THE NEW HOLLYWOOD LEADER

HOLLYWOOD CAREER STRATEGY AND LEADERSHIP

Here's a new Video I Shot today. I'll be posting it on my website http://www.hollywoodcoaching.com very soon but for now, here it is.

7 THINGS JON HEDER NEEDS TO KNOW TO RUN HIS TV SHOW

Hi there,

ANOTHER FUNNY MAN STEPS INTO THE BIG LEAGUES

I read in the NY Times about Jon Heder  (Napoleon Dynamite, etc.)  getting a contract to develop 100 episodes of a TV series for Comedy Central. (Starting with 10 episodes, of course.)

I've never met him and don't know any of the parties involved, but what I do know is this:

He has no idea what he's in for

HOW DO I KNOW?

In the NY Times article Jon said: "They kept asking me "Are you you ready for this?" I said, "I'm like, 'Should I be?' I haven't thought this through."

This heart-warming exchange demonstrates a common and dangerous dynamic in Hollywood.

FIRST:

A team of smart executives recognize a major talent and make a deal for the talent to take an ambitious and smart next step.

THEN:

While they actually do know the traps, obstacles and banana peels that will likely

challenge this creative genius, they are unwilling or more likely unable to articulate, prepare or arm their bold adventurer for his or her journey.

INTO THE WOODS

I'm not saying the creative genius isn't ready or shouldn't embark on this journey into the deep dark woods of TV production. And I'm not faulting the execs for their vision, their deal or their last minute warning/trepidation.

This dynamic is happening all over Hollywood whether it's Burbank, Studio City, Culver City, Television City or Manhattan Beach.

WHO'S ON YOUR TRANSITION TEAM?

November 4th was the day of voting, counting and analyzing the data, but the change has been occurring gradually for years.  



Election day was a snapshot/freeze frame of a living breathing transformation in progress. 



Our world has been changing, our demographics have been changing, the economy has been changing and our careers and industries have been changing. 



And it's on certain days and at certain times that we stop and register a choice, count the votes, articulate what's changed.

INTERNAL/EXTERNAL SHIFTS



The political landscape has changed. The world's economic fortunes are shifting. 



One of the many things that I believe Barack Obama's leadership will bring to Washington and the world is a new understanding of the nature of teamwork and collaboration in getting things done and making changes in our world and projects.



-How will we help improve our global economy and our personal economy?



-How will we change our actions and attitudes towards global warming and our reliance on oil?



-How will we reinvent our careers and professional lives when the skills and jobs and money streams that once made us a good living are changing, shifting or outright disappearing?



THE BIG CHANGE



The big answer, and the big shift, is that we'll be challenged to do it collectively: in teams, in partnership and in collaboration.



We're being challenged to solve problems that we've never faced before which will require answers and approaches to problem solving that we've never used before.



But now, working together with other people, brainstorming solutions, listening and being inspired by other ways of looking at and approaching problems are likely to be the best and perhaps only way out.



WHAT ARE YOUR COMPANY'S LEADERSHIP VALUES?

What are the essential skills, qualities and awareness' that you wish you could magically clone and implant into your company's future leaders?

The qualities are often silently embedded into the vision of a companies founders, their successful CEO, creative directors or leaders.

KNOW YOUR TEAM

Lacking the tools, time or sometimes simply the inclination to develop the next generation of a companies leaders often causes creative companies to rely on corporate leadership "instruments" and "assessments" that are expensive, time consuming, boring and ultimately ineffective for creative companies, departments or teams.

Creative companies are led, managed and inspired differently. Its employees are not motivated exclusively by money. For employees of creative companies, what matters is their ability to do good work, collaboratively with other creative people, in an environment where creativity is understood and respected.

KNOW HOW TO MANAGE DEADLINES

Even the most ethereal of creative artists understand and respect deadlines. But when they are working in an environment of seemingly arbitrary milestones, inane redundancies, and management inefficiencies, creative employees will flounder, lose interest and before long move to a company where they feel better appreciated and understood.

KNOW CREATIVE PROCESS

Yet the challenge of the modern entertainment company is how to manage creative talent in a way that allows them to do their best work and to have an entire team's efforts focused into a symphonic crescendo of original creation, finely focused by a creative leader, into a successful product that will be funneled into the market place at the right time in the right way.

Developing leadership talent for creative companies must start with an appreciation of the creative process.

Also essential are having both a clear vision of what the product will be, and the ability to articulate it, even though it will probably evolve.

KNOW YOUR BUSINESS

You must know your core creative and business values before you enter "The den of constant creation and change" or you will be lost forever, and worst of all, dismissed as simply a random, clueless "suit."

The best creative leaders know what matters and what doesn't. Know which battles to fight and which to give in on. And even know when to give in when they're right and the team is wrong (but may need to learn it for themselves.)

FEEDBACK, PLEASE?

The best creative leaders know how to give supportive feedback when the process is veering off course. Sometimes they can tell right away and sometimes it's impossible to tell until later. But knowing when, and how, to pull the plug on a creative exploration is the master's stroke.

KNOW YOUR SELF

Finding the right balance of compassion, sensitivity and certainty requires a leader to be grounded in an understanding of their own strengths, their own vulnerabilities, and their own aesthetic, business and market grounded ness.

Confident and knowledgeable enough about the creative process at hand, knowing the language and customs of the creative working, and when to listen to, and fight for their own intuitions are seldom discussed, rarely well articulated awareness's that the great creative leaders have.

They are respected, appreciated and loved. Their creative teams will work their hardest to make them happy if they trust that their work will be appreciated and their process understood.

KNOW LEADERSHIP

Some of these qualities come naturally to some. Some come through training in creative disciplines, some through apprenticing a great creative leaders.

