move forward. ●● Pay, Barter, and Ask – There are people on your PBOD that you may pay, you may work out a deal with, and then there are people that you just ask. The more you frame your “ask” the better people will be able to support you in one of the ways I’ve mentioned above. As a creative leader, you want to be able to engage and collaborate with your team, executive management team, and your clients for maximum success. Building a PBOD is a powerful way to do this both personally and professionally. Elaine Totten Davis is a certified professional coach (PCC, LCA) working predominantly with those in creative industries. She co‐founded a self‐sustaining group coaching program for the Associated Society of Media Photographer’s New England chapter.

12.6 ­Ideas + Action Has reading this left you with an urge for more learning about leadership and creativity, maybe a degree? Here are some places you might find of interest: ●● ●● ●● ●●

Berlin School of Creative Leadership IDEO U. A pricey alternative from a leading design business Syracuse University. Certificate program in Creative Leadership Drexel University. Online MS in Creativity and Innovation. http://drexel. edu/soe/academics/graduate/creativity‐and‐innovation

12.7 ­Some Great Reads and Resources The Heath brothers have mined a ton of psychological research on decision making and offer sound advice on how to avoid biases and make better decisions: Heath, C. and Chip, D. (2013). Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work. New York: Crown Business, For some of the growing evidence that workplace norms can change, and that a break can be good for your creativity and career:

Now What?

Stromberg, L. (2017). Work. Pause. Thrive. How to Pause for Parenthood Without Killing Your Career. Dallas: BenBella Books. Some time‐tested advice that was well ahead of its time, now updated: Dale Carnegie, D. (2011). How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age. New York: Simon and Schuster.

­References Cameron, J. (1992). The artist’s way. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Perigee. Eurich, T. (2018). What self‐awareness really is. Harvard Business Review, January. Retrieved from http://hbr.org/product/a/an/H042DK‐PDF‐ENG. Hochu rayu (n.d.). https://hochurayu.com/product_design/helmfon. Kemp, N. (2016). The end of ego: Why brands should embrace the expert economy. Campaign (website), 4 October. Retrieved from http://www. campaignlive.com/article/ end‐ego‐why‐brands‐embrace‐expert‐economy/1411125. Ueland, B. (2014). If you want to write: A book about art, independence and spirit. Floyd, VA: Sublime Books. Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., and Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359, 1146–1151.

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Appendix A Thorough, But Not Exhaustive, List of Professional Organizations in the Creative Industries

Name

Website

Address

City

Telephone

815 Second Avenue, 9th Floor 432 Park Avenue South

New York, NY 10017 New York, NY 10016

(212) 922–1500

www.asrcreviews.org

112 Madison Avenue, 3rd Floor

New York, NY 10016

(212) 705–0104 (212) 705–0115

www.aaasite.org

n/a

n/a

n/a

www.aaf.org

1101 Vermont Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20005

(202) 898–0089

www.aaaa.org

1065 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10018

(212) 682–2500

https://www.ama.org

130 E Randolph Street, 22nd Floor

Chicago, IL 60601

(800) AMA-1150 (312) 542–9000

www.3af.org

6230 Wilshire Blvd. #1216

Los Angeles, CA 90048

n/a

www.ahaa.org

8280 Willow Oaks Corporate Drive, Suite 600

Fairfax, VA 22031

(703) 745–5531

www.ana.net

708 Third Avenue, 33rd Floor

New York, NY 10017

(212) 697–5950

Advertising/Marketing Ad Council www.adcouncil.org Advertising Research Foundation Advertising Self‐Regulatory Council American Academy of Advertising American Advertising Federation American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) American Marketing Association Asian American Advertising Federation Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies Association of National Advertisers

https://thearf.org

(212) 751–5656

(Continued) Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

266

Appendix

Name

Website

Address

City

Telephone

Business Marketing Association Chicago Advertising Federation Chicago Association of Direct Marketing Chicago Interactive Marketing Association Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association SheSays

www.marketing.org

708 Third Avenue, 33rd Floor

New York, NY 10017

(212) 697–5950

chicagoadfed.org

1833 Centre Point Circle #123

Naperville, IL 60563

(630) 596–9005

cadm.org

7641 Blackberry Lane

Willowbrook, IL 60527

(312) 849-CADM

chicagoima.org

n/a

n/a

n/a

mima.org

5353 Wayzata Blvd. Suite 350

Minneapolis, MN 55416

(952) 564–3047

She Runs It (formerly AWNY) Society for Marketing Professional Services The Direct Marketing Association The One Club for Creativity The Partnership at Drugfree.org The 3% Movement United Adworkers World Advertising Research Center

http://sherunsit.org

28 West 44th Street, Suite 912 123 North Pitt Street, Suite 400

London, NYC and 14 other global chapters New York, NY 10036 Alexandria, VA 22314

https://thedma.org

1333 Broadway, Suite 301

New York, NY 10018

(212) 768–7277

www.oneclub.org

450 W, 31st St.

(212) 979–1900

www.drugfree.org

World Federation of Advertisers eMarketing Association Architecture

www.wfanet.org/en

352 Park Avenue South, 9th Floor 415 Cambridge Ave, Suite 2 n/a 2233 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Suite 535 166 Avenue Louise 40 Blue Ridge Drive

New York, NY 10001 New York, NY 10010 Palo Alto, CA 94306 n/a Washington, DC 20007 1050 Brussels, Belgium Charlestown, RI 02813

