Realizing Undiscovered Opportunity

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today we're delighted to be speaking with Nir Bashan. Nir is a really extraordinary guy. He is the founder and CEO of The Creative Mindset and the author of the book by the same name, The Creative Mindset. He teaches business leaders how to harness the power of creativity to improve profitability, increase sales, and make work more meaningful. Which I think is super important. His clients include AT&T, Microsoft, and NFL network. He won a Clio Award, which is for advertising, for those of you who don't know, and so many other things. Nir, thank you so much for being on the call today.

Nir Bashan: Anita, It's my deep, deep honor to be here. The book is called The Creator Mindset. Somebody released the creator mindset recently.

Anita Brick: Sorry, I mispronounced it. My apologies.

Nir Bashan: No problem.

Anita Brick: The creator mindset. First question is from an MBA student and she said: “Hi, Nir. I definitely understand the need for a creative perspective. I come up with so many different creative and innovative options that it's hard for me to choose. Some of my friends tease me and say I have analysis paralysis. It's not from an analytical mind, but from a creative one. Help.” What would you advise her?

Nir Bashan: I love it. Yeah, this is good. What I suspect this student is going through is something that's pretty common. There's the trinity of creativity, as I call it. There's the concept, which is the biggest thought. There's the idea, which is kind of that middle ground thought, and then there's the execution. That's like your exact product or service. So what I would urge the student to do is to sit down and write out the concept, their idea, and the execution of their product, their service, their career, what they want to do, and to look to the next rung up and to broaden out what those specific ideas or those specific execution might be. When somebody has a paralysis of choice and ideas, generally it is just the same shaving of the same idea.

Anita Brick: Got it. Here's someone on the other side, an alum. And he said: “I'm in the middle of a career pivot. In your book, you talk about, like you just said, concept, which is the big picture, to execution, which is the specific target. I am stuck in the concept stage, as I have multiple things I can and want to do. How do you prioritize your concepts and move ahead?”

Nir Bashan: Prioritizing your concepts is one of the hardest things to do. There's no doubt that is a for real question, and I love it. The advice that I would give him would be to really start to look into that innate quality of who we are, looking within oneself and defining the DNA of who you are, will guide you along the way to where you need to go. Thinking, I’m trying to get away from the conceptual level into something that can be executed. Look within.

Anita Brick: So this goes right into an alum said: “Okay, Nir, I get this. You talk about solutions being inside of us, but I'm a practical guy. How do you find those solutions within yourself? Give me the tips. Walk me through practically.”

Nir Bashan: I love these questions. So very, very good.

Anita Brick: How do we practically look inside to find those solutions that you say are innate?

Nir Bashan: One thing that people can do today listening is to grab a piece of paper and a pencil. I like to do this on paper and pen, not on a file or even your phone, because there's some connection to writing stuff down that is amazing. And what something that people can do today is a technique I call the little victory. Right? I love little victories. Most of us in business spend our time trying to get to the North star of goals and all this stuff, which is important. But what we end up doing is we forget all of the little victories along the way, which really define us and define who we are. So what I recommend is people get a pen and a paper and write down every day for one week, just for one week.

Write down every day one little victory that you have accomplished and what you will start to notice when you write down these little victories. And you could do this as a company too. I've done it on a whiteboard in a conference room where a team can come in and write down their little victory every day. What you do is when you finish that week and you look at all the little victories, there is a spine, a theme, almost a unifying sort of concept of what those little victories are. And they should give you a pretty dang good idea of what you should be doing next, and who you are as a human being and what you value.

Anita Brick: I am a huge fan because of my own style, personality, and my own experiences. But I do see what this MBA student, another MBA student, is saying about little victories. And sometimes it can be a little bit confusing whether something is action or progress. And what she says is: “I personally really like the idea of little victories since they build courage, confidence, and capacity. That said, I see people on my team completing small steps that are more distractions than a source of progress. How can I differentiate between the two and guide them in the process?”

Nir Bashan: What we have here is really an analytical look at a process that is supposed to reward and encourage creativity. What I advocate for and what I've spent my entire life doing, Anita, is trying to have people unite the analytics and the creative together. Not to throw away the analytics, which is sometimes I get criticized of doing and not to go all in on the creative side either. It's all about that balance. What we have to do is we have to understand that the creative elements sometimes highlight tangential and/or non-related things that are incredibly wonderful, but that will get shot down or stifled away if we look at them analytically. We need to allow the process time to work. We need to allow for things to sort of get off the rails a little bit in terms of what we might not expect today. Investing in and understanding the tangential nature of business is incredibly important.

So back to your student. If she understands that those ideas might not build to a building block or a consumer that is necessarily relevant at that time or that place, then maybe there's a tangential force acting upon those decisions, guiding it in a slightly different way.

