Creating Company Culture for Remote Teams — With Todd Henry

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Creating Company Culture for Remote Teams

November 22, 2022 Brand Leadership Business Growth Career Growth Creative Agency Creative Mentorship Design Leadership Strategy

Guest Speaker

Todd Henry

author and advisor

Positioning himself as an “arms dealer for the creative revolution,” Todd Henry teaches leaders and organizations how to establish practices that lead to everyday brilliance. He is the author of five books (The Accidental Creative, Die Empty, Louder Than Words, Herding Tigers, The Motivation Code, and Daily Creative) which have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he speaks and consults across dozens of industries on creativity, leadership, and passion for work.

With more than 15 million downloads, his podcast The Accidental Creative offers weekly tips for how to stay prolific, brilliant, and healthy.

Todd’s book Die Empty was named by Amazon.com as one of the best books of 2013. His latest book, Daily Creative, offers daily sparks of inspiration and practical advice for creative pros.

Leaders don’t just build company culture, they are company culture.

Company culture is part of every employee’s experience whether they work remotely or in an office. But the remote and in-office playing fields aren’t the same, and leaders have to know the difference. With no opportunity to physically absorb remote office culture — one perk of the in-person setup — remote leaders must provide their people with new avenues to build trust with their managers and teams as well as opportunities to prove themselves to stakeholders.

In this episode of Real Creative Leadership, author and advisor Todd Henry shares what it takes to lead a remote team, including a level of stamina, creativity, and commitment that goes beyond a basic policy of keeping cameras on.

Join now to learn more about what to consider for an environment where remote creatives can thrive.

In episode you’ll discover:

The difference between corrective and coaching conversations
Which virtual practices can violate trust
How stability and challenge work as foundations of company culture
Why leaders must distinguish between outcomes and effort

mentioned in this show:

Adam Morgan

Creative Leader and RCL Host

The Stoke Group

Digital Marketing and Full-Service Content Agency

Transcript

Adam:

Welcome back to Real Creative Leadership. We are so excited to have you here. And I have a little special intro here for our guests today.` Because you on the show I’ve talked a lot about how there are so many websites out there in this world and experts that’ll help you get better at the craft, better at writing, better at design, better at videography, and how there is just so little out there in this world that is good quality content on creative leadership. But the guest we have today is the OG for creative leadership. And he has been in this space for a long time, influenced me quite a bit. And I just really appreciate all the content and good advice and wisdom that he’s shared over the years. So I would like to introduce Todd Henry, who is an author, speaker, and all around expert on creative leadership. So Todd, welcome to the show.

Todd Henry:

Adam, it is so great to be here. That is officially the first time I’ve ever been called the OG of anything. So, [inaudible 00:01:10].

Adam:

Get ready for it.

Todd Henry:

That means I’m getting old.

Adam:

It’s true.

Todd Henry:

That’s what that means.

Adam:

Yeah. Well I don’t know. There’s not that much out there really when you compare all the stuff on the craft. But when you’re talking about, I mean the space that you and I are in where it’s how are we helping leaders and leaders of big companies and leaders of big creative teams and moving things along, it’s just a totally different world. I have a lot of friends and people I’ve had on the show that are expert at, maybe it’s something like freelance work or something else that’s just such a different world though. So I’m excited to chat with you and I know our listeners will get a lot out of this conversation.

Todd Henry:

Well, I’m excited as well. I mean, I think like so many endeavors that we get ourselves into, that was what got me into this work. Wow, 17 years ago, 18 years ago now, I was leading a team. I was struggling with where do I find good advice about how to lead this team effectively? And I figured out some things that seemed to be working. And I had several friends who were creative directors and ECDs at some of the bigger brand design firms and stuff. I mean, I’m in Cincinnati, Ohio, so we have a pretty significant design presence here because of a little company called Proctor and Gamble that does a little bit of business in the creative space. And so I was getting together with these other people and asking them, “Where do you go?” And they said, “Well, I don’t know where to go. I have no idea.”

And so that was the genesis in 2005 of the Accidental Creative podcast was this kind of idea of how do we do this more effectively as create on demand professionals? There was a ton of stuff about, hey, how to be creative, how to make art. And I’m like, well that’s fine, but I need to deliver this by tomorrow afternoon at 2:00 PM in order to keep my job. So can you help me do that? Because that would be amazing. There was nothing out there. And especially for leaders who were trying to, there’s a ton of great leadership advice. How do you manage an organization? How do you scale? How do you do all these things?

But a lot of that was how to lead salespeople. Well okay, that’s fine. But that deals with repetitive systems and it deals with conversations and relationships. But how do you help someone be positioned to come up with that great idea under pressure consistently? What do creative people need in order to thrive? And so that was really the genesis of it. And to your point, even to this day, there’s not a lot out there specifically about leading talented, creative people. Most of the advice is general leadership advice or general management advice. And some of it applies, but there are some unique nuances to leading creative people that have to be accounted for or we’re going to struggle.

