Leaders as Content Creators

Creativity and management have always had a funny relationship.??

Interestingly, the higher up you go in a company the less expectation there is to originate new ideas.? I’ve always found that awkward. ? As if creative people who rise must lose touch with these superpowers in order to manage.??

The higher up you go, the less expectation there is you’ll originate new ideas. Why is that?

We’re all comfortable with management as the work of making decisions on people, resources, strategies and actions.? It’s common for senior leaders to steer projects, approve funding, plan structures and review business performance. ?

But it’s not a social norm for leaders to be seen as the source of new ideas.?

By extension, I’m talking about leaders as content creators.? What’s a content creator?? Content creators develop original ideas, and put their voice behind them to spread impact.

We often pigeon hole the work of leadership. It’s a false paradigm that doesn’t serve companies or employees.

Ten years from now, we won’t even question content creation as a facet of leadership.

In this issue, I explain why this is changing.? More importantly, I explain why being a content creator is an essential part of being a leader.? Ten years from now, we won’t even question it.?

The backstory

Companies need a constant flow of creativity.? We need new ideas to manage teams and work. Or new innovations and strategies for a market.? In the past, companies looked outside for this.? Someone’s job in the organization was to scout for these proven ideas, and bring them to the table for consideration.?

In this model, we view management as executing what already works.? The known commodities.? We assume there is enough on the plate of leadership to manage execution. We don’t expect management has the space to step back.?

In the past, someone’s job in the organization was to scout for proven ideas, and bring them to the table for consideration.

Entire cottage industries study what’s working elsewhere and help you apply it to your organization.? This is helpful in moderation.?

Be careful of being so dependent on outside thinking.? By the time it reaches your organization, it’s a commodity.? Your organization won’t be creating advantage or differentiation.? It will simply keep up.?

Now more than ever, speed matters.? You can’t wait to be on the receiving end of new ideas, after many companies have proven them to be useful, consultants have crafted frameworks and writers have documented them in books.??

Why you might already be a creator

I’ve always operated on the principle that as practitioners, my team is closer to both the details and the big picture than consultants.? I’ve been known for insourcing capability at some of the largest global companies, reversing decades of external dependence.? ?

As practitioners, we are often best positioned to figure out the next wave.? How will things be? What does good look like???

There’s great value in doing more than applying these ideas.? Here’s where we get into the value of sharing ideas (outside to trade secrets).

The upside is the speed of transmission.? And faster transmission means a quicker road to impact.??

Sharing content speeds up transmission of impact and change. I've seen it supercharge cultural change in the Fortune 500.

Let’s take an example from my time in the C Suite of several Fortune 500 companies.? In each case, I came in from the outside. People are naturally curious how to work with me.??

One way to build a working relationship is to model it.? With enough meetings, people get the idea.? But a faster way is to explain my leadership principles in simple terms. And then demonstrate them in practice.?

That’s why I developed a body of content to introduce my leadership approach.? One key leadership principle I developed was “calibration over control”.?

The phrase means “I will not tell you what to do.? I will help by asking the right questions and providing input on how the thought process can be improved.” ? I do not run a command and control operation.?

Using leadership principles such as “calibration over control," I conducted roadshows several levels into the organization.

I believe this sped up the cultural changes we sought.

Sharing with the World

You’re probably wondering about the value of external sharing.? Why share with the world, instead of keeping information for internal advantage?? ? Why cross the line into being a content creator?

For starters, we’re in a different world when it comes to the labor markets.? Leverage has swung to the side of talent, and it’s a competitive market for it.? Great talent has plenty of options.?

Original ideas are a huge talent draw. They signal the opportunity to learn and grow at a much faster rate than other roles.

When great people in the talent marketplace connect with the ideas originating from your organization, it’s a potential draw.? The draw is the potential to learn and grow at a much faster rate than other roles.

It’s evidence of life inside the machine, beyond slogans and employer brand marketing.

The LinkedIn feed of companies makes everything sound rosy.?

But when we hear original ideas, we know there’s substance behind the slogans.?

And when they come from the people closest to their origination, they are even more relatable.? The first person is the best voice to ideas.

Since employees are an extension of a company’s brand, their content creation is a great way to draw followership into your organization. ?

Without followership, it’s just a job.

Leaders and content creation

Now let’s talk about leadership, right up the CEO.

Is content creation a realistic objective for higher level management??

First you don’t yourself have to originate these ideas.? What is essential is deep conviction around them and knowing them inside and out.?

As a leader, you are well positioned to speed up the transmission of new ideas as you learn them.? Provided the ideas are still on the front end of transmission, they are worth the time of the content creator and the audience.??

As a leader, you are well positioned to speed up the transmission of new ideas as you learn them.

This leads to a second issue, which is time.

I? know you’re tremendously busy as a leader.?

The trick is to view content creation as an extended step of how you manage.? Reach a real breakthrough in a project? ? What are the reflections on those breakthroughs? What principles, practices or takeaways can be jotted down as realized???

Leaders - focus on raw content to scale your time. Get help to polish and publish it.

As a leader you probably have some resources that can help get raw content into compelling designs and content artifacts. And if you don't check out sites like Fiverr , where it may literally cost $5 a task.

Content creation is not selfish

One common misunderstanding when it comes to being a content creator is the myth of self promotion.?

In a legacy corporate culture, this skepticism may surface.? For example, it can be frowned upon to join external speaking panels in legacy cultures. External sharing can be viewed as a distraction.??

But it’s totally the opposite.? To share externally, you have to develop ideas that an audience would care to hear about. This raises the bar on the internal thinking of the company.?

For over 20 years, I’ve used external speaking engagements to lift our heads and think bigger about our internal work.?

Creation of original ideas is a mirror for the organization’s intellectual capital.?

Which leads to my final point: creation of original ideas is a mirror for the organization’s intellectual capital.? It’s a good thing to produce a high rate of intellectual capital.??

The Upshot

Do you like CEO memoirs with big reveal insights???

In the past, a CEO would spend 25 years or more getting to the top, 10 years at the peak and write a book after all that.? This model sells books but is low on real utility for two reasons.??

First, if the observations are not in line to when the work is being performed, they are simply not fresh.? You need to write in the heat of the battle not 10 years after it.? The moment came and went.?

And secondly, time makes ideas stale.? If we wait till the end to document our ideas, the underlying problems may already be solved or well understood.?

A new model will emerge.? The serialized version of the CEO “how I did it” which will be the CEO’s content creation efforts as an extension of performing leadership responsibilities.?

The compilation will simply come down to pressing a button.