Why “Schitts Creek” Could Be The New Leadership Primer

For many years when teaching leadership development, I relied on Colin Powell's leadership primer as one of the assignments for my classes and or protégés. It still holds true- there are tenants in it that can be applied to the American work environment and timeless lessons.

However, as I was preparing a deck recently a reel of Moira Rose moments popped up in my instagram feed and I paused. I watched it and then a 400 watt light bulb turned on above my head. Schitt's Creek could very well be the new leadership primer for corporate America and if you follow the navigation of Dan and Eugene Levy's brilliance you may find it a bit easier to grow, develop and attain happiness in your career. These are the six lessons you can learn about the story arc of the Rose family.

Rule #1: Don't become so closely tied to your job that it becomes your identity. Why? Because, if the job changes or goes away, it becomes personal to you. You'll focus on the wrong things. "How do you think I feel, Moira? Eli was family for God's sake!" When the Roses lose their fortune and everything is upended, it's a complete surprise. There are no guarantees in life and none in business. So, prepare. Keep your resume updated, stay relevant, watch the trends and know that if a company goes under for example, you can land on your feet. Most importantly don’t let it get personal, it will drag you down into a sea of self doubt and feed the failure to launch your next endeavor.

Rule #2: Adapt and be a part of change. If you're not a part of a workplace decision on change you will feel beleaguered, unappreciated, and lost. If you become a part of the change conversation not only are you helping yourself but you can contribute at a level that covers the details that others may overlook. Ask questions. Don’t be afraid to try and understand why the change decision has been made. Too often I have seen staff meetings where everyone nods in Stepford Wife unison only to have the follow up team meeting beleaguered with questions that should have been asked prior. "I've asked you thrice for towels" . (there's an entire Six Sigma project just waiting to be executed at the Rose motel) It may seem silly but not having towels albeit a running gag, is also a perfect illustration of workplace acceptance of the status quo, a lack of attention to detail and a lack of knowledge. Details matter, so does thread count.

Rule #3: We've all heard it before : Do what you love and you'll never WORK a day in your life. Great concept, not so easy to accomplish. That is because we are taught that titles matter, span of control is a goal and that working harder not smarter will get you a badge. Nope. Nada. Non. However, if you focus on what really makes YOU happy, what YOU enjoy and what gives YOU satisfaction, it will save you from accepting dead end jobs, waking up and finding yourself completely uninspired, or feeling like every day is an assembly line. "I Would Rather Be Here By Myself Than Engage In Meaningless Conversation With People I Don't Care About."- Stevie Budd The character of Stevie exudes that she feels her job is really just a smokescreen to play solitaire online and she , at first, comes across as not having goals. Stevie makes the jump to become a flight attendant with Larry Air because she is doing what she thinks is expected of her, imagine a new career when the career she would really enjoy and gain satisfaction from is right in front of her. She needed her expectations to be expanded not her resume.

Rule #4: Don't Let Other's Perceptions Of You Dictate Your Career Path. “I once passed off a mini horse and three guinea pigs as service animals, so anything is possible.” – Alexis Rose The character of Alexis Rose played by Annie Murphy should be a poster in workplace breakrooms (and easily read six feet away) - the character of Alexis is misunderstood, not taken seriously and undervalued. Yet she has mad life skills. "In case you wake up in a chair with your hands duct-taped together, you can snap the duct tape by just raising your hands over your head, and then bringing them down really hard,"  She is viewed from the outside as being frivolous, vain and undependable. In fact she is actually someone who is open to new ideas, comfortable in her own skin, . Your career will be much more satisfying if the skills you have are tapped into. Sure you can go ahead and "learn to ride a bike", and get satisfaction from the accomplishment but when you know your true worth and what YOU bring to the table, the job is more satisfying and time isn't wasted by the company trying to fit a square peg into a round hole:  "Like, have you ever had to negotiate in Arabic?"  "It is very difficult. And try getting into Kiss Kiss in Tokyo without a lock of human hair."  Bottom line ? Alexis knows her worth regardless if anyone else understands her true value.