Adam:

Oh, absolutely. We’re a different breed. That’s exactly it. So it’s that mesh of leadership and there’s good advice out there. And I kind of find, at least in my experience, so many creatives almost discount some of that as well, all the good leadership advice. But it’s really taking that and putting it over the lens of creative people and how they operate and how they want to grow and really melding those things together. That’s really critical.

Todd Henry:

It is. And to that point, there is some good advice out there for sure that is kind of more general leadership advice. And all of it is relevant, but the unique spin is what do creative people need from their leader in order to feel positioned to do their best work? Which is different maybe than what a salesperson needs or maybe different from what an engineer needs. I mean, those are creative professions because they’re solving problems, that’s what creativity is. But there’s something different that happens when you’re maybe designing or when you’re inventing something for the first time. You’re making a product, you’re trying to do UI/UX stuff. There’s a different layer of psychology that has to be applied when you’re leading people who are doing that kind of work.

Adam:

Well, I appreciate you having me on being on the show. I know we’re only at the tail end of season three, moving into season four, which is a long ways away from 2005. But anyhow, it’s all great and it’s all good stuff to talk about. And especially, you as a speaker, it’s not just that you started that so long ago and you’re an expert on it. But even still today, you’re out there all the time talking with different people and different companies, brands, agencies, and you’re out there just talking about creative leadership.

So what I’m excited for me and for the rest of the listeners today is just really understand a little bit more of what is the pulse right now? What are creative leaders dealing with? What are some of the things and tips and tricks and insights and trends that you’re seeing? And I think that’s really what we’re going to dig into it. Just a lot of, it may feel like we’re a little scattered and talking about a lot of different topics, but that’s really what it is for me, is just really getting at the cusp of what people are talking about in creative leadership.

Todd Henry:

Yeah. Boy, I’ll tell you, are we tired yet of this phrase unprecedented times? Because I think I’ve heard that, that is going to be the most overused phrase of the decade, I think. But we are in unprecedented times. I mean that in a very literal sense. We have never been in the situation where we are coming out of something like a global economic slowdown, could have been a shutdown, fortunately it wasn’t because we had the tools to be able to continue to collaborate, where we are thrust into the future because we have those tools available. So what we’re experiencing right now is basically everybody jumped into a time machine and transported to 2029, is basically what has happened. But we’re not psychologically ready for that. Nor have organizations had that period to transition to what’s it going to look like when people are working?

Some of them are working remote, some of them are in person. What does real estate look like? Do we need as much office space? Do we not? Do we need to accommodate for people? Do we not? How do we collaborate? How do we communicate? What does culture look like in this semi virtual, semi in person space where some people are in San Francisco and some people are in Omaha and some people are in Austin. How do we have any semblance of a culture right now when all we see is this little Brady Bunch square on the screen? By the way, 90% of people won’t even get that reference.

Adam:

Who was the Brady Bunch, yeah?

Todd Henry:

But when all you see is that little square on the screen and smiling faces and all you know people as are transactions, which by the way, I just had a great conversation about this with Mitch Joel, virtual work is highly transactional. Even right now, for example, I am looking at a camera, I’m not looking at your face. You might be smiling right now. You might be flipping me the bird. I have no idea what you’re doing right now because I’m looking at a camera because I’m trying to connect with the people listening. Oh, I did see the thumbs up out of my peripheral vision.

Adam:

Testing you.

Todd Henry:

I am looking at the camera, so I’m not picking up those visual cues. We’re not breathing the same air, we’re not in the same room together. So it’s a very transactional thing where you do your thing, I do my thing, and then we get off the call and boom, click, you’re gone. Now I’m back in my own space alone. As human beings, our biology has not adapted to our technological advancement. So when we’re in the room together, I can tell, Adam, if you’re telling me that you like an idea, but you’re really not on board. I can tell by your body language. I can tell by your tone of voice. I can tell by who you look at in the room. Like, Oh, Adam just looked at that person that I know also doesn’t agree with me. You can sense conflict that’s brewing on the team.

You can sense when somebody is feeling insecure and maybe needs a little bit more handholding on the project. You can sense all of those things when you’re in the room together that you can’t sense virtually. So the trade-offs are numerous in terms of doing virtual work, meaning that there’s a lot of good that can come out of it in terms of where we see talent, opportunities for talent. There’s sort of a double edged sword for creative pros in that, hey great, I can go work for anyone anywhere because I’m working virtually. Oh, but you know what, that also means that my boss can hire anyone from anywhere to do my work.