2(32) 502–5666

American Institute of Architecture US Green Building Council Industrial Designers Society of America

www.aia.org

1735 New York Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20006

(800) AIA–3837

www.usgbc.org

2101 L Street NW, Suite 500 555 Grove Street, Suite 200

Washington, DC 20037 Herndon, VA 20170

1(800) 795–1747

https://weareshesays.com/

smps.org

www.3percentmovement. com adworkers.com www.warc.com

www. emarketingassociation.com

www.idsa.org

(212) 221–7969 (703) 549–6117

(212) 922–1560 (305) 902–7172 n/a (202) 778–0680

(401) 622–2369

(703) 707–6000

Appendix

267

Name

Website

Address

City

Telephone

Architectural Engineering Management Association Boston Architecture Firm American Society of Architectural Illustrators World Architects

www.aema.biz

2709 Sawgrass Court

Edmond, OK 73034

(405) 848–1111

www.architects.org

290 Congress Street, Suite 200 n/a

Boston, MA 02210 n/a

(617) 391–4000

www.world‐architects. com/en Design/Art Direction

n/a

n/a

n/a

American Institute of Graphic Arts D&AD (British Design and Art Direction) Graphic Artists Guild University & College Designers Association Art Directors Club of Europe

www.aiga.org

233 Broadway, 17th Floor

New York, NY 10279

(212) 807–1990

www.dandad.org

64 Cheshire Street, London, E2 6EH 31 West 34th Street, 8th Floor 199 Enon Springs Road E #300

United Kingdom

+44 (20) 7840 1111

New York, NY 10001 Smyrna, TN 37167

(212) 791–3400

www.adceurope.org

Pl. de les Glories Catalanes, 37‐38

Graphic Designers of Canada HOW Design Live Design Business Council

www.gdc.net

Arts Court, 2 Daley Avenue n/a 362 Lt Bourke Street

Icograda

www.ico‐d.org

Spark Design Professionals Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario National Association of Schools of Art & Design Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design American Society of Architectural Illustrators

www.sparkdesignprofessionals. n/a org www.rgd.ca 96 Spadina Avenue, Suite 210

08018 34 93 256 6766 Barcelona, Spain Ottawa, Ontario 1(877) 496–4453 K1N 6E2 n/a n/a Melbourne, 6 14 127 62045 VIC 3000, Australia Montreal, 1 51 487 57545 Quebec H2Y 1 W7 Canada n/a n/a

www.asai.org

www.graphicartistsguild. org www.ucda.com

www.howdesignlive.com designbusinesscouncil.com

50 rue Le Royer Ouest

(207) 966–062

(615) 459–4559

Toronto ON M5V 2 J6 Canada Reston, VA 20190

1(888) 274–3668

http://nasad.arts‐accredit. org

11250 Roger Bacon Drive, Suite 21

(703) 437–0700

www.aicad.org

236 Hope Street

Providence, R 02906

(401) 270–5991

www.asai.org

294 Merrill Hill Road

Hebron, ME 04238

(207) 966–2062

(Continued)

268

Appendix

Name

Website

Address

City

Telephone

Society for News Design Society of Illustrators The Type Directors Club Society for Experiential Graphic Design Exhibit Design & Producers Assoc. Fashion

www.snd.org

424 E. Central Blvd., Suite 406 128 E 63rd Street

Orlando, FL 32801 New York, NY 10095 New York, NY 10018 Washington, DC 20036

(407) 420–7748

www.societyillustrators.org www.tdc.org

(212) 838–2560

segd.org

347 West 36th Street, Suite 603 1900 L Street NW

www.edpa.com

19 Compo Road S

Westport, CT 06880

(203) 557–6321

American Apparel & Footwear Association CEW (Cosmetic Executive Women) Fashion Group International Fashion Trade Shows StyleMax

www.wewear.org

740 6th Street NW

Washington, DC 20001

(202) 853–9080

http://www.cew.org/eweb

8th Floor, 159 W 25th Street

New York, NY 10001

(212) 685–5955

www.fgi.org

8 W 40th Street

(212) 302–5511

http://www.apparelsearch. com/trade_show.htm www.stylemaxonline.com

n/a

New York, NY 10018 n/a Chicago, IL 60654

(312) 527–4141

Council of Fashion Designers of America National Council of Textile Organizations IT & Tech

www.cfda.com

222 Merchandise Mart Plaza, 7th Floor Market Suites 65 Bleecker Street

New York, NY 10023

(212) 302–1821

www.ncto.org

469 Hospital Drive #C

Gastonia, NC 28054

(704) 271–9993

CompTIA

www.comptia.org

3500 Lacey Road, Suite 100

(630) 678–8300

NY Tech Meetup NJ Tech Meetup Girl Develop It

http://nytm.org www.njtech.me www.girldevelopit.com

Girls in Tech National Center for Women & Information Technology Software & Information Technology International

http://girlsintech.org www.ncwit.org

n/a n/a 1732 1st Avenue #24681 n/a University of Colorado, Campus Box 417 UCB

Downers Grove, IL 60515 n/a n/a New York, NY 10128 n/a Boulder, CO 80309

www.siia.net

1–(212) 633–8944 (202) 638–5555

n/a

n/a n/a n/a n/a (303) 735–6671

Appendix

269

Name

Website

Address

City

Telephone

Women in Technology International Boston Interactive Media Association Publications Advertising Age

www.witi.com

11500 Olympic Blvd. Suite 400

Los Angeles, CA 90064

(818) 788–9484

www.bima.org

250 Northern Avenue Suite 300

Boston, MA 02210

n/a

http://adage.com

685 Third Avenue

(212) 210–0100

Adweek

www.adweek.com

825 8th Avenue

Crain’s Detroit Business Photo District News Florida Magazine Association BNP Media

www.crainsdetroit.com

Association of Magazine Media News Media Alliance Publishing

www.magazine.org

1155 Gratiot Avenue 100 Broadway, 14th Floor 1025 Greenwood Blvd., Suite 191 2401 W Big Beaver Road 757 Third Avenue, 11th Floor 4401 Fairfax Drive #300

New York, NY 10017 New York, NY 10019 Detroit, MI 48207 New York, NY 10005 Lake Mary, FL 32746 Troy, MI 48084 New York, NY 10017 Arlington, VA 22203

Association of American Publishers Book Industry Study Group Digital Book World Independent Book Publishers Association Publishing Central

www.publishers.org

455 Massachusetts Avenue NW 1412 Broadway #2119 n/a

Washington, DC 20001

(202) 347–3375

New York, NY 10018 n/a

(646) 336–7141

1020 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Suite 204 n/a

Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 n/a

(310) 546–3939

hprma.org

n/a

n/a

n/a

hpra‐usa.org

PO Box 86760

Los Angeles, CA 90086

n/a

nbprs.org

14636 Runnymede Street

Van Nuys, CA 91405

(888) 976–0005

publicity.org

n/a

n/a

n/a

Public Relations Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing Association Hispanic Public Relations Association National Black Public Relations Society Publicity Club of Chicago

www.pdnonline.com www.floridamagazine.org www.bnpmedia.com

www.newsmediaalliance. org

http://ftp.bisg.org/ directory www.digitalbookworld. com www.ibpa‐online.org www.publishingcentral. com

