Building an Office Catapult, or How to Create a Creative Culture by Accident

[Please note: All specific names, titles and identifying details have been removed from the speech, or changed, at client’s request.]

 

Good morning! Good morning. Janet. Thank you very much for such a gracious introduction. It’s wonderful to be here this morning. This conference is getting bigger and better every year. I love meeting old friends and making new ones.

Now, as you could tell from the conference brochure, this is going to be a talk about corporate creativity cultures and some such, so I would be amiss not to introduce you to some critical creative elements of my company’s team.

Let me first introduce you to DataEpiphany’s Frog Croakers a Cappela group. Ladies and gentlemen.

[Margaret and at least six other of the robed a cappella singers will rush up to the stage behind you and first hum and “bum bum bum” three lines from “Born to be Wild.”]

They croak like frogs for some songs, folks. I’m. Not. Kidding.

[They will croak the last lines from “White Room.”]

We don’t just do music. May I present to you D.E.’s Nerfball Rangers.

[Billy will bring four all dressed in full plastic commando regalia, while the a Cappella singers will pull back their robes to reveal their own Nerfball armaments. They will carefully fire 2 – 3 shots at each other while the a Cappella singers will sing the Darth Vader theme.]

We’re picking them up. I promise.

Now, these are just some of the creative teams and clubs at DataEpiphany. We have many. But it would be a great disservice if I failed to mention the activity that started our company’s creativity culture, the Friday Afternoon Fun Time Catapult Team!

[Becky, Joe and David rush up to the stage, behind you and in front of the Rangers and the Croakers. Joe holds the model catapult as Becky loads the softball payload, pulls it back and launches it at David. Confirm with the a Cappella group whether you want them to hum or croak “Learn to Fly” by Foo Fighters.]

Launch!! Be careful what you hit, Janet will kill us. Janet, it’s all good!

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a just a small selection of all the activities and efforts devoted to promoting creativity at my company, DataEpiphany. And all these activities have actually benefited our business greatly.

Now, if this was a normal speech about corporate creativity, I would be humble-bragging right now about how I did this and did that to make all of this possible. The truth is all of these activities almost did not happen because, initially, I got in the way. I had to learn how to help my colleagues be creative, without becoming an obstacle.

[Everyone standing next to you crosses their arms to look at you.]

Ahem!

Our field, Artificial Intelligence, is a fun – and funny – kind of alchemy. Juggling over a dozen fields, some of which are well-established like deduction, knowledge representation and natural language processing, and some fields that you just wish someone would invent already. Like, what do you call the field that builds “Aha!” moments into a computer?

And we expect. We hope. We NEED our employees and colleagues to launch themselves into these creative new skies every single day.

And it’s not just us. Investors are always searching for the next killer portfolio strategy. Advertisers want the next great ear worm or brand logo. Disruptors are trying to think up stuff no-one else has imagined in order to, well, disrupt industries. And so on.

But is there anything really that you can do to help your colleagues become more creative, popping with ideas and with supercharged brains turned to 11?

Actually there is, and if I can do it, you can do it. You need to develop a culture that ensures its thinkers have the following three qualities: an openness to any new ideas, however unprecedented or silly-seeming; a level of comfort, and freedom, for playing with these ideas, and a sense of gravity.

Now, building such a culture need not be expensive, but it does require commitment. You must be open to changing your operations and management style, perhaps in ways you never imagined. You’ll need to give up some control at crucial moments. And you must, must dedicate yourself to learning more about your colleagues. You need to understand and appreciate their creative processes.

For, you see, the most successful creative cultures are lot like catapults for your colleagues.

[Becky lets loose with another payload from the toy catapult, which David catches, while the others yell “Hurray!”]

There is actually a lot a catapult can teach you about creativity, if you’re open to the idea. For example, there are three stages to a catapult launch.

There is the launch itself. You place the payload into the catapult itself, which by way of a torsion device, sends the payload into the air.

[Becky demonstrates with placing a softball into the toy catapult, and then fires. Joe catches it quickly and then stands while holding the softball.]

Then there is the midair flight of the payload, soaring above everything.

[Joe walks it over to David, who is holding the basket.]

Then there is the landing of the payload, right on the target.

[Joe drops the softball in David’s basket.]

