What's the ‘this’ in your business?

Neil Waller is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Whalar Group. They're a global creator company. Whalar have done as much as anyone, and more than most, to catalyze the creator economy. And as you'll hear, it was inspired by a conversation with and an unforgettable provocation from Sir John Hegarty. But behind their success lies a characteristic that I find is often underappreciated and therefore in short supply, among most creative leaders. Commitment.

I've mentioned before on this podcast that we've developed a diagnostic tool that can tell, is your company deliberately unlocking creativity or just hoping that it shows up? One of the gaps that shows up over and over again is a leader's commitment to the company's goals.

Companies and leaders say one thing and then often do another. But when you find leaders that are truly committed to building a business that delivers world class creative thinking and answers, then how fast they can do that suddenly becomes an incredibly valuable conversation

To create is to learn. And the faster we can do both, the better your business and the world becomes.

So what's the ‘this’ in your business? And how committed are you to making it happen?

Jill Cress is the Chief Marketing and Experience Officer for H&R Block.

She also serves on the board of the AdCouncil, and she's been recognized on Forbes’ list of the World's 50 Most Influential CMOs.

Before H&R Block, Jill spent 20 years at MasterCard. Now, a leader who spends most of their professional life working in financial institutions could easily build their success around the study of data, but the foundations of Jill's leadership are based on the most valuable investments of all.

Delivering results has always been table stakes when you're stepping into a leadership position, and money will and should sit squarely on that table as one essential definition of success.

But enduring financial success is a consequence of your willingness to take your eyes off the financial prize and fix them squarely on your most valuable assets:

The people that work for you. And what matters to them are two things.

First, that they matter. And second, that what they're doing makes a difference.

During our conversation, I talked to Jill about the creativity diagnostic tool that we've developed. It measures when leaders are creating the conditions that maximize the creativity of their people.

One of the critical insights that shows up time and time again is that the very best leaders are fully invested in creating a culture that ensures that everyone feels seen and heard and respected. Now, this investment carries personal risk, because it can make you as the leader feel vulnerable, and it is time consuming. But the ROI is through the roof.

So what are you investing in?

When do you stop and take a breath?

If you've listened to Luther Vandross or Tina Turner, or Sting, or Chaka Khan, or Teddy Pendergrass, or Roberta Flack, then you've heard Lisa Fischer sing. If you went to a Rolling Stones concert between 1989 and 2015, you saw Lisa as the band's lead female singer join Mick Jagger on stage.

If you've seen her in person, as I've been fortunate to have done so twice, or if you've seen her on YouTube, take over the stage from Tina Turner during It’s Only Rock and Roll, or the clips of her on stage with Mick Jagger, you already understand the extraordinary talent that she is linked to. Both of those are in the show notes.

And if you've watched 20 Feet from Stardom, then you already know that Lisa is one of the greatest background singers that the world has ever heard. For most of us, those 20 feet might as well be the length of a trip to Mars. For Lisa, who won a Grammy in 1991 and then decided not to take center stage, those 20 feet were a choice. A choice that brings her joy.

Lisa is a rare spirit who's had enormous influence and impact. If you see her perform, you're left with a belief that she has a direct connection with your soul. In those moments, she is alive in ways that stretch our understanding of what the word means.

Leadership at its heart is the ability to unlock the potential of others, to make them feel more connected. The very best leaders do that by helping us to understand ourselves better, by helping us feel what we had never felt before.

Lisa is proof that you don't have to stand center stage to do that. You just have to be honest with yourself about where you get your energy from, and then let that energy flow.

Do you welcome the sounds of silence?

Shu Hung is the Global Chief Creative Officer of AKQA. In a complicated world, Shu has learned that knowing who you are is the foundation on which leadership success is built.

Please come as you are. There is such profound truth in that request, and such enormous challenge. We spend so much of our lives wondering if we measure up, if we're doing things the right way, if we have approval from the right people. And the energy that's required in all of that self doubt is not just exhausting, but it denies us access to the instincts, the consciousness, the confidence that creativity thrives on.

Life is a journey that at the end will only be judged by the one person that matters, you. And the sooner we discover who we are, the sooner we can discover what we're capable of.

Please come as you are. Words to live by.

What should we expect from you?

Nicole Parlapiano is the Chief Marketing Officer at Tubi. When she arrived two and a half years ago, Tubi was an eight year old business that had no brand recognition. Today, with the help of their ad agency, Mischief, the streaming service has 97 million active monthly users, up from 20 million in 2019.

Leading a challenger brand works best when you're willing to move fast and break things. And if you want the people that work for you to act with the same confidence, then they have to know who you are.

Reaching a senior leadership position takes a wide range of skills and talent. It requires managing down and up, reacting and adapting. And in the process, we learn a lot about ourselves and when we're at our best. That's information that will be helpful to others.

And yet, for many reasons, I think, most leaders don't share it.

So, take a moment, and write down three things that you expect of the people that work for you. Then write down three things that they can expect from you.

Tomorrow morning, share them.

