Episode Transcription Season 3 Chapter 8
Have you ever felt stuck or uninspired staring at a blank page as designers? It is literally our job to be constantly inspired and be creative on demand, which can be really overwhelming. I know because I’ve been there feeling like my last good idea was my last good idea on Brandy. See. I’ve been designing for over 20 years.
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Welcome to design speaks. We’re here to empower you to unlock your own inspiration so you can take control of your creativity. I’m your host. Brandy C joining me is my cohost. Julie Hyder. This week, we’re going to be talking about how to lead creatives. So stay tuned for that coming up later in the show.
Hi Julie.
Hey, Brandy. So when we first met, I was interviewing you to be a designer at a job that I was hiring for. I was art and creative director for an in-house team, and I learned a lot during those years and have learned a ton more since, so today I’m really excited to chat about how to lead.
Creative people. Whether that’s more formally in like a job position, like I was in or a little more informally, like we do for some of the nonprofit groups that were sort of in charge of in a way. So not just leading, but empowering creative. So I’m really excited to talk about that. But first I want to know what you’ve been up to.
I just got back a couple of days ago from going down to white sands, national park to do a couple of photo shoots down there since I had two booked on back to back days, I booked myself an Airbnb and did like a little mini solo trip down there. And so low, so
low, like all by yourself?
Yes.
Yeah. So which I go down there by myself pretty frequently, but it’s like, I drive down. I do my shoe and I drive back and it’s, that’s like eight to 10 hours of driving by myself. That’s all in one day is not very fun. So I thought let’s. Let’s do it different this time. And honestly like this spring has just been so busy and I’ve been feeling like the weight of all the things I needed to do and just kind of honestly, a little bit stressed out by all that.
And so this trip was like, just exactly what I needed. Like I slept in the next morning and like, Read in bed and just like hung out. Cause I didn’t have anything I had to do other than being at my shoots on time. And I drove up into the mountains and just found like a little wild camping spot and.
Read a book, how to picnic to can now. Wow. And it was,
yeah, it was really
super refreshing. So that was a nice little like mid-week getaway last week.
Wow. No expectations. Just all to yourself. That’s like a dog mom. Mother’s day. To getaway if I ever heard of why that sounds awesome. So you’ve been doing a lot of work at white sands.
I feel like you keep going out there.
Yeah. It’s I think that it’s growing in popularity and I don’t know if that’s just like Instagram fame or because it’s now officially a national park and sort of a national monument or what exactly. But I think it’s increasing in popularity and I get a lot more inquiries for it than I ever used to.
Maybe
it’s like, Post pandemic. This looks like it’s out in the middle of nowhere. We can do a shoot here safely place. Yeah.
And it really is a great place for that because like the deans are huge. Like I’ve never seen the edge of. On any side, like, they’re huge. So I like, if there’s a ton of people there, like it’s no big deal, you just walk away from them and find a different San
dude.
Yeah, totally. I love it. Yeah. I was, I was there just before the pandemic hit last year and I’ve been dying to go back. Cause that was my first time and it was, it was amazing. And I really think it’s, it looks like you’re on a different planet, so that’s also super fun.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty amazing spot.
Very cool. Yeah. What have you been inspired by lately?
Okay. So bear with me as always on my weird inspired MIS. So my sister sent me this picture of a. Blue footed booby bird. Okay. So it’s, I was really intrigued that this creature actually exists. It’s sort of like the NAR wall. Like this thing is real it’s.
If you were to look at it from the belly up, it looks like a perfectly normal quote, unquote like bird it’s just like brown. I’m like, it looks pretty normal, but if you like, just look below its belly, it’s like this shock it’s bright blue legs. It looks like it. Stepped in blue paint and like just kind of dried there.
And that’s what it looks like. And it was like really like joyful to see something like that, that it exists. But. It also made me think that it’s sort of like an analogy or a picture of what I preach a lot on my platforms, which is that we all like have this something unique and special and maybe like a little bit weird, even, even though, you know, I tell the kids, like the kids say something, my kids say sometimes Well, that person’s weird or that’s really weird.
And I’m like, we’re all weird. We just don’t all show our weird. And so this is sort of like that idea and that we all have this something unique and special and maybe a little weird, and a lot of people do hide it, which is unfortunate, even creatives, because we’re afraid of what people might think of, whatever that weird blue footed trait might be.
