So often we get caught up in our daily challenges that we forget to continue learning.  Sure we learn a tad here and there, but nothing compares to the opportunity to be surrounded by like-minded colleagues that are as passionate about what they do as I am.  It’s an incredible thing to have a platform for your passion, to share your interests, your research, and your insights.

Back in 2009 we began a research project on Creativity & Innovation in the media & entertainment industries.  We interviewed and video-recorded some incredible leaders in the industries that are all up against fierce competition, all the time.  They are not unique.  Not in the way they approach their daily passion, not in the way they hire, develop, strategize and manage their creative teams, and certainly not in the way they feel about what they do and what they contribute to those in their craft.  And our interviewees are not different from my colleagues at the annual conference.  Daily we all want to learn, share, inspire, and be inspired.

We all want information that will help us in our daily endeavors and we want to know that we’re ready for anything, and that we’re doing it right, most of the time.  The incredible thing about presenting research at a conference of your peers is that you’re expected to present your limitations along with your successes; this is usual for our field, but generally quite unusual.  However, it’s exactly your limitations that enable you to analyze and set a course for the future.

Be sure you’re involved with your peers and offer your limitations to one another, it’s the only way to remain innovative and creative – offering each other advice, expertise and the opportunity for insight.

And please – join us this Friday, May 4^th in Los Angeles for an event of sharing & learning:

Insights from the Inside from an Outsider

@ The Luxe Hotel in Los Angeles

“Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes.” – Oscar Wilde

The topic: exclusion versus inclusion at recess and lunch

The guide & savior: my eleven-year-old daughter

The advice to her younger sister:

  “The time is always right to do what is right.”

Who she got her advice from:  Martin Luther King Jr.

On this day of love, to me, it’s not about romantic love, it’s about love and appreciation for all.  Do right by those you are engaged with in your world.  Ask them how their day is going, make a small gesture of interest, show you care, share the love in whatever way is comfortable for you – through words, music, whatever is natural.  Do right by folks, even when it’s difficult and inconvenient.

Imagine the feeling of love and admiration I had for my daughter last night.  Thanks for allowing me to share that love with all of you.

According to Gallup research, employee engagement is a “leading indicator of financial performance,” and they have thus “proven that engaged organizations have 3.9 times the earnings per share (EPS) growth rate compared to organizations with lower engagement in their same industry.”  (gallup.com)

What are some things you can do to be attentive to employee engagement?

• Be mindful of the body language of your employees
• Listen with both your ears and your eyes
• Watch carefully the interaction between employees & be aware of the way they interact with one another
• Discern what ‘types’ tend to ‘flock’ together
• When possible, offer a variety of projects as options for employees
• Use team meetings to discuss projects on the horizon and encourage employees to create work-teams to address projects, being aware of the unique skill-set each employee brings to the table
• Talk to your employees – now, many of you will say “I do, all of the time” but – more likely than not – we do not talk with our employees enough, particularly in a scheduled and goal-oriented way

We often need reminders of ideas that are obvious, yet get lost in the mix of every day job functions.  It is helpful to actually schedule these points in your calendar.  I know, it sounds a tad corny and obsessive, nonetheless – it works!

Pay attention – both you & your employees need you too, as does the bottom line.  Employee engagement is the most simple and cost effective asset you can develop for ROI.

Until next time,

Erica & the whole ‘crew’ @ LOE Consulting

As a boss, your focus needs to be not on what an employee isn’t doing to make you look good, but on what you can do to help your employee succeed, shine, and consequently, positively affect the entire team and hence, the bottom line.  As managers, it’s often easy to get into the stronghold of feeling the pressure from above and taking that frustration out on your direct reports that you wish were different, in some way.  Yet, none of that chatter is productive to anyone.  The alternative? – simply put: collaboration.  If the department is viewed as a collaborative whole, then no single person can take the blame, but rather, there is an understanding that the growth and output of the department is a result of the greater whole with contribution from all members.  I began my own lesson in this process in the early 90’s when living in Japan and working for a company that coached Japanese nationals on interpersonal and verbal communication with the European employees of the European company they worked for.  With Japanese teams, responsibility is not on the individual, but instead on the group.  Thus, it is the goal of the entire team to create an environment where each team member is maximizing their potential and utilizing their unique skills as a compliment to those of the rest of the team.  This may seem esoteric and insurmountable at times, but with simple steps and a specific focus of corporate culture, it’s rather simple.  Think about the following concepts for your team members:

• Does the structure of the team highlight the employee’s skills
• Are there opportunities to grow skills & have those opportunities been discussed and offered (for example, at performance reviews)
• How do team member’s skills relate to their job requirements
• In what specific ways do team members add value to the team & the company
• How do team members envision adding greater value to the team & the company
• How does the manager envision adding greater value to their team & the company

If you’re having difficulty imagining specific ways to enable your team to be more cohesive and the daily practice it takes to get there, contact me about our Team Development Consulting.  With a focused program of assessment, coaching, seminars, and team building groups – cohesiveness becomes corporate culture in a matter of weeks.  We’ve got profound examples and experience in seeing this goal come to fruition.

