Culture Crafting: Creating a Culture of Innovation

FITI-04042024-Transcript 00:00:00:00 - 00:00:15:11 Stephanie You're listening to. From Illumination To Innovation, a revealing and provocative exploration of the rapidly shifting landscape of values, purpose, leadership, and culture, both corporate and social. I'm your host, Stephanie Crain. 00:00:15:13 - 00:00:31:18 Shaniqua And I'm your host, Shaniqua Brown. We're excited to have you join us as we shine a light on new perspectives, amplify voices of influence, and elevate bright ideas that will expand your idea of what's possible in business and beyond. 00:00:31:20 - 00:00:46:06 Shaniqua Hi, y’all. Welcome back to From Illumination To Innovation. I'm cohost Shaniqua Brown, founder of Elevated TA and with me today is my fabulous co-host, Stephanie Crain. 00:00:46:08 - 00:01:17:15 Stephanie Hello, everybody. I am Stephanie Crain I am the Corporate Mystic and owner of Tapas Innovation., and today we're here to talk about how we create a culture of innovation. And we invited a fabulous guest. She is both a she's been a professional guide to me as well as a personal friend to me. And as Melinda Rothouse and I met her originally. 00:01:17:15 - 00:01:40:21 Stephanie I consulted her to be my career consultant, and I was at a crossroads in my own life. I had been working as a personal, as an independent marketing consultant for some time and not feeling fully satisfied by what I was doing. Feeling really like I wanted more and then also feeling sort of that natural call - pressure to kind of move back into the corporate world and abandon what I was doing. 00:01:40:21 - 00:02:03:06 Stephanie And so I contacted Melinda to help me prepare myself for the corporate world. And instead of doing that, which she did, she asked me a lot of questions about what I really wanted in life. And then she made me do double work. - What? - She did, she made me do twice as much as what I paid for. 00:02:03:06 - 00:02:19:07 Stephanie So she had me prepare for the corporate world and do my resume and do all the good things for that. And she had me plan the business that I'm now running and it really changed my life. And so with that introduction, Melinda, if you could just tell us a little bit more about you. 00:02:19:08 - 00:02:40:21 Melinda Yes. Thank you so much to both of you. I'm delighted to be here. And I love that so much because I think, you know, the most successful coaching clients are the ones who are truly motivated to do the work. So you're saying that you did double the work and that we laid the foundation for everything that you're doing now? 00:02:40:21 - 00:02:42:05 Melinda It's amazing. 00:02:42:05 - 00:02:43:11 Stephanie It's amazing. Thank you. 00:02:43:11 - 00:03:13:10 Melinda And it's amazing to see. It's amazing to see because, you know, you don't always, you know, get the feedback like, where have people gone.? What what are they doing? You know, you might see an update on LinkedIn, but, you know, it's another thing to be like sitting here in the room together. Yeah. So yeah. So just a little bit more about me again, I'm Melinda and I do coaching and consulting around leadership development, executive coaching, and really with a focus in creativity and innovation. 00:03:13:11 - 00:03:40:21 Melinda So I've published a couple of books on the creative process, one of them focusing on creativity and collaboration in organizations, among teams, and kind of, you know, how to foster those conditions. And it's interesting, I just came back from a creativity conference in Florida where the keynote speaker was Jamie Gallagher, who was at LEGO for a long time and then at Faber-Castell. 00:03:40:23 - 00:04:06:07 Melinda And he gave this great talk on how to foster creativity in organizations. And it was just like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Like, you know, just very affirming, you know, to what to what we know works well and what doesn't work well in organizations as far as creativity goes, and just a delightful experience. So I also have a podcast. 00:04:06:07 - 00:04:18:19 Melinda Stephanie was a guest recently, The Syncreate podcast, and I'm also a musician, so I've actually got a gig after this. I got that. 00:04:18:19 - 00:04:22:13 Shaniqua Stephanie was telling me about that your, you’re a musician. Are you part of a band? 00:04:22:13 - 00:04:30:08 Melinda Yeah. So I'm a singer-songwriter and bass player here in Austin and I have several different projects that I play with. 00:04:30:10 - 00:04:47:19 Melinda I play as Melinda Joy. That's kind of my project. And then I also collaborate and play a lot with another singer songwriter here in Austin, Son of Cormack and then Randy Langford, and I've actually had both of them on the show on the Syncreate show. So yeah. 00:04:47:19 - 00:05:07:18 Stephanie Fantastic. Now you do so many exciting things and I love that you get to like, really play in this creative space. I used the word play on purpose. I know you're working, but yeah, we know that play is important. I'm curious, like when you were talking about the Creativity Conference and the keynote speaker, obviously LEGO would be like, considered like a really creative company. 00:05:07:19 - 00:05:13:19 Stephanie Yeah, like, just by its nature. So, yeah, I'm a little curious. Like, do all companies need creativity? 