selling creativity

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The power to influence

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Section 1 The truth about creativity

Section 3

Section 2

Creativity in action

I. RapportII. Confirmation BiasII. Story Versus FactsIII. Asch EffectIV. Fear and CourageV. Fortitude and Determination

the truth about creativity

Our clients need creativity more than ever

What is creativity?

“The capacity to bring together knowledge and imagination”

Frank Barron, Psychologist

creativity

“Original ideas that have value” Sir Ken Robinson, Education and Creativity Specialist, author and speaker

Principlesof Creativity

Creativity is in Everyone

Forget titles, job descriptions, and hierarchy—creativity is not a skill set; it’s a mindset, an opportunistic orientation that resists habitual thinking and invites courageous exploration. To be human is to be creative.

Creativity is Paradoxical

The contradictions of creativity contribute to the mystery surrounding it. Creativity is intelligent, yet requires a willingness to ask questions and be open to possibilities. It is inspired by playfulness, but disciplined toward an end. Passionate but objective, energetic but reflective, individual as well as collaborative—these are just a few of creativity’s contradictions.

Creativity is Constructive

Creativity is generative, productive and open to many alternatives. But at its heart, it seeks to make a difference. Creativity values and celebrates imagination and mandates the practical application of its output.

Creativity is Courageous

Creativity values imagination over image. It requires a willingness to let go of certainties and think expansively; it also demands a strong dose of determination and self-belief. History proves that new ideas and concepts are often met with apathy, ridicule or even hostility. This is why courage and creativity are brothers.

Creativity is Perceptive

Seeing and perceiving are two different things. Sight is visual and concrete; perception is individual and interpretive. Highly creative people have a well-developed ability to see things in new ways, detect patterns and make connections that others may miss.

Creativity can be Inspired or Suppressed

Environments that allow the freedom to explore, exposure to stimulus and time to reflect inspire individual and collective creativity. Imaginative thinking can be suppressed by excessive rules and regulations, siloed thinking, stigmatization of failure, hyper-focus on efficiency and the elevation of conformity over originality.

Creativity is Childlike

Children tend to be less self-conscious than adults and this natural naïveté leads them to ask more questions and think more laterally. Adults’ experience, and expertise can lead them to prematurely shut down new routes of thinking. Creativity is often served when we “think like a kid,” unfettered by all the reasons something might not work but inspired by what could be.

Creativity Accepts Ambiguity

Human beings do not like ambiguity; it makes most people uncomfortable. The hallmark of a creative thinker is a willingness to accept ambiguity, embrace discomfort, and focus on the promise of possibility. Rather than rush back to what is familiar, the creative mind lingers, trading comfort for potential.

More often it doesn’t

Sometimes it doesIt would be nice if great work always sold itself.

The Truth About Creativity

We spend hours, days, nights and weekends generating great creativity, brilliant ideas, winning strategies, beautifully executed campaigns, designs, promotions

We often spend very little time thinking about how we are going to share this creativity

We invest in it so that we can harvest it for our clients

driving and building our capacities for creativityAll of us spend a great deal of our lives tapping into,

The Truth About Creativity

This is not just about selling

This is about influence

It’s about inspiring your clients to see the potential in the work you have generated

Imagine the future

But when it’s not, you need to be as creative about how you present the work, as you were in its conception

And again, sometimes it is obvious

that clients should be able to “see” the brillianceIf you think about it, there’s arrogance in the notion

Application versus Arrogance

This session is all about arming you with the knowledge and strategies that will put you in a position to more effectively overcome the obstacles that creativity faces

creativitycourage & creativity

the power to influence

you must have empathy for them and their situation

you must work to truly understand your client(s)

that means suspending your own agenda and thinking about their central issue

Rapport

“When you have rapport with someone, they are paying attention to what you have to say. Without rapport they are not”Stephanie Palmer, “Good in a Room”

It would be easy if we could simply tell people what to doFacts are seldom enoughReason isn’t always enoughBrilliant work isn’t even always enough

Without rapport, it is very hard to influence others

Creative thinkers must navigate dynamic social networks in the drive to actualization

