Faol-Inc.Com - Education Guide

In an ongoing effort to interview some of the most productive creative leaders across industries, the Behance team recently had the chance to interview Anne Benedict, Director of Leadership Development for the Interpublic Group. As one of the largest creative agencies in the world, Interpublic experiences many of the challenges that creative teams typically face. Anne sat down with us to share her insights on effective leadership in creative teams.

Give feedback.
“More than just using a thumbs up/thumbs down approach, explain the ‘why’ behind your comments. Also, offer constructive feedback on the way the team is working, such as the processes they are using, as well as the quality of their relationships and behaviors that they are exhibiting.”

Be ready to give credit and spot talent.
“Good leaders develop talent and aren’t afraid to shine the spotlight on or give credit to a team member. Insecure leaders take the credit for themselves. Being a good leader may mean hiring and developing someone who is even better than you!”

Support risk-taking and failure, to a point.
“Leaders need to support risk-taking, but not to the point of repeated failure or poor execution. A poor idea with good execution is more excusable than a good idea with poor execution.”

Manage aspirations.
“Especially for your brightest talent, make it your business to know what they aspire to and what motivates them. Often with creatives, traditional promotions up the management ranks aren’t enough. Look for other ways for them to develop and see new perspectives, such as through new projects, job assignments, clients, media, geographies or work teams”

- Anne Benedict

Behance articles and tips are adapted from the writing and research of Scott Belsky and the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network , the Creative Jobs List, and develops knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen. All information (c) Scott Belsky, Behance LLC

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Source: Scott Belsky of Behance

Creative teams juggle multiple projects at once. The constant streams of ideas lead to more ideas. As energy is spread across projects like peanut butter, prioritization is all but lost. Energy Lines are a simple way to prioritize and use design to guide creative energy.

At any given point in time there are a few projects that are urgent, some that are just important, a few that need to be kept moving, and others that are idle. How much of your time are you spending on what? Are you focused on the right things? Amidst the everyday craziness of a creative enterprise, it is hard to keep energy in perspective.

The Energy Line is a simple mechanism to graphically display energy allocation. A simple line starting at “Idle” and going up to “Extreme” is drawn along a cork or dry erase board. Then write the names of all of your major projects on small cards. Place the cards along the energy line according to how much focus they should get. Be realistic and make the tough decisions on what projects need to live on low energy for a while.

Customize the system with words, colors, and design that works for you and your team. You and your team must have an affinity for the design in order for it to stick. Remember that beauty breeds loyalty when it comes to organization systems.

Energy lines are most helpful when a whole team gives consistent input and someone takes the time to keep the line updated. At its best, the energy line keeps you focused and serves as a constant reminder of how energy should be spent. At its worst, the energy line makes great office art!

Behance articles and tips are adapted from the writing and research of Scott Belsky and the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network , the Creative Jobs List, and develops knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen.All information (c) Scott Belsky, Behance LLC

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Source: Scott Belsky of Behance

Former President Ronald Reagan once said that government’s view of the economy is … “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it.”

Sometimes his humorous observation feels painfully serious.

One example is the Cost of Government Day. The Cost of Government Day is that day of the year (woo-hoo!) “on which the average American worker has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government.”

As of about a week ago (July 16, 2008) those of you in the United States have earned enough to pay for your government.

That means you had to work 197 days just to pay for government (state, Federal and local).  The Cost of Government Day took 4 days longer than last year to get here. What this chart shows is that the regulatory burden and government spending have been ratcheting up since 2001, pushing the Cost of Government Day later and later:

Cost of Government Day is not to be confused with Tax Freedom Day. Tax Freedom Day occurred this year on April 23, 2008 and is the day on which Americans are finished paying their tax burden for the year. They are two different calculations — Cost of Government Day calculates the cost of regulations and government spending whereas Tax Freedom Day measures payment of taxes.

Although taxes and government regulations/spending are separate issues, they are also related, of course. More regulations and more government spending require more taxes to pay for them.

So maybe it isn’t surprising that in the NFIB’s survey last month of the top priorities and problems affecting small business owners, that 5 of the top 10 priorities involved taxes or regulatory burden. The 10 top issues of concern to small businesses currently included:

• Federal Taxes on Business Income
• Property Taxes (Real, Inventory, or Personal Property)
• Tax Complexity
• Unreasonable Government Regulations
• State Taxes on Business Income

Rounding out the NFIB’s survey of the top 10 problems and concerns were: cost of health insurance (the number 1 issue — no surprise); cost of fuel; cost of supplies/inventories; electricity rates; and workers compensation.