After my recent newsletter, The Time is Now, I’ve had a nagging feeling.   I realize that the years I spent in entertainment publicity pulled daily at my creative inspiration, but the weekly evening sculpture course I took was the sanity and savior to the hectic life in an ever whirling arena of business and image.    It was that one evening a week, no networking, no film screenings, and certainly no internet surfing – that I spent quietly molding clay.  Lately I rely on my creativity for the entertainment industry interview series (due out via webcast in the next couple of months), research papers, team development & debriefing, and newsletters I write.  But, what I realize now is that the quiet weekly evening was the fuel for the rest.  It’s taken over a decade for me to get back to sculpting and although I’m thrilled to be back, I regret the delay.

What’s your fuel?

What has been most profound in my research interviews recently in Los Angeles is the simple notion that creativity cannot be micro-managed.  Now this may not seem like revolutionary information, but what is key here is the ability to know how and in what ways the process is being micro-managed, most often inadvertently.  The key to progress in managing creative and innovative teams is to understand the ways in which the process impedes the goal.  Now, that’s not all that different from the general knowledge we have of organizations and teams, the reality that the process often (unfortunately) impedes the goal.  But what was reiterated to me over and over in my incredible week of interviews was how that affect is more detrimental to success than ever.  In our lightening speed age of technology and the dissemination of information, this decade could not be a more important time to get information processes and communication right.  Not only is the economics of business reliant on getting it right, but because of how quickly information is communicated, the ability to ‘correct’ communication has become increasingly challenging. 

Back to my first point on ‘waiting for the time…’  The time, simply, for everything is now.  The time to research ideas, the time to create ideas, the time to brainstorm and, the time to bring ideas to fruition is simply now.  Because if you don’t do it now, someone else will, another company will come up with a similar concept, or even worse, your company will fail waiting for the right time to make things happen, creatively and innovatively.

Then, there’s the contestants. Young, creative, innovative, energetic and truly inspirational. They are the stuff that dreams are made of and the future of creative arts. They are the youth that aspire, inspire, focus, and hold on to a dream, despite the uphill struggle. What a fun and warm group of youngsters, which I completely realize are our future. As I move forward in my current project that focuses on evaluating creative teamwork, their management, and effective decision making processes, I will be sure to keep these young Idols on my mind. Simply stated, it is crucial that decision makers and leaders in creative industries utilize innovative team creation and team building ideas to maximize profitability and speak to our generations of current Idols and future Idols.

With that said – one of the questions we’ll ask in our interviews here in Los Angeles is:  How will we bridge the gap in generational approaches to creativity and innovation?

Let me know if you’ve got your own questions on your mind.
Warm & sunny regards,
Erica

I got the greatest gift for Valentine’s Day – a streamlined website that includes my blog and tweets!

This helps me share the love and information with all of you. And… because I take that job seriously, let me know what you want & what you need! I’m ramping up the writing for 2010 – get on the list and reap the rewards.

Email me and tell me your challenges and current dilemmas – and I’ll tweet & blog about them. My gift to you. And of course, share the love & pass this message on…

Have a great Valentine’s Day and looking forward to fruitful communication.

In my last newsletter I mentioned some aspects of what teams need in order to succeed (see archives gloating…). We were an informal group, brought together around a unifying personal goal of offering independent consulting services, but there was nothing ‘independent’ about the outcome. In a challenging economy, entrepreneurs fill a void in a way large companies can not. With a group of independent consultants you are guaranteed an innovative and creative approach, instead of a system-wide standard approach. External consultants provide an objective analysis and a fresh look. We’re all entrepreneurs, all motivated, and all eager to connect with one another and value each others different backgrounds and ideas.

In the recent Business Week article Want to Boost the Economy?, James Turley of Ernst & Young says “better ideas come from groups that tackle problems and challenges from diverse points of view.”

If you’re thinking of bringing together a great team, that will really make things happen for your company, consider diversity of talent, ideas, backgrounds, and personality. Be sure you’re asking the right questions and making the right choices. When you’re fighting the ‘war on talent,’ you want to be certain that you’re fighting for the right reasons. And of course, the common goal and mission should be the linchpin in a team that offers value and true business results.

Follow me (and others) on twitter: http://twitter.com/linesexcellence

Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time. François Voltaire

Now those of you who’ve followed the Yankees over the decades (I can remember that rainy night, extra innings, 11pm, school night, 1970’s, my uncle & brother saying “we can’t leave now!”) surely realize that the Yankees didn’t get here overnight. Sometimes it seems that way when we look at extraordinary teams, extraordinary leaders, but that’s not reality. Instead, teams develop over time, with hard work, humility, and a series of setbacks with analogous advances.

So what do the Yankees and all teams need to succeed? Let me name some basics…

• A common goal
• An agreed upon mission
• Respect for one another
• Appreciation for all aspects and contributors of the team
• Shared understanding of the work it’s going to take to achieve the goal
• The realization and acceptance that members are different and add value and expertise in different ways
• Willingness to seek advice and assistance when needed

When you watch the parade tomorrow, think about what it would take for your team to achieve parade status.

• What’s in place to make that happen?
• What’s missing?
• What’s it going to take to get you there?

Congratulations Yankees – you’re a spectacle for the world to enjoy.

And a ‘thanks’ to my uncles – you set the stage for my understanding of greatness.

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