“But there’s a difference between having artistic interests and being psychotic.  That’s more than a fine line of differentiation, and I do see that a bit too much.”
~Crispin Glover

I hear so much about creativity, and I see so little of it.

The world seems to be divided into four groups:

1. Those who think they’re creative and really aren’t.
2. Those who really are creative.
3. Those who think they’re not creative.

You can see my point, perhaps.  I believe God blessed everyone with the ability to be creative in some way, and I think many of the people who think they’re creative really aren’t.  They may be good synthesizers, or good connectors, but they don’t really create.  But if you challenge them on it you’ll be surprised at the vehemence of response!

This is the kind of thing you really only admit to yourself in the dark of night when no one else is around.

My experience is that the people who go psycho aren’t the truly creative, but those who think they are but really aren’t.  They’ll go to any length to build an argument about how their creativity is the reason an organization is successful.  They take one crayon from the box and deem that this color is creativity and everything else isn’t.  They’ll pound their square version of creativity into the round hole whatever it takes.  And some of us believe it.

But they’re not the people I really want us to think about.  I’m more interested in the people who think they’re not creative because they don’t understand the universal law.  Everyone is creative in their own area in their own way.  Your color is in the crayon box if you’ll just look for it!

I’ve seen a lot of people who misinterpret what creativity is, and continue to believe they’re not, and because that’s their belief they become what they think.  They can’t be creative because everyone has always told them they weren’t, or held them back from playing around, or simply reinforced their belief system.

You, my friend, are creative.  I don’t know in what way, and I don’t know how, but you are.  God has blessed us all with creativity, not just a chosen few.  If you don’t give up on it, you’ll find your creativity when the opportunity comes along.  As long as you haven’t shut that door.

“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”
~Pele, sort of ok “football” player.

I spent some time at the Oregon coast recently, which brought me to the guy on the skim board, in front of our rental.

He, at least I think it was a he, hard to tell with a wet-suit.  But that’s not the point.

In this shot, it looked like he was trying to become one with the ocean.  He leaned over, studied the water, and then stepped off into the waves.

As much as I’d like to make this a story of overcoming adversity, but it’s not.  Time after time he stepped off and lost the board in the first wave.  Good thing he was wearing a wetsuit.

The remarkable thing to watch was how he never gave up.  Time after time he’d step off, not make it, and do it over.  I found myself really respecting his refusal to give up when I knew many people I know would call him a failure.

The problem with being perfect is that that guy is already taken.  There’s only one perfect person, and I’m ok with that.  For the rest of us, we can only accept it.

So whoever you were out there along the Lincoln City beach, a digital high five from all of the rest of us who understand not giving up and applaud your efforts.

“There is a difference between giving directions and giving direction.”
~Simon Sinek

Are you finding social media difficult to use?  Seth Godin shows how we’re misunderstanding social media.

“In the end, I don’t care how customers listen SiriusXM. I only care if they listen. And so they want to listen on their phone, they want to listen through their Sonos device. They want to listen on their car radio through satellite delivered. They want to listen through their car radio through plug-in their phone and/or using Bluetooth with their phone, does not matter to me. What matters to me is that they listen and that they pay.”
~James E. Meyer, CEO, Sirius/XM

Why is it we confuse content creation with content distribution?  People not listening to the radio as much as they used to?  That’s a content creation challenge.  People using devices that can’t access your content, that’s a distribution issue.

Most of us in radio don’t differentiate between content creation and content distribution.  Here’s the sticky side of that issue: once you start creating content specifically for one kind of distribution channel, your creativity suffers, and there’s less interest in what you’re distributing.

Here’s a theory – always concentrate on content creation first.  Compelling content will always find its way to a distribution channel.  Even if you have a plethora of distribution channels, if what you have on them is “ok” you’re going to fail.  The MacBook Air I’m writing this on has more ability to generate content for different distribution channels than existed 50 years ago.  I can create all of the “new media” choices of digital, audio, video and social.

Still, it’s the dreamer sitting in front of the computer, not Steve Jobs’ invention, that creates the compelling content.  As I mentioned recently, we’re too busy tactically to take the time to dream, which is what creates the compelling content.  Without that dreamer, the distribution doesn’t matter.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
~Abraham Lincoln

When you’re walking along the beach, early in the morning, everything past the waves on the beach is invisible.  You know there’s an ocean out there, but due to the fog bank, you can’t see it.  Just like you know there’s a future out there, but you can’t see it.