00:05:13:21 - 00:05:49:00 Melinda Well, I think anytime you're trying to do something in the world where you're offering it, offering something new, something innovative, you're you're inherently solving some kind of creative problem, right? You're finding a niche that you know, nobody's explored before or you're offering a novel or unique service or product to address people's needs. So I think that, you know, creativity and innovation go hand in hand with any type of organization. 00:05:49:00 - 00:06:00:10 Melinda And sure, there's some companies that we might think are more creative than others, but they all, you know, and the same thing with entrepreneurship. When you're starting a business that is a creative process. 00:06:00:11 - 00:06:03:19 Stephanie Very much so... 00:06:03:20 - 00:06:31:13 Shaniqua Like how do you in a in a world where it feels like there's more like stodgy adults and fewer kids at heart? Like how do you help? Like, how does one create? It feels like the world is black and white and you're just here to work this 9 to 5, push these papers, get this email. Like, where do you find time to be creative? 00:06:31:13 - 00:06:33:01 Shaniqua How do you foster creativity? 00:06:33:01 - 00:06:54:02 Melinda That is such a good question, and it's part of our Syncreate model, which is Play, Plan and Produce. And so we really see play as the the seed of the creative process. So that's where we, you know, kind of imagine and come up with new ideas and make connections between things. And so it's fundamental. 00:06:54:02 - 00:07:18:06 Melinda And as you say, our lives have gotten so fast and so busy that we don't really leave ourselves time to play. We have to actually carve out that space. And so whether that's a daily practice, like I find it helpful in the mornings, like I do my meditation in the morning, I'll do some journaling oftentimes in the morning. 00:07:18:08 - 00:07:46:20 Melinda So whether it's just, you know, carving out a little bit of time in your day as part of your routine or whether you maybe set aside time on the weekends or, you know, give yourself a little retreat now and then just taking time away, whether that's an official sort of retreat or, you know, just like taking a weekend and just going and practicing whatever it is you do. 00:07:46:20 - 00:08:16:09 Melinda And also, you know, just like in the Artist’s Way, they talk about like art - artist’s dates, right? Just taking the time to, you know, go to a music show, be inspired, or go to a museum. I went to a fabulous museum when I was in Sarasota, you know, Renaissance and Baroque art. And it's you know, anytime you can go out into the world and whatever it is, you know, it doesn't have to be like a high ticket event or anything like that. 00:08:16:09 - 00:08:33:19 Melinda But you I mean, go out in nature, allow yourself to be inspired, take a few photos. You know, it can be that simple just to reconnect with your creative, playful self on a regular basis. 00:08:33:21 - 00:08:37:11 Stephanie I'm sort of curious, picking up off of Shaniqua’s question. 00:08:37:11 - 00:08:38:06 Melinda Yeah. 00:08:38:08 - 00:09:02:19 Stephanie If we take that into sort of the leadership business space and especially the beginning of the question was sort of like we what biases are we bringing to creativity. Yeah, business world. Yeah. And you know, are we perceiving creative and play in the wrong ways like and just when you're when you're working with leaders and you're working with the organization, what what's the starting point? 00:09:02:21 - 00:09:05:09 Stephanie Does everybody just show up ready to play? 00:09:05:11 - 00:09:37:19 Melinda Not necessarily. And so, yeah, so much of the leadership development work I do is around emotional intelligence, communication and relationship building, and we talked about that in our podcast episode. But, you know, so those those softer skills, those connecting with people, because we know from the research that, you know, teams operate the best when there's a sense of psychological safety and trust, right? 00:09:37:19 - 00:10:13:07 Melinda So there has to be transparent communication. You know, there has to be openness, there has to be a willingness to take risks and not feel like you're going to get shut down. And yet, you know, so many organizations, particularly, you know, startups and really innovative organizations are under so much time pressure, whether that's from investors that they're courting or, you know, just trying to bring something to market in a timely fashion that, you know, it's kind of that urgent versus important thing. 00:10:13:07 - 00:10:41:14 Melinda And we get so caught up in the day to day details that, you know, the leaders I work with, again, it's about carving out time and space to step back from the weeds and really think strategically and really think you know about what is the vision? Why are we doing what we're doing? How can we maximize our processes and systems? 00:10:41:15 - 00:10:48:20 Melinda And yet again, it's just really hard to do that when you're constantly trying to put out fires. 00:10:48:22 - 00:11:09:13 Stephanie So it's interesting, I think about the like and I've often said to people, it's like, you can be moving so you can be moving so fast to solve a problem. Yeah. And if you're not taking the time to sort of look at iterative steps, you could end up solving the wrong problem. Like you could get halfway down the path and realize you're, you're actually need to solve a different problem. 