Fearless Creative Leadership

Khurrum Malik is the Head of Global Business Marketing at Spotify, which makes him and his team responsible for bringing the company's benefits to listeners and advertisers alike. It also places him at the border crossing of creativity and technology. The pressure from both sides of those territories is relentless. And you can't manage them alone for long without being run over. Science versus uncertainty. Data versus instinct. The art of leading companies that rely on creative thinking and innovation requires - or more accurately, demands - that you are open and available and supporters of all. It also demands that you bring in help to stand alongside you. People with their own talents, experiences and passions. A team that you trust to share your beliefs and your principles. Today, it's never been harder to build that team. Creativity is the most human - perhaps uniquely human - characteristic. It is revealed by a problem, powered by a tolerance for risk and scaled by the capacity to trust. For every company, your growth potential and your trajectory is directly correlated to your leadership's capacity to engender trust. I'm going to have a lot more to say about this in an upcoming episode. But for now, this quick checklist will help. At the end of every call, make a quick note to yourself that captures the answers to these four questions. Did I ask them how they were? Do I remember what they said? Did I say what I meant? Did I mean what I said? If you can't honestly, hand on heart honestly, answer yes to every question after every call — every call — you have a trust gap. And until you close it, you'll have a creativity and innovation gap.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Khurrum Malik is the Head of Global Business Marketing at Spotify, which makes him and his team responsible for bringing the company's benefits to listeners and advertisers alike. It also places him at the border crossing of creativity and technology. The pressure from both sides of those territories is relentless. And you can't manage them alone for long without being run over. Science versus uncertainty. Data versus instinct. The art of leading companies that rely on creative thinking and innovation requires - or more accurately, demands - that you are open and available and supporters of all. It also demands that you bring in help to stand alongside you. People with their own talents, experiences and passions. A team that you trust to share your beliefs and your principles. Today, it's never been harder to build that team. Creativity is the most human - perhaps uniquely human - characteristic. It is revealed by a problem, powered by a tolerance for risk and scaled by the capacity to trust. For every company, your growth potential and your trajectory is directly correlated to your leadership's capacity to engender trust. I'm going to have a lot more to say about this in an upcoming episode. But for now, this quick checklist will help. At the end of every call, make a quick note to yourself that captures the answers to these four questions. Did I ask them how they were? Do I remember what they said? Did I say what I meant? Did I mean what I said? If you can't honestly, hand on heart honestly, answer yes to every question after every call — every call — you have a trust gap. And until you close it, you'll have a creativity and innovation gap.

Hashem Bajwa describes himself as a creative leader that uses imagination, intuition and inclusivity to create experiences that bring people together. He's done that at Goodby Silverstein, at Droga5, and for the last six years at Apple, where he was Director of Strategy, working with Angela Ahrendts to reimagine Apple retail, including the Apple Store. I've spent a lot of time over the last few episodes talking with my guests about the personal and human challenges of leadership in a COVID, climate change, DEI driven world. Hashem and I discussed that too. But this episode is a case study in managing change at enormous scale, to the highest standards and under the brightest of lights. It is filled with practical explanations that have helped create one of the most creative, innovative, visible and valuable businesses of any lifetime. Leading what's right in front of you is challenging. Leading people who are miles and time zones and cultures apart is exponentially harder. Force of personality quickly get diluted over time and space, and out of sight, out of mind willingly steps in to fill the gaps. Before you know it, you're not leading an organization, you're managing siloed problems armed with a 'not invented here' resistance to change. I've seen this up close in big businesses and small. In complex corporations and founder-led partnerships and in all cases, the leaders who were successful planted 'experience principles' into the fabric of their organization and then used those to guide, support and ultimately determine decision making across issues both small and business-changing. When you're the leader, there's never enough of you to go around. And as we learn to work across hybrid work weeks and sometimes physical, sometimes virtual offices, the chances that you will find yourself in the right place at the right time all the time, has become essentially zero. Leadership has a lot to do with giving people clarity and vision while encouraging them to bring their own unique thinking to the decision-making moments. Today, that means finding ways to both guide and inspire their thinking even when you're not in the room. Have you defined experience principles for your organization?

