Fearless Creative Leadership

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Deirdre Findlay is the Global CMO of Condé Nast. In that position, she's responsible for all of the company's consumer-driven revenue. She took the job in January of 2020, and faced by an industry in transition and a world in chaos, has dramatically grown the company's subscriber base, as well as the affiliate and commerce revenue. More than that, the company has held onto its new-found audiences, even as we start to leave our homes and reconnect with each other in person. Like every leader, she's responsible for producing business results at a time when the employer-employee relationship is being entirely rewritten. If you're leading a business that depends on unlocking the power of creative thinking and innovation for your success, you know that talent acquisition and talent retention have always been critical. Most people think that's true for one reason. Hire the best talent and win the game. For many companies, their strategy for finding and keeping the best talent came down to this: Pay them, praise them, promote them, and prioritize them - especially when it came to handing out the best opportunities. If that's still the cornerstone of your thinking, you're already falling behind in the race for game-changing talent. Today, as a leader, it's not just the job you're selling, it's the journey. The journey you're taking the business on. And the journey you're offering everyone who works for you. One of self exploration and personal development. A journey to discover what they can do and who they can be. You'll still need business plans and financial performance metrics to determine who you need to hire and what you can afford. You'll still need visions and missions, job descriptions and benefits packages to open the door to the right people. But if you want to close the deal and ensure the best of them stick around long enough to make a difference, you'll need two things that most leaders don't know how to measure. Empathy and interest. Which means, as Deidre said, getting comfortable with balancing the work and balancing the people.

Umber Ahmad is the Founder of the rapidly growing bakery, Mah Ze Dahr. Her journey from banker to baker has been told before by everyone from Martha Stewart to BuzzFeed to TIME Magazine. Umber was a guest in the early days of this podcast in June of 2017. Over the last few years, I've come to know Umber well and in full disclosure I've worked with her both formally and informally as she launched and began to grow her business. When the pandemic hit us all like a tidal wave in March of 2020, I wondered how Umber would keep Mah Ze Dahr afloat. A business that depended hugely on a single brick and mortar location in Greenwich Village didn't seem to have much future as her customers fled New York and the city turned into a post apocalyptic landscape of deserted streets and shuttered storefronts. Twenty months later, Mah Ze Dahr hasn't just survived, it has thrived. That single location has turned into four, and her online business has doubled. The leadership instincts on which the business is growing were honed in Umber at an early age. It is too easy to think of leadership as an abstract, intellectual, and even academic construct. It is not. Leadership is the most powerful change agent on the planet - this one or any of the others that we attempt to occupy in years and generations to come. Leadership is most visible when we are confronted by the twists and turns that life brings us. Coronavirus has been a series of hair-pin bends on the side of a mountain, and many so-called leaders have climbed into the back seat and clung on for dear life. When faced with these moments, we quickly discover whether we are a leader in name only, or whether we are willing to confront the challenges of whatever lies ahead. Whether we hit the brakes and stop, or whether we accelerate through the curve and head for the future.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Umber Ahmad is the Founder of the rapidly growing bakery, Mah Ze Dahr. Her journey from banker to baker has been told before by everyone from Martha Stewart to BuzzFeed to TIME Magazine. Umber was a guest in the early days of this podcast in June of 2017. Over the last few years, I've come to know Umber well and in full disclosure I've worked with her both formally and informally as she launched and began to grow her business. When the pandemic hit us all like a tidal wave in March of 2020, I wondered how Umber would keep Mah Ze Dahr afloat. A business that depended hugely on a single brick and mortar location in Greenwich Village didn't seem to have much future as her customers fled New York and the city turned into a post apocalyptic landscape of deserted streets and shuttered storefronts. Twenty months later, Mah Ze Dahr hasn't just survived, it has thrived. That single location has turned into four, and her online business has doubled. The leadership instincts on which the business is growing were honed in Umber at an early age. It is too easy to think of leadership as an abstract, intellectual, and even academic construct. It is not. Leadership is the most powerful change agent on the planet - this one or any of the others that we attempt to occupy in years and generations to come. Leadership is most visible when we are confronted by the twists and turns that life brings us. Coronavirus has been a series of hair-pin bends on the side of a mountain, and many so-called leaders have climbed into the back seat and clung on for dear life. When faced with these moments, we quickly discover whether we are a leader in name only, or whether we are willing to confront the challenges of whatever lies ahead. Whether we hit the brakes and stop, or whether we accelerate through the curve and head for the future.