This is where so many visions fail.  The people involved can’t see past the fog bank, so they avoid anything about the future, missing the people on the small fishing boat and the ocean liner carrying passengers to far away places.  There’s a critical shortage of the Christopher Columbuses, John Glenns and Elon Musks who saw a future and made it happen.

Some of this is a simple vision block, we tell ourselves we don’t have a vision and so concentrate on the tactics that wind up taking us nowhere.  But some of it is also because we’re so tactically oriented that we don’t take the time to dream.  We think we have to be in a state of constant busyness – and you know what they say about a body in motion staying in motion.

Finally, there are those who think that planning gets in the way of a grander scheme to which we’re only a part of.  There’s an almost Biblical ban on strategy because it could get in God’s way.  I could be wrong, but I subscribe to what a famous dreamer, Galileo once said, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, intellect and reason intended for us to forgo their use.”

The perfect way to predict the future is to create it.  There’s a wonderfully simplistic, strategic sense to that, Abe.

“If you look in your dictionary you will find: Titans – A race of people vainly striving to overcome the forces of nature. Could anything be more unfortunate than such a name, anything more significant?”
~Arthur Rostron, Captain of the rescue ship Carpathia

This photograph is believed to be the last for the HMS Titanic, before it sank.

Everyone bragged on the Titanic in its time.  It was too large to fail, it was unsinkable, and it was unthinkable that disaster could strike them.  All those rich people would not have scrambled for tickets on the Titanic if they knew it was going to sink.

Sorry, but this still reminds me a little of radio as we vainly strive to overcome our own forces of nature.  I am told almost daily that radio is in great shape and always will be.  But actually, I can’t stop, because I remember history.

I am not anti-radio, and understand what it has done for me, but I can’t accept that everything will be as it was.

Change is inevitable, a part of life.  The radio industry is changing and won’t be the same tomorrow as it was yesterday.

The days of radio, television and print as the dominant media are ending, and the era of audio, video, digital and social have begun.

Toward the end of the Titanic’s cruise there were several things that were missed or neglected.  Had they acted on any of them the ship’s name “Titanic”  wouldn’t mean anything to us.  I’m wondering if we’re not seeing the signs and ignoring them, and are headed to a similar end?

Don’t fear change, embrace it!  Make change happen, don’t wait for it to happen.

“True leadership lies in guiding others to success. In ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.”
~Bill Owens

It’s hard to remember the days of paper maps, and going into a new town, driving while trying to figure out where you are.  Just one of the reasons I love the navigation system in my Z4 as it “guides” me to places I haven’t been before.

Being that it’s a German car, the Nav voice is very specific and precise.  “Turn right in one mile… now turn right.”  I’ve been given the instructions and you can hear a subtle edge in her voice that I’d better do it.

But it’s more than being ordered around by a disembodied female voice, if you look on the screen you can see a place for instructions, and a map to give me context.  What would it be like if the voice just ordered us around without the ability to glance at the map for that important context?  She doesn’t tell me after I turn right I’ll have to immediately turn left, but the map does provide that context.

Somehow, being me, this reminded me of my early days as a Program Director.  I was much more apt to tell people what to do without providing any kind of context… the why.

Naturally, without the context, I wound up getting precisely what I’d asked for from the other person’s perspective.  I’d often be frustrated that I didn’t get the result I wanted.  Now I realize that without the context, I was asking people to read my mind… and that wasn’t a part of their job description.

My problem was that I was still managing, not leading.

A leader knows his or her role is one of people, not activities, and can’t afford to ignore the context.  No one will automatically understand and you’ll be frustrated.  Plus, the individual will never understand how their role connects to the bigger picture and the “why” for what they’re supposed to do.  Instead of a team of motivated and challenged people, you’ll eventually earn a group of frustrated, unmotivated, unskilled robots who are waiting for you to do everything.

Believe me, one way is much more productive and fun than the other.

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche

I’ve been deeply involved with exploration into the Millennial generation for the past 18 months, and it’s an interesting venture.

No matter what we find in the research, there are people that are going to see the group as slackers, entitled, living with mom and dad, and even the generation that will destroy America.

The truth is that Millennials are an exciting generation that will bring huge, important changes to society that are good, as well as their own “lens” on life.  I was at a meeting with some interns last week, and I left the meeting feeling very optimistic and excited to see what the future holds with these talented people.

But, no matter what research we present, or how many Millennials they talk to, some people will only see them through the lens of their own interpretation or perspective.  They aren’t able to see the potential good, only the negative image portrayed by the media.  Some of those who are unable to change their interpretations will miss an opportunity to build a sustainable media palate that appeals to Millennials, and will wind up fading away with the boomer generation.