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Hashem Bajwa describes himself as a creative leader that uses imagination, intuition and inclusivity to create experiences that bring people together. He's done that at Goodby Silverstein, at Droga5, and for the last six years at Apple, where he was Director of Strategy, working with Angela Ahrendts to reimagine Apple retail, including the Apple Store. I've spent a lot of time over the last few episodes talking with my guests about the personal and human challenges of leadership in a COVID, climate change, DEI driven world. Hashem and I discussed that too. But this episode is a case study in managing change at enormous scale, to the highest standards and under the brightest of lights. It is filled with practical explanations that have helped create one of the most creative, innovative, visible and valuable businesses of any lifetime. Leading what's right in front of you is challenging. Leading people who are miles and time zones and cultures apart is exponentially harder. Force of personality quickly get diluted over time and space, and out of sight, out of mind willingly steps in to fill the gaps. Before you know it, you're not leading an organization, you're managing siloed problems armed with a 'not invented here' resistance to change. I've seen this up close in big businesses and small. In complex corporations and founder-led partnerships and in all cases, the leaders who were successful planted 'experience principles' into the fabric of their organization and then used those to guide, support and ultimately determine decision making across issues both small and business-changing. When you're the leader, there's never enough of you to go around. And as we learn to work across hybrid work weeks and sometimes physical, sometimes virtual offices, the chances that you will find yourself in the right place at the right time all the time, has become essentially zero. Leadership has a lot to do with giving people clarity and vision while encouraging them to bring their own unique thinking to the decision-making moments. Today, that means finding ways to both guide and inspire their thinking even when you're not in the room. Have you defined experience principles for your organization?

Laura Holson, of The New York Times, is a brilliant and award-winning feature writer and visual editor who has written extensively about Hollywood, Silicon Valley, as well as powerful figures in finance and politics. Our conversation covered a lot of areas. Her love of and approach to writing compelling stories. Why and how she created The Box Session salons which pull together extraordinarily creative people from all areas of the creative industries. Her firsthand and up-close insights into the leadership of Steve Jobs at Pixar, and Michael Eisner and Bob Iger at Disney. And her own views of the priorities and challenges faced by today's leaders. At the heart of all of it is Laura's own journey, one that included a bout of long COVID that she wrote about in the Times earlier this year. Like a lot of us, Laura has had time to reflect about life. Creativity is a human attribute. It also scares a lot of people. But then so does life. We spend so much time tying to find our place in the world, so much time trying to adapt, to adjust and to fit in. We care so much about what other people think of us. Of what we do. Or how we behave. Then suddenly life is over, and in the process of fitting into other people's definitions of who we are, we suddenly discover that we never found out who we could have been. Or we can choose another path. One that we design ourselves. One in which we show up as the full version of who we are. And then watch people follow your leadership. How do you do that? Perhaps, Mark Twain said it best. "Sing like no one is listening, love like you never been hurt, dance like no one is watching and live like it is heaven on earth."

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Laura Holson, of The New York Times, is a brilliant and award-winning feature writer and visual editor who has written extensively about Hollywood, Silicon Valley and powerful figures in finance and politics. Our conversation covered a lot of areas. Her love of and approach to writing compelling stories. Why and how she created the Box Session salons which pull together extraordinarily creative people from all areas of the creative industries. Her first-hand and up close insights into the leadership of Steve Jobs at Pixar, and Michael Eisner and Bob Iger at Disney. And her own views of the priorities and challenges faced by today's leaders. At the heart of all of that is Laura's own journey, one that included a bout of long COVID that she wrote about in the Times earlier this year. Like a lot of us, Laura has had time to reflect about life. Creativity is a human attribute. It also scares a lot of people. But then so does life. We spend so much time tying to find our place in the world, so much time trying to adapt, adjust and fit in. We care so much about what other people think of us. Of what we do. Or how we behave. Then suddenly life is over, and in the process of fitting into other people's definitions of who we are, we suddenly discover that we never found out who we could have been. Or we can choose another path. One that we design ourselves. One in which we show up as the full version of who we are. And then watch people follow your leadership. How do you do that? Perhaps, Mark Twain said it best. "Sing like no one is listening, love like you never been hurt, dance like no one is watching and live like it is heaven on earth."

Jesse Joeckel is the Founder, Owner and Designer at Whalebone Creative. Based in Montauk, New York, Whalebone describes itself as a lifestyle brand that's built around art, design, and surf culture. They sell super soft t-shirts, hoodies, hats and more, and they've been doing so since 2010. And they have become the definition of a very, very cool brand. Over the eleven years since he started Whalebone, Jesse has never strayed far from his definition of success. And happiness. Over the last few months, many, many people - maybe most people - have spent time thinking about what they want from life. Based on the number of people who are leaving their jobs during what has come to be known as the 'Great Resignation', the answer is 'not this.' Indeed, in some industries, a third of the people resigning have no clear idea about what they will do next or where. By the millions, people are challenging their own definitions of success. And even more fundamentally, their definitions of what it means to be happy.

