The creative act of owning the box you're building

THEM: We need something.... "out-of-the-box and more creative."

BOLD VERSION OF YOU: No, I don't think that is the real need.

This isn't confrontational or a posture of unwillingness.
It's being helpful.
It's choosing to speak truth.
It's being the problem-solver you were called to be.

It's why they hired outside eyes and brains and proven talent to give them an honest, unvarnished perspective they lack.

Because you work in nonfiction, working hard to tell real and not made-up stories to real people (and target audiences) over algorithms, which is the opposite of a fictional marketing fantasyland.

Because you read in an old brief somewhere or the owners told you why they started this business in the first place, which, based on the "creative" they now want to be more creative, doesn't look or sound at all like why they created this business in the first place.

Because people don't like being marketed and sold to, let alone sliding down a brand's sales funnel.

Because people who make purchasing decisions often have a built-in BS detector that clients struggle detect in their own work.

Because people simply want good service from people they can trust, people that remind them of them, even if they don't look or think like them.

Because "creative" is wildly subjective.

Because the "creative" shouldn't be about their likes, but their customers' wants, needs, desires and solutions to pain points.

Because you're not trying to win trophies, you're trying to help them grow their business.

Because creativity for creativity's sake can mask a good straightforward story with unnecessary distractions.

Because the best creativity doesn't steal the show, it puts the spotlight on the show itself.

Maybe what's needed isn't something more creative or out of the box.

Maybe what's missing is getting back to that reason the business was started in the first place: to do things differently, to break away from the crowd instead of following it, mimicking it, competing with it.

Maybe reminding them, giving them permission, and pushing them toward having the audacity to do their thing, their way, and in a way that speaks to the heart of others who also find that way compelling -- is the most compelling and creative thing you can do.

Maybe it's about unapologetically owning the very box they've built.

Or there's this, which is possibly the worst-case scenario where everyone wilts just a little bit more and as they maintain the status quo:

NON-BOLD VERSION OF YOU: Sure, we'll take a stab at making it more creative.

It's time to be more bold.

Bold is honest, direct and often simple (that doesn't mean it's easy).

And businesses need boldness now more than ever.

ON WRITING: The long, lonesome, and difficult road to meaningful connection

Writing is a “what-have-you-produced-for-me-lately” endeavor.

Last week’s words are gone, buried in the feed-heap and trash bin of email boxes.

And then come the daunting words like clockwork — “What’s next? Where’s your copy?”

For writers, churning out “content” in emails, blogs, and social posts, might not feel like meaningful writing, as too often it is a disposable byproduct of the craft. So little of what gets written has staying power beyond the moment.

It’s enough to make some writers feel as though their words don’t matter.

I know that feeling. I also know it’s a lie.

In all my years of writing for clients, only a tiny portion of my work still exists in its original form. Writing for business and brands has always been about the new and next idea. It’s about pivoting and evolving and the requisite attraction needed to validate those ideas. Writers have to accept and embrace this reality, especially in an age where anyone — or trained AI — can string together words and sentences.

Everyone has the capability to write.

Writers don’t have unique access to a special skill.

But that doesn’t make writing easy.

Committed writers also understand that:

• Good writing is hard.

• Good writing (and editing) takes time.

• Good writing often goes unnoticed or underappreciated.

• Good writing might even take years to reach its audience as intended.

• Good writing has potential to change/improve/elevate anything and everything.

The book(s) that almost never happened

This week, a small book of tiny stories I wrote finally came to life. My publisher accepted the manuscript in 2018 – nearly 6 years ago. A series of unexpected events prevented it from arriving sooner.

But that’s nothing compared to some of the pieces inside the front and back cover. In fact, the first piece was published 19 years ago – in 2004 through a university-based literary journal.

But it wasn’t merely content that was created. These pieces were not about marketing an idea and expecting unrealistic book sales.

It was about plumbing the depths of the human condition. Something that wasn’t disposable (something that, perhaps drives book sales over time).

That is what every writer wants to create — for themselves and for you.

My encouragement / challenge for you

If you work with, manage, or hire writers on your team — I encourage you to validate them and their effort to craft carefully chosen words. Writing can be a lonely, isolating craft. Without constructive criticism and positive feedback, writers can wither (this is equally true for all creatives, any employee).

If you know a writer — ask to read their words (it will mean the world to them, even if you don’t love what they wrote).

If you are a writer — keep writing. As writers, we stick with it because we are compelled to write. With that compulsion, that drive to get better, to resonate, and to say something in a way that only you can say it is both a gift and privilege. Give it all the time it needs, which also includes the slow arrival of validation.

Luckily for me, someone took notice of my words.

I mean, really noticed.

Not just metrics, or page visits, or eyeballs, or likes.

They read it, absorbed it — and it resonated.

(hint: that’s the winning formula for brands, too).

The Fruit of Encouragement

My publisher said — "I like this. This is good. It deserves a wider audience." (Thank you, Gloria Mindock). She validated the work decades after I began leaning into this writing life.

Unbeknownst to her, those words of acceptance and validation energized more creative work to come.