Lesson 5: Stay relevant and eschew comfort. Don't be comfortable? Sounds terrible doesn't it? It's not. Don't lose your edge. Be curious. Be a learner. Trends, dynamics, the workplace is a constant source of change. You must be open to learn, adjust your point of view and understand that comfort breeds complacency. Test your point of view. Is it rooted in the present and prepared for the future? Or is it based on long held beliefs that you have clung to bc it's the easier path? Don’t be that guy who produces a VHS tape because you believe “it still has some relevance” and you don't want to be that person who is unaware of the changing dynamics, trends. and strategies. The one thing you can trust is all three will change daily. "Talk To The Hand, Son, Because The Ears Are No Longer Working"  Johnny Rose



Lesson 6: Embrace the unknown because fear is the enemy and hesitation the death knoll in a career. The business landscape is changing every day, hour and minute..and you can either let it happen TO you or embrace your fear and move forward anyway. The very worst that can happen is you fail. Failure ultimately can breed success if the lessons are learned. The character of Moira takes a couple of seasons to exemplify this. At first she is clinging to her old life and its accoutrements: galapagonian tortoise foot bath anyone? As she confronts her fears she grows as a person and meets the challenges thrown her way with bravery: “I’m afraid you and I have arrived at an awkward moment in our parent-child relationship. It seems that there are some nude photographs of me on the internet, and I would like you to search for them.” –Moira

Last but not least, be yourself. Your unique spin or view will be valued when you find the workplace that gives you the breathing room you need to grow and flourish.

Alexis: “What's your favorite season?” / Moira: “Awards.”





Giving a Unicorn Feedback: Leading a Creative to Where You Want Them to Be

In my last article I spoke about developing and leading that mythical creature- the unicorn -or creative on your team. As one myself, I have found over the course of my career that when it comes to giving feedback most leaders struggle, and to be perfectly blunt get it wrong, resulting in a frustrated creative and an exasperated manager. The amount of non-value added time spent in this whirling dervish could be utilized in so many more productive ways. Thus, I am going to cover how to give feedback to a creative so that results are achieved, stress levels are at a minimal and your unicorn won’t run away into the forest never to be heard from again.

As a creative I have worked in industries ranging from Financial Services to the Non Profit sector. When I was in typical “non creative” roles the feedback loop wasn’t often an issue, mainly because I was having to push down my creative side to be able to run a Six Sigma project, meet call center metrics, or ensure the plant was ISO900 certified. However, when I moved into Marketing/Communications and PR which I believe is the perfect role for my skillset, I noticed from the beginning that feedback was always an issue. Either I walked away frustrated and feeling unappreciated or my manager couldn’t communicate in my “work” language causing endless back and forth on projects and both of us wanted to just go back to our separate corners because it was irritating, challenging and unsatisfying. It doesn’t have to be. If everyone understands and appreciates that both parties have a different “love language” as author Gary Chapman would put it, productivity will go up, employees will have a higher rate of job satisfaction and projects will be on time and on point.

The first rule of feedback to a creative is to not say “I just don’t like it” or to infer that by going radio silent. Whether it’s legitimate or not, the latter causes us to assume something is amiss. If all that is said is “I don’t like it” the same applies- we can do absolutely nothing with that information. In our minds we don’t know if it’s layout, color palette, graphic design, font, etc. because we’ve put effort into every single one of those attributes and to give feedback that is nebulous or to ignore it completely isn’t going to result on us being able to take action. Remember, we have thought about everything from a print bleed to which font will be easier to read for the consumer. The myriad of details that goes into the simplest projects is rarely understood.

Yesterday, I designed a 13 second video and redid it three times to ensure the images were all in the same color palette, the music fit the theme and the text was centered perfectly. I vexed about one of the stock images because I knew it showed a body of water and even though it was an eye-catching image, someone would say “hey don’t you have a localized image to use”. When it launches today, I know three things will most likely happen. 1. No one will appear to have noticed it and no commentary will come forth. 2. At 13 secs the assumption will be well that it must have been easy. 3. No one will ask me what the goal is.

Door number 3 will be the most gut wrenching one because there is a reason for every key stroke and design element. The video is designed to humanize a brand, draw community members to the brand and have consumers engage with the brand. Even though I have espoused the importance of those approaches’ ad nauseum I am willing to bet you an Adobe suite package that at some point I will be asked why. Brand is the bread and water creatives live off and it is infused in everything we do.