Anita Brick: I definitely see that. And I also see that some companies are, and I think this is true with people in their careers as well, are open to connecting the dots after the fact. You know, they follow the process and other people view it as rather risky. There’s an alum who's in a company. She loves the company, but she's not so happy about that fear. She said: “Hi Nir, I really appreciate your approach. Here's my challenge. My leadership views creative solutions as risky. How would you suggest I reduce the perception of a risk that really isn't the reality? I think it's actually risky not to act.”

Nir Bashan: She's spot on in that analysis. The world is literally littered, Anita, with companies that have had that same reaction. Like we are the biggest, we're the best. Nothing will ever happen to us and they're, you know, in the dustbin of history. If you don't continually change, if you don't continually adapt, if you don't continually apply creativity, there is no doubt that the company will one day or your career, or you know, your product or service will one day become no longer relevant.

In a world that is continually changing. I mean, who could have predicted this just wild and unpredictable time. The only things that tend to work are the willingness to adapt, the willingness to change. The traditional tools are simply not working anymore. They've kind of broken down. The tools of, you know, we do, you know, this product and we're going to double down on efficiencies. And that's how you know, we're going to grow. Well, that'll work for a while. And every analytical construct will work for a while, but it will plateau at a certain point. I've done restructuring with consulting customers before who have been like, okay, we're bleeding cash here, blame cash there. We've got to do a restructuring, which is just a fancy word for we're going to fire a bunch of people and try to save on payroll.

They do that and it works for a little while. After a while, that'll plateau. And so you always constantly, when looking at a problem analytically, you always constantly apply something in weight and it plateaus. If you're not thinking creatively, you're not able to break through those issues. Having the ability to think creatively and to think beyond the problem that it's just in front of you, especially with positivity, can be an incredibly powerful tool.

Anita Brick: Okay, so how do you translate that into advice for her so that she can guide people? Because it's one thing to say, hey, you know, everything's changing. So much change. We have to change. Otherwise we're going to be in the, as you said, the dustbin of business. And people are like, yeah, we're different. So how do you do it in a way that they can accept it and make the move from, we're going to double down to we're going to see these changes as less risky than we thought about them a day ago.

Nir Bashan: What I would advise in this case would be to continually innovate and create, regardless of whether the environment is receptive to it. Because eventually water finds its level and you will, as an employee or as somebody who's trying to effect change, eventually some of these ideas will have to be tried, and if they're not, then eventually you'll find the company or the place where you belong. It is all about that internal creative sort of spark. And if you're following it, you'll be okay.

A lot of people tell me, though, Nir, you know, that's a really risky proposition. I've got a family. I've got, you know, people who depend on me and the mortgage and all this stuff. But there is never anything that is more true than actually doing what it is that you need to be doing. There is incredible fear and incredible self-doubt. The worst thing ever. I feel like self doubt is the strongest toxicity within our own bodies. This person who wrote the question, which is wonderful, and she's trying to affect change. You know, you've got to keep being who you are because it might be that this organization is not right for you. Or it might be that one day, one day, somebody takes a leap of faith on one of your ideas and boom, you see things getting affected.

Anita Brick: Okay, so you're not saying go do it off on the side and create your own little place where you do this and when people leadership tells you to do this, you just say, forget it. You're saying find places where you do have control and where you can guide those pieces to demonstrate that maybe this creative idea isn't risky, but do it in your own domain to prove it like a pilot almost, and build it out from there. Is that what you're saying?

Nir Bashan: I'm saying both. Yeah, try to affect change. Don't look to your job as your one end all be all. You got to understand, Anita, that people are incredibly dynamic and you can't put all your eggs in one basket. You have to do your best if you're an employee, and then at the same time, you have to have an outlet that is separate from your day today initiatives in an entrepreneurial manner, in an entrepreneurial spirit. You've got to have that side hustle. You've got to have that thing that you're like, you're so excited to do that will hopefully one day be your main hustle.

Anita Brick: Get that. I agree with you. We need to have a diversity, just like we would diversify anything. However, I don't think we've answered her question. Because her question is what advice would you give her to guide the team? Because she does want to at least help them see that risk is largely perception. Her question was, how do you help them perceive the idea as less risky?

Nir Bashan: Kind of a hedge your bet?

Anita Brick: No, I think it's, she wants to know: tell me. I have a team, I have leadership. I believe that their perception that creative equals risky is not what her reality. How does she influence them to at least move in that direction? Which I think is an important question that she asks.

Nir Bashan: Absolutely. You can do case studies. You can look at several companies that have thought that they were really good and ended up failing. You could look in your industry, even. So, what I would do is I would build a bit of analytics around this. I would take a look at, you know, my competitors, take a look at the marketplace and make a convincing case that if we don't take a leap of faith on this particular idea or this particular creativity, then we're going to get stuck or we'll go out of business or we won't be competitive in this new marketplace.