00:11:09:16 - 00:11:36:18 Melinda That's right. And if you're too speedy. Right. And so we talk a lot about brainstorming and things and we talk about in creativity, we talk about divergent thinking, which is like opening up possibilities, right? Making connections. And then we talk about convergent thinking, which is narrowing things down and bringing them to completion. But what we find is sometimes in organizations, we don't leave ourselves enough time for that. 00:11:36:18 - 00:11:53:06 Melinda Divergent piece to make sure, like, is this the problem we want to solve? Is this the direction we want to go? So staying maybe a little bit longer in that play space before rushing something to completion? 00:11:53:09 - 00:12:25:14 Stephanie I'm going to introduce a study right now because I feel like it's like the crux of like, yeah, why - Why I felt the show was really important. So Leadership IQ came out with a study not too long ago and it talks about innovation in organizations. And without getting into detail because I'm not really great with details anyway, the essence of the study was the innovations rank in I'm sorry organizations rank innovation as a high value to a high degree. 00:12:25:17 - 00:12:57:14 Stephanie Know a lot of organizations say this right that this is one of innovation is one of their core values. But then when they're asked about the characteristics of innovative people, when managers are asked their preference isn’t to have innovative people, they want people who are just going to be heads down, get the job done. And so how do you hold that balance of expressing, saying that you have a value of innovation, But the reality shows the really innovative people are not always welcome in corporate space, right? 00:12:57:15 - 00:13:10:08 Melinda Because they're disruptive, right? They are outside of the box. You know, they are thinking in different ways. They might be working on a different time frame. Right. 00:13:10:08 - 00:13:11:07 Stephanie They're risk takers. 00:13:11:08 - 00:13:33:19 Melinda They're risk takers. Right. And by the way, it's the same thing in the school system. Yeah. So there have been studies done with kids, you know, just entering the school system and then like in five year increments and their creativity scores go way, way down. And our educational system is designed that way. Yes. Because we want compliant, productive citizens. 00:13:33:21 - 00:13:42:22 Melinda We say we want creativity, but we actually - our educational system breeds the creativity right out of us. 00:13:43:00 - 00:13:59:10 Shaniqua So who is creative then, if that's like you're in it? Like if that's your core value as an organization, your managers from front line to director prefer the malleable type. Who in your organization is an innovative? Are you innovating? Like what? 00:13:59:15 - 00:14:06:05 Shaniqua How can you innovate? Like I think about Steve Jobs, like he was praised for being an innovator, but who else would that. 00:14:06:07 - 00:14:07:19 Stephanie He was also let go by his board? 00:14:07:19 - 00:14:08:06 Melinda Yeah. 00:14:08:09 - 00:14:09:20 Stephanie Being and then brought back. 00:14:10:01 - 00:14:10:17 Melinda Then brought back. 00:14:10:17 - 00:14:12:12 Stephanie So it's like that. That's great. 00:14:12:13 - 00:14:42:03 Melinda Great. He created the, you know, the Apple computer in his garage by him working by himself or just with a closed group of people. Right. Not in a corporate setting. So a lot of times really innovative people maybe perhaps like ourselves, we have to step out and create our own venture, our own business, our own way of doing things, because the corporate setting often not always, but is very restrictive. 00:14:42:05 - 00:14:43:23 Stephanie Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:14:44:04 - 00:15:04:09 Stephanie You know, it's when we when I was on your show, we were talking about persona archetypes, and it's just that I have one of the archetypes that I have in the test - you know it includes the Big Boss, the Creative, Office Parent - One of the archetypes I have is the Entrepreneur, which in corporate America would really be the Innovator. Yes, but I called them the Entrepreneur because that's how I think. 00:15:04:09 - 00:15:25:23 Stephanie I think a lot of entrepreneurial individuals go into the corporate space and they see problems or solve it. You know, they're just exhibiting that entrepreneurial energy, so to speak. Yeah. And and so it's like those and I was one of those people, like I was I was an entrepreneurial corporate person. I built things. I built departments, and processes, and I did. 00:15:26:02 - 00:15:42:08 Stephanie But eventually I went on to build my own company, you know, And I think that because it is there's only so much expansion, you know, in corporate environments for truly creative people that are that are really in that space of wanting to express that creativity. 00:15:42:08 - 00:16:01:12 Melinda Yeah. And a lot of times, you know, when companies get bigger and bigger, of course, they have to create more and more bureaucracy just in order to function. And yet that stifles creativity. And so a solution that some companies come up with is they kind of like hive off. And they you know, they they talk about intrapreneurship, right. 