Staff morale and motivation

I have been speaking to leaders of creative businesses about what it will take to strengthen the morale and motivation of their creative staff.

I have seen some businesses that quantitatively poll their people, asking them to rank such things as their work-life balance on a scale, and also to rank their satisfaction with their salaries. Hmm. I wonder what sort of answers they are getting. Actually the answers they get are not that helpful and it is tough to know what to do with the information - which appears on a scale of 1-10. It is good that the attempt is made to discover the issues, but the combination of the questions asked and the numerical scales and the general resistance of creative types to filling out forms, makes it less useful than one might wish.

I suggest instead that they consider doing some qualitative research that would allow us to learn in more detail about the aspirations of the staff members and their drivers for success. It should be conducted in the spirit of a “positive enquiry” that will emphasize discovery of the strengths and the opportunities. Tailored of course to the organization, questions might include: “What do you look forward to every day when you come into the office?” ”What project that you did at the firm was most professionally satisfying and why?” “What opportunities do you see for yourself at the company?”

I recommend that these kinds of questions are posed by an outside investigator rather than someone from management or HR. The independent researcher usually gets franker responses than does someone from inside. When the findings have been carefully analyzed and the right insights obtained, this is likely to be a more productive survey than the quant – and in the right hands lead to constructive action steps.

And it can be a refreshing change from the familiar list of general gripes with no constructive way forward indicated.

Career Transition Workshop

I will be leading a Career Transition workshop specially for Creative people. It will be at Mediabistro/NY in July - here's where you can sign up.

THERE WILL BE ANOTHER WORKSHOP ON 1/20/2010

Do join us - and please tell your friends. Here's the scoop:

A workshop for creative professionals figuring out what's next

Do you feel like your creative career is in a rut? Have you been downsized or outplaced? Or maybe you work in a shrinking creative industry? If you are having a hard time choosing which path is right for you and worry about what you could possibly do next, this workshop will give you a kick-start to advance you to the next level of your career.

During this workshop -- limited to 12 students -- we will explore four main areas to guide your choice. Carefully designed exercises and guided discussions will give you ideas and inspiration as well as a plan for moving forward. You will leave this class having made serious headway on an effective way of identifying a new direction for your creative career and you will have an understanding of the fundamentals of how to pitch yourself.

This is an exhilarating process. You should be fearless and open to anything. This workshop is a unique and safe way to challenge yourself and be stimulated to develop the next exciting chapter of your creative career.

In this workshop you will explore:

* Your own skills and successes
* Your passions and dreams
* Careers you never thought of
* How to find out what skills are in demand
* Whether you want to start your own business
* How to zero in on your next career
* The fundamentals of the story that will get you hired

Sign up here for the Career Transition Workshop

New Year: New Business Model?

A leading film postproduction business owner talked in the press recently about "a whole new contemporary business model." The NYT tells of ad agencies (former ad
agencies, perhaps?) who make and sell chocolate and furniture and tee shirts. Bake sale, anyone?!

Jim Cramer says, "Recessions are game-changers. It's when those who are smart pass those who are not." Paul Krugman said in the NYT that late 2009 the economy will begin to stabilize and he is fairly optimistic about 2010. So hadn't we better be getting fired up to be a part of it?

At the highest level the new business model will be like the old. We will provide clients with what is wanted and valued, we will invest in our businesses, we will charge a premium for exceptional talent, we will value-price, we will market effectively, we will create better stuff than the next guy. We will make profits. What am I missing here?

Oh yes - what exactly is wanted,and what exactly can you and your company do to provide it.

Marketers will still want to get more cans in people's hands, more site traffic, more bottoms in seats, more customer loyalty, more revenue. Customers will want more things of beauty, more entertainment, more value for money, more ways of expressing themselves, more security, more hope. So what is the Customer Value Proposition that you can bring to your target customer? Know this, and you'll be well on the way to your new business model.