This week, I'm going to talk about one of the driving forces affecting modern creative leadership. Vulnerability. And the journey that some of the world's most creative and innovative leaders are taking to bring all of themselves to their roles.

Jan Jacobs and Leo Premutico are the Founders of Johannes Leonardo. They describe themselves as a creative and effectiveness agency who exist to create a world of courageous brands. However you define the company, they've demonstrated exceptional courage and produced relentless creativity for 14 years. Their starting point for both comes not from leaning in but stepping back. In years to come, historians will write about this period as one of unprecedented change. An epoch that separated what came before from what is still to be defined. Today, we live with two new realities. Yesterday was an unreliable indicator of what today became. And tomorrow, anything is possible. Leading a business that thrives in that kind of environment has become exponentially more challenging than it was even six months ago. 'Everyone stay home.' That created a level playing field that is now officially over. Now comes the hard part, redesigning your company so that it can win when there are no rules, no norms, no references, no comps and no best practices. Now, leaders are really going to have to lead. Which makes Leo's recognition of listening as a creative act, an invaluable building block in the road to the future. If you're listening to this podcast, I'm willing to bet that your company is filled with brilliant minds. Listening to them to get help with the answers is a good place to start. Listening to them to get help with the questions is even better. And makes whatever you come up with, not only original, but a competitive advantage.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Jan Jacobs and Leo Premutico are the Founders of Johannes Leonardo. They describe themselves as a creative and effectiveness agency who exist to create a world of courageous brands. However you define the company, they've demonstrated exceptional courage and produced relentless creativity for 14 years. Their starting point for both comes not from leaning in but stepping back. In years to come, historians will write about this period as one of unprecedented change. An epoch that separated what came before from what is still to be defined. Today, we live with two new realities. Yesterday was an unreliable indicator of what today became. And tomorrow, anything is possible. Leading a business that thrives in that kind of environment has become exponentially more challenging than it was even six months ago. 'Everyone stay home.' That created a level playing field that is now officially over. Now comes the hard part, redesigning your company so that it can win when there are no rules, no norms, no references, no comps and no best practices. Now, leaders are really going to have to lead. Which makes Leo's recognition of listening as a creative act, an invaluable building block in the road to the future. If you're listening to this podcast, I'm willing to bet that your company is filled with brilliant minds. Listening to them to get help with the answers is a good place to start. Listening to them to get help with the questions is even better. And makes whatever you come up with, not only original, but a competitive advantage.