00:16:01:14 - 00:16:36:11 Melinda Like this more innovative people within organizations. But, you know, they create an institute or like a startup within the larger company where they kind of send all the creative people, you know, where they have kind of dedicated time and space to to do that work. And and but it really is a fundamental tension because of all the, you know, the speed and the demands of the world and the deadlines and creativity does require time and space. 00:16:36:12 - 00:17:02:08 Melinda You know, on the one hand, you can't just do creativity on demand because we know that for ideas to form, they need to incubate, you know, and, you know, creating something. It's like it's really this process of like you imagine something and then you bring it into being like, that's sort of it's amazing that we are even capable and I believe we're all creative, right? 00:17:02:08 - 00:17:34:00 Melinda Or have the capacity to be creative. But, you know, it is kind of in some ways very antithetical to the way that most organizations are set up and run. And so I think therefore, you have to be really intentional as a leader about what is the culture that you want to foster. And if you say you want a creative, innovative culture, then you have to do more than just pay lip service to that. 00:17:34:00 - 00:17:37:19 Stephanie So what is that? Yeah, I'm like, Yeah, how do you. foster that? 00:17:37:19 - 00:17:38:08 Melinda Yeah. 00:17:38:08 - 00:18:12:16 Melinda No. So, so there's, you know, back to kind of open communication, transparency, relationships, trust and you know, allowing like allowing creative people the autonomy they need. So you're not constantly breathing down their neck or micromanaging them to, you know, to come up with these ideas. And also creativity requires iteration. Yeah, it requires trying things out, seeing what works, what doesn't, and then refining, refining, refining. 00:18:12:18 - 00:18:30:21 Melinda And that's a process that takes time. So, you know, if you're setting these incredibly aggressive deadlines and yet you're also asking people to be extremely innovative at the same time, you know, you run into problems. 00:18:30:21 - 00:18:47:00 Stephanie Sometimes and I say I probably say this in every episode, right? Okay. It's like because what I'm thinking about right now is, is the poor marketing person who's, like deeply creative and somebody walks up to them and says, I need you to make this pretty, and we need the whole thing done by tomorrow. 00:18:47:02 - 00:18:47:22 Shaniqua Right - right 00:18:48:00 - 00:19:21:21 Stephanie And it's discounting sort of all of the value that that individual can bring to that process both strategically and creatively, right when they're given the time to do the work and I call that and in and I spoke about it about human resources in our last year. But I call that solving a business problem with a marketing solution and you're not really dealing with the business problem, that you are not ahead of your challenges, you're chasing your challenges if you're having your marketing people like have to like, it's my mantra that nobody is going to die because of a missed marketing deadline. 00:19:21:23 - 00:19:41:23 Stephanie There's a lot of marketing people who feel like they will - of course - you know, the and and so it does create like this real tension of toxicity and and that's just and I'm picking on marketing because they tend to be the creatives but I think that this affects so many different aspects of the organization as a whole because everybody has to scramble when any one group is really scrambling. 00:19:41:23 - 00:19:46:13 Stephanie It's like, you know, product is scrambling, sales are scrambling. Everybody's like trying to get their needs met. 00:19:46:13 - 00:20:13:16 Melinda Yeah, you know, and, and the other thing that that's important is to really, you know, focus on, you know, what is this core thing that you're offering and how do you want to thoughtfully go about that? You know, so really coming back to those bigger questions, like from the coaching, right? Like what is your why? Why are you doing this? 00:20:13:16 - 00:20:35:19 Melinda What are, you know, so many organizations have like a mission, vision, values. Yeah, but then do those actually match up to how they're operating? And if you really take seriously your mission, vision and values, then you need to look at the way that you're operating in your day to day. And is that in alignment? 00:20:35:21 - 00:20:41:18 Stephanie I call it value activation. Yeah, like you can say it, but yeah, the action that proves it right? How do you show it? 00:20:41:18 - 00:21:06:15 Shaniqua I feel like my mind is blown hearing you discuss like, creativity in the importance of creativity. And Stephanie shared that article with me. And you brought up education earlier, like how the education system just sucks the creativity out of kids. It just seems like we haven't, as adults, even left the education system where we're still like in these little pods where we have to do this work. 00:21:06:17 - 00:21:10:16 Shaniqua Here's a checklist. Get it done. Oh, be creative and you're going to be graded on it. 00:21:10:16 - 00:21:11:03 Melinda Yeah - 00:21:11:03 - 00:21:29:16 Shaniqua You know, and it like in our last conversation, we talked about like being like starting within, with yourself and you mentioned emotional intelligence. So it sounds like a lot of internal work that needs to take place to then be creative. 