Bulls-eye!

Now, you can look at the development of an idea in your company as having similar steps.

There is the first step, the launch of the new idea. That first flicker of a creative notion. A random Eureka seemingly out of nowhere, or it could be the rough draft, the first result of hours of hard-forged brainstorming and analysis of a problem. Or an observation from new eyes. What-have-you.

Like a payload just launched from a catapult, this is when the idea is at its most vulnerable. The idea is fighting against all sorts of different gravities. Established thinking. Personal doubt of the person who made the idea. Fear of the unknown. All the forces that squash a new idea in the beginning. All the things that make your colleague say, “Oh forget it, it’s not worth mentioning.”

This is where your colleagues need openness to new ideas, be it their own or those made by others. Help them so they can dare to imagine anything, put together any concepts no matter how silly they seem. There is no failure at this step, just generation of ideas. This is when your colleagues need to open themselves to new possibilities. It can be a scary experience. Fear of embarrassment. Fear of being wrong. Fear of upending what your colleagues believed in the past.

But if you can make an environment, and processes, where colleagues are encouraged to try any kind of idea, any kind of notion, and commit to it, then you will have helped them get past stage 1, and break free of any gravity.

[Becky puts a banana in the toy catapult, while Joe tells her “Produce can’t be airborne. That’s ridiculous!” Becky launches it into David’s basket. Joe says “I might be wrong. That’s pretty.”]

Then there is step 2: playing with the idea, experimenting with the idea, refining it. Again, this is like the second stage of a catapult launch, when the payload is soaring through the air after breaking free of the earth.

The payload is still dealing with the force of gravity, but now it also has to deal with things like air resistance and general direction. The same can be said of your idea.

Your idea has broken free of the gravity of overwhelming doubt, but it still needs to be played with, experimented with, discussed and debated. But all of this has to be done without crashing the idea to the ground.

For this stage, you need an environment where your colleagues are motivated to trust each other, communicate without negativity, and driven to collaborate and help each other without fear regarding ownership or credit.

Essentially, you need an environment where you colleagues can play well together, and have fun doing it.

This is harder than it sounds, but if you can do it, you’ll sail through step 2 beautifully.

[Joe holds the banana in the air. “Maybe other airborne produce is possible,” he says. “How about other airborne snack options, like a banana sundae,” David says. “We’ll put a sundae in a sandwich bag so it survives the flight,” Becky says. “Beautiful,” Joe says.]

Then there is the final stage, when the payload reaches the destination. When you hope it hits the target.

When it comes to catapults, you want bulls-eyes. When it comes to your colleague’s creativity, you want ideas that meet a specific set of criteria—namely the needs of your customers.

That’s how we make money. We come up with ideas, and the means to fulfill those ideas, that our clients are willing to pay for. That is the bulls-eye of business.

You need people who, like the sighters who helped aim catapults in battle centuries ago, can help you accurately hit your target. These are the salespeople, the market experts, the client-facing teams, and other staff with the real-life experience to refine that idea so it works in the real world.

But the practical people need to be able to talk to the creative idea generators, and vice versa. Because markets and industries change so quickly now that a successful idea, the idea that meets the needs of your customers, is successful for only so long. Customer needs change. Market realities change. Then you need to launch, and aim, a new idea all over again.

To be able to work together to handle moving targets, everyone in your team needs a sense of gravity, a sense of how things work in the real world. You don’t want just a handful of salespeople guiding all the practical decisions. Everyone needs to understand in their bones how it works in the front-lines.

[David holds up the basket with you blocking him somewhat from the sight of Becky and Joe. “Aim here,” David says. “Where’s here?” Joe says. “How do I get there?” says Becky.]

 

Now some of you are probably grumbling that I’ve oversimplified how the creative process works or the decisions we have to make to run our companies.

[If audience is in good mood, feel free to riff and rib yourself, like “Some of you might even argue that I’ve oversimplified catapults. Some of you just think I’m using too many props.” If you think their mood is serious and/or intent, you can forgo the riff-ing.]

That may be true, but some of our most important decisions in life are actually very simple, albeit very hard.

I think the same applies to launching the brilliance of your colleagues.

[Everyone leaves the stage, except for Peter.]