But honestly, that weird is what brings. Our own brand, our own visual voice as creatives to the world, our own voice in general, like that’s what makes us stand out. Right? Even if we lived in like the world of like dystopian novels or something where we all have to like wear the same thing, like if you get deep enough into any person and you find that that’s what makes them unique and stand out.
And so it may not be immediately visible, but it’s really important not to hide. And that’s. What I was inspired into thinking about. So just call me a blue footed booby bird from now on. I don’t know, was, it was just really fun. Yeah. I made like a graphic that I’m going to share at some point, but I thought it was really cute and really fun.
So I was inspired by nature. I guess there’s a weird,
there’s some weird, weird stuff in nature. And
so cool. I just love that. That I’m still like discovering things that exist that like, I dunno, I probably heard about that at some point, but thought it was like something that only existed in Alice, in Wonderland, but that’s probably one of those things that inspired Lewis Carroll.
So who knows she is standing in the street.
She
Okay. So this week I’ve been listening to, I love you always. Forever by Mike mains and the branches is this song is a cover of a song by, oh goodness. I don’t remember who Donna Lewis, I think maybe, and as a nineties kid, I, I just heard this song a ton and fell in love with it. I realized when this song came out, this cover came out that I didn’t quite realize what the.
Real words were, and I don’t know, it’s just a, really, a really nice vibe. It is, it has a dreamy spring kind of guitar plucky feels like we’re just sitting in the park with a friend that has happens to have a guitar. And that just, it just brings me a lot of joy and I really love. Romantic sweet songs. And this song is nothing.
If it isn’t sweet. So I highly recommend that you check this song out and I would love to know. So if you like this version or the original version better, so that’s my musical inspiration this week. It just put me in a good head space. And as the weather is warming up, it felt appropriate. So as always.
All of the music I feature here on this podcast is on the music from design speaks playlist on Spotify. So go ahead and check that out.
so let’s talk about leading creatives. So have you ever heard of. You’ve heard of the phrase, right? Hurting cats and any number of things. People say XYZ is like hurting cats. Well author, Todd, Henry, I heard him speak. I don’t know. I think some years ago, whenever actually I think it was at a, an AAF luncheon when I was.
Leaving you as a creative. And he calls it hurting tigers, which I super love. And he talks about that standard management tool techniques just do not work on creative people. And he talks about why that is. And so something that I learned from him and that I have sort of honed in a little bit more on, is that.
The kinds of things that creative knee creatives need are different from, we’re just not built the same. Like our brains are wired completely differently. And so anytime I hear about, cause you know, my former co-host Michelle and my husband and a bunch of my friends work in like creative departments.
Like, and anytime I hear that, like, Supervisors or anything are being changed out and it’s no longer like a creative person in charge of that. I’m like, oh, this is going to be bad. They understand like how, how these people work. So I have like a random question to ask you, what do you remember about how I led you as a creative and like sort of structured or led the team?
And then we’ll kind of go into some, some like, Pretty simple bullet points on some best practices for leading creative. Yeah.
I do remember like, well for a little backstory, that was my first like big career job. Like I had had a couple of other office jobs and had an internship as a graphic designer, but this was kinda my first.
Stepping stone into like the real world, I guess. So I dunno, I had tons of experience, but I do remember thinking it was very different, like kind of environment than I had been used to. I will say, like, the internship that I had done previously was at eight graphic design and web design firms. So that’s all they did.
Like everybody there, except for the secretary was doing some server creative job. But it was definitely more like traditional and kind of. It still felt like a typical office job. We were just doing creative things on our computers, you know? But I remember like you, you were setting up the like making milk time.
Like that’s something definitely no one had ever done before that I had experienced
that in a
minute. Yeah. And the way that you kept Kept projects organized because we were working with other departments that weren’t necessarily creative. So making sure that it stayed organized, but also like gave us the creativity and like the freedom to do what we needed to do to get the results that were necessary.
So I remember that you had like some sheets for each of our projects and it had like kind of different sections to go through and fill out and everything before we started the project. And as we were going through, which was also good to be able to go back and like You know, if anything, like, while you’re communicating with whoever you were designing for, like, it was just kind of good to have those notes and something to physically look back at, you know?
So check out. Those are a couple of things that I remember from back in the day.
