Creativity and Leadership

I attended the Visit Orlando 2013 Annual Meeting where they had the guest speaker, Josh Linkner, founder of e-prize and author of The New York Times bestseller Disciplined Dreaming.  He talked about creativity and leadership in the workplace in order to help Orlando stay on top of the tourism food-chain, but everything he said was applicable to every other industry and every person alive.  Therefore, seeing that you probably were not there, I will offer a recap.  🙂

First, for more on Josh Linkner and to subscribe to his blog, like him on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter, visit JoshLinkner.com.

His book is a step-by-step process to being creative.

1. Encourage courage and celebrate new ideas.  Always ask why at least five times or more in order to get to the very essence of what you are trying to find out. (It reminds me of uncovering the need behind the need in the Professional Selling Skills process.  I touched on that process here.  Maybe I should dive more into that in another post.)

2. Find the meatloaves.  While this isn’t the real step title, I really liked the story as it relates to creativity.  Maybe you have heard it before, as well: A mom and daughter were making a meatloaf and before they put the loaf in the pan, the mom cut off the ends of each side.  The daughter asked why they did that and the mom said she didn’t know, it was just how she learned from her mother.  So they called grandma and asked why and got the same response.  So they three-way called great grandma and she said “I don’t know why you do it, but I had to do it because my pan was too small!”  So, what are some meatloaves in your company processes that can be questioned and changed?

3. Create vivid experiences.  Visit Orlando’s current tagline of Orlando Makes Me Smile and all of the interactions/experiences it offers to express the brand makes consumers already feel how they’re going to feel before they even get here.

4. Think small… like a small business.  Small companies embrace risk, have a sense of urgency, create new ideas, think bottom up, are idea-centric, nimble, and have fire in their bellies.  Big companies are pretty much the opposite most of the time.

5. Stand out.  You really need only one main aspect that differentiates you from everyone else.  If you can find it, people will want that and you’ll be the only one to supply it.  Like the red soles in Louis Vuitton and the blue box of Tiffany’s, the consumers will pay for it.

Once I read the book I’ll give you another report!