Anita Brick: Good. Thank you. And let's switch gears a little bit. An alum said: “Hi, Nir, in your book, you talk about three power personality traits: humor, empathy, and courage. How do you advise individuals to leverage these in the workplace?”

Nir Bashan: Nothing I get more emails about in the book than that chapter. People, Anita, are like, really? Those are the three most important traits that you've come up with for creativity? But they are really important. Humor, empathy and courage are kind of the unlikely building blocks I feel to get more creative at work.

You know, we'll start with humor first. It's not really a ha ha humor that I'm looking for or anything like that. Bt there's something amazing about employing humor. What ends up happening when you look at a situation humorously, you shift the focus on to potential instead of negativity. But something like 90%, 92% of people have negative thoughts and view things in a negative way every day. If you're like most people, you're viewing a situation negatively and negatively viewing situations doesn't allow positivity to creep up, and positivity is a very important element in being able to solve a problem. And so what humor does, is humor enables and a sense of positivity and a sense of possibility. So that's why humorous is so important in today's workplace. Looking at something and looking at it at a slightly different way, especially positively, will enable a solution.

Empathy incredibly important. Amy Edmondson talks about it out of Harvard, quite a bit about psychological safety, and I'm an incredibly big fan of her approach. Basically, empathy is an ability to both internally and externally relate to the subject. We in business are always saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what my customer wants, but there's an incredible gap in understanding from the brand, sometimes even from the staff of that brand to the customer, and why it is that they buy it.

I'll give you an example. I consulted with a very famous beverage maker, sports drink, energy and sports drink. They were convinced that they knew who their customer was. They're like, twe don't need empathy. We get it. We know who our customers are. Like, okay, who are your customers? They're like super athletes. You know, the best of the best. You know, we got triathletes,, we got, you know, long distance swimmers. We've got, you know, cyclist and all this stuff. And I'm like okay cool. And so we kind of dug in a little bit and used some analytics. And we found that most of this drink in North America was being consumed by people who were hung over from a night of partying because it's electrolyte balance or whatever was in the drink was catching fire on social and being viewed, Anita, as a hangover cure.

Anita Brick: Oh, funny.

Nir Bashan: Isn't that crazy?

Anita Brick: Yeah, that is crazy.

Nir Bashan: They thought, you know, we don't need to do empathy and we understand who our customer is. And so understanding how important empathy is in generating creativity, you know, is paramount both the internal and external.

Finally, you got to have the courage to pull it all together, just like the wonderful woman who wrote the question in a few questions ago, who was kind of frustrated and wants to propel an idea forward. Well, you got to have the courage to go, you know what? This is a really, really good idea. And this is how we really need to move forward and convince people and do the research and really present it in a palatable and approachable way. You got to have courage to do that, because if you don't have courage and conviction, you don't really understand that fire that burns within your heart that tells you, yeah, this is what I need to be doing, then you are kind of forever in that limbo. Never really landing on a satisfactory path.

Anita Brick: Excellent point, and I agree, I think that all of those I didn't know the story about the sports drink being a hangover cure, but you opened up their eyes to a really important segment that was probably buying way more than those elite athletes.

Nir Bashan: Yeah, like tenfold more. And you were able to shift the messaging, shift the positioning of the brand to speak to that audience too and empathize with their needs and their requirements in order to to sell more products.

Anita Brick: All right. So here's an area where I love this question from an alum. Building advocates, not just transactions, is challenging. It's been especially challenging of late. This alum asked: “How does creativity help me build connections that really matter?”

Nir Bashan: It's a really good question, as are all of these questions. Today it is more important to build a relationship between your brand, your product or service, or even your career and the people who are consuming it, or even the people that are working with you. The nature of relationships is kind of one of the most important things. Once you're able to understand what you have is what nobody else on earth has. It is as unique as your DNA, it is the stamp of who you are. Making relationships and understanding how your brand, your personal brand affects others in a way that is authentic will enable you to do something that I think is a little controversial, Anita, but I think it's really important. What it will enable you to do. So it will enable you to find your niche and to find your market.

A lot of people tell me, Nir, I'm uncomfortable with that because I want to sell to everyone. Well, the nature of business today is you kind of can, you know, you can't be everything to everyone and so many dang brands spend so much time, money and effort trying to reach a broad marketplace instead of focusing on a key and crucial demographic.

Creativity will allow you–once you kind of understand who you are, you run your concept, your idea, and your execution. Five six other tools that I have in the book–you sort of start to understand that, hey, you know, this is where I need to start. There's potential to broaden out from that. But having that starting point of finding your niche can be very effective in building relationships.