00:21:29:16 - 00:21:36:02 Shaniqua And then if you're creative, then you can foster a place that like creativity externally with others. 00:21:36:03 - 00:21:51:10 Melinda Yes. No, I'm so glad you said that. And that is so true. So one of the things I would do with the leaders I work with is the Leadership Circle profile, which is a leadership 360 assessment. And there are many, many different types of these assessments out there. 00:21:51:10 - 00:22:04:00 Melinda But one of the things I like about this one is that, you know, the people that developed this assessment have written several books and they're kind of mantra is the inner game runs the outer game. 00:22:04:02 - 00:22:04:21 Stephanie That's great. 00:22:04:23 - 00:22:30:09 Melinda Right? So how what is your mindset? How are you going about things? Are you being intentional and thoughtful and taking the time to do that again? And then, you know, that has a ripple effects in how you move in the world, how you lead your teams, how you inspire people. 00:22:30:11 - 00:22:54:09 Stephanie Coming back to the education piece is really critical and it immediately made me think of when I was a kid and I was eight or nine and I was extremely creative and I know that I was because my core memories are of my teachers talking about my creativity. And I was raised that creativity was not a value. There was no value in creativity. 00:22:54:09 - 00:22:55:07 Shaniqua You did a good job. being creative 00:22:55:07 - 00:23:24:10 Stephanie So that's like that's a personal condition. I know. And I grew up and become this like uber creative person, right? That's a personal conditioning. But then I if I extrapolate that outward, like, okay, how many people were told that? And when we go into organizations and, you know, again, for many, many years, you know, I've watched marketing people be treated like admin, you know, executive and executive admins, you know, and not really being looked at for sort of the strategic creative skills that they bring to the table and their ability to problem solve and stuff like that. 00:23:24:10 - 00:23:51:20 Stephanie So it is sort of a cultural bias and I think it's a bit of a generational bias to look at creativity as not actually being value add. I mean, I just think a lot of people and a lot of organizations come at it that way. And that's been my experience, even from a budgetary perspective, of what organizations are willing to, you know, put towards creativity and innovation, whether it's with individuals or processes or resources or anything. 00:23:51:21 - 00:23:59:02 Melinda Yeah, yeah. Or this it's this kind of adjunct thing on the side, like, the marketing department, right? Yeah, yeah. 00:23:59:03 - 00:24:00:01 Stephanie The others. 00:24:00:03 - 00:24:25:03 Melinda Yeah, yeah. And one of the things in the, in this keynote that, that I really found interesting with Jamie Gallagher was, you know, he, he was saying, okay, let's create like a mythical company, like just hypothetical on the spot. And so he called three people up and he had these signs and it was like, you know, design and marketing and all these, like, sexy things. 00:24:25:03 - 00:24:43:01 Melinda And then all the other people required to run the organization were like, way in the back, you know? And he's like, If we want to have truly innovative organizations, we bring everybody in the company into that innovation mindset, not just like the creatives. 00:24:43:04 - 00:25:12:09 Stephanie Right, Right. And the creatives I think too other that way too. Yeah, they do. I mean, because I agree because I mean, one of my questions is like, what is the responsibility of other departments to be innovative or creative? You know, it's like if it's not just marketing, like, yeah, you know, and of course, you know, I know we don't want creative accounting, but I’m teasing I'm teasing, I'm doing this, but it's, you know, it is like this word that comes with a lot of bias and a lot of people bring their own personal bias to the word. 00:25:12:11 - 00:25:29:00 Stephanie And then when we get into the business settings, it just sort of takes on a life of its own and it doesn't always get, I think I just don't think that businesses are taking advantage of this powerful resource that is available to them because they're afraid of it. 00:25:29:02 - 00:25:48:09 Melinda Yeah, And I mean, another thing I hate to say it, but like if organizations truly want to innovate and be creative, then they may have to radically rethink the way they're structuring themselves and the way they're going about their day to day business interests. 00:25:48:09 - 00:26:11:20 Stephanie I was doing some research on corporate structure and I was trying to, you know, like make a distinction between corporate structure and corporate culture. Yeah. So I'm of course, me and ChatGPT are hanging out with all of these interesting questions them and I ask, I’m like, you know like what are other business models, you know, that aren't corporate? And what I came up with was the Holacracy and I don't know if you're familiar with it. 00:26:11:22 - 00:26:12:13 Shaniqua Yeah. 00:26:12:14 - 00:26:37:00 Stephanie It made me so happy. Okay, Because first of all, I'm really into sacred geometry. And instead of this, like, hierarchical, like top down structure, a Holacracy is more like a circular structure that's interconnected and it's very agile, it's iterative. And so these teams are overlapping and they're connecting and they're constantly communicating and they're able. The team has autonomy and also interdependency and it's all very recognized. 