By comparison, the least critical problems included exporting; access to high-speed Internet; obtaining long-term and short-term business loans; government contracting; competition from Internet businesses; competition from imported products; and illegal aliens. In all, the survey covered 75 issues and is quite detailed (a 132-page report).

Notice a trend? The key issues of concern for small businesses are all matters of cost — and government-related costs constitute half of the top 10.

You might have thought that your small business owner peers would be more concerned by lack of opportunities, or perhaps the existence of competition they consider unfair, or even the access to credit and loans. However, those don’t rise to the same level of concern as anything that requires opening the checkbook.

Margins in many small businesses can be thin to begin with. In times when taxes and regulatory burden get high, you can feel like a tuna caught in a tankful of piranha, being gnawed and noshed to death.

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Source: Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends

We all hate nagging. After all, who wants to be hounded for things they need to do? I have been a bit surprised recently by the number of people I interview who speak positively about the power of nagging.

One recent example is the team at Brooklyn Brothers, an especially productive creative agency in New York City - so productive that they not only service clients but they have also published children’s books and launched a chocolate brand called “Fat Pig.” Guy Barnett and Stephen Rutterford are the partners at the agency. Very early in our interview, it became clear that both Guy and Stephen are obsessed with execution. When it comes to taking action, the team has no faith in hands-off project management. Their secret to actually pushing projects forward can be summed up with one word: “nagging.” Guy explained, “we repeat stuff like robots a thousand times…a best practice for us is to use nagging tempered by humor, we sit around a table and feel responsible to each other.” He even admitted, “if you’re annoying, people will do things because they’ll want you to shut up!”

If you stop and think about it, the word “nag” is in the word management, and perhaps nagging (in moderation) plays a role in effective management?

I started to think about the process of prioritization, and I realized that “nagging” may be a darwinian way of “prioritizing by natural selection.” After all, by natural selection, the tasks that are most advocated for are most likely to get done.

The thinking goes: When someone consistently bothers you about something, chances are it is more important than something else that is not in popular demand. Also, nagging is often an indicator that you have become a bottleneck. If you are holding up someone else’s progress, then you should know about it – and you might even want to reconsider your priorities as they relate to the broader team.

I’m not suggesting that nagging is a true best practice, but perhaps it plays a role? What are your thoughts on the positives and negatives of nagging?

Behance articles and tips are adapted from the writing and research of Scott Belsky and the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network , the Creative Jobs List, and develops knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen. All information (c) Scott Belsky, Behance LLC

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Source: Scott Belsky of Behance

I don’t know about you, but all these social networking sites are making me dizzy.

The reason? I don’t know where the conversation is anymore.

It used to be that you didn’t have to worry about conversing online anywhere, except maybe at the occasional message board or perhaps email.

Then came blogs, and suddenly you had conversation on your blog, with readers leaving comments. Or readers might extend the conversation to their own blogs, by discussing your company, you, or even a blog post you wrote. So you had to track the conversation on other blogs as it related to you.

But that’s not what’s making me dizzy. No, what’s making me dizzy are all the social media sites that now encourage sharing, comments and/or voting.

The conversation now is taking place at multiple places … potentially thousands of sites if you are a large company and thankfully fewer if you work in a small business or are a solo entrepreneur.

The past two years have seen an astonishing range of “social” sites or sites with a social component enter the picture. In my case I only pay attention to perhaps a dozen sites (aside from individual blogs), but those keep me busy: Facebook, MyBlogLog, Twitter, Stumbleupon … to name a few.

Others that encourage sharing and commenting include YouTube, Amazon.com, iTunes, Yelp, Google Local, DocStoc. And the list goes on.

You have to pay attention to trends, too, as the popularity of these sites changes. New social sites can enter the scene with amazing rapidity. The trend I’ve noticed in the past 60 days is that while Twitter is still red hot, FriendFeed is picking up followers at an accelerated pace, especially among the entrepreneurial crowd.

So how do you manage to monitor and participate in the conversation about your business or anything that interests you, if the conversation is distributed across the Web? Without it becoming a full time job?

