How To Release Control Of Your Team’s Work
Let your team do what you hired them to do.
How To Release Control Of Your Team’s Work
Articles about leadership
Welcome To Management (with Ryan Hawk)
Welcome To Management (with Ryan Hawk)
On this episode, Ryan Hawk of The Learning Leader shares insights into how to be a good manager with tips from his book Welcome To Management.
Three Principles For Getting To The Best Idea
Three Principles For Getting To The Best Idea
Don't just settle for the most comfortable or obvious one.
Jason Fried of Basecamp
Jason Fried of Basecamp
Why you should build the company that you want to work for.
Focus, Function, Fire
Focus, Function, Fire
What exactly does a great leader do? There are three key things that an effective leader of creative people provides for the team consistently and well. On this episode, I share the importance of focus, function, and fire to the creative process.
Protecting Your Team’s Time and Attention
Protecting Your Team’s Time and Attention
The two most precious resources you have as a creative pro are your time and attention. They are under a constant onslaught from organizational needs, client demands, and personal anxieties. As a manager, you must commit to protecting these finite resources at all costs. On this episode, we share three principles for doing so from Todd Henry's book Herding Tigers.
The Making Of a Manager (with Julie Zhuo)
The Making Of a Manager (with Julie Zhuo)
When you first step into your role as a manager, your entire work world changes. You are no longer simply responsible for your own work. Now, you are responsible for the work, the culture, the process, and anything else that happens on your team. It can feel overwhelming. On this episode, Julie Zhou (VP of Product Design at Facebook) shares insights for managers from her new book The Making of a Manager.
Know Your Values + Aaron Dignan on Brave New Work
Know Your Values + Aaron Dignan on Brave New Work
Do you have a matrix for important decisions in your life? How do you decide which path is correct when you're being pulled in multiple directions? On the first part of this episode, I share some insights from Herding Tigers to help you establish your core decision-making matrix.
Then, Aaron Dignan joins us to talk about his new book Brave New Work. He lays out a framework for re-imagining how organizations function in the accelerating and ever-changing marketplace.
Moving From Control To Influence
Moving From Control To Influence
Your job as a manager is to unleash the brilliance of your team, not to showcase your own.
The Big Idea: Herding Tigers
The Big Idea: Herding Tigers
What do highly creative people really need from their leader? Two things, primarily: stability and challenge. On this episode, I dive into the big idea from my latest book Herding Tigers, and explain why these two forces are the key to unlocking performance and brilliance in the team you lead, in your relationships with your clients, and in any complex collaborative relationship.
How To Choose Between Ideas
How To Choose Between Ideas
We've all been there. You have ten great ideas on the whiteboard, and you have to make a decision today about which you're going to work on. How do you know which one is best?
It helps to have a framework for making these decisions. On this episode, I share a simple framework for choosing the best idea, and for making those "from the gut" conversations about creative direction a little less stressful.
Make Maps, Don’t Just Follow Them (with Wes Kao)
Make Maps, Don’t Just Follow Them (with Wes Kao)
As much as we'd all love a simple and easy to follow plan for career success, the reality is that we're all mostly making things up as we go. However, that doesn't stop many people from slipping into comfort mode instead of pushing for creative growth and personal challenge.
On this episode, marketing consultant Wes Kao shares how to embrace map-making as your core mode of operation, why it's important to have a "spiky" point of view, and how to present your ideas so that others can receive them.
Leading With Emotional Courage (with Peter Bregman)
Leading With Emotional Courage (with Peter Bregman)
In the uncertainty of today's marketplace, it's a challenge to show up each day with confidence and clarity about who you are and what you're trying to accomplish. On this episode, Peter Bregman helps us understand how to cultivate the emotional courage necessary to do brilliant and brave work, lead with precision, and unleash the best in everyone around us.
How To Measure and Monitor Creative Work
How To Measure and Monitor Creative Work
Effective creative leaders maintain both a scoreboard and a dashboard for their work. These tools help them track important aspects of their team’s progress, health, and culture. On this episode, we share how to establish both a scoreboard and a dashboard to help you guide yourself and your team toward brilliant work.
Avoid The Blame Game
Avoid The Blame Game
A culture of blame can erode trust and cause creative teams to do sub-par work. It can easily infiltrate your organization and client interactions and begin to eat away at your ability to produce great work. On this episode we share four signs that a culture of blame is beginning to affect you and your team, and some practical things you can do to prevent it.
Unsafe Thinking (with Jonah Sachs)
Unsafe Thinking (with Jonah Sachs)
You're probably really skilled at what you do. However, this can be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, you can take shortcuts that help you create more value faster for your clients or organization. On the other, the more skilled you are the easier it can be to slip into ruts and "safe thinking." On today's episode, Jonah Sachs, author of Unsafe Thinking, will help shake us out of our creative ruts and help us think more boldly.
How To Eliminate 90% of the Tension On Creative Teams
How To Eliminate 90% of the Tension On Creative Teams
Many of the e-mails and questions we get at Accidental Creative revolve around one question. Actually, it’s one question asked from two different perspectives: How can I get them to understand me?
The them in the question is either “my manager” or “my creative team” depending on who is asking the question. There is a lot of time spent lobbing shots across the organizational bow, from both sides, but there is often a significant dearth of real communication.
So with that in mind, on this episode I we share a simple way to eliminate 90% of this organizational tension. It begins by understanding the main question being asked by the other person in any given interaction.
The Coaching Habit Revisited (with Michael Bungay Stanier)
The Coaching Habit Revisited (with Michael Bungay Stanier)
When you think of the word "coach", what image comes to mind? Someone standing on the sideline barking orders at everyone? The master strategist standing in an empty room with a whiteboard full of plans? How about this one: the great listener? On today's show, Michael Bungay Stanier returns to share additional insights from his international smash hit book The Coaching Habit. We talk about misunderstandings people often have about coaching, and how we can coach our peers and even our managers to help them unleash their best work every day.
Navigating Your Team Through Failure
Navigating Your Team Through Failure
After a failed project, don't just move on. Do this instead.
Keep Your Leadership Fire Alive
Keep Your Leadership Fire Alive
If you lead a team of people, you have the responsibility to keep your flame burning bright and hot.