00:26:37:01 - 00:26:58:21 Stephanie And I was just I just looked at that sort of like with like starry eyes, like, I want to, I want to start a Holacracy Yeah. But you know, it's tends to be like a lot of startups or a lot of, you know, certain types of organizations function better that way and that's fine. But I looked at it like I could see a lot of traditional organizations that would benefit from adapting more to this style. 00:26:58:21 - 00:27:22:22 Melinda If they were willing, willing to really commit to that kind of shift. You know, there's a think a famous example I think is from Creativity Inc, where they talk about at Pixar, the way that they design the building and the offices and they put like the, you know, the dining area in and all these sort of public spaces in the center. 00:27:23:00 - 00:27:58:04 Melinda So people would have to come out from their separate offices and divisions and whatever projects and interact together. And they realized that that was really helpful because people would have these casual conversations and they would get ideas and inspirations or share what they were working on and enhanced the whole thing. So it's that that connectivity and the communication, you know, between departments, between teams, you know, everything tends to get so siloed and nobody knows what are the other people in the organization even doing. 00:27:58:04 - 00:28:06:14 Melinda And you know, maybe there's an all hands once a month or something, but it's it's not the same as truly interacting. You know,? 00:28:06:18 - 00:28:32:21 Shaniqua There's this, I think I'm curious whether or not you what you two think about this, but it seems like with cross-functional partnerships like that aspect could be like more of a like Holacracy and but the culture is still a hierarchy where if like I come to you, Melinda, we're working together, but I don't understand communicate with you. 00:28:32:21 - 00:28:43:18 Shaniqua And you know, Stephanie's your boss. I go to your boss or my boss goes to Stephanie's boss is like that higher up versus you and I figure it out how to communicate with each other. It's like the culture is hierarchy. 00:28:43:18 - 00:28:55:06 Melinda Yeah. Yes, right. And we're all and we're sort of trained to look go look up. Yeah. When it's actually the people on the ground doing the things that most often have the solution. 00:28:55:08 - 00:29:08:07 Melinda It's like if you're a leader and something's going wrong in the organization, you need to be talking to people doing the hands on work because more often than not, they will tell you the solution. 00:29:08:09 - 00:29:09:15 Stephanie Now, you might not want to hear it. 00:29:09:17 - 00:29:10:02 Melinda Right? 00:29:10:07 - 00:29:25:03 Stephanie You might her you might like. You might not want to act on it. And those are those are their own challenges, you know, But I think the hierarchy aspect of business stifles creativity in the way that it encourages competition over collaboration. 00:29:25:05 - 00:29:33:00 Shaniqua Yeah. Gosh, yes. I think we all agree. Like, we just want to do a great job. 00:29:33:02 - 00:29:57:13 Stephanie So I can give you my short reel - actually. Well, that was the thing that struck me about the holacracy was because there's a hierarchy, if this wasn't sort of how it was described. But this is my own it's my own creative envisioning of the holacracy is in the center of this circular formation of interlocking, which I love, Venn diagrams, and it made me think of a whole bunch of Venn diagrams. 00:29:57:16 - 00:29:57:23 Melinda Right? 00:29:58:04 - 00:30:00:14 Stephanie But in the center of that is the purpose. 00:30:00:16 - 00:30:01:19 Stephanie And everything. 00:30:01:19 - 00:30:08:06 Stephanie Is surrounding the purpose. Everything is going around the purpose. And it's not the purpose isn't to get to the top of the pyramid. 00:30:08:06 - 00:30:11:19 Melinda We're all here working, we're all working together. 00:30:11:20 - 00:30:12:14 Stephanie It's a big. 00:30:12:14 - 00:30:14:11 Stephanie different shift in mindset. 00:30:14:16 - 00:30:45:05 Shaniqua That was like one of the reasons why I didn't enjoy like the corporate environment, because it is hierarchical. It even if it is a flat organization, you move to the next level, there's fewer opportunities. And I just want to be an individual contributor, not because I didn't want to lead. I'm a natural leader, but I wanted to be able to like, still work alongside my peers, have like, you know, share different ideas of how we can accomplish this task in a shorter time or in a different manner. 00:30:45:05 - 00:30:45:13 Melinda Yeah 00:30:45:15 - 00:30:51:03 Shaniqua But it feels like when you are on a mission to get promoted, it becomes competition automatically. 00:30:51:08 - 00:30:51:17 Melinda Yeah. 00:30:51:19 - 00:31:06:14 Stephanie And what you just said, the number one like complaint that I hear from my coaching clients are when they love what they do. I'm a great coder. I'm an extremely bad ass developer, I'm a great graphic designer. I'm whatever I am and I'm a manager and I never get to do that again. 00:31:06:14 - 00:31:09:13 Melinda Right. It's that Peter Principle right? 