I don’t purport to have all the answers. But I can share a list of 4 tips that have helped me manage:

(1) Quickly Decide Which Sites to Participate In. As soon as you start hearing about a new group social site, make a quick initial assessment of it. Is it likely to impact your world? If no, then put it out of your mind and avoid the mental clutter. If yes, then you or your staff need to get up to speed. Unless you manage a mega-multinational brand, you probably are not going to have to participate in or track 100 or 1000 different social media sites — you may only need to pay regular attention to a handful. Example: if you are a management consultant and have published no books and do not manufacture any products, then you can quickly rule out a site like Amazon as a site to monitor — the conversation there just won’t apply to you.

(2) Bookmark the Sites You Track. You can’t track or manage your profiles or your activity on social sites from memory or haphazardly. Lack of organization leads to unnecessary distraction and anxiety because you are worried about forgetting or missing something. This is where one of the new breed of start pages comes in handy: iGoogle, Netvibes, PageFlakes. Also, use an RSS reader to subscribe to RSS feeds of influential blogs covering your industry.

(3) Hire Social Media Savvy People. Hire people around you who have one foot in the technical world, even if it is for what has traditionally been a “non-technical” position: marketing, administrative assistant, writer. Steve Rubel wrote last year about the need for marketers to combine both traditional marketing and technology in The Geek Marketer. The same goes for a variety of roles within small businesses. Surround yourself with people who understand this online world, and who also have enough skills to navigate it. For instance, an “old school” writer thinks the job is done as soon as an online article is written. The “new media” writer understands that publishing a blog article is just the start, and a conversational element then begins — that person is a hands-on user of social media and knows where to look for that conversation and how to participate in it.

(4) Use Monitoring Tools. Sign up for Google Alerts. These email alerts will notify you when the discussion touches on you, your business or your products in Google’s Web search, Google News, Blogs, Videos and so on. Get familiar with other monitoring tools that show links to your site(s), such as Technorati and Google Blogsearch. You’ll need to use several tools, as most of these monitoring tools can be hit or miss — not everything will immediately show up. Get used to checking your traffic stats, too, to identify where traffic is being referred from — often you can spot conversations through traffic analytics.

Phew! I feel less dizzy already.

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Source: Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends

Boxes need to be mailed, errands need to be run, cookies need to be eaten, orders need to be fulfilled, but by whom? Whoever has a chance! The Behance team got tired of limiting our action steps to just an area on paper - why not make “action areas” out of physical space?

One frigid November day, the Behance Team tried a bit of an experiment. We designated two areas of our loft-space office as “Action Areas.” With blue painter’s tape, we isolated both a portion of a counter space and a corner of the floor as areas reserved for items that require action. The concept: When you walk by, everything you see requires action. If you have a minute, take action. Members of our team started placing letters or packages that need to be mailed in the Action Areas. When anyone brings in snacks, they place them in the Action Areas.

Before we launched the Action Areas, packages and letters would sit on various desks and tables around the office. Cookies on one person’s desk might remain unnoticed throughout the day. With the implementation of Action Areas, items that require action were gathering more attention than ever before.

The verdict: Our Action Areas remain sacred spaces today.

Behance articles and tips are adapted from the writing and research of Scott Belsky and the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network , the Creative Jobs List, and develops knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen. All information (c) Scott Belsky, Behance LLC

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Source: Scott Belsky of Behance

First of all, let me say that I have a lot of respect for Tim Ferriss’s book, The 4 Hour Workweek. After hearing the 6th or 7th person recommend the book, I recently sat down and read it. I found it to be motivating and also thought-provoking. I even picked up a few good tips from it that I am putting to use in my own business.

But I have to say that you should never take the title of this book literally.

The book explains, more or less, how to create a virtual business — one that you can run from anywhere. And one that takes as little as 4 hours a week by the owner. Or at least, 4 hours a week is the goal.

The author makes some great points in it about managing your time, especially email. In fact, a large chunk of the book is about time management. He also provides actionable how-tos on how to find the help to outsource so you have more free time (Lou Dobbs, close your ears — he suggests … gasp! … offshore labor).

Tim’s ideas aren’t new. Other books and management philosophies have touched on some of the same concepts for a couple of decades now. Book shelves are bursting with time management books. And enterprising entrepreneurs have been structuring virtual businesses they can run from anywhere for some time now. In 1998 I sat next to someone on a flight from London to Chicago (on a first class upgrade) who ran several global businesses from the Cayman Islands, and who regaled me nonstop for 6 hours with his philosophies about creating virtual businesses run almost exclusively on outsourced labor.

