Creating a Corporate Culture of Creativity
I’ve had many discussions about the concept of leadership over the past few years with colleagues around the world; many of whom come from a range of backgrounds, experiences, and cultures that value different ideas about what it means to be an effective leader.
Alla Zollers recommended that I read the book Linchpins, Seth Godin’s latest book, noting the central ideas shared by Mr. Godin were the cornerstone of many of the things I have been writing, interviewing, and debating about within the UX community for the past several years.
As Seth Godin notes:
Do you remember the old American Dream? It struck a chord with millions of people (in the United States and in the rest of the world, too.) Here’s how it goes: Keep your head down. Follow instructions. Show up on time. Work hard. Suck it up. …you will be rewarded.
As we’ve seen the dream is over. The new American Dream, though, the one that markets around the world are embracing as fast as they can, is this: Be remarkable. Be generous. Create art. Make judgment calls. Connect people and ideas…and we have no choice but to reward you.
In short, be indispensable!
I’d like to offer a framework comprised of five central ideas I have used in a leadership position in every environment I’ve worked in for over a decade; while drawing a direct correlation to the five points shared by Mr. Godin.
* Everyone experiences a sense of individuality and self expression (Connect people and ideas.) – Ensure all team members understand their role and how they are contributing value to each project. Creativity is not born from a Groupthink. Differing ideas and passionate debate amongst team members should be encouraged.
* There is a capacity to express compassion to develop close relationships (Be generous.) – We are social animals. We need one another and rely on the respect and encouragement from our peers to stay motivated, ensuring we feel like a valued member of the team. Encourage the team to lean on one another and offer support whenever possible.
* A way of reacting with spontaneity, integrity, and integration exists. (Make judgment calls.) – Imagine a workplace where people could act on inspiration with team members who respect differing ideas with the ultimate goal of integrating the best of the best into new product or service offerings?
Policy and procedure is fine for coding and documenting; even a necessity one could argue. But how many innovative products or designs can you point to that came from following the exact same process again and again?
* There is a drive towards self-expression and creative experiences (Create art.) – Though it has been written about many times, we tend to lose the artist in each of us as we grow into adults. Yet children have this creative capacity in spades! As Ken Robinson outlined in one of the most popular TED talks ever given:
I heard a great story recently of a little girl who was in a drawing lesson, she was six…the teacher said she hardly ever paid attention but in this drawing lesson she did. The teacher was facinated so she went over to her. The teacher said “What are you drawing?” The little girl said “I’m drawing a picture of God!” The teacher said, “But nobody knows what God looks like.” The little girl said, “They will in a minute!”
Dave Gray and Dan Roam have noted several times at conferences around the world that you don’t need to be an artist to draw, whether you can paint like Van Gogh or not.
* There is an ability to reason and exchange ideas with others (Be remarkable.) – This idea is remarkable as many corporate cultures make it incredibly difficult to reason and exchange ideas with others.
Are you in an open office environment or is it “closed off” by cubicles? Does sending an email equate to being accountable in clearly communicating ideas or next steps in a project? Is there a respect amongst all team members, regardless of title, for ideas generated when solving problems?
Your physical work environment; relying on technology to communicate effectively; and a general lack of respect for others’ experiences and insights are three of the greatest barriers to be able to reason and exchange ideas with others, in my experience.
Would you rather work for a company that insists on creating a corporate culture of control and limited creative thinking…
Keep your head down. Follow instructions. Show up on time. Work hard. Suck it up.
…or would you prefer to wake up every day driven to create, inspire, and lead by modeling the behavior of…
Be remarkable. Be generous. Create art. Make judgment calls. Connect people and ideas.
It’s your choice.
Excellent post Jeff! I’m almost done with the book and I’ve found it both validating and inspiring. There’s art in making decisions, in being a real leader, having perspective and nuanced insight. It’s also an excellent reminder that we don’t usually need a map, and to embrace the challenge of choosing a path even when the options are too many to count.
Thank you Megan! :)
I think you’re right in that we are all overwhelmed with choices. “Less IS More” and without that mental model or philosophy, making wise choices becomes even more complex, for example: http://tinyurl.com/bpfywo
Many technologies are allowing people to hide rather than participate and criticize rather than critique – as your colleague @AdamConnor articulated beautifully at the most recent UPA Boston event.
People are the greatest asset in every organization, not technology!
To think otherwise is incredibly short sighted in my opinion.
Take this analogy that I’ve used in the past, for example:
“Thank God the carpenter used that hammer from the Home Depot! Can you imagine what the deck would have looked like if she would have used the hammer from Rona?”
It’s just a hammer. You wouldn’t ever praise or fault the hammer, you praise or fault the craftsman.
Right?
Technologies, after all, are merely tools to help us communicate and connect with other people. It’s what we do with those relationships in the real world that will ultimately determine our success or failure.