This is where we get to the story of my company, our creative culture and my colleague Peter.

Hi Peter.

[Peter responds “Hi Everyone,” and waves.]

DataEpiphany is a seven year-old company, with now 35 people. We specialize in data mining software that we hope acts like your closest personal assistant, or your most senior analyst, or your most trusted adviser. It allows you to scour huge databases for the most subtle connections and patterns. We also design our software to learn from how you do your searches and what you do with the data, so it can have its own “Aha” moments and give you suggestions on what to do with your data.

The company was launched by three people, myself, Keyvan and Jason. Hey guys!

[Keyvan and Jason wave from the audience.]

We started the company, or at least the collaboration that would become the company, during our last years at grad school. At that time, our organization was very loosely defined. Many of our most important brainstorming and executive meetings were held at the local pool hall. I love Murphy’s.

We came up with the idea playing billiards as we finished our doctorates. We launched the business soon after graduation and nurtured it while living together as roommates. We worked odd jobs to support ourselves.

Two years in, boom, we got angel investors and then soon after venture capital people. We started to hire other staffers, including Peter. Peter was younger and had sat in on some of the early meetings for the company, but he had more go through to finish his doctorate.

He had remembered the days at Murphy’s.

[Peter says “They were great.”]

However, the company had changed while he was finishing school and we got our first investors.

In short, we felt we had to grow up. Buy suits. Develop an organizational structure that was formal, more adult. We had goals to meet and always more people to impress.

Peter and the other staffers had found themselves at a company that depended, in part, on creativity and radical thinking, but was too busy to nurture it, and maybe too insecure to commit to it.

[Peter says “It was a drag.”]

It’s not an uncommon problem, unfortunately. But it can hurt your company, especially if you need your employees to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Consider Peter’s situation.

[Peter stands right next to you.]

Peter is our key user interface person. He takes all the data searching, and machine learning and language processing gobbledygook, and creates a face that customers actually want to work with. Feel comfortable with. Can trust. There’s a lot of artistry that goes into that.

[Peter says “Thank you!”]

But the first nine months he was here, this artist was largely ignored by me and the other founders.

His life went something like this.

[Peter turns to you and says “John, do we want to allow users to personalize the speaking voice of the data-mining tool?”]

Can’t talk, Peter, have to do a presentation with some investors.

[Peter goes to other side of you and says “John, you got some time to role-play with me? I want to try out different situations where the tool would interact with the user and make suggestions.”]

No, Peter, that might seem weird in front of the new employees.

[Peter returns to the other side and says “Can you and the guys brainstorm with me a bit? I have some ideas that I want to bounce off you, but I need to do this in the conference room. I need an overheard projector to show some clips from television and the movies on how human robot interactions have been portrayed in popular media.”]

Peter, we have a sales meeting, and do you really think we should be wasting time watching movies about robots?

[Peter will walk away from you to one side of the stage and say “So, I did the only thing I could think of and told him ‘I quit!’”]

But wait, with everything going so well!

We were lucky. I was able to beg and plead with Peter to stay at least a little longer to try and change things. Thanks for that Peter!

[Peter will shrug, “You’re welcome.”]

But it turned out we had something of a crisis. Peter wasn’t the only person who was frustrated with me and my partners.

[Around 6 others will walk up to join Peter on the stage, look at you and say things like “Work with us!” “Talk with us!” “Don’t be a stick in the mud!”]

If so many people left so quickly, just as we were working with investors and developing relations with customers, our product, even our whole company, could have died.

And even if they didn’t leave immediately, but just became disengaged, that would be almost as bad. It would have meant that our company had no future.

I panicked, and I ended up doing the one thing that may actually be worse than neglecting your colleague’s creativity. I went overboard in trying to promote it.

I had meetings. Companywide, team-wide, and with each individual. I did surveys. Read books, articles and joined a dozen online forums on corporate culture. I had colleagues take IQ tests, personality tests, creativity tests, and more tests. I had people do puzzles, brain games and other smart-sounding stuff during meals. You wouldn’t believe the damage I did with cognitive-training apps!

[Peter says “We started to avoid him.” Another adds “Like the flu.” Others pipe in “Creepy!” “Nuts” “You call that fun!” They all walk off the stage.]