These dynamic networks are easier to navigate with rapport

Creativity is Not Enough

It must get producedAnd getting it produced takes guts and a lot of influence

Great work is not sufficient

Connections must be made to get great work produced

The more revolutionary the work, the more important the connections

Creativity is Constructive

Meets project objectives

Grounded in consumer understanding

Relevant to intended audience

Competitively strong

Meets success criteria

Beautiful

obvious mandatories to getting great work produced

Unfortunately, even surmounting all of these hurdles is seldom enough

Connections must be made

Others need to feel and believe in the influence of the work

Others need to believe in you

Stephanie Palmer, “Good in a Room”

“When someone with a great idea doesn’t present it effectively, it not only hurts them, but all of us as well. Why? Because mediocre ideas will get purchased and produced if superior ideas aren’t pitched well enough”Stephanie Palmer, “Good in a Room”

“My point is not that pitching is everything. Rather, it’s that good products deserve good packaging and great ideas deserve a great pitch”

Stephanie Palmer, “Good in a Room”

Likeability is a crucial ingredient

in building rapport

“Quick! Someone save the cat!”

rapport and likeability

Predisposition

To determine, decide or establish in advance

None of us walks into a room without firmly established ideas and opinions already in our heads

We come in with knowledge, experiences, biases and opinions

Predetermination

This is a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one’s beliefs and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one’s beliefs.

People are biased toward confirming their existing beliefs

predetermination

People regularly display a phenomenon called confirmation bias, first noted by Francis Bacon almost 400 years ago. As he noted, “The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion ... draws all things else to support and agree with it.”

Research shows that providing reasons for change to those who disagree with you only serves to entrench them more deeply in opposition to what you are proposing.

—Francis Bacon’s Confirmation Bias

Charles Lord and Stanford University on capital punishment

Stephen Denning: “The Secret Language of Leadership”

Why are people seemingly so unwilling to reevaluate their positions even when presented with credible, factual evidence that would seem to refute their views?

It would seem that a rational, clear–thinking person could be influenced by credible evidence Drew Weston and Emory University study


We typically start meetings and presentations by:Defining the problemAnalyzing the problemRecommending solutions

typical presentations


“This is a rational appeal to reason and, if the objective is to share information with an audience that wants to hear it, this is effective.

“But if the objective is to get people to change what they are doing and act in different ways...[or be open to different solutions]...it doesn’t tend to work as well.”


typical presentations

Story can help you overcome the confirmationbias in a way that facts alone seldom can

story versus facts

It is intellectually based and cases are built using facts, statistics and credible references

This is rational, but not creative

Defining the problem

Analyzing the problem

Recommending solutions

Most business people persuade via conventional rhetoric


A creative presentation should start with more than facts. A more powerful method of persuasion is uniting an idea with an emotion, and the best way to do that is through a compelling story, arousing emotion and energy. Storytelling is creative, insight-driven and imaginative and a great way to deliver your idea.

Robert McKee The Storytellers International Storytelling Center

presentation story

“Stories can help people learn, absorb, remember and share information and ideas. Stories motivate, persuade, inform and inspire”

You need facts. You can use facts and they are and can be persuasive.

presentation story

Even if you do mange to persuade your audience, you’ve done so only on an intellectual basis and people are not inspired to act by reason alone-remember the fMRI studies

Robert McKee The Storytellers International Storytelling Center

Facts are often pushed out, but stories can pull people in

But, your story and the way you present it must be truthful

Truth is more than factual accuracy

“Seven hundred happy passengers reached New York after the Titanic’s maiden voyage.

“It’s the authentic truth, including everything that’s relevant to fully understand the story”


Truth is more than factual accuracy

Story is a powerful pull strategy of influence. If your story is good enough, people of their own free will come to the conclusion that they can trust you and the solution you bringAnnette Simmons, The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence and Persuasion Through Storytelling,

Define the ProblemAnalyze the ProblemRecommend Solutions

Get AttentionInspire Desire for ChangeReinforce with Reasons


Solomon Asch

The Asch Experiment

Gregory Berns: “Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently”

“Conformity is exerted at the decision-making stage in a capitulation to the majority”

“We know what we see, we know right from wrong, but with enough social pressure, we give in to the fear of standing alone.”

