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The Structure That Makes Creative Chaos Productive · Leading From the Front!

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be big goals, little goals, whatever it might be, but that personal satisfaction of loving what you do is just I personally don't understand anybody who doesn't function that way to be honest.
0:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want them.
0:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, you have to feel this.
0:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to feel what it's like to love what you do and it to not feel like work.
0:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Every leader running a team of talented people hits the same wall.
0:19
[SPEAKER_00]: The structure you need to scale might choke the output you're trying to achieve.
0:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Two little structure and you get chaos.
0:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Two much and the work dies.
0:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So where's the line?
0:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And how do you know when you've crossed it?
0:31
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what today's episode is all about.
0:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Dr. Gary and this is leaving from the front.
0:38
[SPEAKER_00]: My guest today is Victoria Willes.
0:40
[SPEAKER_00]: She has spent 20 years building the operational and human side of creative organizations, rising for a resource manager to partner at rethink one of Canada's most decorated independent agencies.
0:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Her whole career has been one job building structure around people whose best work doesn't fit on a time sheet.
0:59
[SPEAKER_00]: We discuss how structure can save a team where it may strangle the work and how you hold high performing people accountable without manage them into mediocrity.
1:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Jumping into this whole idea of leading from the front in the creativity process and I've been reading your articles and reading your, you know, some of your postings and everything.
1:19
[SPEAKER_00]: wrong, just fix me, correct me.
1:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm okay with that, right?
1:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this idea of what really struck me was the creative chaos, you know, that you talk about, creative chaos.
1:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And there were two words that you connected with that creative chaos.
1:35
[SPEAKER_00]: and its process and systems.
1:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So it really struck me when you talk about creativity and having a process of creativity and I get a feeling that you have a process that needs to be trusted.
1:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
1:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you talk about that?
1:49
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it look like?
1:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And how did you start that process?
1:53
[SPEAKER_00]: What was that defining moment with a team or where's the story in that?
1:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so at ReThink, myself and the two of the three founders who were creative directors built what we called the Briefink Machine.
2:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a machine and it had process and details and from the outside in when a lot of people would come in, they would think,
2:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it is this too much.
2:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember Erin Starkman, who is the Chief Creative Officer, still at Reethink in a partner.
2:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And he came in and I won't fully tell his story.
2:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, when he first started, he didn't believe the system of office hours.
2:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We have the system.
2:38
[SPEAKER_01]: where creative directors needed a portion of their day set aside to create a direct, it allowed creatives to come in.
2:45
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't have to chase anyone.
2:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It was scheduled, it was a machine, it was a system.
2:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I had four people running it.
2:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Coordinating all across all of the offices.
2:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you had time to work, and Aaron was just used to coming in, being the creative director, attending all of the client meetings, and then at five o'clock, doing his work, and working late at night.
3:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And we didn't believe that that was the best time that you had your best work, and your best creativity.
3:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Two o'clock in the morning is not necessarily, unless you're a night owl, but you've just spent all day in meetings, putting your energy towards creative
3:20
[SPEAKER_01]: and then you're gonna go on the ice and work and it didn't work and so Aaron eventually clicked and gave into the system and you'll if you ever hear him talk about it in any talks he'll talk about how the system is real and how it works and I've had a lot of other creative individuals who have left or working with me and have gone all of the world and they always come back and say,
3:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like in the very beginning that there's too many rules and there's too many processes, but it actually allows there to be space and time so that the chaos can exist in the creative world and then when you need to get your things done and you have to hit those deadlines, it's all set for you, you don't even have to worry about it's scheduled in
4:05
[SPEAKER_01]: you have your time and it's great so it is something that I think is really important that creativity needs chaos and it also needs to have a process so that it's a little more controlled.
4:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it needs structure and what we always say is there's boundaries create freedom.
4:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a great metaphor for this right where we talk about being on a 40 story building
4:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I put a wall all the way around the outside that's 10 feet high and it's in the steel, I can do anything I want.
4:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I can play soccer up there, right?
4:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I can play tennis and I'll run around.
4:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll run into the wall.
4:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a problem.
4:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going over this side.
4:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have a lot of freedom to move within the boundaries that are created.
4:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really what I'm hearing you say that you did is you created like this morning boundary that says, okay, this is creative time.
4:57
[SPEAKER_00]: This is time where the teams work.
4:58
[SPEAKER_00]: This is times where you come up with ideas.
5:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I worked with an agency, small agency, and some of the individuals felt that the creative director and founder were kind of just pop in and take a look at their work while they were working, right?
5:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And it caused insecurities and such.
5:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I thought, oh, I know what to do.
5:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Office hours.
5:20
[SPEAKER_01]: This is easy.
5:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's implement office hours.
5:23
[SPEAKER_01]: That'll fix it.
5:23
[SPEAKER_01]: People feel more accountable.
5:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll have it scheduled.
5:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't a disaster, but it made things worse.
5:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, it was a great idea that it didn't work.
5:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't work and the reason why it didn't work was because I thought about where I didn't think about the beliefs.
5:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Here was a creative director and a founder who'd been running a successful agency for 12 years.
5:49
[SPEAKER_01]: had success in collaboration in popping by and seeing his teams, group work, all of the things that I wasn't used to doing and wasn't a structure that I was used to running and he had a personal process.
6:04
[SPEAKER_01]: He had a personal process.
6:06
[SPEAKER_01]: and I didn't stop and say, hey, listen, some of the team are a little shy to share that it gives them some anxiety.
6:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about how we can implement office hours in a way that is adaptable to your collaboration beliefs and how you find it important, because I implemented it and then nobody followed it.
6:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people thought it was too rigid.
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Other people didn't show up.
6:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't work.
6:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I made this mistake of taking a structure and implementing it before really thinking about the foundational beliefs.
6:47
[SPEAKER_00]: There's really no such thing as consistent outcomes that you're looking for from leaders because it's people, it's human interaction, right?
6:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we might see the results get better, we might see better communication with one another,
7:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, when you use the word progress, it resonates with me, but it also makes me think about what I tell everybody is that my role is to create an environment for creative individuals to do the best work of their lives.
7:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And their best work of their lives doesn't have to be award-winning or extravagant goals.
7:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you're saying, it can just be really proud.
7:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think sometimes if you're doing work and I'm very excited if I hear from a team member, who says that they went home and told their significant other or their family, what they did.
7:49
[SPEAKER_01]: they're proud of what they did or they were just got accolades and and they share those accolades.
7:55
[SPEAKER_01]: They go home and they share it and they have a satisfaction of what they're doing in their job.
8:01
[SPEAKER_01]: They love what they do.
8:03
[SPEAKER_01]: They feel completely supported and yeah.
8:06
[SPEAKER_01]: progress is part of that.
8:07
[SPEAKER_01]: They're moving forward in their career in the right direction of where they want to cope, not in in a wrong direction.
8:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that having to answer a question is, what part of my process is there is?
8:21
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where it really comes down to.
8:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about Ted Lasso in the beginning.
8:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where it really comes down to really getting and knowing people.
8:28
[SPEAKER_01]: If I want them to have an environment where they're doing the best work of their lives, I need to know them.
8:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to make sure that I'm transparent.
8:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to make sure that they trust me.
8:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to make sure that I'm hearing them and listening to them and understanding so that I can create, which a lot of the times is personalized environments of what they're doing so that their path forward is really successful.
8:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I can think back to interns that I hired who are now judging at can,
9:00
[SPEAKER_01]: or running their own agency and seeing that or just really happy with what they're doing in their lives, too.
9:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So, well, you're talking around this.
9:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, and this is a really important thing and trying to get this more and more and more into business.
9:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's almost necessary in a creative endeavor like with the work that you do.
9:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I look at, I work with construction companies that are putting roads down in roofs and so on, right?
9:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also work with an insurance company and I work with, I've worked with creative companies.
9:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the thing is, is in the work that we do, is their joy.
9:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
9:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, not happiness.
9:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Happiness comes from the achievement of a goal.
9:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of times we talk about financial achievements.
9:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to make a certain amount of money.
9:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Or I'm going to get a bonus.
9:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's great.
9:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing wrong with that.
9:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you have joy in the work that you do and you're able to use your creative juices and your talents, okay?