Yay. That’s awesome. I actually, that was a lot more than I expected you to remember. It’s like, gosh, over
super duper. Remember, like there was some project that I was working on and I just was really like, Having trouble figuring out what direction I wanted to go with it.
And you were like, here, it takes some books from my bookshelf, which are probably some of the ones that we can see by, you know, probably you’re like, why don’t you just go outside and, and like, look through these for a little while. And I was just like, how amazing is this? That like, my boss was like, oh yeah, just go outside.
And like, just start thinking, you know, like that’s really D it’s definitely different than the typical. Job.
Oh my goodness. Office job. That’s amazing. Thank you for that. I really expected you to be like, you know, I remember that you were really hard on us. That’s brand. He was
a tyrant. That’s what I’m here to say.
It has been said it has been said before, so yeah, so that actually leads in well to a lot of my points. So how. How does this work? So the things that really are key are having structure and stability, but also like creative freedom and challenges. And I didn’t learn this directly from necessarily anyone.
It was sort of trial and error at first and it was very much I encountered Todd Henry’s sort of things towards the end of my. My three and a half years at that job and realized that what he was teaching was something I was already incorporating. Cause it was like a really nice affirmation of how I was leading.
And so how does it work? Like how do we set creative individuals and teams up for success? So the first thing I want to say is if you are either a creative leader or you are maybe even. A manager over creatives, or maybe you want to be a creative leader someday that you need to be consistent and really try to get to know the people on your team.
Like treat them like individuals with individual personalities and skill sets and find out their strengths, their weaknesses, if you would like their Enneagram, their Myers-Briggs like. Their strengths finder. Like there are so many different ways to get to know like the people that you work over or work with.
So even if you are just maybe a little more experienced and you’re not officially like a creative director, a lot of these things will still help, but more so for people that are in charge of creative. So another thing is to be really clear on like your expectations. So. How I went about doing that is something you pointed out is like having checklists and really clear.
Like here’s a list of things that you need to have when you like package up your project. Or before you go into a meeting, these are the things. And so, especially for younger creatives that you’re leading, like you said, you were like kind of new ish and. That’s like, really thank you. Like, because now I know what you’re what you need from me.
And I like the anxiety of what does my boss want, kind of goes away. So having those expectations is, is really important and. That actually requires you as the creative leader to do a little bit of introspection. Like what do I expect from them? Cause sometimes I think, and I’ve encountered this in other jobs that I’ve been at and also heard from other creatives who work under other leadership is like, well, I didn’t even know that I wasn’t doing a good job until I got in trouble after like at the end and like this isn’t what I wanted.
Okay. Well, then they turn into that client, right? That like, well, what do you want then? And so it kind of all comes back to the process and how I developed this while I was working there was seeing the things that needed to happen and be put into place. Because when you’re, especially when you’re working at an in-house, that that business is your client.
And so you have to understand their needs just like you would any other client. So.
Yeah, I think both those points are super important. So when we, when you first gave me this topic that we were going to talk about, the first thing that came to my mind was kind of the Enneagram thing and knowing
I am the worst with straws, Julie, just a straw. Why? I always choke when I’m drinking through straws, if I’m just like the Chuggy type water bottle or anything else? No, I’m fine. But if I bring a straw to the party, I will be choking at some point. So please continue. All right.
So Yeah, just knowing who it is that you’re working with because everybody is different.
And there are so many, every bit of somebody’s personality is going to come through in the way they work and in the way they respond to how you’re leading them. And I think that’s really important. Honestly, one of my worst experiences of in as working for somebody else and. Dealing with someone who was managing me was basically when that person assumed that I was just like them.
Personality wise and interpreted my reactions. As really negative and being like that, I wasn’t doing my job well. And it was really just like, I’m an introvert. Like I gotta, I have to do things my way. And it just really like shocked me in the moment that they were reprimanding me for doing something that just came absolutely natural for me.
And I never ever thought about as being like a negative thing and I was getting chewed out for it. And I’m like, I just didn’t even know how to respond in the moment because I was just like, Blown away that this person made these assumptions about me that were way off base, but just because they didn’t like, think about that, I had a different personality than them, you know, and this was a person link managing a lot of people.