We call ourselves creative people - here is a great creative challenge. Are we having fun yet?

All the best for an exciting and profitable 2009

Change we can make

So finally we voted - and we voted for change.

But the heavy lifting should not all be left to our President-elect. We should seize this moment ourselves to make some changes too and work harder to generate jobs and opportunities and all the things that we have said we want. As President-elect Obama said on Tuesday night, "this victory alone is not the change we seek, it is only the chance for us to make that change."

Well here is a change that I can implement myself right away. I will take all the time I have been spending on Politico and Fivethirtyeight and MSNBC and Realclearpolitics and watching Keith and Rachel and Chris and Wolf - and spend it on focusing and growing my career and my business and on helping others to build or rebuild theirs. This is a whole bunch of time (more than I care to admit) that is suddenly newly available to me. I must use it well.

This is my first change. I'll recapture that time and not let it fritter itself away. I encourage you to do the same.

Okay I know Barack Obama wasn't just talking about your business and my business - but he did stress the importance of self-reliance. We all need to find fresh smart ways to re-energize our own businesses, pulling together to re-energize the economy, so that he can make the macro changes that so urgently need to happen. So let's get to it and start rebuilding wherever we can.

What keeps you going?

What keeps you going - even in these challenging times?

Is it simply making money? Is it that you get pleasure from solving problems: design problems or story problems or marketing problems or the problems of your clients that you care so much about? Or do you love the creative work that you do and can't wait to get started every day? Or is it the love you have for your team, the people who enable your success and who are important to you in so many ways, that you want to see them succeed and flourish with you?

It is helpful to ask yourself this question and see what you say. You might be surprised. An honest answer can clarify a lot and be a valuable beacon to guide your planning and help you move forward.

Bailout Schmailout. Opportunity knocks.

While the fetal position does have its appeal right now, I am suggesting that you set aside just an hour a day for that simple comfort and use the rest of the day more productively.

This is an unprecedented season of opportunities. Look at how Warren Buffett plays it. He seizes the moment and makes inexpensive investments in Goldman Sachs and GE. Barclays leaps on bits of Lehman and so on.

Things are going to be up for grabs. Weaker companies will close - yes even creative businesses I am sorry to say. Talented people will become available. If you are a business owner now is very much the time to be aware of what is going on around you. If you are paying attention you could snap up some strong people who find themselves to be suddenly available. If you are a talented artist or craftsman you can offer your services to the companies who are still playing and looking to the future. These are the ones you want to be doing business with or working for anyway.

So seize the day to scout for these opportunities and move swiftly when you find them. You read that MBA applications are way up - that's because these guys are not hiding their head in the sand - they are retooling and rethinking.

You should be too.

Goals - and sticking with the plan

Here is a nice note I got from a client after we had worked together. It underscores the value of setting goals and then "staying the course." (Shame that expression has become so tarnished of late)

In answer to my question:

Q. How well did we accomplish the goals you set for our work together?

A. "Extremely well. Although you laid out the structure and the “mini-goals”, it gelled in our final meeting beyond what I expected. As if it were a well told story and we came to the third act."

You're still selling - even when you're working

I have had conversations with two different clients in the last week who were bemoaning the fact that when they get a big job they focus completely on it and are not out selling.

But they are missing the beauty of the opportunity. The client that already gives you work is very very likely to give you another job. She is the lowest hanging fruit. So everything you do when you are working on her job should be working towards securing her future business.

Yes of course your immediate task is to do an awesome piece of work for her. But your larger task can be considered as "turning this job into the next one and the next one". You don't have to hard sell. Just show her you are excited about her job, ask her about her hopes and dreams for her career, tell her about other interesting stuff you are excited about - all this is selling and you have a captive receptive audience

And there can often be an even bigger opportunity than that. In the case of one client - a film director who was shooting a commercial - he told me that everyone who worked at the ad agency had showed up on the shoot. All 15 of them. Better and better I said. Every one of them can become a client in the future. They will all probably move on to new agencies. What a magnificent sales opportunity - don't miss it.