9:52
[SPEAKER_00]: In whatever that might be, whether it's putting a roof on or developing a new marketing idea,
9:56
[SPEAKER_00]: when you get to do that day and in day out.
9:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually enjoy the challenge.
10:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
10:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Enjoy the struggle with a lot of new leaders, one of the things I'm working on mindset.
10:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like what's the mindset that people have going into a new leadership position as a director of vice president?
10:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like your job goes from having to get things done to getting other people to get things done.
10:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually enjoying others getting things done.
10:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And really saying, that's what my joy is.
10:26
[SPEAKER_00]: My joy is in every day the opportunity to coach and develop another human being to be better.
10:32
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what leadership is.
10:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And in creativity, I can see, like if you've got a couple of people working on something and I've only been in a situation a couple of times in my life where I're working with other people that I just loved, loved, loved working with them.
10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I always build teams that it is very important that they love what they do, because sometimes what we do is long and hard, like you said, and it can be difficult.
11:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't love what you do, you're, you're not going to want to do it, right?
11:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And it, it just, and lots of people come in and check in and maybe they love what they do Monday to Friday and 9 to 5 and they check out
11:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It just doesn't work that way, you know?
11:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you had a situation where you've run into that and people have, you know, expressed, you know, a dislike with something, how do you handle that?
11:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
11:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I, four years, four, four, five years ago, I read a book by a woman named Sai Wakeman and she has a book called Reality-Based Leadership and there is a lot of very helpful tools.
11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: to continuously just break down into the facts without having all of that emotion.
11:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I recently joined an organization that had a lot of very unhappy people in it.
11:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we broke down the facts and then fixed the things they still wanted to be unhappy.
12:00
[SPEAKER_01]: and I couldn't fix that.
12:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't change that.
12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a choice, right?
12:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And so reality-based leadership teaches about you can get to the facts.
12:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You can figure out what the pin points are.
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You can adjust them.
12:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You can work with them within reason.
12:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't turn a whole organization upside down, or, you know, one person wants that as a person wants that.
12:20
[SPEAKER_01]: That's something.
12:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But if there's really, truly something that needs fixing, you can identify it, adjust it.
12:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the result should be, you should now feel good about it is, and if you're not, then that's your personal journey.
12:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you want to be unhappy.
12:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Go for it.
12:34
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a choice.
12:35
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a choice.
12:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, it's funny.
12:37
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a parallel to that when we look at leadership and I tell people, what you're doing performance management, there's only, there's only four reasons why somebody doesn't do a job.
12:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so when you go through those questions and you ask, are you happy and unhappy or so on?
12:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, 85% of all performance issues at work are because of things outside of work.
12:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which most people can't control.
12:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So when somebody's having a problem, that's why in our definition of leadership is the ability of build relationships, so we can achieve our goals together with compassionate accountability.
13:04
[SPEAKER_00]: The compassionate accountability part is a balance of those two things all the time and asking questions and understanding their personal situation.
13:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But,
13:13
[SPEAKER_00]: The four reasons are really simple.
13:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Person can't do it.
13:15
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't know how to do it.
13:16
[SPEAKER_00]: They haven't been trained.
13:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So if they haven't been trained, we train them.
13:19
[SPEAKER_00]: They've been trained, but they don't have the capability to learn what they need to learn.
13:24
[SPEAKER_00]: They just can't do it, right?
13:26
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't want to.
13:28
[SPEAKER_00]: They just are unwilling, right?
13:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Or they don't have the resources.
13:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, any later, I said, look, break this down.
13:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Any individual you've got it that's having trouble.
13:36
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of those four things.
13:37
[SPEAKER_00]: You only have control over two of them, all right?
13:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You have control over getting them training or getting them resources.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Correct.
13:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You do not have control over their attitude or their inability to learn something.
13:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
13:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
13:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So they either choose to get a better attitude or they're out or you choose to put them in a different position where their skills can match.
13:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And it kind of breaks down those facts like you're saying that when people are unhappy or they're unwilling to do work, you've got to look at and say, are they am I setting them up for failure?
14:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm sure in some of these creative organizations that you've had, you've had people that they're just not that creative.
14:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
14:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes, yeah, I think it can happen and that can be unfortunate.
14:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think, like, from a leadership standpoint, when a leader says that they're unhappy, for me, you know, get to the, what are the facts of it?
14:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also think that asking the question as in, how are you contributing to this?
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it that you can do to help change this?
14:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You reference there's certain things that the leadership team or the executive team can deal with and change and stuff.
14:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But what is it that you can do to do that?
14:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Because especially at a leadership level, you have to have a certain bit of accountability.
14:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And even as an intern, if people come and sidewalk when I always talks about, I guess we spend as humans two and a half hours a day between moaning and complaining about things.
15:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did a process where I, for an entire month,
15:12
[SPEAKER_01]: wrote down how much time I spent bitching morning and complaining about how does that go.
15:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It was shocking.
15:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
15:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It was embarrassing.
15:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm a leader of spent time with a leader.
15:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a kind, I'm curious.
15:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Like all of those things.
15:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought if I am doing this,
15:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
15:31
[SPEAKER_01]: How are we doing that?
15:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I did start to spend time with the team and I shared that with them.
15:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, you know, I want you.
15:39
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to do it.
15:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to tell me if you did it, but just try it.
15:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Just try it and think about now think about the amount of time that you could do with that two and a half hours.
15:48
[SPEAKER_01]: What could you accomplish with that two and a half hours?
15:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot.
15:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care if you go play hooking and go like to the coffee shop and read a book.
15:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's better than wanting between and moody and about things, right?
16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And at least you're putting your creativity first and your learning and you're doing things and all of those things.
16:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that that's really important is always asking individuals, you know, what did they do to help?
16:13
[SPEAKER_01]: What can they do to help?
16:14
[SPEAKER_01]: what change can they make?
16:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's really easy to ladder everything up to your executive team or whatever.
16:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Blime somebody else.
16:27
[SPEAKER_01]: everybody's perfect, but you know, if you build an environment where there can be transparency and the team can help grow and build the culture, it just suddenly the accountability is shared across the whole organization.
16:43
[SPEAKER_00]: As we say in another principle that we have, other than the one that trusts the process, is leadership as a responsibility, not a position.
16:51
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, every single person in the organization has the opportunity to demonstrate leadership capabilities, regardless of the authority that they have.
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you have authority of a higher level of requirement expectation for leadership capabilities, however, anybody in the organization, and I would think that this would be extremely important in a creative organization.
17:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody has a voice.
17:12
[SPEAKER_00]: everybody needs to have a voice, right?
17:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Because somebody at the front desk may hear something and they go, oh wait a minute, I saw this, this ad or this movie or something like that that we might be able to use for this and gave me a night when it comes down to creativity, man, it's got to be universal.
17:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody needs to have a voice.
17:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that I came across in some of your writings you talk about having simple repeatable systems.
17:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
17:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
17:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Simple repeat.
17:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I always have to tell this story because I worked at Scott Paper years ago and I believe that the beginning of this system that they have of making decisions was the beginning of the end for Scott Paper.
17:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they hired some PhD.
17:48
[SPEAKER_00]: There's probably a doctor and you got to watch out for those guys.
17:52
[SPEAKER_00]: and he came in and he had this 25 step problem solving decision-making model.
17:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It was fantastic, just wonderful, okay?
18:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you used this thing, you would almost always make a good decision.
18:05
[SPEAKER_00]: There was just one small little problem with it.
18:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It took two freaking long.
18:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because every decision that they're making, well, we got to go through the 25.
18:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I can remember somebody telling me, I was the safety manager of the largest tissue producing plant in the world.
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It's got paper.
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And they said, you got to go through this decision making prize.
18:22
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time we go through that decision making process, while people, you know, injured out in the plant.
18:26
[SPEAKER_00]: No, we're not doing that.
18:27
[SPEAKER_00]: We're doing this.
18:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And if that doesn't work, we'll fix it tomorrow.
18:30
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll fix that tomorrow.
18:31
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to move.
18:31
[SPEAKER_00]: We got to make things happen, right?
18:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
18:33
[SPEAKER_00]: In that particular case, that was necessary.
18:35
[SPEAKER_00]: But I loved what you said about simple and repeatable because everything that we do and it sounds like everything that you do in the work that we do with people is simple and repeatable.