President Emma Armstrong, co-CCO's Gabriel Schmitt and Michael Aimette, and their Chief Strategy Officer, Todd Sussman, are the leadership team of FCB New York. This summer, the Cannes Lions named FCB The Network of the Year. The agency's journey over the last eight years has seen it transformed from a company that most people didn't care about to one that now stands as a reference point for how to unlock creative thinking on a global scale. FCB is a case study for growing a business by first defining and then living through a strategy. But, when I meet the company's leaders - whether at the global level or those responsible for running offices - I'm always struck by the human connection between them. According to a recent McKinsey report, 15 million US workers - and counting - have left their jobs since April of this year. The "Great Resignation" as it's now being called has become one of the most disruptive forces in business since the 2008 financial crash, with potentially deeper and longer lasting consequences. People no longer want to work at jobs they're not interested by. Which seems like an obvious statement except that for decades, and maybe forever, that hasn't been the case. In fact the company - employee contract has long been built around the understanding that many aspects of many jobs would be intellectually and emotionally unsatisfying but would come with the promise of something better in the future. That equation doesn't work in the same way any more. As a leader, how you rewrite that equation depends on how you see the world yourself. Are you, as Emma describes, curious about the power of creativity and where the world is going next? And are you taking people on that journey of discovery and possibility? Or are you working to meet the expectations of someone's else's over-promise? And then you have to ask yourself, is that really leading at all? Curiouser and curiouser.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. President Emma Armstrong, co-CCO's Gabriel Schmitt and Michael Aimette, and their Chief Strategy Officer, Todd Sussman, are the leadership team of FCB New York. This summer, the Cannes Lions named FCB The Network of the Year. The agency's journey over the last eight years has seen it transformed from a company that most people didn't care about to one that now stands as a reference point for how to unlock creative thinking on a global scale. FCB is a case study for growing a business by first defining and then living through a strategy. But, when I meet the company's leaders - whether at the global level or those responsible for running offices - I'm always struck by the human connection between them. According to a recent McKinsey report, 15 million US workers - and counting - have left their jobs since April of this year. The "Great Resignation" as it's now being called has become one of the most disruptive forces in business since the 2008 financial crash, with potentially deeper and longer lasting consequences. People no longer want to work at jobs they're not interested by. Which seems like an obvious statement except that for decades, and maybe forever, that hasn't been the case. In fact the company - employee contract has long been built around the understanding that many aspects of many jobs would be intellectually and emotionally unsatisfying but would come with the promise of something better in the future. That equation doesn't work in the same way any more. As a leader, how you rewrite that equation depends on how you see the world yourself. Are you, as Emma describes, curious about the power of creativity and where the world is going next? And are you taking people on that journey of discovery and possibility? Or are you working to meet the expectations of someone's else's over-promise? And then you have to ask yourself, is that really leading at all? Curiouser and curiouser.

Gail Gallie is the Co-Founder of Project Everyone where she works alongside the writer and director, Richard Curtis. Project Everyone is a not-for-profit communications agency that creates campaigns and supports partners to raise awareness, inspire action and drive accountability for the Global Goals of the United Nations. Their mission is to accelerate progress towards a fairer world by 2030, where extreme poverty has been eradicated, climate change is properly addressed, and injustice and inequality are unacceptable. Gail's own energy is infectious. Even across a Zoom from three thousand miles away, she lifted my sense of possibility. As you'll hear, there have been phases in her career where that hasn't been the case. And, like many leaders, she's had times where she's found herself out of sync with the organization she was running. But through her journey, she has created a life in which her leadership both reflects and empowers her as a human being. In my experience, that is all too rare. Most leaders relentlessly prioritize solving their company's problems over their own personal development. Leadership is a moving target. And if you've listened to this podcast before, you'll know that great leadership requires that more than one thing be true at once. You have to care about others. And you have to care about yourself. And sometimes, not in that order.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Gail Gallie is the Co-Founder of Project Everyone where she works alongside the writer and director, Richard Curtis. Project Everyone is a not-for-profit communications agency that creates campaigns and supports partners to raise awareness, inspire action and drive accountability for the Global Goals of the United Nations. Their mission is to accelerate progress towards a fairer world by 2030, where extreme poverty has been eradicated, climate change is properly addressed, and injustice and inequality are unacceptable. Gail's own energy is infectious. Even across a Zoom from three thousand miles away, she lifted my sense of possibility. As you'll hear, there have been phases in her career where that hasn't been the case. And, like many leaders, she's had times where she's found herself out of sync with the organization she was running. But through her journey, she has created a life in which her leadership both reflects and empowers her as a human being. In my experience, that is all too rare. Most leaders relentlessly prioritize solving their company's problems over their own personal development. Leadership is a moving target. And if you've listened to this podcast before, you'll know that great leadership requires that more than one thing be true at once. You have to care about others. And you have to care about yourself. And sometimes, not in that order.