Episode 40: Creating a Culture of Innovation with Stephanie Crain and Shaniqua Brown

This episode is a co-release with From Illumination to Innovation Podcast (Episode 4) with Stephanie Crain and Shaniqua Brown, where I was a guest discussing creativity and leadership in organizational contexts, and how best to foster cultures of innovation. We discuss the Syncreate model of Play, Plan & Produce, as well as how companies that value creativity can truly nurture and support creative thinkers, processes, and solutions. 

Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.

If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more, you might also like our conversations in Episode 16: Creativity, Innovation & Leadership with Robert Cleve, PhD, Episode 23: The Corporate Mystic with Stephanie Crain, and Episode 38: Leadership for Creativity and Innovation with Jamie Gallagher.

At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors, so if you have an idea for a project or a new venture, please reach out to us for 1x1 coaching or join our Syncreate 2024 Coaching Group, starting in July. You can find more information on our website, syncreate.org, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate, and we’re now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review!

Episode-specific hyperlinks: 

Melinda’s Book: A Mindful Approach to Team Creativity and Collaboration in Organizations: Creating a Culture of Innovation

The Syncreate Book

Podcast: From Illumination to Innovation with Stephanie Crain and Shaniqua Brown

Stephanie Crain on LinkedIn

Shaniqua Brown on LinkedIn

Show / permanent hyperlinks: 

The Syncreate Podcast

Syncreate Website

Syncreate Instagram

Syncreate Facebook

Syncreate LinkedIn

Syncreate YouTube

Melinda Rothouse Website

Austin Writing Coach

Melinda Joy Music Website

Transcript

Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate, a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. Our goal is to demystify the creative process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. I'm Melinda Rothouse and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life. At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors, so if you have an idea for a project or a new venture, please reach out to us for 1x1 coaching or join our Syncreate six-month creativity coaching group starting in July.

 We'll be walking you through the creative process of play, plan, and produce, as we talk about in our Syncreate book to help you bring your creative work to life. So, join us for fun, accountability, and community. And we're offering a 10% discount if you mention that you heard about it on this show. 

So, I'm very excited today to bring you an episode that I recorded recently with Stephanie Crain and Shaniqua Brown, on the From Illumination to Innovation podcast. So, this is a co-release that we're doing with Syncreate and with their podcast, so I hope you enjoy it. We were talking about how do we create a culture of innovation.  

Shaniqua: Hi, y’all. Welcome back to From Illumination to Innovation. I'm co-host Shaniqua Brown, founder of Elevated TA, and with me today is my fabulous co-host, Stephanie Crain.

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’s been a professional guide to me as well as a personal friend to me, Melinda Rothouse. 

And I met her originally, 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.

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. 

Melinda: What? [Laughter]

Stephanie: She did, she made me do twice as much as what I paid for. 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.

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? It's amazing.

Stephanie: It's amazing. Thank you.

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 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. 

Stephanie: Yes.

Melinda: 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.

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.

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 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. Stephanie was a guest recently, The Syncreate podcast, and I'm also a musician, so I've actually got a gig after this. 

Stephanie: So you’re not creative at all, are you? [Laughter] 

Shaniqua: Oh my gosh. Stephanie was telling me about, you’re a musician. Are you part of a band?

Melinda: Yeah. So I'm a singer-songwriter and bass player here in Austin and I have several different projects that I play with.

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.

Stephanie: Fantastic. Yeah, you do so many exciting things and I love that you get to like, really play in this creative space. 

Melinda: Yes.

Stephanie: I used the word play on purpose. I know you're working -

Melinda: Yes, yes!

Stephanie: - but 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.

Melinda: Yeah.

Stephanie: Like, just by its nature. So, I'm a little curious. Like, do all companies need creativity?

Melinda: Well, I think anytime you're trying to do something in the world where you're offering something new, something innovative, 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.

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.

Stephanie: Very much so...

Shaniqua: Melinda, like how do you, 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? How do you foster creativity?

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 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.

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.

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.

And also, you know, just like in the Artist’s Way, they talk about like 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.

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.

Stephanie: I'm sort of curious, picking up off of Shaniqua’s question.

Melinda: Yeah.

Stephanie: If we take that into sort of the leadership business space and especially the beginning of the question was sort of like, what biases are we bringing to creativity in the business world? And you know, are we perceiving creative and play in the wrong ways, like, and when you're working with leaders and you're working with organizations, what the starting point? Does everybody just show up ready to play?

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 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?

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.

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?

And yet again, it's just really hard to do that when you're constantly trying to put out fires. So.