And if they can find somebody in Tallahassee, Florida who’s willing to work for 75% of my salary, they might just do that. Even if they’re not doing as good of work, but it’s like comparable work, they might just do that because the war for talent is no longer geographical if we move into this virtual space. So a lot of people who are fighting for virtual work have to recognize, also, you have opened yourself up to a global marketplace of talent that you must now not just compete with people in your immediate area, but you have to compete with people from all over the world. And that’s going to be a competition of, not necessarily a competition of talent, but maybe even a competition of price in some cases. If we can get people who can do comparable work, maybe they’re not as talented and nuanced as you are.

Maybe they don’t bring as much to a meeting, but they don’t have to because we’re just staring at them on the screen. And as long as they can do the work, that’s all we care about. So I think it’s, there are going to be a lot of tradeoffs that we have to account for, and I don’t know how it’s going to shake out. I mean, this is that wonderful time where it’s like, I wonder what’ll happen next? Who knows, because we didn’t see this coming. And I wish I could say, oh my goodness, let me tell you exactly how this is going to play out. But I think we have no clue what’s going to happen over the next five years in terms of geopolitics, economics, and the creative marketplace. I mean, there are so many, there are like five people in the world right now who via any decision that they make could completely disrupt the global order. And I don’t remember a time since World War II when that’s been the case. So we’ll see. We’ll see what happens.

Adam:

Well, there are so many things we can talk about in depth on all of this and let’s-

Adam:

Well, there are so many things we can talk about in depth on all of this, and let’s maybe back up, because you brought up so many good topics. So let’s even go back. First of all, when we were talking earlier, we were talking about how this is just such a big leap where we moved 10 years forward. But I’d love to hear what you said earlier when we were talking about how if this had happened 10 years ago, then what? I think that’s a fascinating story.

Todd Henry:

Listen, the global pandemic was awful. It was terrible. Tons of loss of life. I know economic livelihoods were threatened as well in so many places, and it was just terrible. And I have thought many times over the last couple of years, what a gift it is that this happened when it did. Had this happened in 2010, we would be in the midst of the biggest global economic depression in a hundred years because everything with a shutdown, “What are we going to do? Are we going to collaborate over Skype?” That’s what we had 10 years ago. Literally, it was Skype. It was like, “Let me chat you my presentation.” Even the tools that we have for collaborating and interacting or design, collaborative design tools that teams can use, I mean, those things did not exist 10 years ago. And so the entire creative services industry would have just evaporated overnight.

We have so many people out of business right now. I’m largely in the … I mean, I’m not in the events industry, but I do a ton of events, meaning that I’m speaking, I just got back from a trip. I’m going on a trip in a couple days all over the world. I’m going all over the world speaking at events. I mean, talk about an industry that was completely disruptive, but you know what? I was able to jump on virtual events and present to organizations and teams and at conferences and do a TV studio quality presentation to them live and in person. But virtually, I could not have done that 10 years ago. What am I going to do? Talk on Skype and have my slides on the screen while you hear my voice? I mean, that’s a terrible experience. But again, even though there’s so much bad that came out of the pandemic, I think one of the good things that we realized is we’re a lot more resilient now than we were maybe 10 years ago.

And that’s a huge gift to understand that because I think that that’s going to change the way that we think about things like how we prepare ourselves for the inevitable. Pandemic was an inevitability, we just didn’t know when it was going to happen.

Adam:

Exactly.

Todd Henry:

We knew at some point it was going to happen again. Now it’s kind of on our radar. There are other things that could happen that could force us to go virtual. The beautiful thing is we know we can do it now if we have to, which is great. And the tools are just getting better. So I think it was a huge gift. The timing of it was a huge gift because we are … It’s kind of like we just came out of a car crash and we’re all like, “Do I have my limbs? Am I-?”

Adam:

“I’m okay. You okay?”

Todd Henry:

“Am I breathing? Are you okay? I think we’re all right.” For the most part. I mean, a of terrible things came out of it, but the good part is I think we kind of survived, which is a miracle in and of itself.

Adam:

You’re right. I mean, I think that paints a hopeful picture of how technology and just the timing has kind of saved us. But it doesn’t mean it’s not hard. I mean, if you really think about creatives, we love being in the creative cave. That’s where we’re productive. And I think to a certain extent, this new setup is so perfect for many of them because it’s like, “Oh, I can just sit back and really zone out and get in a flow state and really create and focus on the right stuff.” But that doesn’t mean that it’s all roses. Certainly, the next thing I’d like to dig into is, “All right, so now that we’re separated and we’re looking at these little squares on a screen, what are we missing? What is the challenge now that we need to overcome?” And you’d mentioned a little bit earlier that there’s so many people that have not even had a part of company culture.

So one little tidbit that I was thinking about when you said that is, at Adobe where I’m at, since the pandemic started, I think it’s something like 40, 45% of the employees that have joined us have us since the pandemic started, meaning they have never experienced company culture. Half the team, half the people of 25,000 people have not experienced anything in a building or what it was like before. So that’s a challenge. I mean, that’s totally different. I’d love to dig in a little bit more, you were talking before about these two different things that we need to have, stability and challenge. Let’s dig into a little bit more of like, “Okay, now we’re in this new reality,” which lame, sorry I said that. “But in this situation that we’re in…

Todd Henry:

It’s true.

