Fearless Creative Leadership

What questions are you asking? Gareth Kay is the SVP of Brand at Happify Health. Before that, he’s been the Head of Strategy at Goodby Silverstein, and the Founding Partner at Chapter Creative Studios. Gareth is a relentlessly curious soul. And that has made him one of the best thinkers in the world about creativity and innovation. When all the answers are out of date, or from a different reality, the only choice we have is to start asking more and better questions. Everyone wants to know what the future of work looks like. Leaders want their people back in the building because - pick any you want from this list - I can see what they’re doing. I know who’s engaged. Our business is better when we collaborate. Our culture is crucial. I have a ten year lease on 100,000 feet of prime commercial real estate. These are all answers to old questions. Questions focused on what works best for the company. If you’re leading a business in which talent is not a competitive advantage, or one in which talent is easy to find, my bet is you will be able to create a new version of the old status quo by asking yourself and everyone around you old questions. But if you’re leading a business in which talent is the game changer, and great talent is hard to find, then you’re going to win when you start to ask different questions. Questions that put the needs of the talent at the center of your curiosity. And that starts by asking yourself new questions. The first of which is, “Like what?”.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. What questions are you asking? Gareth Kay is the SVP of Brand at Happify Health. Before that, he’s been the Head of Strategy at Goodby Silverstein, and the Founding Partner at Chapter Creative Studios. Gareth is a relentlessly curious soul. And that has made him one of the best thinkers in the world about creativity and innovation. When all the answers are out of date, or from a different reality, the only choice we have is to start asking more and better questions. Everyone wants to know what the future of work looks like. Leaders want their people back in the building because - pick any you want from this list - I can see what they’re doing. I know who’s engaged. Our business is better when we collaborate. Our culture is crucial. I have a ten year lease on 100,000 feet of prime commercial real estate. These are all answers to old questions. Questions focused on what works best for the company. If you’re leading a business in which talent is not a competitive advantage, or one in which talent is easy to find, my bet is you will be able to create a new version of the old status quo by asking yourself and everyone around you old questions. But if you’re leading a business in which talent is the game changer, and great talent is hard to find, then you’re going to win when you start to ask different questions. Questions that put the needs of the talent at the center of your curiosity. And that starts by asking yourself new questions. The first of which is, “Like what?”.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. What questions are you asking? Gareth Kay is the SVP of Brand at Happify Health. Before that, he’s been the Head of Strategy at Goodby Silverstein, and the Founding Partner at Chapter Creative Studios. Gareth is a relentlessly curious soul. And that has made him one of the best thinkers in the world about creativity and innovation. When all the answers are out of date, or from a different reality, the only choice we have is to start asking more and better questions. Everyone wants to know what the future of work looks like. Leaders want their people back in the building because - pick any you want from this list - I can see what they’re doing. I know who’s engaged. Our business is better when we collaborate. Our culture is crucial. I have a ten year lease on 100,000 feet of prime commercial real estate. These are all answers to old questions. Questions focused on what works best for the company. If you’re leading a business in which talent is not a competitive advantage, or one in which talent is easy to find, my bet is you will be able to create a new version of the old status quo by asking yourself and everyone around you old questions. But if you’re leading a business in which talent is the game changer, and great talent is hard to find, then you’re going to win when you start to ask different questions. Questions that put the needs of the talent at the center of your curiosity. And that starts by asking yourself new questions. The first of which is, “Like what?”.

What kind of company are you building? Karl Lieberman and Neal Arthur are respectively the Global Chief Creative Officer and Global Chief Operating Officer of Wieden + Kennedy. Few companies have reached the creative heights of Wieden + Kennedy. None, that I can think of, have sustained those heights for most of the last forty years. Karl and Neal stepped into their global roles seven months after the beginning of the pandemic. How do you lead a culture opposed to rules through a time when there are no rules? The leaders of creative businesses are usually adventurers. They relish the fact that accepting the ambiguous and the unknown are lines 1 and 2 in the job description. But, as human beings, we are all comforted by the familiar and the known. Even the adventurers eventually turn for home. And yet, if your goal as a leader is to meet the future in a fair fight, then welcoming ambiguity and uncertainty are no longer enough. Turning for the safety of home will leave you behind. Creativity is the world’s most powerful force. It’s time to build flexible businesses that unleash it. It’s time for leaders to let creativity loose.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. What kind of company are you building? Karl Lieberman and Neal Arthur are respectively the Global Chief Creative Officer and Global Chief Operating Officer of Wieden + Kennedy. Few companies have reached the creative heights of Wieden + Kennedy. None, that I can think of, have sustained those heights for most of the last forty years. Karl and Neal stepped into their global roles seven months after the beginning of the pandemic. How do you lead a culture opposed to rules through a time when there are no rules? The leaders of creative businesses are usually adventurers. They relish the fact that accepting the ambiguous and the unknown are lines 1 and 2 in the job description. But, as human beings, we are all comforted by the familiar and the known. Even the adventurers eventually turn for home. And yet, if your goal as a leader is to meet the future in a fair fight, then welcoming ambiguity and uncertainty are no longer enough. Turning for the safety of home will leave you behind. Creativity is the world’s most powerful force. It’s time to build flexible businesses that unleash it. It’s time for leaders to let creativity loose.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. What kind of company are you building? Karl Lieberman and Neal Arthur are respectively the Global Chief Creative Officer and Global Chief Operating Officer of Wieden + Kennedy. Few companies have reached the creative heights of Wieden + Kennedy. None, that I can think of, have sustained those heights for most of the last forty years. Karl and Neal stepped into their global roles seven months after the beginning of the pandemic. How do you lead a culture opposed to rules through a time when there are no rules? The leaders of creative businesses are usually adventurers. They relish the fact that accepting the ambiguous and the unknown are lines 1 and 2 in the job description. But, as human beings, we are all comforted by the familiar and the known. Even the adventurers eventually turn for home. And yet, if your goal as a leader is to meet the future in a fair fight, then welcoming ambiguity and uncertainty are no longer enough. Turning for the safety of home will leave you behind. Creativity is the world’s most powerful force. It’s time to build flexible businesses that unleash it. It’s time for leaders to let creativity loose.