18:45
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not easy.
18:47
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
18:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, it's not easy.
18:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, these office hours that you said that didn't work.
18:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, you would just do things and you did other things.
18:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not easy.
18:54
[SPEAKER_00]: People have to have some level of discipline in order to be able to get this work done.
18:59
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is simple and it's repeatable.
19:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And if it's not simple, it won't work in business.
19:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It won't.
19:06
[SPEAKER_01]: it won't work.
19:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have, especially now, we don't have the capacity to absorb 25 questions to make a decision.
19:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You just, you don't have the time.
19:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do think it also goes back to what else is really important is that combination of simple, repeatable processes based off of the beliefs of the organization.
19:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if you
19:29
[SPEAKER_01]: understand the beliefs of the organization, your decision-making process shouldn't take 25 steps anyways.
19:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You just know it.
19:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what would what would I do as a team member?
19:41
[SPEAKER_01]: What you know what would the founder want me to do?
19:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you have a very clear belief system in the organization, it makes all of the decisions and all of the processes that much easier.
19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: it really does.
19:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to wrap up and you've answered this once already, but I want you to give me a different example of something, if you could go back in your history and change something.
20:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we, as we call it, so when we do leadership development, leadership coaching, and that car, I'll use coaching as an example, because coaching is the single most important skill of a leader, all right?
20:13
[SPEAKER_00]: They talk about visionary and all, no, it's coaching.
20:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And why is it coaching because it's personal?
20:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interpersonal.
20:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It's
20:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Starting with questions, it's listening and it's helping the other person solve their own problems and developing them.
20:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's why it's all important.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So we teach this.
20:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And I tell people, I want you to go on practice.
20:28
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually in our program, they have to write stories back to everybody else in the program, telling them how they've actually implemented these new skills.
20:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they'll read it and they'll like, I totally screwed this up and I tried to do it and I couldn't think of a question.
20:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know how to do it.
20:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, okay, so what did you do?
20:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I just kind of let it go and I'm like, I want you to do a do-over.
20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to go back to that person the next day, okay?
20:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to say, hey, Victoria, remember yesterday we had this conversation.
20:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to learn how to be a better leader, better coach.
20:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I really screwed that up.
20:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to do a woover.
20:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to try, I want to do a do-it.
20:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Can we start over again?
20:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Could you please walk into my office and ask me that question again?
21:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to start all over and see if I can do a better job this time
21:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Now there's a level of vulnerability in doing that, okay?
21:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But it gives the person 24 or 48 hours to think about how they would do it differently and then put into practice something that they didn't do well the first time.
21:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's one of the things that a lot of people don't realize.
21:20
[SPEAKER_00]: If I do something wrong and fix it, we actually learn better than if I do it right the first time.
21:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so what did you do that you had to fix for Victoria that you're willing to share with us today?
21:34
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a hard question.
21:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love being not because I don't want to be vulnerable because I've made I've made mistakes.
21:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I've made sure.
21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: so many mistakes.
21:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But when we in anything that I've done that I'm like, I wish I didn't do that or I didn't make that choice or I didn't say that or what have you or the office hours example that I said, if I didn't do that I wouldn't have learned, right?
21:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I wouldn't have been a reminder to me.
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't have told that story about the office hours and been like, oh man, I forgot to attach it to beliefs.
22:06
[SPEAKER_01]: and so I find it really hard to answer this question because anything that I've done that maybe I might want to change, I just have such a blessing in it.
22:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's not a mistake.
22:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I've spent my whole career being a founder's right hand person.
22:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wish that earlier on in my career, I had gone out on my own and pushed forward to have my own creative.
22:40
[SPEAKER_01]: agency and organization.
22:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that is a comfort thing of, you know, this is my role.
22:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I am the right-hand person to any founder.
22:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a founder's best friend.
22:53
[SPEAKER_01]: They want something done in their organization.
22:55
[SPEAKER_01]: They want a trust.
22:56
[SPEAKER_01]: They want a build.
22:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll build it.
22:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll grow it for you.
23:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'll move on to the next one.
23:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that I wish that in my career, I would have
23:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I can understand that, and to your point, you move towards what's your best at.
23:13
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where your talent is, right?
23:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
23:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes, I will say, sometimes we don't make those choices for ourselves.
23:21
[SPEAKER_00]: We move into choices that other people see, these great talents that we have, and they just suck those talents up and utilize them, and that's what founders have done with you.
23:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So I started this company in 2009 when I finished my doctorate.
23:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I was 55 years old when I started the company.
23:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I'm 72 now, and I'm looking at slowing down, finally.
23:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will say this.
23:43
[SPEAKER_00]: When I look at what made me successful in this business, quote, unquote, what made me successful, right?
23:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Was Primeist Baker, who is you on our Baker roofing, hired me for a couple days a week, the January that got them.
23:54
[SPEAKER_00]: My doctor gave me a stipend, more than monthly retainer.
23:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, basically paid my bills and then he and other people started finding me other clients and it just built my company and 85% of I don't know what the percentage of every dollar I've ever made was because of the print is Baker because of that one decision and that one decision was something that I decided when I came to Raleigh North Carolina that the one thing that I hadn't done through all of my careers and moving everything was developing strong relationships.
24:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So I started to develop really strong relationships and I met Brennan at the tennis club where he said, hey, can we hit some time?
24:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like sure I would hit with anybody, right?
24:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I was about three levels, four levels above Brennan.
24:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's such a delightful man.
24:39
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd go on here.
24:40
[SPEAKER_00]: We kind of laughed it up and then we'd have breakfast and you know, I didn't know where it was going to take me.
24:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And five or six years later, I finished my doctor and he says, hey, how about if you come work for me?
24:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, that's a great idea.
24:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the key to this, I think, in all of it, whatever we decide to do, wherever our path, we don't always know where it's gonna take us.
24:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will bet you, the relationships that you've had over the decades.
25:02
[SPEAKER_00]: When I look at your resume and I look at what I'll bet you that those people, we always talk about leadership and people and everything.
25:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Those relationships is what's crafted your future, whether you choose it or not sometimes.
25:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But obviously, you're extremely good at what you do as a builder in a fixture.
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate that.
25:21
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I, um, thank you very much.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I mean, who knows?
25:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe one day, keep an eye.
25:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I could do my own thing.
25:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You never know.
25:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I never know.
25:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I very rarely feel like work is work and it's just when you love what you do and you're
25:39
[SPEAKER_01]: succeeding like I said it doesn't have to it can be big goals little goals whatever it might be but that personal satisfaction of loving what you do is just it's I personally don't understand anybody who doesn't function that way to be honest and I want them I'm like you have to feel this you have to feel what it's like to love what you do and to not feel like work
25:57
[SPEAKER_01]: and you just continue on.
25:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do think that I will continue to support people and be in a situation.
26:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it won't always be a creative agency, but I will always want to be supporting individuals who are doing the best work of their lives.
26:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And that could be at my flower shop, it could be at a creative agency or could be at a roofing business.
26:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
26:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Who knows?
26:17
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
26:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Victoria, I really appreciate you taking the time today and talking with me and sharing your journey and your expertise and your love for what you do.
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite obvious and I think that we'll get a few really nice nuggets out of this to share with people to help them maybe realize their joy and their happiness.
26:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, to your point, sometimes we work to play because work is meant
26:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's okay.
26:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I make money.
26:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I live in a capitalistic society, so I need to make money and pay the bills.
26:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, but I do that because of the things I do at night and on the weekends or my family or whatever it is.
26:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why in our programs, we have people write a personal motion statement that identifies very clearly what they want their life to be.
26:59
[SPEAKER_00]: What are my values and beliefs?
27:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Just what you were talking about before.
27:02
[SPEAKER_00]: My values and beliefs written down and hold myself accountable to those expectations of the way I'm gonna show up every day so I can show up as my best self, regardless of what's going on around me.
27:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
27:14
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
27:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you.
27:16
[SPEAKER_00]: They appreciate it.
27:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
27:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
27:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
27:19
[SPEAKER_00]: If this episode makes you think differently about how you lead the people who do your hardest to measure work.
27:25
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, what are your thoughts about the structure that you have in your organization and what works and what doesn't work?
27:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Follow leading from the front wherever you listen and I'll see you in the next one.