Smart Creatives and 5 Ways to Keep Them

Earlier this month, Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman at Google, published something on Slideshare that made my heart beat faster than usual. It was not a research report, nor a business education book, but something much more powerful --- an insight into how Google ensures its profitability and sustainability for the future. Acknowledging the fast pace of the modern-day world, instability and dependency on human capital, Eric explains how "smart creatives" bring innovation and fluidity into the organization. Go ahead and check his presentation:

How Google Works from Eric Schmidt

So, here's Eric's formula:

TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE + BUSINESS EXPERTISE + CREATIVITY

=

SMART CREATIVES

I have come up with 5 ideas on helping the smart creatives thrive and stay with the company longer.

1. Cross-pollinate.

• Innovation comes from combination. Instead of encouraging silos, make sure that employees from different departments, geographies, business units, etc. share openly and try things out together. Make diversity work. Collaboration should not be a value on the wall but a way that the organization thinks and lives.

2. Do not underestimate deep expertise.

• It is a natural tendency to spend money and other resources on developing broad professionals (think MBAs). Fair enough: growing general managers for your business is a dire need and it will be even more acute in the future. Yet, balance investment into Hi-Potentials with that into High-Professionals. Technical knowledge does not appear out of thin air: it needs to be cultivated, retained, transferred, taught. You need it to create really great products (think Apple). 

3. Reward honest mistakes.

• Honest mistake does not equal failure. It means that you have tried and learnt. It means that your brain has worked in a new way, since, had you been following the instructions, you would not have made that mistake. Yes, well-done, you have tried novel methods! One never knows which idea will be the next Uber or Netflix. 

4. Teach coping with failure.

• Success lies not in avoiding failures, but in quick recovery after something bad has happened. Encourage people to try. Make sure they learn the lessons and move on. See the previous point. 

5. Change the business for the talent you need, not vice versa.

• As Daniel Pink said in his book A Whole New Mind, unless you work with the right side of your brain, soon your job will not only be outsourced, it will be automated. Computers can follow algorithms, but true creativity and innovation comes from humans. Those skills will become more and more valuable. Those professionals will be less and less loyal. So, don't try to hold them to fit your company, as they'll flee places where they don't feel at home, but rather change your workplace to attract and keep the smart creatives.

Finnair Quality Hunters: Excellent PR Campaign

Today I received an in-mail on LinkedIn inviting me to take part in the Quality Hunters program organized by Finnair. The idea is simple: if you take a job, you´ll get to travel the world and all you need to do is to seek for quality improvement opportunities and actively use social media to keep the world updated on your travels:

Even before the program started, there is already lots of activity on Twitter @qualityhunters. I believe this is a great initiative on increasing media presence in social networks (see Social Networks and Marketing for more great examples on using social media in promotional campaigns) if you consider that:

• Finnair will be putting their Quality Hunters on unsold seats, so, basically, at zero cost;
•  the targeted profile is Generation Y, so social media is virtually their mother milk - they will be very productive even if they do not get the job;
• another characteristic of Gen Y profile is that right now many are struggling to get a job but are very eager to travel the world, so they will jump at this opportunity;
• there are multiple options for tracking performance of Quality Hunters: (1) quantitative - the amount of content generated by them online and (2) qualitative - the nature of the content + actual quality improvement ideas;
• quality improvement ideas come from creativity, so getting young and bright to do it is probably the coolest thing ever. Now compare the costs of this program to costs of hiring a bunch of consultants from BCG or McKinsey (where creativity is synonymous to "you don't work here anymore") - do you get the ROI potential?

How's Beethoven's 5th similar to an iPod?

I don't think that there will be anyone over the age of 5 who would not recognize these two and a half bars of music when they hear them. The immortal Beethoven's 5th Symphony. For those of you who need some recollection, here it is (before we progress any further) conducted by spectacular Gustavo Dudamel:



When I got a home assignment to listen to Beethoven's 5th for the next class in our Connections & Inflections Course (can you believe that title is for real?!?!), amusement was too mild of a word to describe my feelings. Listening to music over the MBA course is a luxury one can hardly afford, leaving alone doing that for a grade. The following class was about innovation: how companies innovate, what is innovation exactly, can we agree on a common definition of innovation, etc., and the professor introduced this whole topic by comparing Beethoven's 5th with Mozart's 38, 39, 40, 41 and Haydn's 79, 80. They are similar in their form, but so radically different in composition. The classical sonata form is preserved:

... but the whole piece is so much more economical, shorter, contained... The first 3 bars is not a melody at all, it is rather a gesture - a gesture that gets repeated regularly throughout the entire piece - Beethoven never lets go: it's an experience of rhythm and we are manipulated by it.

So what made Beethoven break off the tradition set by the father of symphony (Haydn) and continued by the genius of Mozart? We claim that it is an example of disruptive innovation: finding a new way and deviating from the establishment. The language of Mozart and Haydn was exhausted and novelty was called for, even though this novelty came in the same old sonata form.

This is where the most interesting part comes: the iPod. Coming in the same old form of a cell phone, it has a totally new look and feel inside and largely performs a different function. It is another example of disruptive innovation (as contrasted to incremental innovation).

Humans cannot grow constantly: there is a limit to our development - is it the same for organizations? What model is most appropriate to describe innovation? We discussed the Sequoia Model: you must grow as high and as quickly as possible and stop once you are above everyone else in order to survive and reproduce. You cannot be too low, otherwise you won't get enough sunlight and attention; you cannot be too high, as there are dangers of breaking down or being hit by a lightening. So basically growth is locked in its essence - only organic and natural growth is good for you. Think how many companies "grew" themselves into oblivion...

Yet... tumor is also a growth, no?

how creative are we?

What is the source of creativity? Are you born with a talent to make things others cannot even conceive of? Can this skill be developed? There are many training offerings on the market - Creativity Management, Mastering Your Creative Skills, etc - but how effective are they? For some reason, there is still only one Da Vinci and Kahlo in history.

However, if you take two objects (ideas, whatever) and put them together, that is already functionally and conceptually a new thing. You have created it. Does it make you creative? When you cross-breed Mr Bean and Avatar, the result can be actually beneficial for both...

I am sure there was someone who thought of the idea and someone who has brought it to life. So creative functions do not need to be present necessarily only in one person. It can be two. Or a group. Or a country. We speak about creative nations. Russia is one of them. Which other nation will think of cooking soup in a hotel sink with nothing but a length of an electric cord and a razor blade?

Lynda Gratton claims that innovation comes through combination. The more you are trying to break out of the limits of the conventional, the easier it becomes to innovate. Boundary-spanners go to the top! Networks connect millions! Question of the next decade will be: How Do We Develop Fluid Identity?