The Paradoxes of Leadership, Pt. 4 - Creative vs. Focused

About the Author: Pete Ward - Partner, Rise Above Consulting

Pete Ward is a globally experienced founder and executive. After kicking off his career as a rock climbing rescue ranger, Pete then contributed to our foundational understanding of the mathematics of Neuroscience at university. Looking for the greatest possible positive impact, Pete brought that intellectual rigor combined with a fearless commitment to results into the business world where he has built his career as a leader. That career has spanned industries and continents and resulted in a truly unique perspective on how to build and grow profitable businesses. From New York to Oxford to Switzerland and from Tech to Financial Services to Retail, Pete has crafted  high-performance strategies on the cutting edge regardless of context. 

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Would you rather be innovative or efficient?

Of course, we would all choose both if we could, but innovation is inherently inefficient with many stops and starts along the way. Efficiency meanwhile requires that we don’t waste resources on things we aren’t positive will work which… can be pretty stifling for innovation.

Would you rather do something new, or do something better?

Again, it would be ideal to be able to do both, but what is your natural tendency? Do you want to show that you are the best in an established category, or do you want to create a whole new category in the first place?

These are some of the questions faced in the paradox between creativity and focus. As with all the paradoxes of leadership, the complete leader needs to be able to have both traits when needed, but we all start with our natural comfort zone. 

Previously, I introduced the concept of the Paradoxes of Leadership and the four core responsibilities of a leader. In the simplest terms, the work of a leader is as follows;

Make Decisions	Provide direction, commitment, and impetus to your organization
Motivate Your People	Align your organization, clarify its purpose, and get buy-in
Resource the Organization	Provide the tools, structure and assets that your people need to do the job
See the Big Picture	Think strategically, and know when to be adaptable and when to be resilient

Today, we will focus on how you resource your team by asking: What is the working environment that you create within your team or organization? Are you creative or focused?

Personally, as a natural creative, there’s nothing I find more frustrating than the way that the business world fetishizes LASER FOCUS. There is literally nothing more unimaginatively tech bro-y than puffing out your chest, taking a bunch of adderall and “rising and grinding” your way to the top. Cool, you can focus and grind things out, but do you even know why you’re doing what you’re doing or if it's the right thing to do in the first place? 

The spark of innovation is one of the most exciting moments in any founder’s career, why snuff that spark out by demanding LASER FOCUS at all times? 

Well, for one, because day dreaming doesn’t pay the damn bills. At the end of the day, we are what we DO, not what we IMAGINE, and the only way that anything gets done is through (say it with me) LASER FOCUS. 

The most productive professionals and the very smartest people I’ve ever met can block out everything extraneous, identify what matters the most and create systems that outlast any one individual. As a natural creative, I hate to admit it, but great ideas are a dime a dozen unless you also have the LASER FOCUS required to turn your vision into reality.

This is why the paradox between creativity and focus is my personal favorite. And it’s one of the most difficult to manage as a leader. Success, both individually and for your organization, demands that you know when and how to bear down, cut away everything that doesn’t matter and focus on the most important issues, and when to understand that new pathways must be imagined. 

Creativity is the spark that creates new categories. Focus is the discipline that turns sparks into fire. Without vision, focus is soulless. Without focus, vision is hallucination.

Ok. Tell me about the costs and benefits of each approach?

Knowing when, and how, to be focused vs, creative is one of the great challenges of being a complete leader

Creative Leadership

The Good

You are a big-picture, visionary, willing to blow up assumptions. At your best you can create breakthrough ideas that redefine the playing field. You prioritize innovative thinking and a willingness to challenge established paradigms above all else. Your teams can produce results that force your colleagues and competitors to rethink their foundational assumptions of what is possible.

The Challenge

Wild swings for the fences are a threat to the stability of any business and you sometimes have trouble knowing where the line is between creative and reckless. People know that they can count on you to think big, but they’re less confident that they can count on you to think practically. When the sky is the limit, it’s hard to stay grounded and that lack of consistency might leave some team members unclear on how they fit into the vision for the business, producing anxiety and a risk that “in-groups” and “out-groups” will form based on a tolerance for risk rather than the quality of the work. 

Collaborative Leadership

The Good

Precision, practicality and measurable results matter most to you and the teams you lead. You are good at articulating what needs to be done, and because your decisions are pragmatic and rational they are easily communicated across your organization leading to a high level of efficiency and alignment. There is a clearly shared definition of success in every project you lead along with a specific  “definition of done”. This leads to a unified culture making the most of its resources.

The Challenge

Unfortunately, the cost of that efficiency can sometimes come in the form of missed opportunities for innovation. Hyper-focus is very productive with a narrow area of attention, but the risk is that your business might suffer from myopia and could therefore be less likely to identify new opportunities that fall outside of the established paradigm.  And personally, you might sometimes be perceived as cold, controlling, and ruthless; Qualities which discourage creative thinking from your subordinates.

How do I address “The Bad” from each approach?

You did not come to Rise Above for vanilla bullshit, so I’ll give it to you straight: From a neurological perspective, becoming more creative or more focused when your given nature is the opposite is like becoming more able to dunk a basketball if you're short, or more able to fit in a Ferrari if you’re tall. Improvement is possible, but you really need to be aware of your limitations and outsource them to more suited people whenever possible. In my personal experience, the paradox between creativity and focus is the most consistently difficult in my professional life. 

My advice is this:

IF YOU’RE MORE NATURALLY CREATIVE:

Understand that every little bit of focus, discipline and diligence you can learn and integrate into your professional approach will pay off massively. Use and stick to your calendar, use and abide by productivity/project management tools that track and measure your progress on your actual work. This will feel like dying. It’s not dying. It’s a structure that, once you truly learn to work within it, will amplify your creativity.

IF YOU’RE MORE NATURALLY FOCUSED:

It may sound cliche, but sometimes the more you tighten your grip, the more things slip away. If you’re searching for an answer that has proven difficult to find, it is almost certainly outside the box you’ve been thinking inside of, and it might even (gasp) be outside of your direct control.  Learn to be ok letting go of control and learn to reflect on your own motivations and understand the difference between when you’re focused because you know what matters and when you’re focused because you don’t want to step outside your comfort zone.

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So what do I do now?

In leadership, sometimes you need to cut ruthlessly, and sometimes you need to dream recklessly. Growth is learning to know the difference, and surrounding yourself with people who can balance your blind spots

And remember, you can’t grow your business if you’re not growing the capabilities of your leadership.

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