Fearless Creative Leadership

Edited highlights of our full conversation. 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.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. 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.

How does your company fit into your story? Rishad Tobaccowala is a thought leader, author and one of the great provocative thinkers. His insights are drawn from his many years spent as the Global Strategist and Chief Growth Officer of Publicis Groupe and now from his work as an independent advisor to businesses across the world. We all have a story we want to tell about our lives. Our answer to who we are and why we’re here. For too many years we have tried to mould that story to fit the needs of the companies we wanted to work for. If we were accepted, the shape that we had carved ourselves into became a lasting edit. One that we carried with us to the next job. And the one beyond. And what we too often left behind was the story of who we wanted to be. That has changed now. The individuals stand firm and watch potential employers twist themselves into pretzels to convince the candidate of the company's rightness, its worthiness, its fit. Which, from a leadership perspective, strikes me as a mistake. The tsunami of change brought about by a global pandemic will slowly recede, and the companies left standing will be those who stayed true to their stories and know the kind of people that can help write the next chapter.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. How does your company fit into your story? Rishad Tobaccowala is a thought leader, author and one of the great provocative thinkers. His insights are drawn from his many years spent as the Global Strategist and Chief Growth Officer of Publicis Groupe and now from his work as an independent advisor to businesses across the world. We all have a story we want to tell about our lives. Our answer to who we are and why we’re here. For too many years we have tried to mould that story to fit the needs of the companies we wanted to work for. If we were accepted, the shape that we had carved ourselves into became a lasting edit. One that we carried with us to the next job. And the one beyond. And what we too often left behind was the story of who we wanted to be. That has changed now. The individuals stand firm and watch potential employers twist themselves into pretzels to convince the candidate of the company's rightness, its worthiness, its fit. Which, from a leadership perspective, strikes me as a mistake. The tsunami of change brought about by a global pandemic will slowly recede, and the companies left standing will be those who stayed true to their stories and know the kind of people that can help write the next chapter.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. How does your company fit into your story? Rishad Tobaccowala is a thought leader, author and one of the great provocative thinkers. His insights are drawn from his many years spent as the Global Strategist and Chief Growth Officer of Publicis Groupe and now from his work as an independent advisor to businesses across the world. We all have a story we want to tell about our lives. Our answer to who we are and why we’re here. For too many years we have tried to mould that story to fit the needs of the companies we wanted to work for. If we were accepted, the shape that we had carved ourselves into became a lasting edit. One that we carried with us to the next job. And the one beyond. And what we too often left behind was the story of who we wanted to be. That has changed now. The individuals stand firm and watch potential employers twist themselves into pretzels to convince the candidate of the company's rightness, its worthiness, its fit. Which, from a leadership perspective, strikes me as a mistake. The tsunami of change brought about by a global pandemic will slowly recede, and the companies left standing will be those who stayed true to their stories and know the kind of people that can help write the next chapter.

How do you see yourself? Daniella Pierson is the Founder and CEO of The Newsette. And the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Wondermind. She and her story are extraordinary. Daniella started The Newsette seven years ago, at the age of 19. Last year, the company generated $40 million in revenue. She and her mother are the only shareholders. She has done this in the face of being told, in so many ways, that she could not. That she was incapable. That she was inadequate. That she was dumb. She has done this by refusing to accept the criticism or the labels or the extreme self doubt. She has done this by building an organization so filled with the best parts of herself, courage, intelligence, kindness, that in the end the organization became capable of taking care of her. I hope you’ll find the time to listen to her whole story. It is a story of hope built on the determination of one remarkable woman to define herself and her life on her terms.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. How do you see yourself? Daniella Pierson is the Founder and CEO of The Newsette. And the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Wondermind. She and her story are extraordinary. Daniella started The Newsette seven years ago, at the age of 19. Last year, the company generated $40 million in revenue. She and her mother are the only shareholders. She has done this in the face of being told, in so many ways, that she could not. That she was incapable. That she was inadequate. That she was dumb. She has done this by refusing to accept the criticism or the labels or the extreme self doubt. She has done this by building an organization so filled with the best parts of herself, courage, intelligence, kindness, that in the end the organization became capable of taking care of her. I hope you’ll find the time to listen to her whole story. It is a story of hope built on the determination of one remarkable woman to define herself and her life on her terms.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. How do you see yourself? Daniella Pierson is the Founder and CEO of The Newsette. And the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Wondermind. She and her story are extraordinary. Daniella started The Newsette seven years ago, at the age of 19. Last year, the company generated $40 million in revenue. She and her mother are the only shareholders. She has done this in the face of being told, in so many ways, that she could not. That she was incapable. That she was inadequate. That she was dumb. She has done this by refusing to accept the criticism or the labels or the extreme self doubt. She has done this by building an organization so filled with the best parts of herself, courage, intelligence, kindness, that in the end the organization became capable of taking care of her. I hope you’ll find the time to listen to her whole story. It is a story of hope built on the determination of one remarkable woman to define herself and her life on her terms.

How do you greet change? Evin Shutt is the Chief Executive Officer of 72andSunny, a role she took on in March of 2020. Taking on the senior leadership position of one of the world’s most creative and innovative companies, at the very moment the world is shutting down, will instantly reveal your relationship with change. Do you look for it and high five it? Or work to minimize it? During the months and years ahead, and across the entire spectrum of leadership, that difference in mindset will become more and more obvious. The leaders we remember will see change as opportunity and currency, and they will seek it out. They will recognize that they are living in a moment in which more is possible than at any point in human history, and they will quickly create new expectations that two years ago seemed unimaginable. They will open the door and invite change and all of its relatives, uncertainty, unpredictability, apprehension and yes, fear, to come in and sit down. They will offer it the best room in the house and the best seat at the table, and they will treat it like their oldest and dearest friend. For one simple reason. It is. The best friend any leader interested in leading could have. So, the next time your phone rings, your text chimes, or your email sings, hope against hope that change is calling. And then do everything you can to make it feel welcome.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. How do you greet change? Evin Shutt is the Chief Executive Officer of 72andSunny, a role she took on in March of 2020. Taking on the senior leadership position of one of the world’s most creative and innovative companies, at the very moment the world is shutting down, will instantly reveal your relationship with change. Do you look for it and high five it? Or work to minimize it? During the months and years ahead, and across the entire spectrum of leadership, that difference in mindset will become more and more obvious. The leaders we remember will see change as opportunity and currency, and they will seek it out. They will recognize that they are living in a moment in which more is possible than at any point in human history, and they will quickly create new expectations that two years ago seemed unimaginable. They will open the door and invite change and all of its relatives, uncertainty, unpredictability, apprehension and yes, fear, to come in and sit down. They will offer it the best room in the house and the best seat at the table, and they will treat it like their oldest and dearest friend. For one simple reason. It is. The best friend any leader interested in leading could have. So, the next time your phone rings, your text chimes, or your email sings, hope against hope that change is calling. And then do everything you can to make it feel welcome.