creative and effective leadership in design environmentsSarah B. Nelson, Hot Studio

effective creative leadershipSarah B. Nelson, Hot Studio

on being “creative”

“The frightening and most difficult thing about being what someone calls a ‘creative person’ is

that you have absolutely no idea where any of your thoughts come from, and you have no idea

where they’re going to come from tomorrow.”— from Art and Copy

what’s your job?

“The boss's unstated job is to go and get

the pizza for his/her people.”

— John Maeda, Twitter, Feb 24th, 2011

to start, something concrete

Sean Kristy John

Goals1

2

3

Goals1

2

3

Goals1

2

3

FEARS1

2

3

FEARS1

2

3

FEARS1

2

3

EXPECTATIONS1

2

3

EXPECTATIONS1

2

3

EXPECTATIONS1

2

3

creative lead PM UX LEad

Sean

Goals1 Add a new e-commerce piece to my portfolio

2 To increase our experience with research projects

3 Try out a new analysis technique for our research

FEARS1 That I won’t be able to spend enough time with the team2 that the client’s expectations are unreasonable3 That the project is underscoped

EXPECTATIONS1 Of Sarah: That she is as accessible as possible

2 of the team: That people communicate honestly with each other

3 of SaRAH: that she has the team’s back

creative lead

just because you wrote it on the board doesn’t mean its true

emotional literacy

“Emotional Literacy is made up of ‘the ability to understand your emotions, the ability to listen to

others and empathise with their emotions, and the ability to express emotions productively. To be

emotionally literate is to be able to handle emotions in a way that improves your personal

power and improves the quality of life around you. Emotional literacy improves relationships,

creates loving possibilities between people, makes co-operative work possible, and facilitates the

feeling of community.”— Charles Steiner

1. Self-awareness – the ability to read one's

emotions and recognize their impact while using

gut feelings to guide decisions.

2. Self-management – involves controlling one's

emotions and impulses and adapting to changing

circumstances.

3. Social awareness – the ability to sense,

understand, and react to others' emotions while

comprehending social networks.

4. Relationship management – the ability to

inspire, influence, and develop others while

managing conflict.

— Daniel Goleman

know yourself

Fear

Hungry

Angry

Lonely

Tired

now, some common situations

killing an idea...team conflictattitude adjustmentleading with question

killing an idea...

Imagine you have a designer who has an idea that

she is really attached to. She's been talking about

the idea, sharing it with everyone. She stayed up

all night working on it. She's passionate and

engaged - just what you want! The trouble is, you

are pretty sure that the idea just isn't going to fly

with the client or key stakeholder. The rest of your

team knows it, too. How would you handle this

situation?

“I would try to advocate for the designer if

possible. Depending on the situation, I would see

if there was a way we could a) pitch it to the client

in addition to other more viable options or b) do

an internal design critique and refine the idea as a

learning experience and a means to deliver a more

viable option to the client.”

— creative leader survey participant

“I would want that leader to be completely

honest. I don't want to get smoke blown up my

you-know-what. If it isn't working I want to know

why, and if parts of that thinking could be re-

purposed into something else.”

— practitioner survey participant

“I think it's worthwhile to let someone sell why

their idea is so awesome. But if the team/

leadership doesn't buy into it the idea probably

won't be successful for the team. You need some

degree of team buy-in.”

— practitioner survey participant

team conflict...

Now, imagine you have two brilliant people, an

engineer and a designer, who are constantly at

odds. Each are talented, each have done great

work in the past, but together their work is

grinding to a standstill. The whole project is at

risk. Assuming you have no other people to

substitute, how would you handle this situation?

“Talk to them separately and try to understand

the root cause of the issue. If that doesn't work

then I would bring them into a room together

call-out the issue and ask them what they feel

could be done to get the project back on track

and moving forward.”

— creative leader survey participant

“I would want the creative leader to acknowledge

it openly (in the internal team) and honestly. No

side conversations, we should be brought

together to hash it out, with the lead as a

supportive mediator, and ultimately, the decider.”

— practitioner survey participant

“Take us out for drinks.”

— practitioner survey participant

“The creative leader in this situation should help

the team make a decision. This decision will likely

mean that someone isn't happy, but if the entire

team makes a decision together, it's much harder

to hold a grudge against a particular person.”

— practitioner survey participant

adjusting an attitude...

What excited you about this project?

When this project is finished, it will...

When this project is finished, I will...

change the way the

client does business

Establish a new model for e-

commerce

Bring in more

interesting work for us

The chance to learn something

new

Working with John and Kristy

An opportunity to work on a project w/

Impact

Have a new piece for my portfolio

Have tried prototyping

with Fireworks

have helped launch a

new product

one last *awesome* technique...

leading with questions

why?what were you thinking here?

tell me more about that...say it again but use different words

how can I help you?what do you need from me?

your questions?

sarah.nelson@hotstudio.comwww.hotstudio.com

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