Still, no knock against The 4-Hour Workweek. Ferriss brings an up-to-date take on things and scales it to the individual entrepreneur who is starting out with very little money. It’s McKinsey for the solo entrepreneur.

Plus, Tim Ferriss is a master at Internet marketing and has managed to develop word-of-mouth buzz for his book that others would kill for. You’ve got to admire that ability. For instance, at Amazon.com as of this writing, there are over 700 reviews of his book, most of them 4 or 5 stars (the highest possible rating). And he’s able to convey his thoughts in an engaging way in the book, backed by some case studies.

So, you’re thinking, the book is thought provoking and motivating. It’s up to date for today’s world. It is scaled to “speak” to the solo entrepreneur, its intended audience. And it’s backed by great marketing.

What’s the problem, then?

What worries me is an entire generation — or so it seems — of aspiring entrepreneurs really believes that in 90 days they will be rich working just 4 hours a week. I’ve had people say to me in utter seriousness that they intend to work just 4 hours a week.

While I think there are many things to be learned from Tim’s book, I just wouldn’t take it literally as resulting in a 4-hour work week.

Is a 4-hour work week possible? Certainly.

Is it likely, for 99% of entrepreneurs? Hardly.

The fact is, even billionaires spend more than 4 hours a week on their businesses. People like Richard Branson and Bill Gates and Sergey Brin didn’t get that way working 4 hours a week — trust me. And once they achieved billions, I am quite sure they still work grueling schedules.

In fact this article by another young entrepreneur that I stumbled on a few days ago, is actually much more realistic. In it, the author, Nate Whitehill, talks about a 16-hour workday being more realistic for young entrepreneurs, and suggests focusing on the satisfaction you get from the hours you spend working in the early years, instead of trying to avoid work:

“With all this talk lately about the dream of a shorter workweek, it just convinces me how much spin dominates consensus. One only gets to the 4-hour workweek after years of insanely difficult work.

Even though everyone has dreams of the 4-hour workweek, the fact is that 99.95% of those who have been successful have had to (at least, initially) endure much more than even a 40-hour workweek. That being said, why would someone want to work less if they enjoy what they do? Perhaps an even better and more useful question is, ‘How does one get to the place of enjoying work?’ One answer to that lies in learning how to create opportunities.”

All that said, would I recommend the book and the ideas in it? Of course — it’s worth the price of a few lattes and a few hours of your time. But I would do so with a strong caveat: use the idea of working 4 hours a week as a metaphor for having a clear focus and managing your time intelligently and well, and creating a lifestyle you can enjoy. Do not use it as a goal you truly expect to achieve.

More likely, you can get rich working just 40 hours a week (instead of 80 or 100 hours), by following Tim’s advice. And perhaps you can find your way to enjoy those 40 hours as you are working them, instead of hating them. But, heck, even such a goal would be well worth it to most of us.

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Source: Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends

Consider 5 things that great leaders do - in any industry - and think about how they apply to the way you lead your team.

#1: Acknowledge Incremental Change
People don’t change suddenly, but rather over time through the course of experiences, feedback, and lessons learned. To be credible, successful leaders must know what their people are working on and acknowledge even small steps in the right direction. Make an effort to watch for marginal improvements, and then acknowledge.

#2: Be Attentive & Present
Amidst blackberries, constant calls, and packed schedules, great leaders recognize the value of giving their undivided attention to their people, even if only for short periods of time. Try to restrain yourself from typing or checking email when people come into your office. Look in peoples’ eyes. The ability to focus on people is becoming more scarce in our society.

#3: Acknowledge Your Team’s Challenges
You don’t need a mastery of what people do in order to lead them. Demonstrate an understanding of the barriers and obstacles your people face and the pressures they are under. People can only be led by someone who understands the challenges of the every day.

#4: Aspire to Know Who Knows
Great leaders don’t have all the knowledge, but they are focused on knowing who knows the people they need to get the job done. Think broadly and utilize resources accordingly.

#5: Look at Your Business As a White Canvas
Every now and then, amidst the thick of day-to-day craziness, you need to sit back and look at your business as a clean slate. Extremely difficult to do, but always leads to something. A moment of simplicity and clarity can lead to realizations about the “obvious” opportunities and risks that you overlook out of habit.