So I was pretty shocked by that. So I think that is something big that I’ve learned as. Someone being on the other end of being managed is like, you have to, like you said, get to know people at least a little bit so that, you know, like how they, how they respond to criticism or how they need to be motivated or like how much guidance they need to give you the final product that you need.
Like all that kind of stuff. Everybody’s a little bit different. So you have to kind of know that stuff.
Absolutely. Yeah. I think that that is. It’s a lot of work and that’s sometimes I think why it doesn’t happen is because just, oh man, I have to like, actually get to know them and not just give them tasks and orders, which is just, you know, unfortunately what a lot of management type personalities, they just like to be in charge of people.
And it’s not really about the people it’s about just looking good managing people. And so it happens in creative spaces. It happens in all sorts of spaces. But yeah, absolutely. So. Another one is teaching them like a specific framework to follow. And that’s where like the process comes in for me. But also if your, like your culture as an office, as a business also comes into that because you may do things very different.
And so. Having your team understand what that process looks like, what the framework of how you work is. I’m sure that if you work at Google, it’s going to be different than Pinterest is going to be different than. And so teaching them that from the beginning, again, going along with those being clear on expectations something else is something that you said is the whole making milk thing.
And I don’t remember if we’ve talked about this. I feel like we have,
but it might’ve been like.
Last season. Yeah. I’ve, I’ve, I’m sure that I’ve mentioned it over time, but we’re just gonna, we’re just gonna say it again just for the sake of argument. So I don’t remember where I heard this, but you know, I’m always like the blue footed bird, bird, booby birdie thing.
I’m always like inspired by weird stuff in relation to like how creatives work. And I think I heard about. How cows like process their food through all their many stomachs. And that when there I heard someone say that when they’re out in the field, they look like they’re doing nothing, but they’re actually making milk.
And I was like, oh, this sounds exactly like what we do sometimes as creatives and. I even like formed a whole little creative cows lunch weekly that we would do with like the video team and us, if you recall. And it was time to get together to just hang out and talk about ideas or not like, and so the whole idea of making milk is that you need time as a creative, to like go outside or sit in your office and sketch something that doesn’t.
Like relate to what you’re doing, or go take photos or go play volleyball, whatever, like whatever it is. Like there was blocks of time that I set aside and we wouldn’t put little signs on the door that were like, do not disturb making milk. And it was really goofy and really silly, but also creative exercise was happening in that time.
And that is really important too. Leading creatives it’s is to empower them, to be able to have that creative Internal sort of workings happening, not just always from the minute they walk in to the minute they walk out, be working on a project. And even besides that there was making milk time. But then I also set aside actual directed learning time.
So like, okay guys, there’s a, I think creative live was very new at that point. And it was like creative lives doing a, a thing for free, a free webinar, which was very novel in 2009, 10. So it’s scheduled from this time to this time, we’re all going to sit at our desks and do this together and it was on a regular basis.
So. Or if you found something that you were interested in learning that maybe you didn’t know or understand, and you found a YouTube video or whatever, empowering you to say, this is something I want to learn and giving you the opportunity and time to do that.
I think all of that is super, super important.
And I think I’ve said it before, but a lot of my best ideas come when I’m in the shower and it’s because I don’t have anything that I have to be thinking about. And like I’m, you know, doing something and washing my hair, but it’s. You know, I don’t have to think about what I’m doing really. And so it just frees up that space in my mind and my mind starts to wander and it starts to think about things and process stuff.
And then suddenly I came up with a really good idea, but if I just like sat down at my computer and I was like, all right, time to come up with a really good idea about this thing, you know, like probably wouldn’t have.
Yeah, well, and it’s a balance, right? Because as you know, I always say like, you can be creative on command if you.
Set up the right processes, but also you do need to have certain things just be able to marinate.
Yeah. Yeah. You need eating space to be creative, but like you said earlier, there also, still needs to be some structure there because if it’s just like, do whatever you want then like, especially with certain personalities, it may never happen.
Yeah. So there has
to be a really good balance there. So another thing and sort of related to that is to like help their learning by being observant in their strengths and weaknesses and trying to give them tasks that are just outside of their comfort zone. So if you see that every time they encounter, maybe something that’s more typo, like type of graphic type of graphically driven.
And so they sort of. Edge to the side of like, I’m just going to stay away from a lot of topography and you see that consistently purposely give them something that is lots of topography so that you can coach them along the way, coach them through getting outside of their comfort zone and overcoming that and figuring ways through learning new things by approaching those things that they think that they are terrified of.