Lisa Mehling is the owner of Chelsea Pictures, who last month were named the winner of the Palme D'Or as the Production Company of the Year at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Lisa doesn't like to talk about herself. But her journey is an important one to understand as we struggle to build a society that supports all people. The single biggest decision we make in our lives is this. How will we use the time we get while we are here? How will we spend this moment? And this one? And this? Are we reacting or acting? Waiting or moving? Hoping or choosing? Time has moved differently over the last 18 months. We have learned new rhythms - some faster, some slower. But very little about the way we have spent our time has felt familiar. Until we got used to it, and it did. Sometimes in good ways. Sometimes in bad. And then the vaccines came. And now we have to figure out how we spend our time all over again. Which makes this moment a gift. I'm fortunate to see across and inside a wide range of industries and businesses. And what I'm increasingly certain of is that what came before 2020 will have increasingly little to do with what comes after. We have been living for a long time with norms and expectations that were designed and implemented during the Industrial Age. The 40 hour work week for instance, despite all the data that shows working fewer hours dramatically increases both performance and personal well-being. The Industrial Age started in about 1760 and ended sometime in the mid 20th century. Conservatively, that means we left the Industrial Age about 70 years ago. And yet we're still tied to its apron strings. Human beings are creatures of habit, genetically and biologically built on rhythms. The rising of the sun, the speed of our breathing, the gestation period of creating new life. There are so many fundamental aspects of our existence that we can't control. But if you're listening to this podcast, there are many, many things about your life that you can control. You have agency. To decide and to act. To test the boundaries of what is possible and to discover who you are in the process. The power to unlock creative thinking and innovation depends on challenging assumptions and breaking down norms. Or, as Lisa said, of not waiting for permission that you don't need. These moments are fleeting. New structures and practices and expectations and processes will be here before we know it. So you can wait until someone tells you what's allowed. Or you can save yourself ten years and decide yourself.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Lisa Mehling is the owner of Chelsea Pictures, who last month were named the winner of the Palme D'Or as the Production Company of the Year at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Lisa doesn't like to talk about herself. But her journey is an important one to understand as we struggle to build a society that supports all people. The single biggest decision we make in our lives is this. How will we use the time we get while we are here? How will we spend this moment? And this one? And this? Are we reacting or acting? Waiting or moving? Hoping or choosing? Time has moved differently over the last 18 months. We have learned new rhythms - some faster, some slower. But very little about the way we have spent our time has felt familiar. Until we got used to it, and it did. Sometimes in good ways. Sometimes in bad. And then the vaccines came. And now we have to figure out how we spend our time all over again. Which makes this moment a gift. I'm fortunate to see across and inside a wide range of industries and businesses. And what I'm increasingly certain of is that what came before 2020 will have increasingly little to do with what comes after. We have been living for a long time with norms and expectations that were designed and implemented during the Industrial Age. The 40 hour work week for instance, despite all the data that shows working fewer hours dramatically increases both performance and personal well-being. The Industrial Age started in about 1760 and ended sometime in the mid 20th century. Conservatively, that means we left the Industrial Age about 70 years ago. And yet we're still tied to its apron strings. Human beings are creatures of habit, genetically and biologically built on rhythms. The rising of the sun, the speed of our breathing, the gestation period of creating new life. There are so many fundamental aspects of our existence that we can't control. But if you're listening to this podcast, there are many, many things about your life that you can control. You have agency. To decide and to act. To test the boundaries of what is possible and to discover who you are in the process. The power to unlock creative thinking and innovation depends on challenging assumptions and breaking down norms. Or, as Lisa said, of not waiting for permission that you don't need. These moments are fleeting. New structures and practices and expectations and processes will be here before we know it. So you can wait until someone tells you what's allowed. Or you can save yourself ten years and decide yourself.

Nancy Reyes is the CEO of TBWA\Chiat\Day New York and Chris Beresford-Hill is the agency's Chief Creative Officer. None us succeed alone. And the bigger the ambition, the more we need other people to reach it. The age of the iconic, solo, white male leader are almost behind us. Not a moment too soon. Welcome to the age of leadership partnership. And if you think what came before was challenging, well, as the song goes, you ain't seen nothing yet. As humans, we want so badly to belong, that we're attracted - almost compulsively - by the idea of partnership. It is a light calling us home. Or to the flame. There are many, many kinds of partnerships. Strategic. Impulsive. Circumstantial. Convenient. And those that are deeply, deeply personal. Successful and satisfying partnerships are rare. So rare, that when we find them we should take some time to understand why they work. As you will hear, their relationship embodies two of the most critical elements of any successful and sustainable partnership. First, you've got to like each other. Because you're going to spend a lot of time having difficult conversations and making hard decisions. And second, once the decision is made - whether you agreed or not - you've got to develop the ability to support each other. Love and the ability to disagree well. Sometimes it's just that simple. And that complicated. How well does your partnership work?