“Most subjects caved to group pressure at least 1/3 of the time”

“When asked how often they went along with the group, even the most conformist of subjects underestimated the number of times he went along with the herd.”

With the group, only 25% were able to maintain this perfect performance

“Without the group giving the wrong answer, 95% of the subjects performed without a single error.”


“A willingness to take risks...and the capacity for independent judgment...are common characteristics among highly creative individuals”Frank Barron, psychologist, 1988 “Putting creativity to work.” In Sternberg (ed) The nature of creativity.

But many people lack a capacity for independent judgment

Especially those with less than well-developed creative capacities

There is a fear/stress response innate in all of us, and it usually serves us quite well

Millions of years of evolution have produced a very active stress system that can actually override every other system in the brain (amygdala)


“The stress system is not rational. It reacts when provoked, and the reaction is powerful enough to derail even the most innovative thinkers out there”

Edward de Bono, “Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step”

The inability to tame the stress response, is a design (innovation) inhibitor

Fear can paralyze action and inhibit new thinking and responses to new thinking


In this context, it is easy to see why “decision-makers display a strong bias toward the status quo”

Stephen Denning, The Secret Language of Leadership

And to see the challenges that new ideas, designs, innovation face

“Think of fear like alcohol. It impairs judgment. Don’t make any decisions while under its influence”Gregory Berns, Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently

Human beings are comforted by the familiar. The human brain comes to like that with which it is familiar

From the perspective of the brain, it’s not that familiar things are more pleasurable or rewarding; it’s that unfamiliar things tend to be alarming and potentially dangerous.

Familiarity quiets the amygdala

familiarity


In a famous 1960‘s experiment, Dr. Robert Zajonc proved that familiarity influences what we like. He flashed pictures of irregularly shaped octagons to test his subjects, but the pictures were flashed so briefly, the subjects were cognitively unaware of having seen them.

familiarity–the mere exposure effect


He then asked his subjects two questions:


How confident are you that you’ve seen this picture?


How much do you like this picture?


People sometimes have skewed views of what courage really is

“There is a big difference between rushing ahead blindly and knowing the danger and acting anyway.”“Action upon reflection adds a seriousness to courage that impulse fails to demonstrate.”

Dr. Robert Terry

Daring is often lack of attention to likely outcomes

with daring and/or impulseCourage is sometimes confused

“Creativity requires taking what Einstein called ‘a leap into the unknown,’ putting yourself on the line as you ‘suffer the slings and arrows of ridicule.’”

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties” Erich Fromm

courage and creativity are brothers

“Fear extinguishes leadership; courage ignites leadership.”

Robert Terry

Courage can and should be shared

Courage requires authenticity (truth) and invites action (actualization)

Courageously bring passion to the presentation of the work

creativity/invention/design can face great adversity

You have to have stoic resolve and unwavering determination to do what needs to be done to actualize the best work

Barron analyzed ego strength and defined it as the “power to rally from setbacks and hardships”

fortitude & determination

You will not always be popular

You will be questioned

Fortitude and determination

Not short-term focused

Iterative and many chances along the way to lose resolve

But creativity is committed to effecting positive outcomes so the struggle is worth it

The application of great creativity

Creativity requires Tenacity

“There’s too much waste in banking. Getting rid of it takes tenacity, not brilliance”

Carl Reichardt, former President of Wells FargoFrom Systems Thinking to Systemic Action by Lee Jenkins

Sometimes the work sells itself; often it does not. Hopefully you now feel better equipped to help shepherd your work through what can be a maze of challenges

Now for some real-life stories

fortitude & determination

Creativity is not for the fainthearted

Sometimes the ideas come naturally or easily; other times not

creativity in action

Many famous people have changed the course of history. Some were great orators, others used their own special skills to persuade their audience. What’s important is that you find your most compelling characteristics that help you to persuade your clients to buy the kind of work Mary has talked about.

So what lessons can we take from these great persuaders?

Martin Luther King was the youngest person to receive the Nobel peace prize. Few people can forget one of the greatest speeches of all time, which started with four simple words: “I have a dream”. He was a great, passionate speaker who showed people a vision of the kind of future they aspired to.