Adam:

“How are we going to help all these people who have no culture and have no understanding of what it should be like? How do we build that?” Let’s talk about culture first, and then we can get into the stability and challenge.

Todd Henry:

So much of culture is what we absorb. It’s not what we say. Every company has a mission statement and a vision statement and a set of practices and norms that they expect people to adhere to, and all of those things. And those things are valuable and they’re important and they set the rails for us. They set some of the rails of that stability that we need. But most of the culture of an organization is absorbed through practical lived experience. It’s not what we say, it’s what we do. And when we’re not around each other very often, we don’t absorb that culture in the same way. And so you talk about that 45% at Adobe who has joined since the pandemic began and only know Adobe is a virtual company maybe largely. What is their lived experience of what it’s like to work in and at Adobe and around people Adobe?

I think that’s yet to be determined. I think if and when, and I don’t know what your plans are, but if and when Adobe says, “Okay, everybody, we’re back at the office,” that’s going to be day one for a lot of those people when they go back and they’re interacting with people in person and they’re like, “Oh, this is what it feels like to be a part of this place.” Culture is sort of how we live and breathe and move around each other and interact with one another and our expectations of how those relationships work. And that’s a huge part, by the way, of any leader’s responsibility. We tend to think that culture is culture, but the reality is the practical lived experience of people inside of organizations is largely determined by their interaction with their manager. It is. I mean, their experience of you is more important than their experience of the macro organization because that is their practical everyday lived experience.

Most leaders think their only job is the work. “Well, I just need to get the work done.” Well, no. No. It’s your job also to shape and prune and refine the culture to grow it into a place that people want to be, that they want to be a part of. We’ve all been in those organizations where we have a great experience and then maybe we get promoted or we get moved and then all of a sudden it’s like, “I hate this company. I can’t believe I’m working here.” And it has nothing to do with the company. The company’s the same. It’s that we have a different lived experience of being a part of that organization. So we have to recognize as leaders, part of our responsibility is that culture. One of the things that gets in the way, by the way of an effective culture, is something that I call ghost rules. Ghost rules-

Adam:

Ghost rules?

Todd Henry:

Ghost rules, yeah. So ghost rules are invisible narratives. These are things that we say or believe that become a part of how we see the organization. So for example, I know you’ve probably never heard this before, Adam, and nobody out there listening has heard this before, but things like, “Well, that’ll never work around here.” Or, “So and so will never go for that.” Or, “That’s not the blank way.” These are examples of ghost rules and what they do, these ghost rules are invisible assumptions that limit how we engage with each other and how we engage with the organization. When we’re living in a virtual environment, I think ghost rules run rampant because we don’t hear them, we don’t see them, we don’t experience them because we’re not around people. We just have that transactional experience with them and then they go away and they’re forming all kinds of assumptions about that conversation.

All kinds of assumptions about why did so and so say that thing in the meeting. Well, it must be because of X. Well, maybe not, but because our relationships are all transactional, we’re forming these assumptions that are affecting our culture in significant ways. One of the things I tell leaders is one of your primary jobs is to, when you encounter a ghost rule, to call it out, challenge it, and ask, “Why do you say that? Why do you say that’s not the way we do things around here?” But if that’s their only practical lived experience because of living in COVID, there are people who have understandings about what it’s like to work at your organization because they’ve never worked in person that will be completely blown out of the water when they actually get back to being in person, because they’re going to have a different lived experience.

So you have to think about, we talk about stability and challenge, those are the two things in Herding Tigers that I write about that talented people need stability being clarity of process, clarity of expectations, predictability of process. We’re not changing the process midstream. Once talented people start putting themselves into doing subjective difficult work, they need to know that the terms of engagement aren’t going to change midway through the project, that you’re not suddenly going to come in and say, “All right, now we’re going to change the way we’re doing stuff.” Or, “I’m just going to throw a couple of hurdles in your path just to keep you on your feet.” They need to know that they have that predictability, that stable playing field within which to do their work. But they also need to be challenged. They want to try new things. They want to experiment. They want to take risks.

They want to venture into uncharted waters. Talented people don’t want to do the same thing every single day. They want to try new things and come up with new ideas and stretch themselves and grow their skills. Well, the challenge for us right now is so much when it’s transactional, so much of the work does feel a little bit like lather, rinse, repeat. Either that, it’s like, “Okay, here’s what I want you to do. You got any questions? Okay, great. Go do the thing.” Or on the other side, it’s too much challenge and not enough stability. People need more frequent interactions with you, but you’re not available because you’re on another Zoom call with some other group and you’re just not around in the same way you would be if we were in the same workspace. So people feel too challenged, overly challenged. They don’t have the stability or the infrastructure they need because they’re trying to be their own IT person.

