Why Your Team Needs You To Be Precise
If you want your team to do bold, creative work, you must take the first risk by giving them clear, precise direction. Here are a few ways to do so.
Why Your Team Needs You To Be Precise
Articles about Teams
I Love It Here (with Clint Pulver)
I Love It Here (with Clint Pulver)
How to create a workplace that everyone loves.
Dealing With A Difficult Organization
Dealing With A Difficult Organization
What to do when your workplace is simply unhealthy.
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.
Overcoming The Inertia Of No (with Kathryn Haydon)
Overcoming The Inertia Of No (with Kathryn Haydon)
Regardless of your role, you have to be creative every day. You have to solve problems under pressure, make connections, see patterns, and convince others. On this episode, Kathryn Haydon is here to share some insights into being more creative with tips from her book The Non-Obvious Guide To Being More Creative.
The Long Hallway
The Long Hallway
A creative project is a bit like a long hallway with multiple chambers. As you navigate down the hallway, you reach checkpoints where critical decisions must be made, and a door closes behind you. On this episode, I elaborate on these three questions and offer some tips for crafting a process that's sane and helpful to your work.
The Cauldron Of Creative Conflict
The Cauldron Of Creative Conflict
Have you ever said something in a meeting that you didn't expect to? It happened to me last week, except it wasn't a meeting, it was in a speech given at the Global Leadership Summit to over 400,000 leaders and influencers across the world. The particular line was, "Brilliance is forged in the cauldron of creative conflict."
Fortunately, I believe this to be true to the core of my being. You have to fight for brilliant work. And when you collaborate, that means having healthy conflict with others too. On this episode, I share a few ideas for how to engage in healthy creative conflict with your team.
Feeling Undisciplined? Here’s Why.
Feeling Undisciplined? Here’s Why.
The three reasons that many creative pros struggle to get moving.
Escape Hatches
Escape Hatches
There are a number of ways in which we build "escape hatches" to relieve the stress and fear that we might under-perform. On this episode, I talk about three of those common "secondary ways of escape", and how to begin to counter them.
Dealing With a Difficult Co-worker
Dealing With a Difficult Co-worker
Work would be so easy if it weren't for all the people, right? However, all of us have to deal (from time to time) with difficult co-workers and people who seem intent on making our lives miserable. On this episode, I share a few principles for dealing with those difficult co-workers.
How To Receive Negative (and Unfair) Feedback
How To Receive Negative (and Unfair) Feedback
How do you handle feedback? We need other people in our lives to tell us the truth. If we immediately get defensive when they tell us something we don’t like, we will lose key allies in our journey of growth. If you manage a team, your trigger happy ways will eventually destroy the culture of your team. On this episode, we share a few strategies for dealing with feedback in a healthy way.
10 Things Creatives Wish Their Manager Knew
10 Things Creatives Wish Their Manager Knew
It is a reality that managers and creatives often speak different languages. Each has a different set of responsibilities and perspectives they are bringing to a project, and often the collision of these forces is enough to create massive waves within the organization. With that in mind, here is a list of statements that could begin to spark dialogue between organizational leaders and creatives.
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.
Five Myths About Creative People
Five Myths About Creative People
There are several myths that exist about highly creative people, and they can seriously affect how teams are led, how client interactions happen, and how we collaborate with one another. If you believe any of these five myths, it can create chronic issues on your team. And, if you are perpetuating any of them, it can seriously curb your effectiveness as a creative pro.
How To Give Feedback About Creative Work
How To Give Feedback About Creative Work
Have you ever presented a project and been told something like "yeah, that's just not working for me"? Not very helpful, right? How you give feedback is really important to a team's culture. On this episode, we share three key principles for giving feedback to others about creative work.
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.
How To Keep A Creative Project On The Rails
How To Keep A Creative Project On The Rails
No matter how well things go in the course of a project, there are always ways in which you can go off the rails. This is especially true when you're leading other team members or a client through a complex web of decisions. Sometimes, there are circumstances beyond your control that force you to go backwards and re-visit some of your earlier work. However, you should always ensure that a project isn't going off the rails because of a lack of diligence on your part. On this episode, we share four practical tips for keeping your creative project on the rails as you make difficult decisions.
Navigating Your Team Through Failure
Navigating Your Team Through Failure
After a failed project, don't just move on. Do this instead.