We live in a world of constant change. That change is shifting the way businesses compete, reshaping our careers and forcing us to rethink the terms "talent" and "leadership". Many people in creative fields struggle to manage their careers or effectively help their team members grow theirs because some common "best practices" just don't fit in our changing world. How do great creative leaders cut through the change and chaos to find opportunities to help their team and company succeed? By finding ways to uncap creativity and execute on opportunities that cultivate their creative leadership. This isn’t easy: Creative people don’t want to be led in the same way as other employees. Find out how to deal with the growing need for creative leadership and how you can create the right environment for those skill sets to thrive.

1. SURROUNDED BYGENIUS
PRACTICAL ADVICE ON CREATIVE LEADERSHIP
INTERACTIVE STRATEGIES 2015 | KELSEY RUGER #IS2015 #CREATIVELEADERSHIP

2. BEINGANAUTHORITARIAN
Isn’tthesameas
BEINGANAUTHORITY
WHATDOESTHISBOOKHAVETO
DOWITHCREATIVELEADERSHIP?

3. THERE ARE LEADERS AND THERE ARE THOSE
WHO LEAD. LEADERS HOLD A POSITION OF
POWER OR AUTHORITY, THOSE WHO LEAD
INSPIRE US. - SIMON SINEK

4. The real role of leadership in business
today is not and should not be
command and control. It should be
climate control.
KEN ROBINSON
Instead of trying to
control the people,
control the environment.
This makes leading the
people Simpler..

5. WHEN THE CLIMATE IS RIGHT, PEOPLE THRIVE & GROW.
You can’t force growth.
You can only create the
conditions where growth
can happen.

6. WHERE DO YOU FIND CLIMATE ORIENTED LEADERS?

7. Most companies talk about
having consistently creative
employees. The problem is
that a lot of what we are
taught about leadership
runs counter to what
makes creativity flourish.
THE OLD LINEAR MODELS ARE COLLAPSING

8. WE NEED TO CHANGE OUR VIEW OF CREATIVITY & LEADERSHIP
Leadership Creativity

9. WE NEED TO CHANGE OUR VIEW OF CREATIVITY & LEADERSHIP
Leadership Creativity
AUTHORITY ART OR DESIGN

10. WE NEED TO CHANGE OUR VIEW OF CREATIVITY & LEADERSHIP
Leadership Creativity
AUTHORITY ART OR DESIGN
INFLUENCE PROBLEM SOLVING
Most critical because
the problems we face
have less and less
predictability or
linear form.

11. What We Think About Problem Solving

12. The Reality of Problem Solving

13. HOW DO YOU INFLUENCE PROBLEM SOLVING WHEN THE PROBLEMS ARE SO COMPLEX?
Mysteries
Known data about present
conditions is readily
available
Tame Problem
Puzzles
Data may be missing or
may not even exist yet.
Wicked Problems

14. INTERNALIZE: ENABLING WICKED PROBLEM SOLVING

15. HOW MOST MANAGERS
VIEW THEMSELVES
HOW EMPLOYEES VIEW
THEIR MANAGER
HOW BOTH SHOULD
VIEW THE MANAGER

16. HOW MOST MANAGER
VIEW THEMSELVES
HOW EMPLOYEES VIEW
THEIR MANAGER
HOW BOTH SHOULD
VIEW THE MANAGER
3 Principles of Creative Leadership

17. A lot of what we think about creativity and leadership are the
result of a lot of dated thoughts on who is creative and what it
takes to lead people. You have to think in terms of influence
instead of compulsion.
PRINCIPLE 1: RETHINK TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT MECHANISMS
CONFORMITY
Why would you not do this
DIVERSITY
COMPLIANCE CURIOSITY
Why would you not do this
CMD + CTRL OPEN

18. Good process helps increase talent productivity. We avoid
replacing good management and communication with rules &
processes that cover up a problem instead of addressing it
directly. Instead we focus on processes that help talented
people get their work done.
PRINCIPLE 1: RETHINK TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT MECHANISMS
Processes for the work, Leadership for the people

19. Just as process isn’t intended to replace the work that only a
manager can do, don’t use control where context would
produce a better result.
PRINCIPLE 1: RETHINK TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT MECHANISMS
Drive Performance Through Context, Not Control

20. Those we think would be best at learning are often the worst.
Most companies don’t even know this problem exists.
PRINCIPLE 2: RETHINK HOW YOU THINK ABOUT LEARNING
Traditional Model: Performance = Talent
Learning is too narrowly defined as mere “previous
performance” or “problems solved”, so they focus on
identifying and correcting errors in the external environment.
I Call this type of
learning immaculate
perception. because so
much is based on optics
instead of reality.