That’s a great point.
And the next point is really setting them up for success requires that you communicate what their goals are. Not just like. What are my goals for you, Julie? Like, I want you to finish this many projects this week and I expect you to learn for three hours. Like those are all the things that I want for you as a part of the team.
But talking with your team about like, what is it that you want to get out of this? What is it that you hope to achieve at this job? How long do you think you’ll be here? Like being honest, because. Otherwise, you’re just gonna feel like, oh, well, this person’s going to be here forever. So we’re just going to take this slow or I’m just going to give them the things that I want them to learn.
And you’re, you’re not communicating and understanding like what the trajectory they have for their own creative, like professional career path looks like. Yeah. So. The last thing that I have here is to believe in your team and all of this sort of gets encompassed in this one thing, because you are also a part of the team.
You have to believe that you can be a good leader, but you also have to believe that your team is trustworthy. That when I was work, when I went to work at apple, when I left that job One of the things that they teach to their team members is to assume positive intent. And that has always stuck with me.
And that’s one of the things that I learned after this job is I think that a lot of creative managers, creative leaders don’t do that enough. Don’t assume that the thing that they are employee is doing or not doing is not. Even if it comes across negative or even if it impacts you or the job or the project negatively, but it’s possible that they weren’t doing it intentionally to sabotage me.
Yeah. And you have to believe that they are, they really do mean well that they are really trying their best and. The number of people that go into any job and intentionally just like do something cruddy or awful. It’s like so small, but I have been, I have worked for managers and in creative and non-creative spaces where it’s just assumed that I just did that just to get on their nerves.
I really just woke up this morning to get on your nerves. It’s like, no, like believe in your team and. Remember that you are responsible like for this team and how it’s working. So like, if it’s not working well, that’s on you. And if they aren’t succeeding in some way or another, like you must not be providing those, the balance of the processes and structure with the challenges and creative freedom.
And while it is a lot of work and there are a lot more. My new details into how this actually works. I don’t want to go in too deep, but those are all like the major points. I think that will really help you to be a good creative leader. Anything you want to add before we move on to, to phase two of this conversation?
I, I was just thinking that last little bit, like how you treat your employees how you speak to them, how you handle certain situations, they will react a certain way based on how you’re. Treating them. And some of that is on them, but also like if you’re doing the best, you can to make it a really good environment for them, then they’re more likely to want to do their best to if you’re treating them well.
But if you’re just, you know, Not treating them well, then, then it’s going to sour. The relationship. Things are going to go downhill. And I’ve definitely seen that happen plenty of times. And you can’t, you can’t blame it all on them and they can’t blame it all on you. It’s definitely a relationship and you both need to be
working on it.
Yeah. Ultimately you are You are the one that it falls on. If you have a boss above you, if your team isn’t succeeding, that falls on you. And so if your team is doing poorly, it behooves you, I don’t use that word very often to look in the mirror and say, is this something I have enabled? Or is there something I can help to change?
This it’s very much like parenting. I. I have seen this so often since my children are of button pushing age, that when I, when they do something and it frustrates me and then I yell and they get, they get mousey and then I get more angry and then I send them to your, their room and then they’re mad at me.
And so like, if I were to hear them being rude to me and just respond strictly, but calmly. The level stays at a certain point and the same goes for like leading creative people. Because I mean, the reality is a lot of us are a little bit more I don’t know, not emotional, but we’re more passionate. And so sometimes things can escalate a lot more and then it’s like, okay, well, if I’m not talking respectfully to my employees, they’re not going to want to talk respectfully back.
And then it’s just going to turn into this whole ugly thing. And then they’re not going to want to be creative. Then they’re just going to turn in the bare minimum and it’s going to just. Cycled down into a bad space. So believe in your people, coach them, set them up for success. Be really clear on expectations and all of these things.
And you will be a really great creative leader. I highly recommend the book herding tigers by Todd Henry. It’s a, it’s a really great. Great resource for creative leaders. If you love what we do here at design speaks podcast, we’d love for you to become one of our regular supporters. Our patrons. Get the chance to give us input on new season topics.