Whether you are a small, single station in the Midwest, or a larger broadcast organization on the West Coast, or yes… a Network, you’re going to be impacted by the Millennials, a generation significantly larger than the boomers.  Simple facts of life – like nobody gets out alive – means that things are going to change.  Every day, 10,000 baby boomers file for Social Security.  It’s inevitable.

But it’s not “bad.”  Do your own investigation of the generation, talk with them and really listen, understand how they’re different, and how they’re not.  Embrace the change, and ask for their help in navigating through the changes.  Don’t just sit there complaining while the juggernaut gets closer and closer, and finally runs right over you.

“Too many leaders act as if the sheep… their people… are there for the benefit of the shepherd, not that the shepherd has responsibility for the sheep.”
~Ken Blanchard

I talked with Ken Blanchard recently, and I felt bad.  I’m not sure I’ll ever be able read all of Ken Blanchard’s books.  Yes, they’re usually short, and told in story form, but there are so many of them!  But we were talking about leadership when he mentioned, “Are you here to serve, or be served?”

Ahhh… ok, that’s a really good question, rooted in one of his books I hadn’t read, “The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do.”  He teamed up with Mark Miller of Chick-fil-A on this one.  This co-author thing he does is one of the things he was asked about, and his response itself was a good lesson in leadership.  “I like to collaborate.  I’m better when I collaborate.”  I thought a lot about that, and then realized that I am too!  Is it possible that we all are?

But wait, that’s what I’d mention to talent as a rabbit trail.  We’re talking about service.

My answer was that I’m here to serve… except when I’m not.  Like a lot of people I focus on serving, but get caught up in being served – the struggle for recognition and the perks that come with the cool title.

Even the term “servant leadership” is irritating sometimes.  Serving means the perks and bennies aren’t as important as the tangible legacy you leave.  It means we all have to win, not just one of us win.

It’s entirely possible I’m preaching to the choir at this point, because those who want to be served will have stopped reading after the last paragraph.

If you’re still here, Blanchard and Miller indicate great leaders serve in at least five ways:

• See and shape the future:  The leader is responsible for vision.
• Engage and develop others:  The leader is responsible to develop those around him or her.
• Reinvent continuously:  Life doesn’t idle, a true leader understands the need for change
• Value results and relationships:  You need to be able to exercise both in order to lead
• Embody the values:  If you say one thing and do another, you’re not leading.*

Just think about those qualities.  They’re all higher focused and bigger picture than most alleged leaders concentrate on.  I’d go as far as to say these five actions are the difference between leadership and management.

*This is the leadership principle that causes the most “leadership” failures.  Or, you can think of it as the number one thing that holds people back from growing from managing to leading.  There seems to be an inverse principle where the higher you get on the organizational food chain, the more you think you can fool people.  But people are never as unaware or stupid as we may think.  They hear you, but they also see you and your actions.

“I prefer to live in my own little bubble of my own reality.”
~Lauren Lee Smith

I’m sitting on the balcony of my room at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, catching up on some work. The weather is beautiful, but then again it’s always beautiful because of the glass dome covering the entire hotel.  It’s sunny outside now, but it could become cloudy or even rain and I wouldn’t know it.  While I’m here I’m living in a bubble where everything is always perfect.

It’s the same way we want to think about radio. We’re living in a bubble where radio will always be as strong as it is, disruption will hit everything else but leave radio alone, and Millennials will soon grow up and become responsible…and then start listening more to radio.  The primary purpose of social media is to support radio, and streaming is only meant for the station signal.

Baby boomers will never grow old and retire or die, and will have more than enough money to donate, even when they are on social security. Millennials will suddenly be inspired to write a monthly check to support nonprofit radio stations.

Well, the problem with being in a bubble is that you wind up leaving it sooner or later.  I’ll get on an airplane, fly back to California, and be deposited in another world without the bubble.  There will be sunshine, but there will also be storms and rain.  There will be fires in the surrounding counties and the same people will be waiting for San Francisco to slide into the bay so they’ll have beachfront property.

Radio will continue with an extraordinarily strong reach, but clear trending down in time spent listening. Millennials will continue to contribute up to 18 hours a day to media, but the majority to Social Media that isn’t in support of radio.  Cars will continue to have dashboards that evolve in such a way to cause it harder to find the radio.  Radio IS being disrupted and will continue to be.

This isn’t a downer, unless you want to continue to convince yourself you live in a bubble that doesn’t exist. This is a call to a new reality that we need to address and strategize about.  Our efforts have to cover a spectrum of media, and be based in engagement, community and relationship.