(212) 493–4262 (313) 446–0419 (646) 668–3700 (321) 283–5257 (248) 362–3700 (212) 872–3700 (571) 366–1000

n/a

n/a

(Continued)

270

Appendix

Name

Website

Address

City

Telephone

Publicity Club of publicityclub.org New York Public Relations prsa.org Society of America Wisconsin whprms.org Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing Society Broadcasting/Journalists/Reporting

5 Beekman Street

New York, NY 10038 New York, NY 10005

(212) 978–7269

n/a

n/a

n/a

American Copy Editors Society American Society of Media Photographers Associated Press Media Editors Association of Food Journalists International Food, Wine, and Travel Writers Association Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. Milwaukee Press Club

copydesk.org

Indianapolis, IN 46208 Philadelphia, PA

n/a

asmp.org

3909 N Meridian Street 150 N 2nd Street

apme.com

n/a

n/a

n/a

afjonline.com

n/a

n/a

n/a

ifwtwa.org

39252 Winchester Road, Suite 107 #418

Murrieta, CA 92563

(877) IFW-TWA9

ire.org

141 Neff Annex

Columbia, MO 65211

(573) 882–2042

milwaukeepressclub.org

PO Box 176

(262) 894–2224

National Alliance of State Broadcasters Associations National Association of Black Journalists National Association of Broadcasters National Association of Hispanic Journalists National Association of Science Writers

nasbaonline.net

n/a

North Prairie, WI 53153 n/a

nabj.org

1100 Knight Hall #3100

College Park, MD 20742

(301) 405–0248

nab.org

1771 N State NW

Washington, DC 20036

(202) 429–5300

nahj.org

n/a

Washington, DC

(202) 853–7760

nasw.org

PO Box 7905

Berkeley, CA 94707

(510) 647–9500

120 Wall Street

(212) 460–1400

(877) 771–2767

n/a

Appendix

271

Name

Website

Address

City

Telephone

National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association National Press Photographers Association National Religious Broadcasters National Society of Newspaper Columnists Native American Journalists Association North American Broadcasters Association Online News Association

nlgja.org

2120 L Street NW

Washington, DC 20037

(202) 588–9888

nppa.org

3200 Croasdaile Drive #306

Durham, NC 27705

(919) 237–1782

nrb.org

1 Massachusetts Avenue NW #333 205 Gun Hill Street

Washington, DC 20001 Milton, MA 02186

(202) 543–0073

naja.com

n/a

n/a

n/a

nabanet.com

25 John Street, Suite 6C300

1 416 598 9877

journalists.org

Radio Television Digital News Association Society of American Business Editors and Writers Society of Environmental Journalists Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Wisconsin Newspaper Association Communications

rtdna.org

1111 North Capitol Street NE, 2nd Floor 529 14th Street, NW, Suite 1240

Toronto, ON M5V 3G7, Canada Washington, DC 20002 Washington, DC 20045

(202) 662–7257

Association for Women in Communications Midwest Writers Association New York Women in Communications

columnists.com

(617) 322–1420

(202) 503–9222

sabew.org

555 N Central Avenue Suite 406e

Phoenix, AZ 85004

(602) 496–7862

sej.org

1629 K Street NW, Suite 300

Washington, DC 20006

(202) 558–2300

wi‐braodcasters.org

44 E Mifflin Street #900

Madison, WI 53703

(608) 255–2600

wnanews.com

34 Schroeder Court #220

Madison, WI 53711

(800) 261–4242

www.womcom.org

1717 E Republic Road a

Springfield, MO 65804

(417) 886–8606

midwestwriters.com

n/a

n/a

n/a

nywici.org

355 Lexington Avenue #15

New York, NY 10017

(212) 297–2133 (Continued)

272

Appendix

Name

Website

Address

City

Telephone

apsportseditors.org

PO Box 699

n/a

awsmonline.org

21317 Estero Preserve Run

Huntington, NY 11743 Estero, FL 33928

sportswriters.net

n/a

n/a

n/a

nssafame.com

PO Box 5394

Winston‐ Salem, NC 27113

(704) 633–4275

New York, NY 10001

(211) 227–1300

Sports‐Related Associated Press Sports Editors Association for Women in Sports Media National Association of Sportswriters National Sportscasters & Sportswriters Association National Sports Marketing Network

sportsmarketingnetwork. com

n/a

273

Index a Adams, John Quincy  247 ADC see Art Directors Club (ADC) advertising industry  2, 9, 10, 12, 20, 131, 206 emotional advertising  238 introverts in  208 professional networks  73–74 women in  75, 151, 208 affinity groups  75 ageism 209 agreeableness 96 Akwue, Jonathan  217 Ali, Muhammad  10 Amabile, Teresa  17, 39, 64, 144, 148f, 239–240 Amazon  35, 78 ambiguity, tolerance of  56 American Academy of Advertising (AAAs) 74 American Advertising Federation (AAF) 73 American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s)  73 American Council of Emotionally Manipulative Advertisers (ACEMA) 238 American Institute of Architecture (AIA) 74

Anders Ericsson, K.  115 androgyny, psychological  56 AOL Build  13 Apple Corporation  10, 34, 36–37, 55, 144 applied creativity  9 apprenticeships 217 Armano, David  132, 133 Art Directors Club (ADC)  74, 206, 215–216 artificial intelligence  260 artists, creativity of  10 Association of National Advertisers (ANA), US  73 associative thinking  55 Augustine, St.  229 Australia 86–87 Australia Council for the Arts  87 authenticity  41, 102, 105–106, 165 authoritarian leadership see autocratic leadership autistic traits  58, 97 autocratic leadership  34, 35, 36 autonomy  56, 65–66, 186 Avolio, B. J.  105–106

b Balster, Jada  176 Bass, B. M.  36

Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice, First Edition. Karen L. Mallia. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

