Executional Love

In his amazing work, Orbiting The Giant Hairball , former Hallmark Creative Director Gordon MacKenzie likens a large organization to…well…a hairball. He says that every new bureaucratic rule or organizational system adds one hair to the hairball until it’s all a giant, messy and impossible-to-navigate mess. MacKenzie suggests in the book that creatives within organizations, (by our definition anyone who has to solve problems or create new solutions on a regular basis), needs to learn to “orbit” the hairball and draw from its resources without getting caught in the muck and mire of organizational life.

I’ve often felt that one of the difficult things for creatives to combat is the organizational temptation to “roll to the middle of the bed.” In other words, we tend to eventually end up in the most familiar places because that’s where the ruts and grooves are, and it takes a lot of intentionality and effort to create new ones. One of the ways this happens is when we fall in love with executions rather than results.

Because organizations have a vested interest in producing predictable results, (as they should), the tendency is to try to replicate success by reproducing the executions that led to those results rather than the process that led to the executions. Because of this, it can be a constant uphill battle to innovate even in small ways. This can leave creatives within the organization languishing in imposed ruts. Over time, this leads to a victim mindset, bitterness and even active subversion within the organization. At best it causes group-think.

As we’ve discussed before, the biggest part of the creative effort is process and only the tiniest little bit is the actual product. By focusing our efforts on replicating “product”, we can prevent duplicated effort but we can also unintentionally limit our thinking and reproduce the “form” of something without the all-too-necessary “heart” of it. This is often what happens when companies “reverse-engineer” a brand or product and end up producing something that lacks the authenticity of the original. (iPhone knockoffs, anyone?)

This is another reason why it’s important to establish the discipline of valuing process and product together in our organizations. By entering into “process” rather than fixating on “product” we can see all of the available forks in the road of the design process rather than seeing it as simply a way to get to the next place. Asking “why” questions about the process itself can be a valuable way of unearthing new innovative solutions.

For leaders, it’s important that we be asking the “why” and “how” questions of the creatives on our teams. For creatives, it’s important that we understand the pressures and constraints that come with leading organizations. No one is out to “get you” (I don’t think.) Your ability to create and engage rests squarely in your hands.

Sean’s Wallet

I was having lunch last week with my good friend Sean.** We get together on a semi-regular basis to shoot the breeze about our latest projects and to catch up on family life, etc. When the check came, we each pulled out our wallets to pay and I thought for a brief moment that Sean had mistakenly packed a small concrete brick in his pocket by mistake. It turns out I was wrong - it was, in fact, his wallet.

Sean explained to me that, in spite of the fact that he doesn’t really need everything that’s in his wallet everyday, he can’t remove any items from it or they will all fall out. The wallet has now stretched to accommodate the number of credit and membership cards currently contained within. If one goes, they all go.

As we discussed this, the subject turned to organizations. I think that we’ve all probably experienced this phenomenon within our teams at one time or another. Objectives lead to systems, systems lead to derivations of systems, we hire around those derivations, and eventually we have a giant, complex, clunky organization set-up to accomplish various derivations of the “main thing.” This is necessary, of course, but at some point the focus can shift from being organized around an objective to being organized for the sake of organization. This is when “why” and “what” cease to line up and when dissonance can creep into our teams. The organization has stretched to accommodate the systems - if we remove even one, they all fall down. The goal, it seems, has become to perpetuate the system.

The same dynamic can emerge in our personal creating. We can obligate ourselves to the point that there is no joy in our creating. We are simply doing it to fulfill some mandate we’ve placed on ourselves, but there is no longer an inherent intrinsic motivation. It’s all flat. We’re doing it simply to remind ourselves that we can - to make sure the pipes aren’t frozen.

Leaders need to be constantly scanning the horizon for the emergence of this kind of dissonance. We need to make certain that the “why” and the “what” line up and that our systems are in-line with both. (Of course, the “why” is often the sticking point, no?) Artists need to ensure that we are not creating complex and unnecessary systems that are “stretching the wallet.” Beginning with simplicity (”what are we really trying to do now?“) facilitates complexity, but beginning with complexity all but ensures confusion. There are more places for the system to break down.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this… feel free to add pics of your wallet or purse…

(** Cruelty free assurance: No friendships were harmed in the writing of this post. In fact, it was Sean’s idea…)

The Shiny Black Box

One of the most (potentially) frustrating things for anyone attempting to create is dissonance. Productivity guru David Allen has described it as all of the “stuff” that’s floating out in the nebulous regions of our mind that we know we need to do, but haven’t yet addressed. In our creating, I tend to define dissonance as when the “why” and the “what” don’t add up.

In organizations this often occurs when there’s a break between client strategy and creative strategy. (In other words, when what we’re doing doesn’t line up with what we say we’re trying to do.) It can also play out systemically in our organizations when the “why” (what we say we’re about, our stated organizational values, the “main thing”) doesn’t line up with the “what” (our systems, our day-to-day work, the product we produce.) When this break begins to creep into our teams, we often experience the emergence of the “black box” phenomenon.

The “black box” is the (unknown, unseen) place where the “why” formula resides. Because we aren’t able to see the connection between cause and effect (the over-arching “why” and the practical “what” of our work) we assume that there must be some mystical, unknowable force (let’s call them our manager) who holds the key to understanding the universe. The problem in this situation is that it can be incredibly demotivating to live within a system where there’s a cause/effect disconnect. Ultimately it leads to disconnectedness and apathy about results, a lack of ability to generate ideas and see connections, and a culture of self-protection. (There’s often an unwillingness to take risks when cause/effect connections are tenuous.)

There are tons of ways that this can creep into our lives and orgs, but for now here are a few things to keep our eyes this week on as we go about our work:

Leaders: We must eliminate any dissonance that exists within the org. We must focus on making the “why” (the existence questions of the org) and the “what” (our systems, processes, work) line up. Drive clarity. Have effective feedback loops (both ways - I’ve often really stunk at this in my leading.) Make it safe to ask the “why” questions. Eliminate the myth of the black box. Stand in the gap for your team.

Creatives: Seek clarity. Stop playing the victim. (If we give a self-pitying mindset any ground, it will grow like kudzu.) Ground yourself in the 5 W’s (who, what, when, where, why) before moving to the “how.” If you can’t answer the 5 W’s, then stop work until you can. Have the equivalent of a “client strategy” in your personal creating. Be your own creative director.

Seriously, people. If we don’t get a grip on dissonance it will take us down. As my friend Brian always says, “small weed now, big problem later.” Over time, weeds in a sidewalk will allow room for water to get in. Over the seasons, water freezes and thaws, expands and contracts, and destroys the sidewalk. Do the little bit of work now to uproot the weeds now. It’s a lot easier in the long run.