Between acceptance and the arrival of This Side of Utopia this week, I’ve had two other small books published, drafted another, and have multiple concepts in the works.

That validation was like tapping a gushing well of creativity.

(BONUS: she even chose one of my paintings for the cover art)

There’s a point where many writers are ready to give up — whether they’re working for brands or striving to get their words published by other means. And if their work is the kind of writing that simply pays the bills, their creative spark can fade to the point of simply churning more bland content to swim upstream toward a sea of sameness.

Without the encouragement to persevere, to play the long game, and to dig deeper…

too many great things go unwritten.

Chances are you have an exceptionally good writer in your orbit who is burning out, feeling hopeless, and wondering if their words matter.

Tell them that they do — and stick around to see what happens next (even if it takes a while).

***

And, if short, quirky stories* about navigating this life are your jam, you can find this little book online via Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. You can link to my writing/painting website to access each title.

*Yes, technically these are poems... written in accessible and understandable language in attempt to dispel what the modern reader thinks of poetry (e.g., poetry for people who don’t think they like poetry). In the age of shrinking attention spans, they just might be what's needed. Timing is everything.

Photo credit: Bethany Legg via unsplash

Everyone wants creativity & innovation; few have the required patience

Photo credit: Duane Mendes via unsplash

I read a sponsored headline on LinkedIn recently that said – The Opposite of Inconvenience Is Innovation.

(Not quite true and it resonates as an AI headline, but I’ll withhold judgment).

Then you had to “unlock” their gated, six-carousel slide deck to understand their point.

To that I’d say: unlocking gated material on LinkedIn is the opposite of convenient.

Fellow creative and copywriter Mike Roe recently shared an article on the death of creativity. I was drawn to a particular claim about the near-uselessness of three-fourths of the brands paraded in front of us, and how we wouldn’t miss them if they disappeared.

Think about that: the vast majority of companies/brands are easily forgotten, including yours.

The premise here is that we’ve killed creativity — meaning we aren’t creating anything memorable — in lieu of being efficient with time and speed at the lowest possible cost.

That, friends, is how we end up with headlines and campaigns promoting products like the one above. And it is also how they falter because they fail to entice, and in turn expect something from us long before earning our trust.

What might’ve enticed me to open this sponsored campaign and discover their offering? Simple:

1.       Don’t lock your content on LinkedIn (be generous, be a thought sharer)

2.       Entice us with stories/snippets that will resonate, something like…

Opportunities are created more than they are granted.

Your team keeps looking for opportunities, but when was the last time you granted them time to create something that turned heads? Got people talking? Shook the industry?

Here’s the rub: creating takes time. This can feel wildly inconvenient. It is far from instantaneous. But it is worth it. Just ask the computer maker not named Dell, or Gateway, or Compaq, who put a jukebox in the palm of your hand, and gave you a phone that still functioned like a phone, but became your essential life assistant.

Innovation isn’t doing what you know how to do a little differently. That’s called chasing the market leader. And, whoa, talk about inconvenient.

Remember — you have a choice: to either keep looking for opportunities — or start creating them.

To be fair, maybe this was the same kind of sponsored content the company gated, offering me to dive deeper into their offering, their own unique solution.

But I’ll never know – because I wasn’t compelled to look.

Think of it this way:

How many times has your audience been dismissive or not compelled to look because the creative was rushed, roadblocks to engagement we intentionally set for the sake of data, and meeting the artificial deadline prevailed over doing the best possible work with a better chance of resonating? Have any of us ever been guilty of such a thing?

When we rush creativity (the very thing that leads to innovative ideas) we take away the power of its potential.

We’ve been conditioned to “box it up” and promise what it will do in terms of metrics, sales, and how it measures up on spreadsheet – literally putting it in a box. When we do this, we have succumbed to the antithesis of creativity. Everything begins to look the same. No wonder three-fourths of brands are forgettable.

We neuter creativity before it has a chance do its intended thing – which is to wow people, stop them in their tracks, and get them talking.

And yet that is precisely what every company says it’s pursuing, but typically with poor copy that falls on deaf ears.

Silence as a Strategic Advantage

I recently spent an entire week in complete silence.

No talking. No verbal communication whatsoever. Doctor’s orders.

Not exactly ideal for a communicator.

Sadly, this isn’t unusual for me. It marked the fifth time in 10 years this has been necessary: a surgery to address abnormalities with my vocal cords.

Previously I tried to work through my recovery – using hand gestures, mouthing the words, using a white board to convey thoughts in the moment, and staying fully connected as best I could.  

But this time was different.

This time I left town for a remote place assured of silence and a focus on healing.

I limited all screened time. I walked a lot.

I did tactile things – mostly painting. I read for pleasure.  

And this is where my brain did something unexpected.

Instead of shutting off or winding down, my brain accessed a gear that is rarely found amid the speed of daily life.

A week of recovery turned into a week of renewed ingenuity brimming with ideas, surprising connections, and new possibilities. Things that would not have happened had I been running on the proverbial treadmill of work.

To be clear, this was different from vacation, from necessary downtime.