274

Index

Becker, Christoph  146 Bee, Samantha  98–99 behaviors, leadership environment for creativity, building 146 innovation, encouraging  147 and skills  29–30 and styles  34–43 successful leaders  95 Benett, Arnold Andrew  27 Bernbach, Bill  144 Berry, Norman  125 Bezos, Jeff  35, 175 biases 157–158 ageism 209 in favor of extroverts  207, 208 gender  158, 209 against introverts  207, 208 persistence of  209 ‘reverse’ discrimination  216 Big C Creativity  10 Big Spaceship (digital organization) 188 blame, taking  197–198 boundary spanner  78–79 boutique agency offices, creative  15 Bowen, Shannon  234, 239, 240 brain see also brain hemispheres; neuroscience “brain drain”  87 circuits 124 and creativity  54–55 down time, need for  43, 101, 113, 129, 145 gender differences  210 imaging  54, 67 brain hemispheres left brain  22, 54, 210, 253 right brain  32, 54, 210 brainstorming  157, 159, 163, 175, 191 Brand Experiences  77 brand management  251, 253

brand videos  12–13 Brand You  253 Branson, Richard  7, 10, 120, 121 Brenner, Donald  165, 166–167 British Designers and Art Directors Club (D&AD)  74 Brown, Tim  131 Buffet, Warren  120, 121 Bujold, Lois McMaster  185 burnout  155–156, 247

c Callas, Maria  10 Cameron, Theodore Roethke  254 challenges for creative leaders  13–14 readiness for  19–20 Chandelier Creative  113 change driving 136 embracing  112–113, 248 readiness for leadership  255–256 chaos management  113, 152 charisma 36 cheerleaders 261 Chiat\Day (failed “virtual office” experiment)  2, 124 Christ, Peter  167, 168 Christiansen, Richard  113 Cleese, John  59 climate see also culture, creative creative, building of  28, 38, 147–149, 153–160 external influences on  159–160 generating correct climate for creativity 153–158 organizational  15, 18, 146 cognitive diversity  172 cognitive flexibility  55 collaboration  111, 153, 191–193, 257 see also teamwork in creative industries  15 creative theory  15

Index

gender differences  33–34 killing creativity  192–193 in production  167–168 science and art of creativity  51 and teamwork  163–165, 170, 177 communication clarity of  107 of commitment to creativity  155 correct climate for creativity, generating 154 of culture  157 emotional intelligence  98 of empathy  155 of expectations  156 feedback, giving  52, 100, 107, 128 female patterns  210 and honesty  154 and intention  154 listening skills  33, 107, 121, 218 openness to people and ideas  154 and role of leader in creative work  32–34, 40, 147 teamwork 178 of values, through work practices 156 of vision  154 of working relationships, nature of 156–157 community, creative see creative community competence  66, 81, 88, 129, 148, 250 cultural  210, 214, 216 measures of leadership  210 soft skills  32 competition  42, 195, 256 turning into conflict  197–199 competitive advantage  213 complexity, embracing  56 componential creativity model  144 Computer Electronics Show (CES)  74 Concept Document  166–167 confidence 248 conflict

competition turning into  197–199 dysfunctional  194, 197–198 enhancing creativity  193–195 intergenerational value conflicts in creative industries  196 negative 194 types 195 when occurring  198 connectors 261 conscientiousness 96 context, creating  144–147 convergent thinking  55, 62 Coppola, Francis Ford  171 CPB, Crispin Porter + Bogusky  190 Crawford, Robert  233–234 creative careers  247–249, 256 see also creative industries; creative leaders; creative leadership; creative occupations; creative work creative challenges  18–22 creative community  71–91 concept of community  71 educational institutions  77–78 interconnectedness 87 networks see networks perception becoming reality  88–89 providing leaders external validation and reputation building  81 proximity and community  78 side‐effects 87–89 success factors in creative leadership 72–78 tight‐knit 88 creative culture see culture, creative creative DNA  130 creative environment  143–162 building environment for creativity 146–147 context, creating  144–147 creative climate, building  28, 38, 147–149, 153–160 entire context, affecting  143

275

276

Index

creative environment (cont’d ) environmental influences on creativity  15, 145 geographical factors  158–159 layout and design  159 practicing what you preach  151 as requirement for creativity  145 risk taking  150–151 space 159 urban–suburban 159 creative genius, stereotype of  17 creative industries  1–2, 23 see also creative occupations background 11 in cities  159 collaboration 15 concept/definition 10–13 conflict in  193–195 as a creative community  71 DCMS categorization  11 deadlines, 176 diversity, need for  212–214 ethics and layoffs  239–240 importance 7 intergenerational value conflicts in 196 lack of diversity in  88 male leadership in  33 and networks  79 perceived “glamour” of working in 237 professional organizations in 265–272 side‐effects 259 talent feeding  13 women and people of color, representation of see minority groups; women creative judgment, significance for creativity 21 creative leaders see also creative leadership acting like a leader  104–113

advice for  41–43 authenticity  41, 102, 105–106, 165 behaviors see behaviors, leadership classification, in creative industries 12 daily activities  39–41 enduring creative career, building 247–249 ethics, importance of  230–231 factors making or breaking  95–118 fitting into creative process  62–66 habits of great leaders  120–122 intersecting of leaders and teams  165, 168–171 leading by example  41 methods of leading  65–66 new, bringing in  112 Personal Board of Directors (PBD), need for  260–262 personal characteristics  28–43 positive attitude  124, 147, 172, 179, 248 readiness for leadership challenge 19–20 role autonomy 186 as coach or mentor  199 collaborative 192 communication skills  32–34, 40, 41–42, 147 creative climate, building  15, 18, 26, 38, 146, 147–149, 153–160 in creative work  13, 27–47 in diversity  210–212 implementation 147 inspiration see inspiration/ inspired creative leadership in knowledge economy  11 as manager  42 motivation see motivation orchestra conductor metaphor  146, 147, 190 readiness to assume  20