They’re trying to figure out what they’re supposed to do. What’s your intent? What’s the creative direction for something? And they’re trying to figure that out while they’re also figuring out all the tech stuff and they’re trying to figure out some other project, so they don’t have the stability that they need. So all leaders have to ask the question of each person on their team, by the way, this is an individual thing. It’s not a set it and forget it thing. What level of stability, meaning what level of clarity, communication, interaction does this person need? And what level of challenge do they need in order to thrive as a professional.

And that’s going to be different for everybody. Some people, you just wind them up and set them free and they’re great. I mean, they’re thriving in the virtual space because they’re like, “Man, I mean if I never see you again, look for my work because it’s going to show up on your desk at the right time. Just if I never see you again, it’s fine. Just know that I care about you and all is well in my world.” Other people need more frequent clarity, direction, handholding. And you can’t treat everyone the same. And that doesn’t make them inferior by the way. That just means in order to do their work, they need more clear direction more consistently in order to do that work. And that’s fine. You just need to know that so that you can provide it for them consistently.

Well, in a virtual space, you don’t pick up on those cues as easily. So it’s easier to just treat everybody the same because we are all the same with these little squares on the screen. It’s not like we’re in a space together. So I think it’s one of the unique challenges with culture in a virtual space is it’s harder to intuit what people really need from you.

Adam:

Well, it’s interesting as leaders, if we’re creating this stability and challenge in each of our people, I think you also brought up the fact that it’s like, it’s not just that, but there’s also this whole issue of trust. And so there are leaders who are building trust and breaking trust all the time. And maybe tell us about what are some of the ways that leaders are blowing trust without even knowing it.

Todd Henry:

Yeah, so we tend to think trust is really important, by the way, in building stability in the organizations. When we talk about stability, trust is the foundational layer. I think that trust is the currency of creative work. It is. If you don’t trust your leader, you’re not going to take risks for them. You’re going to wait until you can clearly see that, okay, what they’re telling you is true before you spend any of your finite time and energy doing something. So if trust isn’t there, you can’t do great creative work. You just can’t. But leaders have a fundamental misunderstanding about trust. We tend to think about trust like a bank account. I put a little bit in and occasionally I can make a trust withdrawal. And as long as I keep a positive trust balance, everything is okay. But that’s not how trust works.

Trust is not like a bank account. It’s more like a water balloon. You fill it, you fill it, you fill it, you fill it. But if you puncture it, even in a tiny way, you’re likely to lose it in places where it really matters. All that trust is going to spill out. And most leaders are not overtly lying to their team. They’re not doing big things. They’re not misleading or deceiving their team or throwing them under the bus. By the way, if you do that, you will lose the trust of your team forever. All you have to do is throw them under the bus one time, blame them for something that’s your fault and you’ll lose them forever. But most of us are blowing trust in little ways. For example, something I call declaring undeclarables. I could tell you a little story-

Adam:

Yeah, do it.

Todd Henry:

Okay. So couple of years ago, there was a bear that was spotted in southern Ohio where I live, and it was, I don’t know, maybe 60 miles from where we live. It was out in the middle of nowhere, two counties over. But my kids were freaked out because like the media does, the moment something like that happens, the media’s all over it and they’re like, “Oh, there’s a bear running rampant in southern Ohio.” So my kids are freaking out and they’re envisioning this bear crawling up the side of our house and climbing in their window and eating them in their sleep or something. And I’m like, “Listen, first of all, we live in close to the city, so probably not going to happen. Second of all, that bear’s like 60 miles away.”

So I told my kids, I wanted to make them feel better in the moment. So I said, “Listen kids, there is a 0% chance you’re ever going to see that bear. That bear is 60 miles away. There is no chance that bear’s ever going to come within 30 miles of you, let alone you’re going to come across it.” And that made them feel good. It did. They went to bed happy.

Two weeks later, I pull out of my driveway, I take a right, I go to the bottom of our street and there’s a news crew camped out at the bottom of our street. And I’m like, “Huh, that’s weird.” So I roll down my window, I’m like, “What’s going on?” They said, “You know that bear we’ve been talking about on the news?” And I’m like, “Yeah,” all the blood drained down in my face. I’m like, “Yeah.” And they said, “Well, it’s across the street right now. It’s in the creek. Do you want to see it? We’ve got some great footage.”

And I’m like, “Are you kidding me? It’s a block from my house.” Over the next two weeks, Adam, I kid you not, that bear was spotted in my neighbor’s trash. It was at every place my family goes. Bear spotted in Chipotle parking lot, looks hungry for small children. It was crazy. Every single place my family went over the next two weeks it was spotted and then it went away. I don’t know where it went, went back to Kentucky where it belongs, whatever. Okay. Anyway, do you think that dad lost a little bit of credibility over the whole bear thing?