00:31:09:13 - 00:31:12:03 Stephanie And they hate their job and they end up leaving it. 00:31:12:05 - 00:31:32:13 Melinda And so many people, you know, leadership is not necessarily something that's taught in schools, even in business schools, you know, And so people come into these positions of leadership because they've performed well as individual contributors. And when they don't have the support to be able to learn how to lead effectively. 00:31:32:14 - 00:31:50:20 Stephanie Now, it's a big gap. And I'm a big believer. I've I've talked about co-leadership, where you have a subject matter expert leader and you have sort of more of the emotional resource leader, in that sense. Or, you know, the idea that there should be subject matter expert growth tracks that do not force people who don't want to lead. 00:31:50:20 - 00:32:06:20 Stephanie Not everybody wants to lead. It's not even just a matter of having the skills. I talked to people all day long are like, I don't want to manage people. I really don't even want to talk to them. Yeah, I just want to do my job, you know? That's right. That's fine. I mean, I can respect somebody who authentically understands how they want to show up in the world. 00:32:06:22 - 00:32:34:19 Stephanie But if I want to earn more money, if I want to get more status or more authority or just even keep my job, I've got to do these things. And we all have to do things that we don't love in our job. But this is a little different because I think it creates damage within the culture. Nobody really benefits from having a crappy boss who doesn't want to lead and that person has the best intention, you know, and they get like all of the flack for not being good at something that they really never wanted to be good at to begin with. 00:32:34:19 - 00:32:35:18 Melinda Yeah. 00:32:35:20 - 00:32:38:11 Stephanie That's the system that we've created. Yeah. It’s unsustainable. 00:32:38:16 - 00:33:08:08 Melinda Yeah. And in one of my recent episodes with Randy Langford, who's one of my community, my musical collaborators, but he also teaches collaboration. He teaches several classes at St. Edward's University and, you know, his definition of collaboration is, you know, people coming together, communicating openly and transparently and authentically, and sharing resources toward an agreed upon common purpose. 00:33:08:13 - 00:33:30:07 Melinda And it really is the opposite of competition, which as you're saying is is so embedded in so many organizational cultures. It's like asking for what you need and sharing resources. And when people are able to do that, the results are phenomenal. They are, you know. 00:33:30:12 - 00:33:51:16 Stephanie That's ultimately the truth. There is like the and just that recognition because I think, again, when we're in those competitive environments, we're really functioning from fear. I think when we're functioning from fear, when we're like, my god, that person's going to take my job, or if I don't do this, this is going to happen or whatever. There's no way that we can be vibrating at the highest level and producing at the highest level. 00:33:51:16 - 00:33:51:20 Melinda Right? 00:33:51:20 - 00:33:56:10 Melinda So like, we were flooded with these all these stress hormones and yeah. 00:33:56:11 - 00:34:10:00 Stephanie I mean, productivity takes a hit and we see that like that comes out in the bottom line of businesses. Like at a core level, if you just only care about that, the bottom line, then you should be taking a look at this problem. 00:34:10:02 - 00:34:33:03 Melinda Right. And it's also related to employee engagement and retention, right? Because if you're not supporting people in this way, you know, the younger generations now are much more willing to walk, you know, and then that is so expensive to hire and train people. And then, you know, if if you're not supporting them with your culture, then they're going to go. 00:34:33:03 - 00:34:50:20 Stephanie I like to see the employee churn number. Every time somebody brings up $1.8 trillion y’all, and companies cannot afford that. Like, yeah, you know, so it is it's incredible. It's way more effective to functionally run your business the right way. 00:34:50:20 - 00:34:51:06 Melinda Yeah. 00:34:51:10 - 00:35:03:17 Stephanie And even to take a step back and even as a leader to train and educate yourself and to constantly realize that there are no expert leaders. Right, Right. We are all leadership as a practice and we are ever evolving. 00:35:03:17 - 00:35:04:05 Melinda Definitely. 00:35:04:05 - 00:35:33:06 Shaniqua And we should like as every company and every leader of the company owes it to the ecosystem of business to be better leaders, to foster creativity, to ensure that their employees are engaged. Because if your employees are spending time interviewing and leaving versus like innovating, nothing, it everything in business is stagnant because everyone's just moving instead of actually innovating, 00:35:33:07 - 00:35:33:18 Melinda Right. 00:35:33:18 - 00:35:41:13 Shaniqua You know, so I think we as business leaders owe it to business to be better leaders. 