The One Thing That Truly Motivates Creative Talent--And How To Foster It
Talent. It’s the subject line of
many an inbox message these days. All of us who belong to the great ecosystem
of new talent development--universities, portfolio programs, think tanks,
agencies--and agency leaders, mentors, recruiters, and talent managers, offer opinions
about who we need now and how we train them. Even better, the discussion has
evolved to the nurturing of talent over the long ride of a career.
This is good.
From my vantage point of a couple of
decades of preparing creatives and strategic thinkers for careers, the true
platform for talent development hinges on building one beautiful characteristic
from which all success flows: intrinsic motivation. It’s all the reasons we do
things that have little to do with money or offices or perks. It can make B
skill level into an A+ creative.
Intrinsic motivation is the mojo
that breathes life into curiosity and lifelong learning, into building new and
better skills, into making individually defined talent level bloom into
something of value to the whole. It pushes us to go beyond obligation in our
work.
Intrinsic motivation makes us love
what we do and find ways to do that well.
There’s plenty of intellectual heft
to back this up. Harvard business professor Teresa Amabile grew a cult
following after her 1998 landmark research about successful creative
organizations. Her study found that creative skills, domain expertise, and
intrinsic motivation were necessities to drive creative culture. Behavioral
psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi built his flow theory around a core ideal of
intrinsic motivation.
Industry
greats such as Paul Venables, Janet Kestin, Nancy Vonk, and John Boiler note that passion for good work drives talented people, that it is
shared values that build the best teams and culture.
The inclusion of intrinsic
motivation as a business proposition is epic. It explains what catapults great
agencies and the people in them to the upper strata of epic creative. I’ve seen
it realized at the best places from monolithic to radical, when
everyone--receptionist to CCO to producers to client--believes in what they do
and why it’s important. Quite frankly, it’s a rather rare commodity (we’ve all
seen plenty of places that don’t fit this model), but when it happens, it is
remarkable.
As a professor on the front lines of
producing best talent, I believe intrinsic motivation can be developed in
individuals and cultures. The questions become: How do we develop this early on
so young talent walks in the door ready and enthused? How do we sustain that
motivation throughout a career? But more, how do we develop organizational
cultures that believe and live up to this shared expectation?
A few recommendations follow.
Curiosity is key. We find that
directly developing this skill in class and through extraordinary projects
opens doors to bigger thinking and investment. There’s also a direct connection
between curiosity and building hybrid skills in students. When they are curious
about the world and how it functions (how does that work? who does this affect?
why why why?), they will work to understand people, technology, and culture. To
be honest, I want them to be dedicating more time to understanding the world
than to making a slick campaigns book. Both can be important, but the first builds
a way of thinking for a lifetime.
I know this philosophy works in our
classes. Learning should be all about finding the golden tension of
interdisciplinarity, the joy of connection. And that happens when we build from
curiosity. And I’m watching it come alive in 72andSunny’s newest version of 72U under the directorship of Maria
Scileppi. (Transparency alert: I helped shape this new version and I’m proud of
the outcome.) Maria and her cohort are jumping into 12 weeks of
psychogeography, quantified living, Arduino projects, and days spent thinking
how to make the world a better and smarter place, as they learn agency culture.
They’re studying the world and how it lives.
Will they be ready to land in a fast
creative agency? Absolutely. Their ability to provoke and connect culture to
their chosen profession becomes ownable. Compare that to multiple “training
programs” in the industry that train only for agency process and tired,
entrenched versions of creative thinking or agency bureaucracy.
Attention, mentors: do something big
with all that influence. Remind your protegeés that this profession has to work
to its highest standard. Give feedback that involves direction about doing the
right thing. Remind them that best business practices can feed the soul and
drive the economy. If it were easy, anybody could do it and, really, they
can’t.
How about this: when our Oregon
program took 53 students to Creative Week last May, brilliant JWT CCO Matt
MacDonald (since moved to BBDO) came up with the idea of an eight-hour
internship. Our bright students were toured, fed, briefed in the morning, then
gave five-minute team pitches in the afternoon to Matt’s JWT team and their
client. Great ideas and great reaction collided all over the room. The
excitement, the motivation was inspiring for all. It was also expected.
Train new talent with the idea
they’re here to be awesome, then demand that from them. Hardasses with
character motivate. Ask anyone about Bernbach or Riswold or Hoffman; a
demanding mentor inspires.
In my years of doing this, a truth
shines through that captures the best of this profession. Students driven by
creativity and curiosity want to do meaningful work. The reality of intrinsic
motivation is that it is driven by purpose. The old “it’s only advertising”
heard in offices across the land kills that spirit.
Instead, better to build investment
from junior talent by doing work that is socially meaningful as it solves
business problems. That’s good for brands and for people. Don’t think of this
as kumbaya. Think of it as your little parcel of change agentry. Look at Ty
Montague’s Storydoing project or brand expert Scott Bedbury’s take on brands with
superpowers. That’s the thinking that grows intrinsic motivation.
No treatise on talent would be
complete without stating the obvious: we need to open doors (then keep them
open) to people of color and to women for leadership roles. (It makes my head
hurt that we’re all still talking about this in 2013.) We know that research
and conventional wisdom tell us better ideas and more divergent problem-solving
comes from diverse teams.
We also know that the promise of
richer thinking grows motivation and makes everyone better. The organization
that actively searches for bright thinkers from an array of backgrounds and
perspectives drives the future. Watch Google and Facebook as they gather
world-class talent. Or look at this great example: Steve Stoute and his
Translation brainchild that will change the world by gathering people who know
abundant culture and connect it well. And this great read: Marty Neumeier’s MetaSkills Five Talents for the
Robotic Age.
We’re ready for this.
At
it simplest, the answer to motivating people to do more, create more, be more
is to give them the aspirational tools they need. The rest will grow from that
starting place. That, of course, is about leaders who inspire and ideas that
solve business problems with generosity and courage. Yes, I’m asking for a lot
in a world fraught with economic angst and systems evolving at the speed of
pixels flying.
To
be honest, I’m an optimist but one blessed with a realistic perspective. I want
the work I do in training people to result in bright resonant careers and
better craft. I’ve seen this happen over and over again. But more, I want that
bright glow of wanting to be good at what we do to drive us.
By Deborah Morrison
http://www.fastcocreate.com/3022240/the-one-thing-that-truly-motivates-creative-talent-and-how-to-foster-it?partner=newsletter.
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