Adam:

You’re a liar.

Todd Henry:

Just a little bit, yeah. Over the next six months it was like, “Now dad, is that really true? Or is that like the bear thing?” I made a promise to my kids that I couldn’t guarantee I was going to keep because I mean, what are the odds? I mean, chances are I’m probably right, but I didn’t know for sure I was going to be able to deliver on that promise. We do this as leaders all the time. We say things like, “We are absolutely going to go with your idea for this project.” “Oh, you know what? Actually something came up. We’re not going to go, sorry, we’re not going to go with your idea. We’re going to go with a different idea. But maybe next time, sport, maybe we’ll go with your idea next time.” Or, “Oh, you know what? I’ll meet with you next Tuesday at 2:00 PM. You know what? Something came up. Let’s push it to 3:00. You know what? Something came up, just let me know if you need something. We’re not going to meet.”

Well, that’s their face time with you. That’s their chance to prove themselves to you. I mean, again, in a virtual space. One of the things I think about often is, man, people like you, people like me, people who are in leadership, who have had their experience of proving themselves and working their way up through an organization. And now it’s like, hey, virtual’s awesome because I get to lead from afar and have my own space and whatever. But I think about those people who are newer to the workplace. How do they prove themselves? How do you show your resourcefulness? How do you pull people aside and say, “Hey, I’ve got an idea for this thing.” It’s a lot harder to do because it feels maybe so much more… There’s so much more weight to every conversation because you have to say, “Hey, I’m going to request a meeting with you online, a Zoom call.”

Adam:

Formal.

Todd Henry:

Yeah, it’s formal. It’s not the same thing as like, “Hey, I was thinking about this thing. What if we tried… ?” And you can’t prove your resourcefulness in the same way because, anyway, it’s just a different thing. But here’s the thing, we have to be very careful as leaders that we deliver on the things we promise. And if we can’t deliver on them, we have to be careful not to promise them or not to say that we’ll do something if we don’t know that we’re going to be able to follow through on it. If we’re not certain, we can say, “Hey, here’s my intuition. Here’s what I believe to be true. I think we can make this happen, but some things might come up and we just need to be prepared that some things might come up that could change the course.”

We just have to be careful about our language because people take our words and they put them in the bank. And then when those things don’t happen, we violate trust. And so then next time when we need somebody to trust us to take a risk to do something, or it could be like we make a decision, we start moving forward with the project, but we don’t secure buy-in from stakeholders at key moments. And then two weeks later, some stakeholder decides to weigh in and now everything’s thrown upside down. And these people just wasted two weeks of their work, two weeks of their lives, which we’re wasting two weeks of their lives when we do that. And they’re going to have to start all over again because we didn’t do our job to secure buy-in at critical moments from a stakeholder to ensure that they weren’t going to be wasting their work.

And we do this and we lose their trust. And so what happens next time? They say, “I think I’m just going to wait.” I’m not going to put any discretionary energy into this until I know for certain it’s not going to be wasted effort. So again, it’s little things like that violate trust and that defines the culture of an organization over time.

Adam:

Yeah, and it’s probably harder to mend all that trust, like you said, when you’re virtual, because you don’t see the little moments in between meetings where you walk past and things feel okay or feel someone’s not upset with you again or there’s not a continuing problem. But when it’s all dark, you don’t know what’s still going on in the background.

Todd Henry:

That’s right. And it’s like, “Okay, everybody good?” “Yeah, we’re all good.” Click. I can’t believe it. It’s like that’s what happens once we’re off Zoom. It’s like, ugh, I can’t believe. I think Zoom should have, how Gmail has that unsend feature. I think we should get to see 10 seconds after the click. Everybody’s reaction.

Adam:

That’ll be trouble.

Todd Henry:

It would be trouble. But I think that’s when you really see somebody’s body, they’re smiling in a room, but they’re slumped down. You can tell that they’re dejected. Oh, you know what? I should pull that person aside and have a conversation and find out what’s going on. It’s little things like that that you don’t get in a virtual space. And I think it’s as nice as the flexibility is, listen, every organization is human beings striving to do their best in the world. That’s what it is. Every organization is human beings who have ambitions and goals and dreams and aspirations and who wants to do good work. People get frustrated with other people all the time. I mean, I’ve been frustrated with people before and I have-

Adam:

Listen, I’m sorry.

Todd Henry:

Yeah, I’m sorry, Adam. Okay. This is a good time for us to have this conversation. But I have to continually remind myself, listen, this person is just a human being. They’re not intending to make my life more difficult. They’re not intending to drop the ball. Nobody is thinking, Boy, I sure hope I wake up and crank out a steaming pile of crap today. Nobody’s doing that. But things happen and we have to deal with that. There has to be accountability. But I also have to recognize I should not ascribe ill will where incompetence is more likely to blame. So if they’re incompetent, I can be frustrated with their incompetence and I can work through that. But I can’t let that become ill will being ascribed to them, which I often do. I often think, “Oh, that person’s making my life so difficult.” Well, they’re not trying to, and we have to deal with it. But as leaders, there are two types of conversations that we have. We have coaching conversations and we have corrective conversations.