Index

teamwork  165, 169, 175, 179, 194 women and minority groups  203 role model, being  36, 136, 218 skills see skills, leadership transformative leaders as  35–36 vision  13, 65, 107 constantly evolving nature of creative leadership  125, 137 creative environment  144, 147, 148, 154, 157, 160 and role of leader in creative work  29, 34, 36, 41 creative leadership see also creative leaders authentic 97 challenges of creativity  13–14 defining leadership  13 “herding cats” analogy  39–41 leadership styles see styles of leadership model 109 organizations without  2 readiness for  254–256 shared leadership  186–187 styles see styles of leadership success factors  72–78 training see training in leadership skills creative occupations  7, 9, 12, 13, 23 see also creative industries creative people  9–10, 14, 95 existence of, questioning  51–55 having creative ability vs demonstrating it  145 increase in numbers  12–13 and “uncreative” people  52 creative personality  18–19, 23, 55–59, 95, 148 see also personal characteristics characteristics 55–57 and creative environment  149–150 and environment  145 and five‐factor personality model  96

and leadership behaviors/styles  34 negative traits  58 paradoxes of creative individual 58–59 positive traits  18–19 creative process  53–54 and creative theory  15 diversity disparities, contributing to 212 illumination 60 impacting creative product  60–62 incubation of ideas  60 individual 60–62 inspiration and motivation  63–64 internal and external influences converging 63–64 leaders fitting in to  62–66 making of a creative leader  21 preparation 60 readiness to assume leadership role 20 verification 60 creative theory  14–18, 27 Five “Ps” (Person, Product, Process, Place, Philosophy) perspective  14–15, 16 creative work constant evolution  119–140 end goal, awareness of  120 role of leader in  27–47, 147 as self‐expression  63 value of  13, 232–233 creatives see creative leaders; creative people creativity see also creative challenges; creative environment; creative industries; creative leaders; creative leadership; creative occupations; creative people; creative personality; creative process; creative theory; creative work

277

278

Index

creativity (cont’d ) applied 9 art and science of  50–55 assessing and evaluating  20–21 Big C Creativity  10 and the brain  54–55 challenges for leadership  13–14 collaboration killing  192–193 commitment to  187 componential model  144 components  147, 148f concept/definition  8, 9–10 conflict enhancing  193–195 creative judgment, significance for 21 creative potential vs. creative performance 63 and diversity  203–205 domain 50 field 50–51 impediments to  64–65 at individual level  52–53 investment theory of  51 meritocracy, myth of  235 ordering of  63 regular feeding requirement  113 social psychology model  17 study of  8, 13, 14 systems view of  17–18 credit, distributing/sharing  189, 197–198 Credle, Susan  95 Crewe, B.  211 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi  17, 20, 58–59, 66 cultural competency  210, 214, 216 cultural influence  238 culture, creative clients contributing to  160 and climate  147, 149 building a creative climate  28, 38, 147–149, 153–160 external influences  159–160

generating correct climate for creativity 153–158 organizational  15, 18, 146 communication of  157 “cultural cringe”  87 cultural symbol system  67 diversity, obstacles to progress  207, 209–210 exclusionary 211 external influences on  159–160 inspiration 63–64 motivation  64–65, 83–84, 148–149 organizational culture  15, 146, 160 philosophy, starting with  149–150 curiosity  55, 110

d da Vinci, Leonardo  10 Davis, Douglas  31–32 Davis, Elaine  89 de Bono, Edward  7 deadlines  129, 145, 146, 151 extreme, 190 false, 190 inevitability of, in the creative deadlines 176 tight  157, 190, 237 unrealistic, 58, 64 decision‐making  13, 103–104 ethical, framework for  239 weighing impact of tough decisions 239–241 delegation 99–100 Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), UK  11 design firms  2, 9, 12, 20 design thinking  62 Dickenson, Jackie  86–87 digital media/agencies  155, 179 see also R/GA (digital agency) Digital You  250–251 disagreement 234–241 truth and lies, eliminating  235–239

Index

disasters, preparing for  136 Disney, Walt  7 divergent thinking  55, 58, 62 diversity benefits of  204–205, 212–214 cognitive 172 and creativity  173–174, 203–205 creative industries needing diversity 212–214 diversity fatigue  216 experience 173–174 formalizing of mentorship and sponsorship  214, 216–218 fostering of  214, 216–218 Great British Diversity Experiment 216–217 hard facts  204–205 individual 172 and innovation  194, 212 lack of in creative industries  88 need for in creative industries 212–214 obstacles to progress  207–212 ageism 209 bias, persistence of  209 creative culture as exclusionary 211 creative process contributing to disparities 212 culture  207, 209–210 differences 210 hiring and promotion  211–212 introverts and advertising  208 systems, role of  210–212 Personal Board of Directors (PBD), need for  261 personality 174 teamwork  34, 167, 172–173 threats to achieving  206–207 valuing of  214 Dorsey, Jack  122 down time, allowing for  43, 101, 113, 129, 145

downsizing  239, 241 Droga, David  86, 234–235, 239 Drucker, Peter  259 Dubuffet, Jean  55 Dylan, Bob  10

e Eagleman, David  101 Earhart, Amelia  10 Edison, Thomas  10, 57 Edwards, Geoff  121 Einstein, Albert  10, 61, 119, 209 Eliot, T. S.  248 Ells, Steve  255–256 emotional advertising  238 emotional intelligence  98, 128 and introversion  97, 210 emotional sensitivity  56 empathy  33–34, 97, 155 enthusiasm 248 environment, creative see creative environment equality  173, 240 see also diversity; inequality gender  212, 216 genuine  203, 204, 212, 218 ethics 229–246 dilemmas 241 disagreement 234–241 ethical decision making  239, 240 importance for creative leaders 230–231 rationality 240 unethical behavior  229 values  156, 231–234 “winning is all” culture  232 Eurich, T.  248 exceptionalism  203, 217 experience 22 Brand Experiences  77 openness to  55–56 penalty of  236 experience diversity  173–174

