Strands of Genius: Tim Leake + Accenture Life Trends 2024
featuring: an interview with our guest editor and a research report
Welcome to the Bonus edition of Strands of Genius! On Fridays, we’ll be publishing interviews from our guest editors, and sharing a research report. Thanks for being along for the ride. Oh and by the way, you look great today :)
:: STEAL THIS THINKING | RESEARCH REPORT ::
It’s now commonly accepted that customer-obsession is the best growth strategy. Superb customer experiences are expected. It takes meticulous orchestration to play a meaningful and relevant role in your customers’ lives.
However, customers are messy. They’re emotional and they’re changing faster than you can change your business, so keeping pace is a constant challenge. These trends examine these shifts, and seek to help businesses define how to catalyze growth by staying relevant to customers—which is Accenture Song’s mission.
:: DIVE IN | THE INTERVIEW ::
TIM LEAKE, FOUNDER & CEO OF LIGHTBULB
>> Tim Leake guest curated Strands on November 9th, 2023. Read it here.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what keeps you busy. How did you end up doing what you’re doing today?
What's keeping me busy for 2023 is launching and growing a company of my own.
How I ended up here... I've taken great pride in not being put on a peg throughout my career. Roughly in order, my roles have included: copywriter, creative director, innovation consultant and trainer, public speaker, and agency CMO. But at a certain point, a "peg" is exactly what most companies are looking to hire — so the best way to put my eclectic background to good use was to start my own thing.
"Unlocking creativity in others" has been a red thread through much of what I've done, and it's always been the part of any job that most lit me up.
What excites you most about what you do?
I love helping people unlock their creativity and find their own "a-ha" moments. In my experience, the best way to facilitate change, transformation and innovation is to empower individuals to find their own way there. Any time I've seen it dictated or forced on a group — whether by leadership or a third party consultant — it results in friction and frustration. There's a real need for leaders to reconnect with their own creative confidence and embrace the power of creating solutions for their own big challenges.
What beliefs define your approach to work? How would you define your leadership style?
I believe work should be fun. Not just that the "workplace" should be fun. The actual work should be engaging and interesting and stimulating and flow-inspiring. And in its purest state — I believe our work IS fun for most of us. It's all the little stressors and frustrations and internal politics and crazy-makers along the way that pollute this sense of fun.
As leaders, I believe the job is to do all we can to help remove the polluters — so the team can find the fun and bring their full selves to doing great work.
What has been the most rewarding project you’ve worked on and why?
I've been lucky to work on a lot of rewarding projects over my career. But in hindsight, I feel ESPECIALLY lucky to have been a driving force in some transformational training programs for senior leadership teams at major brands
This is when I was working with Hyper Island about ten years ago — and it's what inspired me to want to get back to helping leaders through training. For one particular client (I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say who it was, but they have a big red logo in the shape of a target), I led a multi-year training program with their top 300 leaders to help digitally transform the entire company. Our lead client called it "the most impactful training they've ever done." Which is pretty high praise. And that team went on to do some truly amazing things.
There's something truly rewarding about helping bring out creative thinking and greatness in other people — and no big new biz wins or brilliant ad campaigns (though I felt quite proud of them) have ever matched that for me.
We are big believers in diversity -- Not only because we believe in equality, but because we also think it’s better for business. How do you frame these kinds of conversations, both internally and with clients? Is there an emphasis on action, or are the conversations really more about communication?
I tend to frame it in opportunity. For leaders, it's about looking for opportunities to help diverse voices step up and take on new challenges. For the diverse future leaders, it's about giving them the opportunities to learn, build their experience and put themselves out there. For the company, it's an opportunity for better results and increased success.
Switching gears a bit, how do you find time to balance personal interests with your career? Do you believe work/life balance is possible? Anything you’ve implemented that you recommend that others try?
I've never minded hard work, but I can't stand "stupid work." That is, when we waste insane amounts of time because of poor communication, outdated approaches, and the changing whims of leaders who don't seem to value their people's time. I've seen weeks of late-night and weekend-filling work get tossed aside after a conversation that could easily have been clarified before that work happened. And in the advertising industry, that's where I see the work/life balance crumble.
The best thing creative minds can do to help free their creativity is to be organized in other areas. It takes the pressure off our brains to be trying to manage all that stuff, in addition to focusing on the challenge-at-hand.
When we do this, we work smart. We get to great ideas (and the RIGHT ideas) faster. Then the space for work / life balance opens up naturally.
What’s your media diet? Where do you find inspiration?
I love books. I love fiction for unwinding. But I love non-fiction for inspiration. Books like "The War of Art" or "Steal Like An Artist" or the new Rick Rubin book — I can dip into these over and over, and almost always find a serendipitous epiphany that is just what I needed to hear right then.
What’s the best piece of advice/knowledge you’ve stolen, and who/where’d you steal it from?
"You don't have to LIKE change, but you do have to understand it."
It comes from my friend Mark Comerford, who was a fellow speaker in Hyper Island's master classes — except he's the OG. He helped originate their executive program offering and set the tone for everything it's about.
So many people reject or fight change simply because they don't like it. But that gets in the way of learning to understand it, which will help our careers and our clients. I don't like how social media has changed over the last decade, for instance. I miss the way it used to work and how easy it was to find community there. But that perspective makes it HARDER for me to understand how to leverage what it is today. (Something I'm working on fixing...) I'm seeing a lot of people do this with AI right now. They don't like it, so they put up a wall that will ultimately hurt themselves more.
What are some good approaches to overcoming fear?
Somebody I admire once described me as "fearless" -- which I took as a tremendous compliment. But I'm not at all fearless. That implies there is no fear. In reality, I feel the fear constantly — but I've done a lot of work to try to mute out its screaming voice. Bravery actually REQUIRES fear in order to exist.
Relentless positivity and "psyching myself up" never really worked. (I'm a VERY positive person, but fear has a more compelling argument.)
What HAS worked well for me is finding ways to lock myself in, so that it's harder to back out than to do the thing that scares me.
Right now, my scary thing is starting a business of my own. And I locked myself in by refusing to look for (or discuss) any positions that involve working for another company. When the fear kicks in — which it does regularly — it would be harder for me to switch gears to "job hunting" than to keep working on solutions to drive profitability for my business.
I'm a fan of ambitious presentation ideas, and I almost always go through a period of deep regret while trying to bring to life. But since I was booked to do the crazy presentation idea I pitched, I was "locked in." I had to make it happen, despite the fear.
And so far, that's worked out for the better -- every single time.
You can keep in touch with Tim on LinkedIn.
If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
rockON,
faris & rosie & ashley | your friends over at geniussteals.co
@faris is always tweeting
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