Coaching conversations are, “Hey, let’s talk about how we could do this better next time.” Somebody’s bringing their best effort. They’re trying to do the right thing, but they’re just not getting it right. And so let’s talk about how we can, ask a lot of questions. What if you did this instead of that? How might that change the way you approach this work? Or what if you had had this conversation instead of that conversation? How might that have changed the circumstance? Those are coaching conversations. We all need that and we have to approach that with a level of empathy and teamwork and camaraderie almost as a leader.

Then there are corrective conversations. Corrective conversations are reserved for efforts where there’s a lack of will, a lack of work ethic, a disrespect. These are conversations that are more intense, more direct, and we need to approach the person and say- “Before we go any further in this conversation, I need you to know what you just said was 100% unacceptable, and we cannot tolerate that kind of behavior in this organization because it violates our fundamental cultural tenets. So help me understand why you thought that was an acceptable thing to say.” Right? These are corrective conversations, and they need to be dealt with with a different level of intensity and focus than the coaching conversations. The problem is a lot of leaders aren’t able to distinguish between those two things, and so they approach a coaching conversations as, “How could you make that decision? Why would you do that for this?” I mean, they don’t do it that way, but that’s the interpreted attitude behind it. And so people go, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

Well, it’s just human beings trying to do their best, is all it is. So we have to be careful to distinguish when someone is being disrespectful, they’re violating culture, they’re affecting someone else because they’re not being respectful of that other a person, that is something we have to treat extremely seriously, imminently, urgently, and we have to approach it with the appropriate level of urgency in our tone as well, and make sure that people understand it’s not acceptable. So all of that to say, I think these are all things that we’re struggling with right now in that virtual space, because we don’t get that nuance, we just get the transaction.

Adam:

Yeah, there was a lesson I learned from a leader of an ad agency years ago, and he would always just tell me, “Just give them the benefit of the doubt, just always give the benefit of the doubt to any person.” And that stuck with me, I think it does help to always think that, that you’re right, they’re all just people trying to do their best, and we’re at different levels, but certainly we still have a common human goal to progress.

Todd Henry:

100% and that doesn’t mean that we can’t hold people accountable, there has to be accountability for performance, there has to be for an organization to work, but we have to be careful to distinguish between accountability for outcomes and accountability for effort and will and attitude. We can reinforce the effort and the will and the attitude while still holding people accountable for outcomes, that’s what we need to do if we want to help people get better.

Adam:

That’s awesome. This whole conversation has been such a masterclass in different tactics of how to help your team and yourself, honestly, through this new hybrid world that we’re living in. But before we run out of too much time, I want to go back and just make sure we talk a little bit about your new book, because this is a timely moment for your new book, it just came out, maybe give us just a quick brief history, everyone listening, what the book is, what it’s all about, where they can find it, and then we can dig a little bit into that before we run out of time here.

Todd Henry:

So the new book’s called “Daily Creative,” it’s a daily reader for creative pros. I’ve spent the last almost 15 years of my life, hey, there it is, writing five books that are long form books that take you hours and hours to read to get the core idea, like “Herding Tigers,” or “The Accidental Creative.”

Adam:

Worth it, worth it, let me just get a plug in there, worth reading all of those hours, they’re awesome.

Todd Henry:

Sure, but that’s because they were designed to address one topic. Like “Herding Tigers” is about leading talented creative people, “The Accidental Creative” is about building structure in your life to have ideas when you need them, “Die Empty” was about making sure that you’re doing the work that really matters in your life. So all of these books had a specific theme, and during the pandemic I started thinking, okay, what’s my next book going to be? What am I going to write about? And as I was having interactions with leaders and people in the organizations, I’m sure same that you were having, I notice that people are just, right now people just feel like they’re drowning. They’re trying to get the work done, but they’re also trying to do it in a new way, and they’re trying to be their own IT person, and stuff. And I’m like, man, when people are drowning, the last thing I need to do is throw them a 300 page manual about how to swim better.

And so instead I thought, what if I just took some of the best ideas from those other five books and I distilled them into daily actionable nuggets? And so that’s what Daily Creative is, it’s 366 daily essays that capture some of the best ideas from my other books and put them in an actionable format. And it’s everything from how to gain better focus, how to collaborate better, how to manage your energy, to how do you have that leadership conversation with people on your team? So it’s not stuff that’s going to be brand new and earth shattering to people, it’s not like people are like, “Oh, I never thought about that before.” We all know what we need to do for the most part, we just need to be reminded of it because we forget, because we’re busy, and Daily Creative is really that way of coming back to those core things day after day after day and ensuring that we’re not forgetting about them, making sure that we’re acting on the things that matter.