How to implement change

I am often asked, by company leaders and individual artists alike, what is the best way to implement change. They know that things can't just keep going on as they are - but they are totally engulfed in the day-to-day stuff - and nothing happens.

So how do you implement change?

There is one fundamental thing to know: the way to do it is to change behavior first, not attitude: behavior change will lead to attitude change, ask any adult educator. The other way round doesn't work. And this applies to you and me too!

All companies, from huge to tiny, do best when they bring in some help to with implementing that change. But everyone has their own speed and need. What change techniques might work best for you and your business? Here are some effective alternatives.

A kickstart.
Some people do well with a short sharp stimulus that will work to get them pointed in the right direction with defined tasks, timelines, accountability and the impetus to move forward. One or two intense half-day workshops can often be all they need to get them off the dime: they get the guidance to develop their own strategies and put them into practice.

Regular steady input.
Others respond well to the regularity of guidance and to-dos and accountability that Business Coaching gives them. This is probably the strongest tool for getting behavior to change: do what needs to be done over time, and keep on doing it until it becomes second nature.

"Doing it" is always a more effective thing than being told to do it. This is a very different technique from the one-off workshop that for some people can come and go and leave no trace. A commitment to weekly sessions over 12 weeks is a great way to start. I've been through it myself and it was enormously effective.

Consulting
When there is a specific task to be done, and you don't have the resources or expertise in-house, you can bring in an experienced professional to take care of it. Just as you do with accounting, or lawyering. This works brilliantly in many cases. But in the case where the outcome is a report that says that the staff have to do certain things differently, or carry out some additional tasks - then all too often that report sits ignored on the shelf and everyone carries on as if it never happened. Unless...

There are important ways to prevent this. One is to follow the report with a period of coaching (see above) that provides the guidance, stimulus and accountability over time to effect the behavior change. This stuff works really well.

Another technique for changing behavior that can be enormously effective with a group is the workshop. It is a way to get team members to engage themselves in an intense experience of give and take. They are guided to devise their own tactics for implementing the changes. They are no longer passive participants in the consulting process but they become a part of it and become committed to its success - and to each other. They can own the results.

Result: Booked Solid!

Remember the film director from our post in December? He had let his TV commercials business lapse for some years while he wrote and directed a feature (lots of star power, theatrical release, DVDs etc).

Now he wanted to get back to doing some advertising work while he was getting more films off the ground. I helped him do just this. Here is what he wrote me:

"I want to give you an update. Since we [worked together] in the late fall I have not stopped working. I have been booked solid. I shot nine new spots in the last eight weeks.

Being able to shoot with the confidence of knowing my strengths has been a great pleasure. I have never had a run this strong.

I would like to do more work together, both commercially, but for my film career as well. Your insights have been a great focusing tool."

Congratulations to him - we love to hear these success stories of people getting to where they want to be.

Imagination - blessing and curse

Creative people have imagination. It’s what helps them see in fresh ways and come up with things the world hasn’t had before: solving a problem, or make something happen, or just because.

They are always wishing they were doing something else. Their imagination is working all the time whether they like it or not: conjuring something else - maybe better, maybe just different. So they either get unhappy because they are not doing it, or they off and do it and enter the next exciting cycle of discovery and imaging the next new thing.

So it goes.

That is the curse and the blessing of imagination.

What our clients say

"Pollock Spark delivered an analysis that is relevant, clear and integral to creating forward movement"

"You took us to a whole new level that we would not have reached on our own"

"..suggestions for next steps and action plans are excellent"

"..instrumental in helping us to clearly define goals and working towards achieving them"

The big 4 questions for your future

1. What are your goals?

2. Where and what do you hope to be in the future?

3. What do you do if and when you get there?

4. How will you measure success?