21. Those we think would be best at learning are often the worst.
Most companies don’t even know this problem exists.
PRINCIPLE 2: RETHINK HOW YOU THINK ABOUT LEARNING
Creative Model: Performance = Capacity
Learning is more broadly defined as the capacity to reuse
knowledge under new context or the capacity to address
problems you’ve not seen before.
I Call this type of
learning GROWTH
MINDSET BASED. It’s
based on the capacity to
solve vs. previous
Experience.

22. What got you here, won’t necessarily get you there.
PRINCIPLE 2: RETHINK HOW YOU THINK ABOUT LEARNING
SINGLE LOOP LEARNING - FIXED MINDSET
Highly skilled professionals are frequently very good at
single-loop learning. They have spent much of their lives
acquiring academic credentials, mastering one or a number
of intellectual disciplines, and applying those disciplines to
solve real-world problems.

23. What got you here, won’t necessarily get you there.
PRINCIPLE 2: RETHINK HOW YOU THINK ABOUT LEARNING
DOUBLE LOOP LEARNING - GROWTH MINDSET
Many professionals are almost always successful at what they do,
they rarely experience failure. And because they have rarely failed,
they have never learned how to learn from failure. So whenever
their single-loop learning strategies go wrong, they become
defensive, screen out criticism, and put the “blame” on anyone
and everyone but themselves.

24. OK, LET’S INCENTIVIZE THIS “GROWTH MINDSET”

25. There is a common belief is that when people have the right
attitudes and commitment, learning automatically follows. The
idea that learning is primarily a function of motivation is
wrong.
PRINCIPLE 3: RETHINK HOW YOU THINK ABOUT MOTIVATION
MOTIVATION AND COMMITMENT ARE ABOUT FEELING
EFFECTIVE LEARNING IS ABOUT HOW YOU THINK
YOU CAN HAVE A FULLY
MOTIVATED AND
COMMITTED EMPLOYEE,
BUT IF THEIR
THINKING IS OFF, IT
WON’T MATTER.

26. CREATIVITY ISN’T ABOUT WHO YOU ARE IT’S
ABOUT WHAT YOU DO. MORE SPECIFICALLY,
HOW YOU THINK

27. EXTERNALIZE: PRINCIPLES TO BUILD A CLIMATE FOR CREATIVITY

28. TO BUILD A TEAM THAT THRIVES ON CREATIVITY, DON’T
FOCUS ON MAKING PEOPLE CREATIVE. THAT DOESN’T
WORK. INSTEAD FOCUS ON PREPARING THEM TO ACT
CREATIVELY WHEN CREATIVITY IS THE TOOL NEEDED.
Common Sense Leadership Creative Leadership
MAKE THE SHIFT
5 PRINCIPLES

29. PRINCIPLE 1: TEMPORARY INCONVENIENCE FOR PERMANENT IMPROVEMENT

30. PRINCIPLE 2: ADOPT A GROWTH MINDSET

31. PRINCIPLE 2: ADOPT A GROWTH MINDSET

32. PRINCIPLE 3: THERE ISN’T AN “I” IN TEAM BUT THERE IS A “T”
DepthofKnowledge
Breadth of Skill

33. PRINCIPLE 3: THERE ISN’T AN “I” IN TEAM BUT THERE IS A “T”
Front-EndDevelopment
SoftwareDevelopment
VisualDesign
InteractionDesign
COMPLEMENTARY SKILLSETS
CognitivePsychology
DomainExpertise
InformationArchitecture
Depthofspecificdiscipline
Basic Understanding
Competent Application
Complete Mastery

34. PRINCIPLE 4: INCREASE YOUR CREATIVE LITERACY & CAPACITY

35. ArticulationFluency
Flexibility Originality
ResponsivenessResourcefulness
Resilience Repurpose
CREATIVE CAPACITY
ABILITY TO CONTAIN ABSORB OR RECEIVE
CREATIVE LITERACY
ABILITY TO IDENTIFY OR UNDERSTAND

36. ability to express the
essence of an idea
with clarity
Ability to smoothly
generate a number of
ideas
The ability to generate
ideas across a variety
of different disciplines
The ability to generate
and/or repurpose ideas
so that they are unique
CREATIVE CAPACITY
ABILITY TO CONTAIN ABSORB OR RECEIVE
ability to proactively
identify and adjust to
changing conditions and
resume stability without
delay.
Ability to deal with
challenges using
resources that may not
be readily available or
obvious
Ability to recover or
remain buoyant when
exposed to adversity or
change.
Ability to proactively
improve or reuse an idea
by adjusting its use
without affecting it’s
external meaning.
CREATIVE LITERACY
ABILITY TO IDENTIFY OR UNDERSTAND
ArticulationFluency
Flexibility Originality
ResponsivenessResourcefulness
Resilience Repurpose