279

280

Index

expert power  106 experts 261 external influences  66–67 context of creativity  17 converging with internal influences 63–64 on culture and climate  159–160 extrinsic rewards  35 extroversion  96, 97, 158, 189, 197 see also introversion bias in favor of  207, 208 noticing/promoting of extroverts  88, 96, 236

f Facebook  71, 84, 238 failure, encouraging  41 fear 64–65 feedback, giving  52, 100, 107, 128 Ferris, Sharmila Pixy  37 film industry  157 five‐factor personality model  96 Five “Ps” (Person, Product, Process, Place, Philosophy) perspective  14–15, 16 flexible work  212 Florida, Richard  7 Cities and the Creative Class 89n2 The Rise of the Creative Class 78 Flynn, Errol  86 focus 102–103 Fonda, Jane  143 Foreman, George  115 formal authority see positional power freelancing  85, 198, 214, 237–238, 257 Fry, Evan  135, 165, 190 Fuller, Buckminster  10

g Gallop, Cindy  215 gaming industry  129 Gandhi, Mahatma  10

Gates, Bill  100 gender bias  158, 209 gender differences  33–34, 56, 97, 210 gender equality  212, 216 gender stereotypes  56, 158, 207 geographical factors  158–159 gig economy  85, 87, 136, 198, 214, 237, 257 Gill, Rosalind  198 globalization 86 Glyer, Diana Pavlac  170 Godin, Seth, The Purple Cow 121 Goldin, C.  205 Goldsmith, Nic  109 Goleman, Daniel  102–103 see also emotional intelligence Goodman, Jason  168 Google 78 Advantage Programme  217 Project Aristotle  177 Graham, Martha  10 Great British Diversity Experiment 216–217 greater good, working for  249 Greer, Germaine  89n5 Grenadier, Mike  167, 168 grit 114–116 “groupthink” 234 Gruenert, .S.  151 guts 114

h harassment 256 Harvard Business Review 128–129, 211, 247, 259 Harvard Business School  236 Hastings, Reed  256 Haught, Matthew J.  152–153, 153 headhunting 134 Helmfon hemlet  258 Henson, Jim  10 Herrera, Gabrielle  186–187 Hewlett, Sylvia Ann  83

Index

Higgins, Colin  143 hiring  42–43, 131–132 and promotion  211–212 research 205 Hitchcock, Alfred  10 Hochu rayu (Ukrainian design company) 258 Hollywood, lack of diversity in  206 home, working from  176–177, 214 see also freelancing Huge (digital design firm)  77 Hughes, Mike  45 Hughes, Robert  89n5 humility  112, 248 Hurst, Aaron, The Purpose Economy 231

i IBM  78, 253 idealized influence  36 ideas  9, 12, 256 appropriate  20, 150 approval of  151 brainstorming 159 clash of  193 and down time, allowing for  43, 145 fragility of  45 good quality  12, 13, 23, 43, 56–58, 62, 65, 111, 150, 198 implementation  62, 149, 154, 198 incubation of  60, 176 innovation 57 innovation depending on  156 new/novel  2, 7, 17–18, 43, 55, 58, 120, 121, 157, 258 breakthrough/ groundbreaking  98, 150, 172, 173 numbers of  57, 65, 190 openness to  55–56, 154, 160 origination of  8, 14, 154 overlooking  158, 174, 197

ownership of  238 resistance to  194 sharing  33, 57–58, 252 teamwork  106, 109, 122, 129, 169–170, 174, 178 stealing 238 unconventional 193 Ideas Foundation  217 implementation 149 impulse control  124 independence/independent thinking  39, 56 individualized consideration  36 Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA)  74 inequality  207, 211, 237–238 see also equality structural 216–217 Infeld, Leopold  61 innovation  3, 7, 15, 17 at Amazon  35 at Apple  34 climate of  157 creative people  51 culture and climate, building  28, 38, 146, 149, 157, 160 design 37 and determination  104 digital media  155 and diversity  194, 212 encouraging 147 and focus  102 ideas 57 independent thinking  63 innovators, as icons  7 lack of  112 multinational organizations  36 problem solving  37, 61, 109, 169 stretching oneself  120 teamwork  172, 173, 175, 178, 188 and transformational leadership 255 values  147, 149

281

282

Index

inspiration/inspired creative leadership  3, 13, 63–64, 148 see also motivation innovation, encouraging  147 optimism 147 role of leader in creative work  36, 41 Instagram  134, 253 Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, UK  74 intellectual stimulation  36, 52 interests 56 internal influences, converging with external influences  63–64 internships  217, 236 interpersonal skills  32–34, 107–108, 124, 126 intrinsic motivation  29, 36, 56, 185–188 creative environment  144, 145 introversion  97, 174 see also extroversion biases against introverts  207, 208 and emotional intelligence  97, 210 overlooking of introverts  88, 129, 158 investment theory of creativity  51 Issigonis, Alec  163

Koslow, S.  14 Koval, Robin  116 The Power of Nice 128 Krstic, George  170

l

James, Clive  89n5 Jobs, Steven Paul  7, 10, 32, 34, 36–37, 144, 256 Johansson, Frans  172

Ladkin, Donna  231 laissez‐faire leadership  35, 185 Landa, Robin  61–62 Landor, Walter  144 Larkin Kuzler, Jennifer  215–216 Lasseter, John  144, 229 Lawrence, Mary Wells (formerly Mary Georgene Berg) 120 layout, physical environment  159 leaders, creative see creative leaders leadership, creative see creative leadership leadership studies  34 learning, continuous  110 Lebowitz, Michael  188 legends, lessons from  44–45, 114–116, 260–262 legitimate power  34, 106–107 Lennon, John  10 Leslie, L. M.  212 Lester, R. K.  113 letting go  99–100 Ley, Willy  163 LinkedIn  84–85, 253 listening skills  33, 107, 121, 218 “lone wolf ” creative  17, 111, 169 Lubart, T. I.  19 Lutus, Paul  95

k

m

Kanter, J.  203 Kestin, Janet  99 Khosrowshahi, Dara  232 King, Martin Luther  10 Kneller, George  71 “knowledge economy”  7

