Management lessons in Toronto

Uncertainty makes us more creative

It is the right time for advertising agencies and brands to rethink business creativity as a significant part of the transformation and new business models, not only to survive but to thrive. We all can agree: there is no business transformation if we do not transform ourselves, bring creativity from the creative department to each and every part of the organization.

Since 90-ties management education was exclusively in business schools and for corporations. But changes in the business environment, with emphasis on advertising agencies and brands, has taken us beyond that into the workplace where management is practiced and out to society where it has an impact.

For advertising agencies and brands to grow and thrive we have to increase employee skills to decrease talent shortages. And it is so important to learn new skills - the skills that the existing and next generation of managers and leaders will need in an agency and world transformed. Imagine how powerful it would be to have managers developing their organization (ad agency, brand or startup) while they were developing themself and signifying on-the-job learning and achievements.

🌟 Multihyphenate

Your workplace needs more multihyphenates, people with multiple interests, skills or even jobs. A multihyphenate has multiple interests and skills, follows their curiosity and resists being defined by one label. They are incredibly adaptable, enjoy the diversity and moving between projects, and are constantly on the lookout for new ideas and trends. I believe they are a huge asset in the workplace, especially as the world of work is evolving at such a rapid pace. If the future of work means fewer full-time roles and more project work, then flexibility will have to be a right for all employees and not a special perk for a few.

• Recommended read: Bedtime Stories for Managers by Henry Mintzberg

🌟 Integrative thinking

Integrative thinking can help us expand the frontier of possibilities. This is an approach to problem-solving that uses opposing ideas as the basis for innovation. It is based on the ability to hold a range of different and opposing data and models in your mind and be able to leverage the tensions, the cognitive dissonance, that creates to stimulate innovative solutions.

• Recommended read: The Opposable Mind by Roger L. Martin

🌟 Multigeneration management

Understanding generational (traditionalist, boomer, GenX, GenY, GenZ/Re-Gen) differences can help make you a better manager, leader, and advisor, and enhance both your client and workplace relationships. In your business, generational characteristics have great applicability because one of the key differences is how people view money, relationships, and interpersonal communication. Those are the generations, both in the workplace and in your client base: enjoy the fact that we see things differently, and make sure you give all these points of view space in your organization by making it legitimate for people to see and process things in different ways. And there are a lot of times when you can shape your messages to more effectively convey what’s important to each generation. That would be my advice for making the most of this multigenerational world that we live in today.

• Recommended read: What's Next, Gen X? and Workforce Crisis by Tamara J. Erickson, et. al.  

🌟 Self-development

Learning objectives have evolved. It’s no longer just about knowledge and access. Skills are the new currency. But skills are decaying faster and faster: the half-life of a skill contracted approximately five times in the course of a few decades. This is why lifelong learning is important and now the democratization of learning provides digital access to content (like Coursera, Udacity, Udemy or courses like 42courses, Hyper Island, etc.). Also, it is important to be aware that we can’t learn soft skills by merely watching videos and taking quizzes; instead, it’s time to move beyond those traditional approaches towards a new learning designed to not just deliver content, but to catalyze people to think critically and collaborate to develop the top 10 skills as identified in the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report.

• Recommended read: The Anticipatory Organization by Daniel Burrus, and The 100-Year Life by Lynda Gratton, Andrew Scott

🌟 Power of multipliers

When it comes to managing your people, are you a multiplier? You are if you use your intelligence to amplify the smarts and capabilities of the people around you. And the world needs more of them, especially now, when leaders are expected to do more with less, lead inclusively and use the collective intelligence of the team to innovate and adapt in a rapidly changing business environment.

• Recommended read: Multipliers, Revised and Updated by Liz Wiseman, John Meagher, et al.

🌟 Curiosity enablers

The job of the manager is to activate individuals' curiosity systems. If you want to inspire more creativity and innovation in your team, you need to help them deploy their curiosity systems. Our brain’s seeking process creates the natural impulse to explore, learn and extract meaning from our world. When we follow its urges, it releases dopamine, which makes us feel more motivated and alive. Make your organization designed to take advantage of this.

• Recommended read: Alive at Work by Dan Cable

🌟 Adaptive leadership

Adaptive leadership is the spark that will move both you and your organization forward. You need to embrace experimentation, ambiguity, deep values, and personal and organizational resilience and challenges, then get on board.

• Recommended read: The Practice of Adaptive Leadership by Ronald A. Heifetz, Marty Linsky, Alexander Grashow

If you or your team don't have the time and resources to deep dive into these books or learning by mistakes, contact me for the consultancy workshop. Together we will do so much to scale business creativity within your team and organization and create a movement to catalyze change.