Creative Streak

I Am (Still) Proud of Burson-Marsteller

For the past week, I have cringed at the ugliness brought on to my former employer - Burson-Marsteller - by a very small group of people working on behalf of their client Facebook to smear its competitor Google.

I just got through reading the loooooong list of people condeming B-M on Facebook (a tad hypocritical, I thought). My, my - the opportunistic zeal to bring down an entire company for the behaviours of a small handful.

I don't know the details of the incident, but I do know this. As a creative director at Burson-Marsteller, I worked for nearly 400 clients over 10 years. I visited more than 60 of its (then) 75 offices worldwide. As one of its senior trainers, I personally taught a countless number of people. I can say without reservation that 99.99% of its employees - then and now - are ethical, decent and hard-working professionals. A percent I might add which could be applied to the entire PR industry, if not any profession anywhere in the world.

To close, a small piece of advice to those few vultures frothing with glee at Burson - or anyone else who stumbles (badly) in life. IF you feel compelled to slap a tar brush at someone else, apply it delicately because a little bit of it might come back to hit you square in the forehead.

Communications in the Dark Ages

(This is a repost of an article from a few days ago. Ironically, as I was responding to a few people commented they too had serious problems with Vodaphone, I lost the entire article.)

There’s an interesting story in today’s Sydney Morning Herald (‘Facebook Now Ingrained In Relationships’) that has lots to say about social media and its influence on relationships.

The question that really intrigued me was this statement: “It raises the hypothetical question of what if Facebook was ever switched off?” – the operative words “switched off.”

For the past six days, Vodaphone – who provides my wireless broadband (as well as my mobile phone service) – has been excruciatingly slow. Even though the USB modem ‘said’ I had an average of 1.8 bps, it took an agonising 97 seconds for a webpage – any page – to load last Wednesday. By Thursday, it had slowed to 2 minutes and 25 seconds at an average rate of 45 bps. By Friday, I could walk across the street to the milk bar and buy the Sydney Morning Morning before my browser could load the SMH website. By that afternoon, I had been cut-off completely and thoroughly until Monday morning.

Using creativity for more than brainstorming

Outside of generating ideas - in and of itself, an important task - a surprising number of people have admitted to me that they don't know why they need to be creative at work. And, a good number of these people admitted further that they didn't have any interest or need for creativity.

It’s not surprising. After all, being creative has historically described someone who’s subversive and rebellious, or a person who falls outside of the traditional, normal or accepted path. For many cultures and societies, creativity (also known as ‘being different’) is an unwelcome attribute for a variety of reasons. I’ve even encountered people who believe being creative is somehow incompatible with being professional.

Regardless, creativity is as paramount to work as any other skill. Outside of brainstorming, here are the four tasks where people absolutely need creative skills in a business environment.

1. Strategic Planning

One element of strategic planning involves investigating all of the ways an organisation might grow in a particular industry or category, or transcend into new areas. Researching and developing any possible plans of action demands creativity, particularly in ways which are new, different or unusual. The phrase “You can’t expect new solutions from doing the same thing and over” demonstrates this point perfectly.

One of my favourite books on this subject is The Mind of the Strategist: The Art of Japanese Businessby Kenichi Ohmae.

2. Message Development

Every good corporate spokesperson knows this mantra, if not be heart, then by intuition: Know what you say, not say what you know. Determining what you're going to say requires the speaker to develop, re-write and edit a variety of statements into the perfect one. Similarly, branding or re-branding an organization or product means investigating all of its potential positions when compared with its existing or potential competition, with message development to follow. Positioning a company or service also means creating ideal messages which resonate with its target audiences, their influencers and the media.

3. Negotiation Skills

One of the basic elements of effective negotiation is to know all of your options before you get to the table. Knowing the range of options between what you need versus what you want is often the difference between successful and poor negotiations. It’s difficult to negotiate and be creative at the same time. Creativity allows the negotiator to develop all of options well in advance of the meeting with the other side.

One of the most accessible books on this subject is Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher, William L. Ury and Bruce Patton.

4. Risk and Crisis Management

An important principle of risk management and crisis communications is considering all worst case scenarios. A common phrase in planning workshops is “What if?” - not unlike the question used in most brainstorms. The creation of potential hypotheses is particularly vital to do in advance of the crisis because – like negotiating – one’s creativity disintegrates in tense situations.

In their Harvard Business Review article ”Preparing for Evil” (April 2003), Ian Mitroff and Murat Alpaslan outline how the best companies prevent and contain crisis and issues, often with creativity.