00:35:41:13 - 00:35:57:00 Melinda Yes. And that comes back to kind of the inner game running the outer game, because, you know, as leaders, if we find ourselves in positions of management and leadership, you know, we're bringing our you know, our full selves to work, whether we like it or not. 00:35:57:03 - 00:36:20:23 Melinda You know, we're bringing all of our past experience, card experiences, you know, all our beliefs, all the things we learned when we were young, including all the coping mechanisms that we probably learned from a very young age to get by in life, which may no longer be useful. Particularly in an organizational setting. And when do those get triggered? 00:36:21:01 - 00:36:30:22 Melinda When we're stressed, when we're under a deadline, when we're under pressure. And that's when people start to get really controlling or people pleasing. 00:36:30:22 - 00:36:31:21 Stephanie Or they just shut down. 00:36:31:23 - 00:37:03:06 Melinda Shutting down, not communicating what's really going on. You know, so many things arise from that. And so that's like the mindfulness piece. It's like, what is your level of self-awareness? Again, the emotional intelligence. Like, okay, I'm feeling stressed, I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm about to go into a one on one with my boss or my direct report or whoever it might be, like, how do I want to approach this conversation? 00:37:03:06 - 00:37:38:03 Melinda And what what is the outcome? I want? And how can that conversation best facilitate that outcome without people feeling, you know, shut down or criticized or judged or whatever it might be? So that's a good tip. I think anytime you're going into a meeting and you have something you want to communicate to like take 2 minutes beforehand to really think through like, how am I feeling, what's alive for me here? 00:37:38:03 - 00:37:52:01 Melinda Maybe I'm upset about something, how am I going to communicate that in a productive way where the other person or people will be open and we can find a collaborative solution. 00:37:52:02 - 00:37:53:09 Shaniqua Thank you for that practical tip? 00:37:53:11 - 00:37:56:02 Melinda Yeah, yeah. 00:37:56:04 - 00:38:16:05 Stephanie So and we're coming to, I think, the end of our show. And this has been really, I think, a fascinating conversation. And I don't think one that's really happening enough. We talk about a lot of issues in business, but we don't really talk about creativity and innovation, innovation as it relates to how it can really support the business purpose, Right? 00:38:16:05 - 00:38:16:08 Melinda Yeah, 00:38:16:10 - 00:38:38:19 Stephanie - and the employee and you know, I kind of it's a very holistic thing that I think is needed. So I'm curious for organizations or leaders who are out there right now. Maybe they're starting an organization or maybe they've been doing it for a little while and they know they need creativity in their organization. Yeah. What do you what can you tell them to do? 00:38:38:20 - 00:38:45:04 Stephanie What can do you have any insights to close on? Yeah, just sort of like a maybe a little bite that they can take away. 00:38:45:05 - 00:39:17:21 Melinda And sure. You know, I think it's the same whether we have an individual venture or an organizational venture, again, to really think about what is it that we're doing, why we're doing it, what are our values are, and then who can we bring in as collaborators to help us achieve that vision and that purpose? Obviously, we're each limited individually by what you know, strengths and challenges we bring to the table. 00:39:17:21 - 00:39:50:12 Melinda So finding those people who can complement our strengths and, you know, build something together and if we can, you know, foster that definition of collaboration that I just shared a little earlier, you know, openness, transparency, sharing resources. If we can build that in from the beginning, I think the chances of success are much greater, which is not to say it can't be done retroactively when you already have an organization, but. 00:39:50:14 - 00:40:02:20 Stephanie I think that's great. So Melinda, can you tell people how to find you or how they can how they can go see you play music or work with you as a coach or all the myriad of awesome things they can do. Yes. 00:40:02:22 - 00:40:28:17 Melinda So I have a lot of different entities out there, but my hub website is like my name. So, melindarothouse.com, also syncreate.org. That's where we have the podcast which is focused on creativity and we do, you know, coaching and consulting workshops and retreats. And then musically you can find me at melindajoy.com. 00:40:28:19 - 00:40:30:07 Stephanie Melinda Joy! 00:40:30:10 - 00:40:31:04 Melinda Yeah. 00:40:31:06 - 00:40:48:01 Shaniqua And this has been an awe inspiring conversation and I am really looking forward to get to know you deeper. You have really, I think, have illuminated this episode for so us Thank you. 00:40:48:01 - 00:40:51:16 Melinda I’m so happy to be here. Yeah, So yeah. 00:40:51:20 - 00:41:00:21 Stephanie So thank you. Thank you everybody for joining us again for another episode. And please follow, share and love us. 00:41:00:23 - 00:41:02:10 Shaniqua Love us. Thank you so much. See you soon! 00:41:02:12 - 00:41:05:16 Stephanie Bye, y’all. 00:41:05:16 - 00:41:16:02 Speaker 1 Thanks for listening to our show. Show us your support by following us on your favorite podcast platform, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. 00:41:16:04 - 00:41:33:19 Speaker 2 You can also find us on Castos. fromilluminationtoinnovationcom. If you love our show, share it with your friends and coworkers too. Let's all work together to help businesses vibrate higher.