Anita Brick: I like that, and I do think it goes back to what was said before. It also goes back to humor, empathy and courage.

Nir Bashan: Absolutely. And understanding that those three elements will lead to better and deeper relationships is incredibly important. My message is really about putting one foot in front of the other and the long haul, and nobody wants to talk about that because it's unsexy. The long haul, it's a building relationship, is spending one day at a time not selling out, right? Building a relationship, asking somebody about things that aren't related to the particular sale or the particular job or the particular, you know, reason for you to network with this person and building authentic old-school relationships based on, oh, I don't know, mutual interest and potential leverage point where you can help each other and so on and so forth.

Sometimes winning is about having a good conversation. We need to redefine and understand that things are not as transactional as we would like them to be, and invest in the long term.

Anita Brick: Yes, I agree. I think it's a really important point, and when people do that, things actually happen faster.

Do you have time for one more question?

Nir Bashan: Of course.

Anita Brick: Okay, wonderful. You've given us a lot to think about. The book, The Creator Mindset, is a wonderful book and it is very, very practical. But maybe you can help us sum up a little bit. What are three things you would advise someone listening to do starting right now? Maybe who’s a little stuck, having a hard time moving forward and needs some practical next steps to get going again. What would you advise that person?

Nir Bashan: Absolutely. So there's 92 in the book. We've gone through a few of them today. One thing that I advise people to do right now is grab a pen and paper and listen. We're in zoom meetings and we want to talk, right? We want to say what our thing is and discuss maybe the numbers or discuss this opportunity, whatever the meeting's about.

But what I advise people to do is grab a piece of paper and a pen and to stop talking, and then for the first half hour of the meeting, or 20 minutes or however long the meeting is for, the first portion of the meeting, say nothing but write stuff down, Anita. Say nothing but write stuff down.

Listening is an incredibly important tool that we don't do anymore. I'm as guilty as anybody about this and generally do not talk this much, but what I do instead is I sit down and I make note, and when I have the urge to talk, instead of unmuting myself and talking, I keep it on mute and I grab a pen and I write down that point. If you do that, over the course of a few different meetings, you will notice that there is some amazing creative connections by what you write down, regardless of what the meeting is. And those creative connections enable you to actually ask better questions and to listen better to what's going on. So that's something your listeners can do right now. On your next meeting, instead of talking, hit mute, grab a pen and a piece of paper and write down what it is that you would have said anyway, and see where the meeting goes. Maybe, you know, somebody would have said it, brought it up an answer to that question. Or maybe, just maybe, what you've written down is an incredibly profound creative direction that you can bring up later in the meeting, or have something that you can explore later on.

Anita Brick: Okay, good. What's number two?

Nir Bashan: Number two that I recommend that somebody can do today. We talked about little victories. I love little victories. That's a really good one. Write those down and enjoy them because they're incredibly important.

Another one. How about the four P's. So I talk in the book about the four P’s of creativity is people, process, product, and profit. Those four elements are really, really important in the development of creativity. Something that your listeners can do is to begin a little bit of a study around what it is that empower these elements in different portions of their life. You look at the people part, you start to just ask yourself, who are the people that I surround myself with and what is that doing to, you know, my end goal? What is the process like? Do I just jump into stuff or do I meticulously make notes and stuff like that? You know what, am I making money? My not. Am I a startup ,am I my student? What is that process like? And then finally, what is the profit that I'm realizing? Is it sweat equity? Is it real profit?

So on and so forth. Your listeners right now can explore those four items again by writing something down there, something amazing that happened in your mind when you actually put pen to paper. Psychologically, there's a shift, a physical shift in your mind that allows things that are written down to be looked at in a different way, and from that comes amazing creative potential. Write down those four elements, and in that, what can I do to excel? Those are easy things that somebody can do, yet they are profound in their effects.

Anita Brick: Great, and on the product side, I could be the product. So if someone is looking at all of this in terms of their own career. They can be thinking about that as well. Or it could be the product in their company. But all this is really important because when you think about taking a step back and self-reflection, and I totally agree with you, there have been a lot of studies about writing things down because it engages multiple aspects of our brain, and it goes back to really where we started that it engages both the creative and the analytical, and that's where those deeply profound and useful, and even if they look crazy on the surface at the beginning, really come together.

So, I'm so glad that you wrote the book. I love your energy. And I do really love, humor, empathy, and courage because I think if we can all display a little bit more of each of those, think about the impact that we will have on our own life and those around us.

Nir Bashan: Absolutely.

Anita Brick: Thank you so much. Thank you for making the time. I know you're a super busy guy, so really appreciate the time that you gave us today.

Nir Bashan: Thanks, Anita. Thank you for having me.

Anita Brick: Absolutely. And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.