Maas, Jane  237 McKinsey & Co.  32 McKnight, William  27 McRobbie, Angela  192 Maeda, John  37, 38, 146, 147 “maker movement”  1

j

Index

management brand management  251, 253 chaos management  113 creativity, managing for  49–70 goal‐centered 40 importance in creative industries 165 managers, vs leaders  34, 111 self‐management 104–105 Marino, Steve  126, 127 Mars 12 Marshall, Chris  167 Max Planck Institute, Leipzig  124 Mayer, Marissa  108 me‐to‐we transition  98, 111, 152 Medici Effect (Johansson)  172 Mednick, S.  55 Melba, Dame Nellie  86 Melville, Doug  252 mentoring  127, 249 finding in networks  82–85 formalizing  214, 216–218 leadership skills  29, 30 mentorship mandate  125–126 necessity for  126 sponsors vs. mentors  82–84 meritocracy, myth of  72, 206–207, 235 #MeToo movement  204 Meyer, Marissa  66, 177 micromanaging, resisting  108–109, 185 mindfulness  102, 121, 124 minority groups  206, 210 negative effects of status impeding leadership 211 people of color  204, 205, 206 punishment for promoting diversity 211 mission statements  158 MIT 173 Human Dynamics Laboratory  178 modeling 110

motivation  13, 63–64, 148–149, 185–202 see also inspiration de‐motivation of creative teams  189–190 extrinsic 35 inspirational 36 intrinsic  29, 36, 56, 144, 145, 185–188 motivational synergy  148 recognition and rewards  188 shared leadership, through 186–187 by supporting followers  64–65 types of motivators  187–189 moving ahead  110 Myers‐Briggs self‐assessment test 101 Myspace 84

n negative attitude, avoiding  189 networks see also creative community access to opportunities, bringing 80–81 affinity groups  75 alumni 77 building expertise through  80–85 choice of  79 formal and informal  74–76 formation of  77 gender‐based groups  75 mentorship and sponsorship, finding in 82–85 vs. networking  76 online  71, 84–85 opportunities, bringing access to 80–81 professional  73–74, 76, 78–79 regional groups  75 social platforms  78 specialized 75

283

284

Index

networks (cont’d ) thought leadership building a leader’s network  81–82 trade groups  76 types 76–77 unwritten rules  84 why critical to leadership  79–80 neuroscience  54, 101 see also brain; brain hemispheres neuroticism 96 newspaper design, lessons from 152–153 Nickols, Fred  32 Nike/Nike Plus  43, 124 Nine to Five (film)  143 Nixon, S.  211 Northouse, P. G.  96 novelty  9, 17–18, 23, 56

o observation of people and behavior  106–107, 111 O’Callaghan, Jay  45 occupations, creative see creative occupations Ogilvy, David  42, 136, 208 One Club  74, 206 openness  95, 110 to ideas  55–56, 154, 160 opportunities giving 100 knowing what is possible  253–254 knowing when to stop  254 networks bringing access to  80–81 providing 100 seeing in unexpected places  253 orchestra conductor metaphor  146, 147, 190 teamwork 177–179 organizational climate  15, 18, 146 organizational culture  15, 146 #OscarsSoWhite movement  103, 204, 206

p Palhapitiya, Chamath  238 Panzer, Jerry  167, 168 Parton, Dolly  143 Pasteur, Louis  61 Payne, Tony  167 Pearl, David  82, 249 people skills  128–129 PepsiCo 13 perfectionism, fighting  110–111 performance measurement  218 persistence 104 Personal Board of Directors (PBD) 260–262 personal characteristics  28–43 see also personality skills and behaviors  29–30 communication skills  32–34 hard skills  29–30 soft skills  30–32, 82 thinking skills  31–32 successful leaders  95 personal power  34, 106, 107 personality, creative see creative personality Pew Research Center  237 Phillip, Julia  88 philosophy, defining  15 philosophy, articulating  149–150 Picardi, Phillip  255 Picasso, Pablo  10, 168 Pinterest 134 placements 236 planning 152 Plato 256 playfulness 56 positional power  34, 106, 107 positive attitude  124, 147, 172, 179, 189, 248 power concept 106 expert 106 legitimate  34, 106–107

Index

personal  34, 106, 107 positional  34, 106, 107 referent 106 praise 188 presentation skills  33 problem solving  31–32 vs. problem definition  60–61, 62 process‐based conflict  195 products, and creative theory  14 professional organizations  265–272 networks  73–74, 76 approaching strategically  78–79 promotion of extroverts  236 and hiring  211–212 premature 111 of reputation  250, 253 Proportional Representation Theory 203 ProPublica 238 Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) conference  74

q quality control  42 Quesenberry, Keith A.  53–54 questioning 122–125

r R/GA (digital agency)  77, 122, 124, 133, 174 Ram Dass  121 readiness for leadership  19–20, 254–256 awareness of competition  256 career paths  256 change, desiring  255–256 leadership skills, demonstrating 255 recognition, providing  188 recruitment  42–43, 131–132 and promotion  211–212 rethinking 217

Red Bull  12–13 referent power  106 reflection  100–101, 121–122, 123f see also thinking relationship‐based conflict  195 relationship skills, cultivating  32–34, 107–108, 124, 126 remote work (flexi‐place)  176–177, 214 see also freelancing reputation building  81, 249–254 promoting of reputation and brand management  251, 253 thought leadership  249–250 researching creativity  8, 13, 14 resilience  105, 114–115 Resnick, Patricia  143 resources, providing  42 responsiveness 257–259 retention of staff  134–136 diverse talent  217 ‘reverse’ discrimination  216 rewards, providing  188 R/GA 43 “Ringelmann effect”  175 risk taking, encouraging  41, 56, 64, 150–151 risk tolerance  157 Robinson, Ken  143, 249 Rosenstein, Justin  257 Rouse, C.  205 Runco, M. A.  20

s Sandberg, Sheryl  75, 210 Sasser, S. L.  14 Schiffer, J.  233 Schwartz, Rob  128 scientists, creativity of  10 Scott, Michael  155 Screenwriters Guild  74 second‐generation gender bias  209 Seinfeld, Jerry  114