Stephanie: It's interesting, I think about that like, and I've often said to people, it's like, you can be moving so fast to solve a problem. 

Melinda: Yeah. 

Stephanie: And if you're not taking the time to sort of look in iterative steps, you could end up solving the wrong problem. Like you could get halfway down the path and realize you're, you actually need to solve a different problem.

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 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.

Stephanie: I'm going to introduce a study right now because I feel like it's like the crux of like - 

Melinda: Yeah.

Stephanie: - 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 that innovations rank, I'm sorry - organizations - rank innovation as a high value to a high degree.

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?

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.

Stephanie: They're risk takers.

Melinda: They're risk takers. Right. And by the way, it's the same thing in the school system. 

Stephanie: Yeah. 

Melinda: 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. 

Shaniqua: Yes. 

Melinda: Because we want compliant, productive citizens. We say we want creativity, but we actually - our educational system breeds the creativity right out of us.

Shaniqua: So who is creative then? 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 can you innovate? Like I think about Steve Jobs, like he was praised for being an innovator, but who else within Apple…

Stephanie: He was also let go by his board.

Melinda: Yeah.

Stephanie: For being, and then brought back.

Melinda: Then brought back.

Stephanie: So it's like that. That's a great example.

Melinda: Right. And he created the, you know, the Apple computer in his garage working by himself or just with a close 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.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. You know, it's when we, when I was on your show, we were talking about persona archetypes, and a test 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. 

Melinda: Yes.

Stephanie: But I called them the Entrepreneur because that's how I think, 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. 

Melinda: Yeah. 

Stephanie: And so it's like those, and I was one of those people, like I was an entrepreneurial corporate person. I built things. I built departments, I built processes, and I did.

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 really in that space of wanting to express that creativity.

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 talk about intrapreneurship, right. Like those more innovative people within organizations. 

Stephanie: I love that word, intrapreneur.

Melinda: 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 –

Stephanie: A little bit more freedom?

Melinda: - a dedicated time and space to do that work. 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.

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?

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.

Stephanie: So what is that? I’m curious. I'm like, how do you foster that?

Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. 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. It requires trying things out, seeing what works, what doesn't, and then refining, refining, refining.

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.

Stephanie: Sometimes, 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.

Shaniqua: Right – mmm.

Stephanie: And it's discounting sort of all of the value that that individual can bring to that process both strategically and creatively –

Melinda: Right.

Stephanie: - when they're given the time to do the work.

Shaniqua: Yeah.

Stephanie: And I call that, and I spoke about it, about human resources in our last show. But I call that solving a business problem with a marketing solution.

Melinda: Yeah.

Shaniqua: Mmm.

Stephanie: 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. There's a lot of marketing people who feel like they will – 

Melinda: Of course.

Shaniqua: Yeah.

Stephanie: - you know, and so it does create like this real tension of toxicity and that's just, 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.

It's like, you know, product is scrambling, sales are scrambling. Everybody's like trying to get their needs met.

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?

What are, you know, so many organizations have like a mission, vision, values. Yeah, yeah, 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?

Stephanie: I call it value activation. Like you can say it, but what’s the action that proves it?

Melinda: Right.

Stephanie:  How do you show it?

Shaniqua: I feel like my mind is blown hearing you discuss like, creativity, and 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. Here's a checklist. Get it done. Oh, be creative and you're going to be graded on it.

Melinda: Yeah.

Shaniqua: You know, and it, like, in our last conversation, we talked about like, being like, starting within, with yourself, and you also mentioned emotional intelligence. So it sounds like a lot of internal work that needs to take place to then be creative. And then if you're creative, then you can foster a place that like creativity externally with others.

Melinda: Yes. No, I'm so glad you said that. And that is so true. So one of the things that I 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.

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.

Stephanie: That's great.

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 ripple effects in how you move in the world, how you lead your teams, how you inspire people. 

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.

Shaniqua: You did a good job being creative.

Stephanie: So that's like, that's a personal condition. I know. And then 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, creative 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.

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.

Melinda: Yeah, yeah. Or this, it's this kind of adjunct thing on the side, like, oh, the marketing department, right? Yeah.

Stephanie: Yeah. The others.

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.

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.”

Stephanie: Right. And the creatives, I think feel othered that way too. 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, you know, and of course, you know, I know we don't want creative accounting, but [laughter] I’m teasing, I'm teasing, I'm teasing. 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.

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.

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.