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What about leading creatives in a non, like a non-job format, like where people are just around or both, or both leaders of nonprofit, creative groups, you’re a co-leader for rising tide society Tuesdays together. And I’m a vice-president and have been many different roles over at AIG, a New Mexico chapter.
So this is sort of another level of creative leadership, right?
It is. Yeah. It’s, it’s almost like a cross between like running your business and having employees, like, I dunno, it’s a kind of a weird mixture
of, yeah. So I want to kind of open it up to you. You, because I’ve been talking a lot and you have a lot of experience.
You’ve been doing this for a while and I’ll kind of put my input, but what are some things that you’ve learned about leading creatives in a more communal space?
I think some of the same things that we’ve been talking about apply. I think it’s really important to know that everybody is different and that’s as a group.
What makes you stronger is that everybody does things a little differently and thinks differently different personalities. For us in Tuesdays together we’re each month talking on a topic and I think like the. The best thing about our group is that when we talk about that topic, it’s open for everybody to ask questions, to give their input, to share how they do things, what they’ve learned on that topic.
And sometimes we get opposing views on things and that’s okay. Like as long as everybody’s being nice. It’s great to hear that different thing because each person in that group, you know, like what works for me, maybe doesn’t work for you and, and all kinds of different stuff. So it’s really I think the strength is like sharing and asking questions, opening up the conversation and just being like open to listen to everybody’s perspective, because it’s going to be different for everyone.
And you can really learn a lot from them.
What’s, what’s one of the hardest things about leading creative groups like that
for you. For me personally, as an Enneagram nine is being the like strong leader, I guess. Like I can get everybody together and like, Listen to everybody talking that kind of stuff, but like to have to make decisions or to be the person that all of a sudden, like everyone in the room is looking at that definitely isn’t like a natural strength of mine.
So it’s something I’ve had to kind of, you know, work on and be like, okay, well, this is my role. So I just have to do it, you know? My co-leader and I like whenever we were having in-person monthly meetings, like everybody would be talking and everything before we started. And they’d be like, okay, it’s about time to start.
But like, How do we get our attention?
How do we make him shut up? Yeah.
Like we just, you know, so it doesn’t come naturally for me to like stand up view and be like, all right, everybody, you know, like get everyone’s attention, that kind of thing. And then also just making tough decisions. Like we’ve definitely had times where people have requested something that, you know, it was.
A situation wasn’t convenient for them. So they were asking for an alternative and we had to make the decision of like, what’s the best for the group, you know, not just for . How, you know, maybe how it is, can be changed, but also maybe what they’re asking for is going to be inconvenient for more people. So it’s tough.
Like we want to make everybody happy, but ultimately like you have to do what’s best for the group in general. And especially since it is, you know, it’s like, we’re volunteering. It’s, non-profit like, it’s just. It’s there, if you’d like to be a part of it, but nobody’s forcing you kind of a thing. So we really have to be careful that we’re not changing the group for one person or leaving someone out accidentally that kind of thing.
So just kind of keeping an eye on everything and then making those difficult decisions whenever we need to.
Yeah, for sure. So how do you, how do you find it’s different in your experience now that you’ve been on a creative, like formal team versus like. Before you were leading maybe Tuesdays together.
I don’t have you always led? I don’t even know. No.
The two leaders who started the group stepped down a couple of years in because they weren’t able to do it anymore. So then I stepped in and started doing that and brought in a second leader.
Okay. So that’s what I thought. So my question remains, how, what’s the experience for you being a part of a formal, like, this is my job creative team versus being a part of just like a creative organization or like community group.
I mean, it is definitely more relaxed in the community group. Like, you know, nobody’s being paid to be there. We don’t have something that we have to do like a specific goal necessarily of like, you know, this project has to be finished kind of a thing. But I think then it goes more into like making sure that our general goals are being constantly realized of like you know, good community being able to share ideas and ask questions and learn and.
Having like that creative freedom to, to learn and work on stuff and everything. So it’s two very different atmospheres. I would say, like in a lot of ways, I feel like there’s less pressure on the community side. But. What everybody’s getting from that group then like kind of pours into their own businesses.
Cause in this group, everyone is a creative entrepreneur. So so it definitely has like that great purpose. That’s going to help them in their businesses. Yeah.
Honestly, I just, I just remembered something that another point that applies to both of these sort of things and it’s listening. Listening to two people that are speaking in creative spaces, especially, I think it’s easier to do individually when you are working.