The second rule of feedback is to ask yourself what did you ask to be done with the project from the very beginning? Remember, what you think is the beginning may be very different from what we think it is. If you handed us a piece of printed collateral from the competition a year ago and said hey, I really like this can we do something similar, we haven’t forgotten. If you’ve changed your mind, we don’t know. Unless you lay out exactly what you want, we are forced to guess and pull from content you’ve shared, comments you have made while trying to balance all of that with design guidelines that in the creative’s world you don’t break. Our eyes twitch when we see comic sans font used in publications so you can bet, we are mired down in the details. This is important to projects because if we’re not clear on what you want and what you want to achieve, we’re going to work hard in a vacuum of uncertainty. It’s going to cause stress and frustration and you will get a project that may not be in line with what you were envisioning -we’re great at translating -I can tell my creative director I want something crunchy and edgy that pops and she’ll produce it. That is because we speak the same language but often the requester and the creator are on different continents and no Rosetta Stone course is going to help. Please also never say “I can’t tell you what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it”. It didn’t work for the Titanic and it won’t work for the creative.

Last and most importantly, when giving feedback pause first and ask one simple question “Can you walk me through this and tell me what your vision was/is?” Trust me this one question will save time and productivity and bridge the understanding gap. Random is not a part of our lexicon. We look at a project through a different lens that moves from wide open to microscopic in a millisecond. Most creatives I know have an art background- so if it helps picture us as Bob Ross and we’re trying to show you how to make happy trees that will see more trees. Also trust that we always have an end goal, it is woven into everything we do based on the organization’s priorities. Our work never stops—whether it’s social media marketing, website design, etc. if the priority changes let us know—I’ve lost count of the number of projects my team and I have worked on only to find out that someone changed their mind and forgot to tell us. We will scrap it and start over, but we’ll be frustrated and that can be avoided entirely with open, two-way communication that is consistent.

One final thought—marketers and creatives by nature survive on the pat on the back and job well done- we don’t need a parade or mariachi band but acknowledgment of the voluminous work we put in goes a long way. We will increase our productivity ratio by at least 50%. It’s how we are wired. Bottom line we want to hit the target and if you tell us we did or tell us we didn’t in a way that is actionable we will work twice as hard to get it right. We may even go the extra mile and give the project a sparkled dust unicorn element that you didn’t even know you needed but will appreciate.

Being a unicorn isn’t easy, managing and developing unicorns isn’t easy and giving feedback to anyone isn’t always easy but it can be done in such a way to avoid breaks in productivity, wounded egos and frustration that gets in the way of the work.

The creative is going to meet you half way and wants feedback and at the end of the day remember “there's nothing wrong with having a tree as a friend (Bob Ross) or a unicorn on your team.

Managing Unicorns: Giving Feedback and Developing Creatives on Your Team

As a creative with a brain that is equally right and left, I have been on both sides of the fence when it comes to being analytical and strategic to the creative in the room who sees projects with a different lens. The unicorn in corporate America: a mythical creature that often stumps non creatives in the workforce when it comes to talent development and most importantly giving feedback.

First things first. Operations and sales are areas that depend on marketing and public relations but too often when you mix these together it is invariably oil and water. I offer one piece of advice and that is to never have your marketing team report to operations. It will never work. This is because fundamentally creatives see the world around them in a different manner and produce projects with that very different world view.

Secondly, marketing, design, and public relations are all very unique positions that require a very unique and often highly developed skillset. In the inner circles, we marketers often bang our collective heads because the field of marketing is the one field that everyone feels they can do. I once worked in marketing research- fascinating position- however, it was a terrible match for me. I found it incredibly interesting to process data, but I can recall sitting in meetings and reviewing my reports with the group and struggling not to say, "No! That's not the best use of the data. Stop". It felt like I was handing my baby to ill-equipped parents.

There's the rub. That analogy describes the day to day work of a creative. Whether the person is a graphic designer, marketer, public relations expert or communications specialist their work is their baby. They have poured hours and creative energy into the things that matter, but many do not see. Fonts, colors, imagery, design, copy and with every keystroke or InDesign design element a little piece of that creative person goes into it. It's personal and when one puts it out there for all to see and critique it's an invitation for feedback that if not constructive can cause a creative to become less productive and frustrated.