Stephanie: That’s interesting. 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. So I'm of course, me and ChatGPT are hanging out with all of these interesting questions, and I ask, I’m like, you know like, what are other business models, you know, that aren't corporate? And the first one it came up with was the Holacracy and I don't know if you're familiar with it.

Melinda: Tell us, tell us more.

Shaniqua: Yeah, tell us please.

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.

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. 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.

Melinda: If they were willing to really commit to that kind of shift. You know, there's a, I think a famous example, I think it’s 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.

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 it 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.

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?

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, a holacracy and, but the culture is still a hierarchy, where if like, I come to you, Melinda, and we're working together, but I don't understand how to communicate with you, and you know, Stephanie's your boss, I go to your boss. Or my boss goes to Stephanie's boss. So it’s like that higher up versus you and I figure it out how to communicate with each other. It's like the culture is hierarchy.

Melinda: Yes, right. And we're, we're sort of trained to look go look up when it's actually the people on the ground doing the things that most often have the solution.

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.

Stephanie: You might not want to hear it.

Melinda: Right.

Stephanie: You might not want to hear it. 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.

Shaniqua: Oh my gosh.

Melinda: Yes. 

Shaniqua: I see we all agree on that. [Laughter]. Like, we just want to do a great job!

Stephanie: So can that be my short reel? [Laughter]. Well, that was the thing that struck me about the holacracy, was because there's no hierarchy, this wasn't sort of how it was described. But this is my own, this is my own creative envisioning of the holacracy, is that 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. Right? 

Melinda: Yeah.

Stephanie: But in the center of that is the purpose. And everything 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.

Melinda: No. We're all here working on this thing together.

Stephanie: We're all here working on this thing together. It's a big different shift in mindset.

Shaniqua: That was like one of the reasons why I didn't enjoy, like, the corporate environment, because it is hierarchical. Like, 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.

Melinda: Yeah.

Shaniqua: But it feels like when you are on a mission to get promoted, it becomes competition automatically.

Melinda: Yeah.

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 now I'm a manager, and I never get to do that again.

Melinda: Right. It's that Peter Principle thing.

Stephanie: I never get to do it again. And they hate their job and they end up leaving it.

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 then they don't have the support to learn how to lead effectively.

Stephanie: Yeah, 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.

Not everybody wants to lead. It's not even just a matter of having the skills. I talk to people all day long who are like, I don't want to manage people. I really don't even want to talk to them. I just want to do my job, you know? And it’s like, that's fine. I mean, I can respect somebody who authentically understands how they want to show up in the world.

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.

Melinda: Yeah.

Stephanie: That's the system that we've created. It’s unsustainable.

Melinda: Yeah. And in one of my recent episodes with Randy Langford, who's one of 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. 

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, you know.

Stephanie: They are. That's absolutely the truth. They are. And it’s 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, oh 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.

Melinda: Right. When we’re flooded with these all these stress hormones and yeah.

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.

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.

Stephanie: I like to say the employee churn number every time somebody brings it up: $1.8 trillion y’all, and companies cannot afford that. Like, you know, so it is, it's incredible. It's way more effective to functionally run your business the right way.

Melinda: Yeah.

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? We are all, leadership is a practice, and we are ever evolving.

Melinda: Definitely.

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,

Melinda: Right.

Shaniqua: You know, so I think we as business leaders owe it to business to be better leaders. 

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.

You know, we're bringing all of our past experience - 

Stephanie: What? Not just this part of it? [Laughter].

Melinda: - our past 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? 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.

Stephanie: Or they just shut down

Melinda: Or 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?

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?

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.

Shaniqua: Thank you for that practical tip.

Melinda: Yeah, yeah.

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, as it relates to how it can really support the business purpose, right?

Melinda: Yeah,

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. What do you, what can you tell them?

What can, like, do you have any insights to close on? To just sort of, like a, maybe a little bite that they can take away.

Melinda: 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.

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... 

Stephanie: I think that's great. So how, 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 with you. [Laughter].

Melinda: Yes. Sure! 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.

Stephanie: Melinda Joy!

Melinda: Yeah.

Shaniqua: 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.

Melinda: Oh, I’m so glad. I’m so happy to be here. Yeah.

Shaniqua: Thank you so much.

Melinda: Yeah, thank you!

Stephanie: Thank you so much. And thank you, thank you everybody for joining us again for another episode. And please follow, share and love us.

Shaniqua: Love us. Thank you so much. See you soon!

Stephanie: Bye, y’all.

Melinda: Find and connect with us at syncreate.org. We're also on YouTube, social media, and Patreon. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review. And we're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin, Texas. The podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us, and see you next time.