You'll be surprised, I think, at the confidence it gives them, and you.

Sir Andrew Strauss is the former Captain of the England cricket team which he led to become the number one team in the world for the first time in England's history. He then became England's Director of Cricket and he's recognized as the architect of the country's first ever one day World Cup victory.

In 2019, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to charity, sport, and cricket.

Being captain of a cricket team requires the same skills needed to run a business. Amplified.

Managing world class talent while your work is being broadcast, and your success and failures, both personal and collective, are being recorded, analyzed and critiqued in real time, requires a range of rare skills and temperament.

Unlocking the potential of others while taking responsibility for the outcome is at the heart of the attributes required for the job.

Andrew and I met in London a few days ago, and as you'll hear, our conversation covered a lot of ground, both professional and the deeply personal.

From his achievements to the loss of his wife.

By the time Andrew Strauss turned 33, he'd achieved what every cricket fan in England grows up dreaming of. Captaining your country to victory in Australia. In my lifetime, it has only happened three times.

Seven years later, he lost his wife to cancer.

Most of us do not achieve so much so young. Nor lose so much so early.

For Andrew, the combination has encouraged him to ask questions of himself earlier in his life than most people do.

Unlocking creativity in others means building trust with those around us. They want to know who we are and what matters to us.

Fulfilling our own potential means answering those same questions. And in my experience, that happens when we ask ourselves this. What else do I want to know about myself?

Most leaders strive for success relentlessly, head down, and only later do we take stock of the choices we've made.

How will you judge if you've lived a good life or not? What else do you want to know about yourself?

Who do you trust?

Jim Stengel is the former CMO of P&G, and he's now a hugely successful author, speaker, coach, consultant, and advisor. He's also the host of the brilliant CMO Podcast.

In our conversation, Jim and I started to lay the framework for how we think that leadership is going to have to evolve as the confidence in most institutions, including government, continues to deteriorate.

Being creative on demand is perhaps one of the hardest things that we ask any human being to do. Because every act of creativity requires an emotional leap by its creator.

That's why the best creative thinking usually comes when you have confidence in yourself and trust in the environment around you.

Now, it's impossible for any of us to predict with any certainty what the next four years are going to look like. What's reasonable to expect is that they will not be “normal.” So in these circumstances, it's very likely that some of the people around you are going to feel a lot less safe than they have before. As leaders, creating an environment that people can trust, regardless of what's going on in the world, will be more critical than ever before. And that starts with giving people reasons to trust you.

Establishing trust is a simple equation. Say what you mean, then do what you say, and do it consistently.

So what do you stand for? And what will you stand for when the chips are down, and the pressure is on? Why should people trust you?

Get that right, and I promise you, you'll change your corner of the world for everyone around you.

Welcome to the first episode of 2025. A year that promises to be unlike any other on so many levels.

This episode is designed as a provocation, an inspiration, and a roadmap for the leaders of businesses, for whom unlocking creative thinking is critical.

Over the last four weeks, I've talked to 12 exceptional leaders from a diverse set of experiences and perspectives. I've asked them how the best leaders will lead in 2025. From those conversations, I've identified the three leadership practices that will be critical to leaders of creative businesses this year.

What does your company reject?

Karl Lieberman is the Global Chief Creative Officer of Wieden + Kennedy. Wieden is a reference point among creative companies in many industries. For almost 45 years, they'd been impacting culture and driving business for their clients by unlocking the creativity of their people. .

Creating the kind of environment in which people feel safe to put all their ideas on the table is the easiest thing to aspire to. And the hardest thing to do, in my experience.

It means giving people a voice. It means being open, genuinely open to another way of looking at the world. And to the possibility that being criticized is much more desirable than being ignored.

These criteria are at best challenging for most leaders to accept. Control and predict are much more natural. But predictability and conformity are creative kryptonite.

To unlock creativity and unleash its power to maximum effect, you have to be willing to break the norms, to encourage the irrational and sometimes even the absurd.

You have to reject predictability for possibility.

And when you're yelled at, because no one has ever done it like that before, you have to be willing to shrug.

You'll hear all that and more in my conversation with Karl.

What are you willing to compromise?

Lina Polimeni is the Chief Corporate Brand Officer at Eli Lilly and Company. This is a business whose work is often the difference between life and death, where they are trying to cure cancer, and where the outcome is very personal.

In the middle of that reality, your own leadership journey is fueled by a lot of food for thought.

No one can lead effectively without compromise. 

But what we choose to compromise has a huge part to play in whether we’re successful.

If what we end up sacrificing is a pathway to discovering that we are already enough… If what we end up sacrificing is a road to realizing that the best version of who we are can help others become the best version of themselves…

If that is what we are compromising, then the cost of that will be the realization that we behaved as others wanted us to. And when they are a part of our past, remembered or forgotten, what we will be left with is a journey that is not the one we started out on. A destination that is not where we wanted to go. And a dream that is always around the corner.

We can be what others want, or we can be who we want to be. We always have that choice.