[Keyvan and Jason walk onto the stage.]

Even my partners decided they had to intervene.

[Keyvan says “Dude!” Jason says “Relax.” They go over to you and pat your back. “It’s alright.” “You meant well.” They walk off the stage.]

What was I to do? My colleagues had serious creative needs that couldn’t be ignored. But if I did too much, all I was doing was squelching it.

After a little bit of soul-searching, and watching colleagues run from me in the hallway, I decided on another approach.

I had remembered those early days of the company when we played, drank and brainstormed at Murphy’s. No one person really controlled those meetings. Ideas came and went. Streams of discussions were spontaneous. Nothing was forced. More than a few things were helped by the billiards and the beer.

Maybe, we could do something like that again at the company. There were some obstacles. Not everyone drank. Not everyone liked billiards, or had time after work to socialize.

So, I came up with the idea of setting up a few hours of unstructured time every Friday afternoon. Criticize all you want you productivity dictators, but Friday afternoons at most companies are downtime anyway, with people steaming videos, goofing around and planning for the weekend.

Why not channel that restlessness into something we could do together?

But what could we do? Not any of those dreadful brain games.

I was lucky though.

I paid attention while having all of the too-many meetings and talks with everyone, and I remembered little things.

Like Margaret and Peter, along with Laura and Nicole, do a Cappella.

[The four will sing from the audience.]

And that they have a sense of humor.

[The four will croak.]

I also knew that Becky, Joe and David were actually part of a competitive catapult team. It’s a thing folks!

[The three of them will say “Bulls-eye!” from the audience.]

Another colleague did charcoal drawings, and another like baking. So, I quietly talked to all of them and asked if they would volunteer to lead small groups, assuming people were interested, in these activities during this new break period.

And, we needed a name.

An informal straw poll amongst some colleagues helped me come up with “Friday Afternoon Fun Time.”

So, I invited everyone to the event, which we held in the conference room, and the adjacent cubicles. We set up some food, some beverages, a little beer and a little wine.

And I told everyone to just have fun. The only rule being that for at least 15-minutes they had to help someone with an activity, or lead an activity themselves.

It was a success!

Soon enough, softballs, ping pong balls and small bits of produce were being launched all over the office. People were breaking into song here and there. Some showed off their Youtube videos, and so on.

We made it into a tradition, and it has turned into our most enduring, and effective, tool for team-building, brainstorming, and stress relief.

People were soon volunteering to lead various activities, and we encouraged colleagues to trade volunteer hours amongst each other for all of the different projects. One person would help with the production of a colleague’s film portraying all of us as killer zombie carrots. We did that! We experimented with baking cookies and cakes out of meat. We did that! We now have three music groups. And every year we have an intramural office catapult contest.

We’ve done hundreds of projects now. And even though most of the projects can be downright goofy, their side-effects are downright profitable.

And, wouldn’t you know it? These side-effects reflect those three critical stages in the making of an idea.

[Peter comes up and declares “I imagined a way that our user interface can mimic its spoken voice to the language that is typed into the searches.”]

An idea breaking free of gravity.

[Becky comes up and declares “I came up with games by which we can identify our biases in the way we envision artificial intelligence systems.”]

Ideas soaring through air.

[David comes up and declares “I set up weekly workshops where the customer service and sales people would sit in with the programmers as they code new functions, even allowing them to make suggestions and type in some of the code themselves.”]

Idea hitting the target.

Thank you guys!

Some of you will never launch catapults in your office. Some of you will never be in the position to organize big freewheeling events.

You don’t have to.

All you need to do is commit to getting to know your colleagues, however you can, and appreciate how they work, and where they need help.

You need to understand that if your employees are going to launch themselves into new undiscovered skies, you have to be willing to risk everything to fly with them.

Some of the best ideas never made it to memo form. Some of the best workplace relationships defy all business textbook norms.

One of your most important jobs as a leader is to simply find ways to launch your colleagues into their own creative skies, as well as ways to just keep them flying.

Become their catapult.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen.

Now one final performance from the Friday Afternoon Fun Time players.

[Everyone comes up to the stage and does their various group performances, as the bakers hand out stuff to the audience members as the a Cappella group sings “Food Glorious Food,” and then shift to “Wind Beneath My Wings.”]