Are you taking care of yourself? Antonio Lucio's bio is extraordinary. He was the first Global Marketing and Communication Officer at Visa. The first Global Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at HP. He was Facebook’s first Chief Marketing Officer. And he left there to become the Founder and Principal of 5S Diversity. They describe their mission as accelerating the leadership journey of diverse talent and increasing its representation in senior marketing roles in the industry. He is a member of the Executive Fellows Program at Yale University and earlier this month was inducted into The Marketing Hall of Fame. His reputation is that he is an incredibly empathetic leader. And as you’ll hear, that may be his greatest accomplishment. According to romantic lore, leaders step in where angels fear to tread. They throw themselves, head first, into the fray, and generally, they’re willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. But, here’s a simple truth. It’s hard to lead anyone, anywhere meaningful, if you don’t care about yourself. The pandemic has extracted a much deeper cost from leaders than most are willing to acknowledge. I see so many who are in denial of the personal price they have paid, and continue to pay, for keeping the company together and the business going. But the trauma of the last two plus years is real. And it has been replaced by a world in which there are no rules, and everyone’s normal is new. If you think that you can tough your way through that, then I hope you’ll listen to all of this conversation. It’s the story of how a leader who has achieved everything, had to first learn the very hard way what really mattered.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Are you taking care of yourself? Antonio Lucio's bio is extraordinary. He was the first Global Marketing and Communication Officer at Visa. The first Global Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at HP. He was Facebook’s first Chief Marketing Officer. And he left there to become the Founder and Principal of 5S Diversity. They describe their mission as accelerating the leadership journey of diverse talent and increasing its representation in senior marketing roles in the industry. He is a member of the Executive Fellows Program at Yale University and earlier this month was inducted into The Marketing Hall of Fame. His reputation is that he is an incredibly empathetic leader. And as you’ll hear, that may be his greatest accomplishment. According to romantic lore, leaders step in where angels fear to tread. They throw themselves, head first, into the fray, and generally, they’re willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. But, here’s a simple truth. It’s hard to lead anyone, anywhere meaningful, if you don’t care about yourself. The pandemic has extracted a much deeper cost from leaders than most are willing to acknowledge. I see so many who are in denial of the personal price they have paid, and continue to pay, for keeping the company together and the business going. But the trauma of the last two plus years is real. And it has been replaced by a world in which there are no rules, and everyone’s normal is new. If you think that you can tough your way through that, then I hope you’ll listen to all of this conversation. It’s the story of how a leader who has achieved everything, had to first learn the very hard way what really mattered.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Are you taking care of yourself? Antonio Lucio's bio is extraordinary. He was the first Global Marketing and Communication Officer at Visa. The first Global Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at HP. He was Facebook’s first Chief Marketing Officer. And he left there to become the Founder and Principal of 5S Diversity. They describe their mission as accelerating the leadership journey of diverse talent and increasing its representation in senior marketing roles in the industry. He is a member of the Executive Fellows Program at Yale University and earlier this month was inducted into The Marketing Hall of Fame. His reputation is that he is an incredibly empathetic leader. And as you’ll hear, that may be his greatest accomplishment. According to romantic lore, leaders step in where angels fear to tread. They throw themselves, head first, into the fray, and generally, they’re willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. But, here’s a simple truth. It’s hard to lead anyone, anywhere meaningful, if you don’t care about yourself. The pandemic has extracted a much deeper cost from leaders than most are willing to acknowledge. I see so many who are in denial of the personal price they have paid, and continue to pay, for keeping the company together and the business going. But the trauma of the last two plus years is real. And it has been replaced by a world in which there are no rules, and everyone’s normal is new. If you think that you can tough your way through that, then I hope you’ll listen to all of this conversation. It’s the story of how a leader who has achieved everything, had to first learn the very hard way what really mattered.

When you’re the leader, where does your impact end? Laurie Howell and Toby Treyer-Evans are Executive Creative Directors at Droga5 in New York and have been partners for a very long time. They have also been responsible for important and extremely impactful work, including the New York Times campaign called The Truth Is Worth It.  But as their careers evolve and the world changes, it is their impact on people in the immediate vicinity that has their attention. It is a truism of the creative industries that the people who get recognized for coming up with the best ideas are eventually put into positions in which they are suddenly responsible for the professional well-being of others. Not everyone navigates that evolution successfully. And to add to the challenge, the bar has just been raised. Today, it’s not enough to plan only for the professional development of the people that work for you. You have to worry about how their work is affecting their personal lives too. To use Laurie’s language, how you lead affects the rhythms of the people that you lead. From how they feel to how they sleep. In a pre-pandemic work-life relationship, the employee was responsible for adapting their rhythms to the needs of the job. Today, when you take on a leadership role, the need to adapt the job to the person falls on you. So if the question of what’s keeping your employees up at night isn’t keeping you up at night, perhaps it should - at least until you know the answer.