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Source: Scott Belsky of Behance

Last week I wrote about the almost-empty South China Mall. The developers had built a gorgeous, state of the art mall — the largest in the world. Only problem: it is built in a factory city, Dongguan, where there are few people able to afford what it has to offer.

To me it signified a stunning lack of advance market research and planning.

However, I inadvertently may have given the wrong impression about all of China — that the entire country can’t afford the upscale, Western, middle class lifestyle that such a mall presupposes. From what I understand, that’s not the case. It all depends on what part of China you are in. Some parts of China have a rapidly growing and thriving middle class.

Take, for instance, Shanghai. Shanghai is a rich city and the center of China’s financial industry. A friend of mine who grew up in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution, says that even during that time citizens owned considerable property and ran businesses in Shanghai.

As one reader emailed me, “To compare Dongguan with Shanghai, is like comparing Altoona with Manhattan. It’s two different worlds economically.” (Apologies to anyone from Altoona — those were a reader’s words, not mine.)

But the point is a good one. As a fast expanding country, China does seem filled with economic opportunities, and not just opportunities to outsource factory jobs from the U.S. to China. There is also the opportunity for enterprising U.S. companies to find an outlet for their products in newly affluent parts of China.

Read and watch the MSN series, “Keeping up with the Wangs: The Rise of the Middle Class in China.” You’ll get a glimpse of what China is like in the biggest cities having a newly affluent middle class able to afford to buy Western products. I suspect the greatest opportunity to export to China is from consumer mega-brands such as Coke, McDonalds, Gucci, and so on. But for the right products there are opportunities for smaller businesses to find customers in China, too.

If you are researching markets in China from here in the U.S., you might want to start at the China Business Information Center at Export.gov/china. Export.gov is the U.S. government’s export portal. Start with the questionnaire, “Are You China Ready?”. Check out their seminars and webinars, too.

Interestingly enough, you’ll also find a variety of helpful resources at BuyUSA.gov. The BuyUSA website, which is run by the U.S. Department of Commerce, has a full section on exporting to China markets. To use their services, your products or services have to be at least 51% U.S. content. For instance, BuyUSA.gov offers a service to help partner you with Chinese trading partners. They offer a Custom Market Research service, where for a fee they will prepare custom market research reports to help you assess the potential for doing business in China. Or you can use their online tool to access free research.

Just as with my earlier article about the world’s largest and emptiest mall, the underlying point is the same: before attempting to do business in China (or anywhere) do your homework first! Do that market research. Understand the lay of the land. Otherwise you could be on the fast track into bankruptcy.

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Source: Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends

The chemistry of a creative team is absolutely critical for making ideas happen. What goes unsaid can erupt into a great fiasco. When a problem is brewing, our tendency is to block it out. After all, who wants to be confrontational or take time out when stress and deadlines are looming? But an “infection” left untreated can become a full-blown disaster. The most effective creative teams are able to detect and address concerns before they evolve into problems.

If a team is like a living body, then person is part of an intricate immune system. Any member of the team should be able to notice and alert the team to a brewing problem, and the entire team should coordinate to address it. A single concern for one is a worthy concern for all.

Every person on a team should be empowered to raise a challenge. All too often, the “veterans” of a team are relied upon for reporting issues. However, the intuition to detect problems is often strongest among the most junior members of a team. If there were a “thermometer” that took the team’s temperature at any given moment, any individual should be able to trigger a concern, and the whole team should be ready to respond.

Our team is experimenting with a little tool we developed to monitors the team’s temperature. It is a small circular status meter with an arrow that can be pushed from “calm” to “super stressed” and anywhere in between. Anyone can change it, and all can see it. When caution is required, we are all signaled to arrange a meeting and discuss it. Who the actual person is who takes the initiative to adjust our “thermometer” is irrelevant. All that matters is whether our team comes together as a result.

When a team catches a cold, candid discussion is the immune system. As your team grows and takes on more dynamic (and thus more stressful projects), consider ways to gauge your team’s temperature and take action when required.

Behance articles and tips are adapted from the writing and research of Scott Belsky and the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network , the Creative Jobs List, and develops knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen.All information (c) Scott Belsky, Behance LLC

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Source: Scott Belsky of Behance