Gretchen Rubin so eloquently said, “What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while,” and that’s the core ethic behind Daily Creative. If you spend two to three minutes every day reading and thinking about and maybe journaling about the entry for the day, it’s going to position you over time to be prolific, brilliant and healthy. So that’s the core ethic of the book.

Adam:

And I also have to say, if you have enjoyed the advice and the insight that Todd has given you right now, just imagine you could have Todd in your ear every day for just five minutes and keep it going so that you’re never going to lose pace. But I think it’s great, and we may not dig into every little topic, but everything from ego and confidence to imposter syndromes in there, that’s a huge topic everyone always is talking about. Another one I liked was a resignation letter, and I thought how that really appropriately applies to this whole quiet quitting trend right now that everyone’s talking about, and so how can you get there without getting there and ruining everything for yourself?

Todd Henry:

Right, the advice in that essay is write a resignation letter and don’t deliver it, but ask some questions. Okay, so have I seen these same patterns in other organizations where I’ve worked? Have I felt these same things? How much of that strife is portable, meaning I’m bringing it with me, this isn’t necessarily the organization. If you’re seeing some through lines between other circumstances, maybe instead of quitting and finding the same thing in six months somewhere else, maybe there could be some things you could do to adapt to your current circumstances before you do that.

And so that was the whole point of that essay, and that was written in response to this quiet quitting thing that we’re experiencing, which is people who are frustrated, and almost in some ways playing the victim, like I’m just going to go hide in the corner and abdicate my contribution and just keep collecting a paycheck. Well, that is a very unsatisfying way to live. I mean, it’ll pay your bills for a while, but as human being, we’re wired to derive a sense of meaning and purpose from the work that we do, and over time it’s going to be a very unsatisfying way to work, and you’re going to forfeit a huge chunk of your contribution and probably your career if you do that.

Adam:

Oh yeah. And if your goal is growth, I had a conversation with my leadership team not too long ago and this came up, and one woman said, “This whole hustle mentality is just so tired.” And it made me really think about that for a while, that you’re right, it’s not that we’re saying to be a leader you have to hustle in terms of working more hours than anyone else, and put in more effort than anyone else, but it’s really looking for those ways to find voice and a vision, really looking for ways where you can stand up, within the normal working hours and the regular work life balance, but it’s about not residing yourself to the corner, like you said, but really showing strategic thought, showing where you think things should go, just giving leadership, vision, and where we can take things, I think is critical.

Todd Henry:

Absolutely.

Adam:

Anyhow, love it. Thank you, thank you, those are some, if you haven’t picked it up, please pick it up, read through the Daily Creative, it’ll be a whole year of just wonderful insights that can help you as a creative leader build new skills, or remind yourself about skills that you should keep doing all the time. So thank you, thank you, Todd, I think that’s awesome.

Todd Henry:

Thank you. Yeah, and I’m very excited, very, very excited to see what this brings. We’re actually building an app around Daily Creative, and we’re doing some other things that are going to be really fun.

Adam:

Fun. Well, that is actually a good transition as we get to the end here, where can people find you? Where should they connect with you? Where can they learn more about you so they can follow you?

Todd Henry:

Yeah, so my personal site’s toddhenry.com, that’s where you can find a lot of my videos and my speaking, my teaching, my books, all of those things. If you want to know more about Daily Creative, you can go to dailycreative.net, and there you can learn more about the book and about the little community we’re building, and some of the other things that we’re doing to help people stay prolific, brilliant, and healthy every single day. And, because you’re probably listening to podcasts, the Accidental Creative Podcast, since 2005 we’ve been delivering weekly tips to help you be prolific, brilliant and healthy, So check out the Accidental Creative Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.

Adam:

Yep, and sign up for, I get your newsletter constantly, so that’s another great way to stay connected. Well thank you, thank you, we appreciate having you on the show at Real Creative Leadership, your advice is awesome, and I hope everyone goes out and follows you and continues to help learn from your great experience, so thank you.

Todd Henry:

Awesome, thank you.

Adam:

All right, well that’s it with our conversation with Todd. As always you can find us at Real Creative Leadership, if you’re listening on a podcast or you’re here at YouTube, whatever channel you’re on, you can always go to our website to get the show notes if you like, we’ll often put the links of something we’ve talked about, so we’ll definitely have all of Todd’s links in there if you want to be able to get to them quickly. But thank you for listening, again, if you enjoyed this content, please share it and help us to grow this community.

You can find me at adamwmorgan.com, or you can find us at Real Creative Leadership. And as always, super grateful for The Stoke Group in helping produce this show. You can find them at thestokegroup.com. So thanks for listening, and we’ll see you on the next episode.

Guest Speaker

Todd Henry

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