Thanks for the post. It may be a good book for our next UX Book Club Columbus to help prompt more discussions about UX Leadership.
Hey Erik!
I’ve set this up as the first book for discussion for the UX Book Club here in Ottawa for September http://tinyurl.com/2e5g6bu
I’ve set up all the books for discussion into 2011, in fact.
My approach was to find books that are broad enough to include people within and outside the UX web field – as UX is so much more than what happens in technology. :)
Plus, the more people we involve outside our respective fields, the greater our perspective when solving problems. http://tinyurl.com/yew8sdu
I agree with your approach to selecting books for UX book club. I’m doing the same thing in Columbus.
Trying to find the balance between extending professionals and appealing to those outside our proper fields.
UX is much more than websites and wireframes and it serves us well to enable these broader conversations.
Hey, I love the idea and your framework, but what I love even more is that how well it resonates on a global level.
I think it’s safe to say (or assume) that the ideas and points you are sharing are somewhat universal and well understood by companies big and small across the globe.
Regarding the message: “In short, be indispensable!” – I’ve actually had an opportunity to see people on Twitter arguing that they DO NOT want to be indispensible. Lack of courage? Different perspective on being indispensible? You tell me…
I think the notion of being indispensable can be one that frightens some, though I wouldn’t say it’s due to a lack of courage.
I was part of a meeting recently where the most senior executive were trying to implement an online tool that would allow employees to provide feedback about their performance evaluations. Every single leader said the issue wasn’t with the technology but rather many staff would consider contributing their ideas to be “career suicide!”
Not wanting to be indispensable can also be the result of several other factors: No desire to advance in their career – comfortable and just wanting to retire. Personality type: Introverts typically have a harder time finding their voice; though they can demonstrate this capacity in other ways.
Regardless of the reason, I think the corporations who will be most successful will be the ones who understand the key points outlined by Mr. Godin because let’s face it, my parents and their parents’ philosophy of…
“Keep your head down. Follow instructions. Show up on time. Work hard. Suck it up”
…is clearly over; and has been for the past ten years. Denial is not going to change this fact.
Jeff, thank you for this post. I think this is a very important topic, and the ideas in Seth Godin’s book Linchpin are very relevant to the User Experience profession. I really appreciate your framework for how these ideas apply to UX professionals, and wanted to add to your thoughts about cultivating a corporate culture of creativity. I think that for UX professionals to become truly indispensable, we need to remember that creative ideas are “1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”
I learned this from a talk Seth Godin gave at The 99 Percent Conference, just before his book Linchpin came out. In this talk, Seth shared many of the same ideas in his book, and really drove home this concept of “shipping.” I love how he explains what keeps us from being remarkable is our “lizard brain,” or the voice of resistance, that comes up with excuses or reasons not to make change happen. He said that we procrastinate and shy away from introducing new ideas because we are afraid people won’t like the ideas, or that that they will criticize us. At about 12 minutes into his talk he says, “You don’t need to be *more* creative. All of you are actually *too* creative. What you need is a quieter lizard brain…”
Learning to be okay with failure, criticism, critique, mistakes, is the path to becoming truly indispensable. At the very end Seth says that we don’t have the opportunity to do this “we have the obligation to do it… we need the work your doing, we need your genius, we need your insight…and I’m praying and hoping you go do it.”
http://the99percent.com/videos/5822/seth-godin-quieting-the-lizard-brain
I would love to continue discussing Seth Godin’s ideas from his book Linchpin, and how UX professionals can become indispensable.
Jill,
The key to success is the corporate culture and creating an environment where people can, as Seth points out, thrash at the start, rather than at the end.
That said, the corporation also needs to have the trust of others to be able to engage in conflict, work through a variety of ideas, and be able to agree on that final end state.
Few have this capacity.
Few have the genuine desire to create something great unless it was their idea.
We need to learn to let go.
We need to start to understand that the value in our creative capacity has far less to do with who came up with the idea, but rather who allowed the conversation to flow in such a way that allowed for the final solution to be created.
As I tell others I lead in brainstorming sessions: “There are no dumb ideas. The first idea uttered, even if it’s way out in left field, started the debate, that turned into a conversation, that lead to the final answer that our clients loved!”
We all fear negative feedback from our peers. This includes EVERY person on the corporate ladder – from the custodian right on up to the CEO.
Think about it this way. Remember in public school when you were afraid to ask a question because you thought you would look stupid in front of your friends?
It’s the same feeling; that same fear we have today in sharing. The other part of that story is to remember the odd time when another child asked the same question, and how relieved you felt when they had the courage to ask.
We all have that opportunity to not only gain clarity, but to also encourage others to come forward! The only question is whether or not “you” will step up and take that lead.
Let’s start thrashing!