But not everyone is as powerful a speaker as Martin Luther King. In contrast, Bill Gates is a something of a geek, with little stage presence. But he has turned that to his advantage. A very sincere man, mild mannered and totally committed to his cause, he displays deep emotion and is so passionate about his subject that it is hard not to be won over. The point here is that you should never try to be someone you are not. But rather to think about the qualities that will help you influence and persuade when you need to.

Elizabeth I used her powerful skills of persuasion in a different way. A woman who laid the foundations of the British Empire in the 1600’s, she had a hugely skeptical audience to win over. She was brilliant at recognizing her troops’ fears and addressing them head on. She acted thoughtfully when it mattered most and said to them when preparing for battle in 1588: “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England too.”

Nelson Mandela provides us with great lessons in inspiring enormous trust, being completely honest and clear in stating his objectives. He took people with him, whatever their persuasion—even reaching out to those who had kept him in prison for 27 years. What he does best is appeal to people’s innate sense of what is true and just through his personal experiences and because people are interested in the human condition, this technique can help build rapport and empathy with your audience.

And finally, Steve Jobs, who is probably going to go down as one of the greatest CEOs of all time. He did all of these things at different times. His great gift was to know when to be personally humble and when a situation required great showmanship and magic to be most compelling. He learnt to be a great storyteller at both Apple and Pixar. His other important quality was total obsession with detail and preparation. (Just think about how often we end up preparing for an important meeting in the taxi on the way to the client’s offices.)

He created a cult in every possible way, and he walked and talked the talk better than most.

People couldn't wait for his next presentation and the queues to get into any one of them used to form days ahead of time.

In complete contrast, his address at Stanford University displayed enormous humility and a completely different approach (he had already been diagnosed with cancer by then) when he simply said: “Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just 3 stories.”

Think about how you make sure your clients feel the same way: excited about what you will bring them next time.

Image courtesy of creative commons member acaban

Finally, 3 examples of different approaches to client presentations that created the kind of theatre that was truly inspiring for our clients:

One where we created the drama in a meeting room at our offices. One where we found an authentic setting in which to stage the presentation.

And one where we had neither of these luxuries. . .

Captain Morgan is a great example of displaying courage and creativity in presenting work to a long established and client for a traditional and somewhat conservative brand.

We created the Captain’s Table aboard ship to bring to life a dark tale that inspired a wickedly clever bottle. We hired candelabra, feather quills along with inkwells, and we created beautifully found personal writing stations for each client.

Telling the story of Espolòn meant telling the story of Mexico. But consumers were tired of hearing the same boring old stories from premium tequila brands about heritage and the distilling process. So we took them on a journey. Telling the story in a way that brought the work to life, this time we found a real Mexican restaurant as the stage upon which to present our work.

Legend says that on one bright morning in Mexico, the shrill crowing of Ramon the rooster was heard throughout the land. In homage to the brave men and women who fought fiercely to create a free and independent Mexico, we created characters invited by the original posada engravings that tell stories of the struggles and joys of everyday life in Mexico. Each bottle label depicts a scene that captures a particular moment in that colourful history.

The brand launched on Cinco de Mayo 2010 and the results have been maravilloso.

At landor we believe that our heritage is our future

Three world famous London Hotels are the subject of our next case.

If you can't get the client to come to you, and hiring a restaurant just isn't going to hack it, and the client has no time, and the odds are stacked against you, there is still no excuse. You create the mood virtually.

The CEO had to see the work immediately at her offices, and she only had 10 minutes for us. So we had to find a way of bringing the idea of “nocturnal” to life as quickly as possible. Why nocturnal? Well, hotels are pretty standard during the day, but it’s at night that they become charged with sexual possibility, an air of mystery, even danger and thrilling discoveries. So we needed to bring that sense of romance to life—and quickly. We placed a perfectly formed chocolate truffle in her mouth, seated her in a sensual and sleek brown suede chair and then we blindfolded, painted the perfect picture of what pure and unadulterated luxury would feel like and taste like...for the Maybourne Group of Hotels.

At landor we believe that our heritage is our future

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