KJCG

I was recently at the 99% Conference in New York City, held by Behance, a company that grows creative people. (I almost expect to walk into their office and see little plants or incubators with people planted in them, getting watered and lit by the sun, stretching out and walking out into the conference room.)  When I went to Behance’s home office more than a year ago, I was, for the first time, aware that there are other people in the world like me.  People who work differently, who think in odd—often wildly chaotic—patterns, people who have a difficult time assimilating to regular work environments. 

I had often felt that as a creative—a writer and an artist—I would never really succeed in the real work world.  Sitting at a desk from 9 to 5, quietly working away, attending meetings, making appointments, taking calls, etc.: it was (and still can be sometimes) like having my right hand tied behind my back and being expected to not only perform, but perform at a high level. 

There isn’t a school that teaches creatives how to seek out opportunities that promote growth and development in their specific skill sets. There isn’t a guide to organizations that give members the latitude to ground themselves for doing their best work in the way they can.  I am fortunate to already be in an organization that leads with possibility—and opportunity. In fact, that organization is the reason I landed at the 99% Conference. 

One of the many challenges facing creatives in work environments is how to use their skills in a way that is successful for both themselves and the organization.  It is one thing to be a creative and another to be a successful creative member of a team.  The obstacle I have faced (and was happy to hear at this conference that others have faced as well) is hitting a brick wall while trying to meet the needs of my teammates and function at my highest level.  It’s difficult to do both—an enormous amount of energy is expended trying to assimilate, complete tasks, and problem-solve in a shared accountability environment where you need to work with other members and their style of working.  More often than not, the expenditure of that energy is depleting your creative center—not allowing your best work to come forward.  Having the space to find and foster ways of successfully doing both requires a commitment from both you and your team. 

Honoring your end of the commitment will mean compromise, which can be equally difficult.  You can be a great artist, a great writer, a phenomenal idea person, but just “being” those things isn’t enough.  We are living in a time of enormous change—technology is coming and changing by the second—”creatives” are taking over! And the competition for the “next greatest thing” is coming from a creative near you. 

In order to make an impact, to be the change you want to see, you need to get organized. Organized in whatever way you can—and if you can’t by yourself, find someone who can organize you.  Creativity alone can leave you as the tortured artist. Creativity + organization will yield impact and success.

When the business environment becomes uncertain, many organizations tend to pull in, focusing only on the “essentials.” Today’s environment redefines uncertainty. Can change leaders still make a case for Inclusion as the HOW^SM as a business essential in these times of dramatic uncertainty and change?

The answer is emphatically yes—and the reason lies, ironically, in the uncertainty itself.

As recently as 30 years ago, the marketplace changed little from year to year, and organizations could get by on the knowledge of a few senior leaders or subject matter experts. Today, with the advent of the Internet, the breathtaking pace of technological breakthroughs, the speed and complexity of the global marketplace, and other seismic changes, market realities can change significantly from month to month. That leaves organizations with a myriad of unknowns and unknowables.

However, unknowns are not always unknown to everyone. Sales professionals or call center members, for instance, might have critical market knowledge that senior leaders do not have. Input from front line team members, people in the research and development function, or others might help the organization resolve otherwise unresolvable challenges.

The knowledge to face the uncertainty is often already in the organization and/or with customers. The challenge is to access it.

That is where Inclusion as the HOW^SM comes in. Including the right people, with the right information, at the right time can help a create 360-degree vision of a situation in key discussions on each issue. By ensuring that people are heard and valued for their contribution, Inclusion as the HOW^SM dramatically enhances trust and collaboration across the organization. Trust and collaboration increase speed of knowledge transfer and application. The contribution of more perspectives provides that 360-degree view on the issue—and thus the ability to address it more effectively and more quickly. 

As people interact this way across the organization, some of the unknowns become more known. The unknowables become more knowable. Problems get raised and solved more quickly. Inclusion as the HOW^SM helps the organization and its people navigate through uncertainty by tapping into a wider range of perspectives.

Speed isn’t everything.

It seems incongruous to hear that statement in this century. It is incongruous coming from us: we work anytime, all the time, whenever we are needed, at warp speed. Conditions can change at the drop of a hat, and we have learned to change with them. An immediate need comes out of nowhere, and we have learned to respond immediately.

The problem comes when warp speed is our only speed.

That happens everywhere in the industrialized world today, largely because expectations grow as the technology grows. Being able to do things faster—via mobile wireless, social media, e-mail, and so on—requires us to do things faster. Clients, suppliers, colleagues, co-workers, all expect the speed of the latest device. It will not be long before someone asks, “What do you mean you don’t have a 4G phone? How can you not?”