It was a mandated stop of verbal communication and a self-imposed limit on digital communication.

That, I learned, was the key to unlocking the floodgate of possibilities.  

When you are not actively communicating you become an observer, a listener – a discerning captive to that still small voice from within that provides a way forward.

IMAGINE THIS:

You have a big project hanging in the balance or a must-win pitch on the horizon.

You could engage as you always do – brainstorm meetings, ideation sessions, check-ins, status updates, work reviews, more meetings – and then “sprint” to the finish line.

Or you could give your team some silence and space. A mandate to think rather than perform. Consider it the opposite of the groupthink brainstorm.

This doesn’t require extreme measures or a full week’s worth of quiet and processing.

But what if you provided the freedom, untouchable increments of time and some space to breathe, think, and ideate in silence away from scrutiny of performance, away from the tyranny of the urgent?

What fruit might that yield?

What might a collaborative session look like when unfettered thinking is brought back to the table, rather than expecting brilliance to strike during a planned 60-minute brainstorm?

You and your team likely won’t find that hidden gear under those circumstances.

It is not how the flood of creative problem-solving is unleashed. 

Every organization wants the breakthrough idea that accelerates the business. Few are willing to give it the time, space, and necessary silence to bubble up from the quiet depths to the surface.

NOW IMAGINE THIS:

Your competitive advantage isn’t about doing more, or grinding, or hustling, failing even faster, or cracking the whip on your team.

In fact, it might look a lot like doing nothing – or appear to be ignoring the elephant in the room.

But you know looks can be deceiving.

Because what you are doing is making space and clearing a path for the best thinking to emerge. To allow for strategic listening to occur and see how ideas begin morphing into solutions.

That’s not only good business, but it also reenergizes teams to think – and then perform – differently.

And it’s also what organizations seek for the good of their business and their people.

Thoughtful leadership requires more of this overlooked habit

“I don't have time to read – I’m too busy.”

For years I’d hear that kind of a remark from a leader and assume I had no idea the kind of pressure they were under. Being none the wiser, I would give them a pass. After all, it is hard to make time for something that isn’t a priority.

Today I know better.

I get that some people don’t enjoy reading and that it feels like more work on top of the work they already must do. But keep reading (or stick with me through this post). It doesn’t have to be drudgery, and I believe it can become a priority if we focus less on the act of reading and instead look to outcomes reading presents.

Recently, James Clear shared this thought on the value of reading and it struck a chord:

"Reading is like a software update for your brain. 

Whenever you learn a new concept or idea, the "software" improves. You download new features and fix old bugs."

That should push us to think about how many “old bugs” we have that need fixing, as well as how many new ideas that could be of real benefit if we’re open and curious enough. 

Now imagine the leader of your organization working on Windows 98, using a decade-old Blackberry, and sending email from an AOL account. They’ve signaled that these tools are necessary if not important, but refused relevant updates for their tools, processes and practices to advance the business. 

Processing new information, and then applying that which is useful or helpful, is in part the art of remaining relevant — and we need our leaders to be relevant leaders who know where to guide us and our organizations. 

Looking back, I can pinpoint which leaders and mentors of mine were avid readers and curious thinkers, in part because we talked about books and new ideas. It shaped my thinking and encouraged me to dig in and dig deeper.

Conversely, I am also reminded of those whose leadership style was less about curiosity, innovation and new ideas. Instead they held fiercely to rigid views and a “this is how we (meaning you) do it” mentality.  

Still think you don't have time to read?

In the last three years I've nearly tripled the amount of books (ideas) I consume. Like you, I’m still the same busy human — running a business, raising a family, and being pulled and distracted in multiple directions. My consumption of deeper content (vs. social scanning and intermittent browsing) has grown by listening to books — in the car, while exercising or walking the dog. This is not a new idea, but I was slow to adopt it. But I’m choosing to steal back some of that lost time, reclaim bits and pieces of it, while also leaving enough margin to think and also unclutter the mind.

Last year, I completed 71 books. It wasn't a chore. Only a third of the titles were overtly about business. I track them not to “keep score” but simply to remind me of what I’ve read and what I might want to revisit. A log also reminds me if I’m active in my reading and if I’m getting derailed.

I'm continuing to gain perspective on things and people that I was previously ignorant about (software update). And no doubt I'm thinking differently and more broadly than I did just a handful of years ago. My curiosity quotient continues to rise.

Further, a diverse selection of reading material can open us up to becoming more empathetic and aware of those around us. But it requires us to humbly approach new ideas, different perspectives, and unique voices with an “I don’t know what I don’t know” attitude. Although this HBR article isn’t a recent one, it’s still relevant. And it’s comforting to know we’re in good company as we embrace this critical leadership habit.

We owe this kind of upgraded thinking and curiosity to our clients and colleagues, family and friends. We also owe it to ourselves. And it’s as easy as opening a book or pushing play on an audio version.  

So to all busy leaders and those who aspire to lead others: read to learn, read for enjoyment, but also read to lead. There’s no doubt that you, and those around you, will see the benefits of being not just well read, but more engaged and curious in contrast to that time when you didn’t have time to read.