285

286

Index

self‐awareness/knowledge  96–98, 247 knowing one’s limits  101–102 self‐efficacy 56 self‐identity, shift in  98 self‐management 104–105 sex segregation  209 shared leadership  186–187 Silicon Valley  35, 75, 100, 111 “bro” culture  232 Sinclair, Alex  250–251 skills, leadership and behaviors  29–30 boosting 16 communication see communication skills demonstrating 255 domain‐relevant 144 gender differences  33–34 interpersonal  32–34, 107–108, 124, 126 management and understanding 49–70 soft  30–32, 82 thinking  31–32, 39 social media cultural influence  238 Facebook  71, 84, 238 Instagram  134, 253 monitoring 134 social media platforms  78, 80, 84–85 social psychology model of creativity  15, 17 soft skills  30–32, 82 Spielberg, Steven  114 sponsorship  82–84, 126, 249 see also mentoring formalizing  214, 216–218 Spotify 186–187 stereotypes  96, 211, 218 see also biases creative genius  17 durability of  207

gender  56, 158, 207 older people  203, 209 overweight people  203 Sternberg, R. J.  19, 52 “Storyscaping” 77 styles of leadership  34–43, 44 autocratic  34, 35, 36 laissez‐faire  35, 185 and success  34 and teamwork  165 transactional 35 transformational  34–37, 129, 149, 255–256 success/success factors  72–78 leadership behaviors and styles  34 science of success  115 soft skills  30–32 teamwork 177–179 view of success  124–125 Sullivan, Andrea  218 Sullivan, Luke  44, 119, 132 support, leader  187 Swartz, Dave  190 systems role in diversity  210–212 systems view of creativity  17–18 Sze, David  45

t T‐shaped talent  131, 132, 173 Tag, Nancy R.  21, 22, 62 talent 1 diversity 217 T‐shaped  131, 132, 173 “The Talent Economy”  85 talented leaders  13, 85 talented staff  129 developing  29, 43 finding  129, 131–136 hiring 131–132 monitoring and cultivating  134 retention of best staff  134–136 and trust  105

Index

task‐based conflict  195 Taube, A.  120 teamwork 163–183 see also collaboration assigning of work to individuals 168 balancing satisfaction with business needs 169 camaraderie and team culture, building 192 and collaboration  163–165, 170, 177 communication 178 de‐motivation of creative teams 189–190 diversity in teams  34, 170, 172–173 dysfunctional conflict, avoiding 197–198 effective 170 formation of teams  168 group processes, guiding teams in 165 Hollywood model  169 ideas, sharing  57–58 innovation  172, 173, 175, 178, 188 intersecting of leaders and teams  165, 168–171 leadership role  165, 168, 175, 179, 194 location 176–177 need for teams  168–169 norms for group work  177–178 perfect team, myth of  170, 171 personality diversity  174 positive group norms  177–178, 179 remote work (flexi‐place)  176–177 removal of clients as members 198–199 size of team  175–176 skill diversity, necessity for 173–174 successful, orchestrating  177–179

taking credit for work of team  189 team building  166–167, 169 creative teams  171–179 members of team, selecting  171–172, 188 as soft skill  33 type of team needed  174–175 understanding team members as individuals 165 virtual creative teams  177 when teams work  175–176 and women  172, 197 tech startups  15 technology 257 vs. people  259–260 technology companies  13 television industry  157 telework  136, 156, 192 text messaging  253 Thaler, Linda Kaplan  116 The Power of Nice 128 thinking see also reflection; thought leadership associative 55 critical  44, 101 divergent and convergent  55, 58, 62 idea formation  57 imaginative 61 independent  39, 63 making time for  121–122 strategic 101 styles of  62 teaching how to think  65 ways of thinking  31–32 thought leadership  22, 43, 252 see also thinking building a leader’s network  81–82 and external validation  81 identifying 76 and reputation  249–250 on social media  120

287

288

Index

3% Conference (now Movement)  75, 203, 204 Tippett, Krista  230 tokenism 203 Tomlin, Lily  143 Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) 23 Totten Davis, Elaine  253, 260–262 toxicity 198–199 training in leadership skills  52, 55, 108, 119, 120 conflict resolution  195 diversity 216 formal  2, 191 ongoing  65, 145, 239 programs  2, 80 transactional leadership  35 transformational leadership  34–37, 129, 149, 255–256 Trump, Donald  98 trust, building/earning  105–106, 230 Turner, Ted  10

u Ueland, Brenda  254 United Kingdom Advantage Programme (Google/ Livity) 217 British Designers and Art Directors Club 74 Great British Diversity Experiment 216–217 Institute of Practitioners in Advertising 74 urban–suburban environment  159

v validation, external  81 values creative climate, building  156 determining what is valued and by whom 231–234 value of  232–233

verbal communication  32–34 Verniere, Ryan  129, 130 “virtual office” experiment, failure (Chiat\Day, 1990s)  2, 124 vision of creative leaders  13, 65, 107 communication of  154 constantly evolving nature of creative leadership  125, 137 creative environment  144, 147, 148, 154, 157, 160 role of leader in creative work  29, 34, 36, 41 Vogel, Thomas  15, 16 Vonk, Nancy  99–100

w Wagenheim, Jason  175, 191–192 Wallas, Graham, The Art of Thought 60 Watson, Emma  203 Watson, Thomas  31–32 Wayne, Ronald  36 Weiner, Jeff  101, 122 Weinstein, Harvey  204, 229 Whitaker, T.  151 Wieden+Kennedy 150 Windels, Kasey F.  150–151 Wintour, Anna  255 women see also gender bias; gender differences; gender equality; gender stereotypes in advertising  75, 151, 208 brains of  210 childless, in workplace  194 collaborative ability  33–34 of color  204, 205 communication patterns  210 competition affecting  197 confidence gap  248 empathy 33–34 hiring research  205

Index

intelligence of  172, 173 emotional intelligence  97, 210 as leaders  77, 83, 97, 204, 206, 209 leadership groups  77 punishment for promoting diversity 211 representation of  206 responsibilities of  177 sexual violence against  229 strong 209 and teamwork  172, 197 undermining of  209, 211 Wong, Tracy  97, 208 Woolley, Anita  212

work ethic  110 work practices  156, 157 Wozniak, Steve  36 Wright, Frank Lloyd  10 writing, quality of  32–34

y Yahoo 66 Young, James Webb  53–54 Yukl, G.  107–108

z Zappos 232 Ziglar, Zig  241

289