Our always-on lifestyle compounds the issue. Because we can connect anytime, anywhere, we are expected to be available anytime, anywhere—in the service of moving as quickly as the marketplace.

But always-fast, always-on comes at a cost. Some things only happen at a slower pace: the reflection required for making complex decisions, the open-ended discussions from which new ideas come, the hard work of resolving conflict. Many strategic blunders from the past 10 years have come from people not taking the time to connect, exchange ideas, or think through the ramifications of their next decision. On the other hand, taking the time often empowers us to speed up again with a clearer purpose and a better goal.

Many of us here are learning to “slow down to speed up.” Whether alone, in one-on-one meetings, as a department, or as a firm, we take a deep breath and listen to what is going on around us: the accomplishments, the setbacks, and the flurry of activity that make us who we are. In other words, we sit back and “see what is there.” As part of that process, we connect more thoroughly than we can with a passing hallway conversation or quick IM.                                     

And something extraordinary happens. Solutions arise to the problems that seemed unsolvable. New ideas emerge to move our clients forward. Each of us understands what the other means. When the pace picks up again, we have more to bring to the table, more avenues for growth, stronger connections to a more cohesive team.

This “slowing down to speed up” can happen anywhere. It might take place organically, as on a long trip with the cell phone off. It might require setting aside regular office hours for meeting, connecting, and checking in. The key is not so much the format, but what it facilitates: the chance to pause and take stock.

Speed is the world’s new pace, and we do need to keep up. But as people, we work best when we change speeds. Try slowing down to speed up and see the difference.

Whenever my son’s ADD/ADHD comes up, I think of the classic hunter image: light of foot, highly alert, twitchy with energy, ready to jump at a moment’s notice.

So I can understand how Thom Hartmann, the radio commentator and lay scholar, developed his “hunters and farmers” hypothesis to explain the presence of ADD/ADHD in the human gene pool. He suggests that the genetic code for ADD/ADHD was a matter of survival in prehistoric times: our hunter ancestors absolutely required the alertness and “hyperfocus” characteristic of ADD/ADHD. People with ADD/ADHD are more like hunters. In contrast, farmers—well, the type of people they represent—are what our postmodern society often labels as “normal.” They deliberate, plan, decide, move carefully and intentionally and often linearly through life.

We need farmers. We also need hunters. Both do great work. But our society doesn’t value hunters nearly as much as it does farmers. Why not?

I see this up close in our educational system. It was built by farmers for farmers: people who learn methodically, by traditional methods. My son, on the other hand, learns best when in motion or expending physical energy to clear his mind. Yet he is required to spend all day sitting at a desk.  No wonder his teachers tell me things like “he would be a lot more productive if we could get him to stop moving all the time.”

But they’re wrong. In truth, they are most productive when my son is sitting in his seat. He is not.

In short, my son’s way of processing information has no outlet in today’s educational system. In the last few decades, his difference has been labeled a disorder, and pharmaceuticals promoted to treat it, so children can be “made normal” and “behave in school.” He is not misbehaving; he is simply learning in the way his brain learns best.

Many commentators have noticed that our school systems are failing in nearly every way. This is one more way. We need a new approach—and it has everything to do with the way we approach differences in general.

As it turns out, those of us with ADD/ADHD move through the world in a way that society would find useful. We can generate bright ideas fast and in great quantities. We can get more out of each minute than many other people. We contribute tremendous amounts of energy to every project we touch. We are often quick-witted, curious, comfortable with complexity, and ready to jump in where others may falter. The world desperately needs these traits.

This, in a nutshell, is why our organizations must actively encourage people to bring their differences to work. If all of us were hunters, we would miss out on the productivity and results that the careful planning and preparation of farmers can bring. As it is, our society, which favors farmers, often does miss out on all the ideas and the energy of us hunters. Only by leveraging both perspectives can organizations become even more than the sum of their parts.

Or, to put it more accurately, all perspectives. The distinction between hunters and farmers is not an either-or but rather a continuous spectrum, with people exhibiting many different combinations of hunter and farmer traits within themselves. This argues for bringing as many of these combinations to work as possible. So it is with any set of differences: the more of them we bring to the table, the more perspectives we have, and the better we can co-create the future that is within our reach.

Let’s learn to listen to all perspectives—whether you see them coming from a distance across the well-plowed field, or they jump out at you from behind the next tree.

Selected Traits of Hunters and Farmers

*Hunter traits are adapted from the works of Thom Hartmann, particularly Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception (Grass Valley, Calif.: Underwood Press, 1993) and The Edison Gene: ADHD and the Gift of the Hunter Child (Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press, 2003).