One-on-one because you tend to have reviews, right? It’s like, okay, it’s time for your review. Let’s talk about how you’re doing, or let’s talk about your weekly project update or whatever, but listening and a space where there are potentially two dozen. People in the room is a really, really crazy skill to kind of hone how have you, I know that that has become one of the things that I have gotten a lot better at leading creative groups as a part of AIG, but also even just being a president and vice-president over the board is realizing that.
We all now have a lot of experience. We’re all on this board because we all have experienced, I’m no longer like the leader, the creative director, like we are of, of the six or eight of us on the board. Three of us are creative directors in our perspective, like perspective jobs. Yeah. So being able to like turn myself on mute literally and figuratively and.
Listen has been something that I have really learned is a valuable piece of being a leader over creatives. What have you, have you felt that also?
Yeah. And it, it goes back to you to like, we can always learn more and that’s part of. The experience as being a leader and also just being a creative entrepreneur, like we always need to be learning and sometimes that’s learning something from a book or a webinar or whatever, but sometimes it’s also just listening to how somebody else does something and, and pulling out little bits that you can apply and that work well for you.
I also think like being in that leader space of I’m a nonprofit group. Like it’s important to us to make sure that everybody does have that chance to speak and that voice, like it’s easy enough for me to step back and listen, but we want to make sure everyone in the group is having a say. And I think that would also probably be true in like a work environment of some people are just going to have that personality.
That’s constantly sharing their ideas or, you know, they’re just a little more communicative and. Some other people like myself, the introverts tend to sit back and listen, and maybe they have really great ideas and really good input. And they just are not like either. They don’t feel like there’s an opening for them to put that out there or they’re feeling nervous about sharing and everything.
So I think it’s really important to, you know, see the room, whoever that is. And me,
she observance chance be observant. Yeah. Yeah. It, it does require like a little bit of intuition to be able to go. Like, that person looks like they haven’t said anything, but they have their hand raised and this other person’s been talking for like 20 minutes.
And how do I, so how, how do you, how do you do that? How do you help make sure that like, do you, do you utilize your. Co-leaders louder voice and just be like, Hey, can you tell them, like, we’d like to let someone else talk now. Yeah.
Well we do try to keep an eye out for like people who look like they’re about to say something or raising their hand, but also kind of knowing each person.
Individually. Like we try to know everybody in the group and not have anybody as kind of a stranger. And that lets us like, if there’s a topic that we’re like within the topic, something has come up and we know like, oh, this person has recently dealt with this same thing. Or we think that person does a really great job at this.
Then sometimes we’ll also call them out, which I know sometimes it feels a little weird to be put on the spot, but I think then it gives them a chance to share their experience and say what great. Stuff that they could be saying, even if they weren’t like, you know, trying to get in there with their input.
So I think that’s important to you to know like, okay, this person really probably has something to add to this. Let’s just go ahead and ask them if they’d like to say something. Yeah. It all
goes back. Like all of these points really go back to like knowing your people and understanding that a team is just people like it’s built with people whether that’s a formal paid to be here team or a creative community group.
And so to wrap up, I know that a lot of us. Are more likely to be led, right? As creatives, we’re more likely to be led by an employer or some other kind of creative leader, whether it’s like employers in a formal space, or we feel like we’re being led by our clients or whatever it is. But. There are also people, like I said, in the beginning that are actually creative leaders or hope to be creative leaders someday.
So I hope that whether it’s in a formal or an informal space, that you got some good takeaways, some, some nice clean bullet points from today’s episode. And if you have any other thoughts or if you are a creative leader and you feel like we left out something super important, like. You can always hit us up on Instagram at science speaks podcast or Julia and I separately on our Instagram accounts or emails, you can find all our contact info in the show notes as always.
All right, well, that’s our episode for today. Please be sure to leave us a review on iTunes and you can always send us a note on Instagram at blind steaks podcast, you can find all current and past episodes at design speaks. podcast.com. Design speak is produced. By Kenneth Nipun and Stephanie Dakota cook.
Shout out to Colin from Vespertine for our amazing theme music design speaks is a project from me. Brandy C. It is recorded in the shadow of the watermelon pink Sandia mountains near Albuquerque, New Mexico, as always. Thanks for listening till next. .