But the essential skills of creative, collaborative leadership can be learned, experienced and transmitted.

Whenever you're ready.

LEADERSHIP DEFINITIONS: THE JOURNEY BEGINS

(This is a work in progress. I'm still synthesizing and simplifying many of my notes and writing about leadership over the past few years. My apologies in advance for any potential redundancies.)

Hope you like it, here it goes:

DEFINITION/RIFF #1:

Leadership is the art of facilitating collaborative creation toward a powerful goal.

Leaders guide and empower a team of willing participants towards a visualized, articulated, actualized and constantly evolving end.

Leaders bring forth a deeply accessed vision, nurture their teams by facilitating inspiration and collaboration and manage results through supportive accountability.

Leadership can be practiced and applied by anyone at any level of a team or organization.

Leadership growth involves an ongoing process of developing the skills and awareness' for inspiring, nurturing and managing collaborative work in progress.

LEADERSHIP REMIX: BEYOND THE COMPOSITE SNOOZE

As a culture, and as a community, we are only recently beginning to understand, ask ourselves, and define, or actually redefine, leadership.

The word's been around, and we hear it often. Yet the composite snooze we experience around the word is a result of its apparent emptiness. It feels like tired corporate jargon because when the so-called leaders of business, industry or culture are asked about leadership they seem to have nothing to say that is inspiring, profound, or relevant.
 

OH, IT WAS NOTHING, REALLY

 

Maybe they'll point to decisions they made, or anecdotes or experiences that may have inadvertently and unconsciously shaped them. Or missions, agendas or strategies that they seem to have led or overseen, and are thus receiving and happy to take ownership in, some bit of public, corporate, or artistic success.

Yet the essence of leadership remains a mystery, except, perhaps to the many coaches and leadership experts who go on and on about how important it is to do our best to articulate, describe, and teach what it is.

MY QUESTION FOR WGA PRESIDENT PATRIC VERRONE (And his Answer)

I had the pleasure of doing a web-radio interview last week on one of my favorite topics: Hollywood Leadership and the Writer's Guild Strike. Hosted by Coach Tom Floyd, guests were Patric Verrone, President of the WGA, Jonathan Handel, attorney at TroyGould,  Coach (and friend) Sherry Ziff Lester and me.

THE LEADERSHIP LEARNING?

Of course I'm always listening for the leadership opportunities and ways we can do things differently in Hollywood. In the beginning of our conversation Patric was explaining the events and months preceding the vote and decision to strike. Obviously lots of frustrating time passed that led to the lengthy strike.

BUT HERE WAS MY QUESTION TO HIM:

BROWNSTEIN: Patric, obviously, it was a successful strike and you got great things.  With what you learned by the end of the strike —if you could go back in time now—what might have worked differently in July that you discovered in January?

VERRONE: Well, I think the key thing was the involvement of the CEOs. When we were bargaining from July through October, we were bargaining with what Tom referred to as the AMPTP (The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers). 

COACHING AND THERAPY

At the ICF conference in November, I had a great conversation the Dr. Carol Kaufman, a therapist, coach and Ass't Professor at Harvard about a whole bunch of stuff, but I was moved by this articulate statement about the differences between coaching and therapy.

“The role of therapy is decreasing depression, the role of coaching is increasing well being.”

Therapy follows the trail of tears with the goal of healing.

Coaching follows the trail of dreams with the goal of optimal living.

In Coaching, healing is a side effect. in therapy that’s your goal.”

Very poetic, clear and honoring of the tools and intentions of both paradigms.

What do you think?

A New Word for Leadership?

I think we need a new word for leadership.

Except for coaches, "regular people" are both sick of the word and clueless about it. I keep hearing people say the word leadership is “overused,” “tired” and “jargon.” Maybe they’re sick of it because we coaches (being both leadership students and aficionados) haven’t articulated it yet, or made it actually interesting or profound or clear.

And there are so many “powerful icon’s of business” who’re clueless (IMHO) about the forward thinking views of leadership who, because they’re rich and powerful, are constantly asked about leadership, and write books about their “leadership” are giving the “new leadership” modalities a bad name.

These new modalities tend to include coaching skills and coaching approaches. Things like, oh. . . listening, collaborating, having a vision, working to accentuate people’s strengths, being clear about accountability, etc.

Maybe a new word IS needed. Maybe I’ll call my book “A New Word for Leadership.”

Oprah Winfrey on Leadership

Hi there, Just saw this interview with Oprah in The Hollywood Reporter. I've excerpted the most interesting parts.

What intrigues me is that she outlines the changes that occur when creative people start a business, that becomes successful and impactful. We're all challenged with learning new skills and habits as our organization grows. Read on for what Oprah learned from her 29 meals with Nelson Mandela.

-db

PS: I'll be curious to see what any of you think about this. Agree, Disagree? I'm not sure I agree with her final comments about doubt. What do you think?

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The Hollywood Reporter: As you grew up, did anyone mentor you, especially in the business arena?

Winfrey: I didn't have a lot of mentors, you know? I happened into being a businesswoman. It has never been a goal of mine, and I wouldn't necessarily even say it's a strength of mine.

THR: But you've been so successful in business.

Winfrey: I have to really work at it. I have to work at disciplining myself. The business of the business tires me out. What I would rather do is just stand out there, in front of the camera -- or not in front of the camera, 'cause it doesn't matter to me if I'm talking to a flight attendant or an audience of 10 million people -- about concepts, ideas, principles that cause people to have these "Aha!" moments. That is what I am. At heart, I am a teacher. But I've made a lot of mistakes.

THR: Can you name any?