To be clear, we creatives aren't delicate creatures who have to be treated with kid gloves and temerity, however there's a reason, a methodology, and a proven method to what we do so the need for feedback that incorporates an understanding of these aspects is always going to land well vs. the "I don't like it- can you .......". In short, you've just told us our baby is ugly.

So how should it work?

1. Ask instead of tell. Ask us why ? There's a reason why we chose a font, a color palette and an image to create messaging- we didn't choose red because we like the color it's because we know it is used in marketing campaigns which need to evoke strong emotions. Red is associated with passion and love but its strong intensity also signifies excitement, determination and courage. (source: https://www.newdesigngroup.ca/graphic-design/psychology-colour-advertising). It has been proven that colors influence consumer behavior- 93% focus on the color before making a purchase. I have repeated this info for a decade and often it falls on deaf ears and then get asked

2. Understand that the technology we use has its own complexity and when you ask for a change in a word or a graphic on page one it can have a domino effect. As a former process improvement expert, I learned very early on the more you touch a project, the more likely the error ratio will go up. This doesn't mean eschew providing feedback. However, providing feedback in one email saves a great deal of time, effort and frustration. Revisiting ad nauseum is the death knoll of a perfect project. Endless tweaks that are rooted in personal preference instead of professional acumen eat up cycle time. It may sound harsh but the project is more often being created for the masses, your followers, and customers not you the requestor. My most frustrating project went through 47 revisions. It became a sport for me to keep count. I learned at the end of the project, when it was finally approved, that my manager had never read the revisions but kept going back to the original submission, changing his mind on what he wanted in an annual report -the answer? He wanted it to look like another division's report which had a completely different mission, work, and goal.

3. Listen to the subject matter experts. There's a reason for everything we do. Social media marketing has a completely different set of rules than email marketing. If you don't understand the why be inquisitive- one thing most marketers have in common is we are passionate about the work so getting us to talk about it will not be an issue!

4. Acknowledge the work. I have worked on projects for weeks- laying out magazines- making sure the bleed is correct for the printer, specifically placing graphics to draw the reader through the publication, etc. only to submit it and receive zero feedback. We just gave you our baby and you laid it down in its crib and walked away. Creatives are a special breed, we don't need a party thrown every time we finish a project but acknowledgement of the work that went into it goes a long way and actually increases productivity.

5. Trust. When I worked in the financial services industry, at one point in my career, my leg of the organization was shifted to report to the COO. Operations + Marketing = Oil + Water. I remember working with an ad agency I had hired for a mortgage campaign and I was thrilled with the visuals and the copy- under my direction they had presented a well executed series of ads. Showing it to my COO, his first response was "I want more white space". <insert awkward silence on my part> As I looked at the ad it had three components: a graphic, a tagline and our logo/website url. More white space? Other than handing in a blank sheet of paper with our website url and logo sitting in the middle, there couldn't have realistically been more white space. White space is the lack of content in areas allowing the reader to rest their eyes as they go from section to section which is exactly what this ad did. I was baffled and frustrated. I'm sure he was too because he could not illustrate what he wanted instead "how would know it when he saw it".

6. The Street is a Two Way One When giving feedback, base it on observations, the audience, the goal of the project not "I just don't like it" or "XYZ Company did it this way why can't we?"

Make it a safe space for the creative to share their process and the why behind their decisions. A good marketer has covered numerous details and embraced the minutiae of a project, it can be physically and mentally exhausting because creative energy is being used daily, hourly and complex projects have a thousand moving pieces in the background that no one ever sees. What appears to be simple on the surface is rarely just that. The good news is creative teams can work within guidelines, frameworks, and the achievement paradigm when it is communicated but too many times it is not. When the "what you want" is outlined and described in tangible ideas, the creative can take that and gallop with it.

We may be the unicorns in the room but trust me we are not legendary creatures to be feared or the source of frustration- however we are the optic that every business needs to cut through the noise and shine a kaleidoscopic light on the brand.

In my next post I'll outline the three steps that leaders should follow when giving feedback to a creative.

-Kim Thore