The Great Gatsby & Creative Brainstorming

I had a high school gym coach who gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever received:

“Shooting baskets can be fun, but you know what’s better than fun? Making baskets and winning games. If you’re not practicing with intent, if you’re just fooling around shooting baskets, you won’t be able to make those baskets when it counts.”

Creative brainstorming is similar. It’s fun to sit in a room filled with toys, games, markers and whiteboards and bounce around ideas. But unless there’s intent behind the brainstorm, it’s tough to really get anywhere.

Here’s an example I like to use when discussing brainstorming with intent. Below I’ve pasted a paragraph from the great American novel The Great Gatsby. In the text, Nick Carrawy describes Jay Gatsby’s smile.  As you read the paragraph, try and picture in your mind what Gatsby looks like as he’s smiling.

“He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.”

Can you picture what Gatsby’s smile looks like? Is it locked in your brain?  Perfect. Scroll down, and let me know if this image aligns with your expectations.

I’ve carried out this exercise in front of about a dozen different teams, each time with the same result.  Usually a heated discussion breaks out as to why or why not Leo is the perfect Jay Gatsby. On the odd occasion, someone has vouched for Redford as the ideal Gatsby. Sometimes hurtful things are said that cannot be taken back. People get really serious when it comes to Gatsby.

This is the perfect example of how a creative brainstorm can go wrong, and it’s because I set you up for failure from the beginning. I didn’t give you any direction or objective for the brainstorm.  I just gave you a paragraph, asked you to imagine a fictional smile, then tossed someone else’s creative vision in your direction. I didn’t take into account any of your thoughts, feelings, inspiration or input. 

So how could I have set up a better Gatsby brainstorm?  First, I would ask better questions to get better answers.  Think of someone in your life who has made you feel the way Nick Carraway felt when he saw Gatsby’s smile.  What about their smile made you feel that way? What kind of presence did they have? What did their features look like?  Based on your experience, who would you cast as Gastby?

Second, instead of starting a debate as to why or why not Leonardo DiCaprio is the perfect Gatsby, we could collaboratively discuss our shared experiences and determine who might be the best fit for the role. Whether or not Leo is the perfect Gatsby is subjective. But personal experiences and feelings lead to discussion, sharing and collaborating. 

Most times, it just comes to giving yourself time before a brainstorm to determine the questions and direction you’ll need to give the team to get to the answer you want. The difference between shooting baskets and practicing with intent. 

Establishing productive guardrails and asking productive questions are a couple of good ways to brainstorm with intent. I’d love to hear any other thoughts and ideas from my friends and colleagues as well.  Looking forward to hearing from you!

On Bear Attacks & Client Services

When I was in college, I took a trip to the Alaskan wilderness with my brother, aunt and uncle. Our destination was Admiralty Island, which boasts one of the densest populations of grizzly bears in the world. As we unloaded our gear from the boat, my uncle gave my brother and I a can of bear spray and a whistle. I understood the purpose of the pepper bear spray. “What’s the whistle supposed to do?” I asked. “Is it in case we get lost, or fall off a cliff?”

He replied “It's so the bears know we’re coming their way. Every 20 seconds or so blow this whistle so we don’t startle them. If they know we’re coming, they’re less likely to charge.”

So we packed up the gear, and within about 15 minutes we put the whistle to the test. We hiked over a small ridge, and just over the top we saw a huge brown bear about 50 yards away. It knew we were coming. It stood up on its hind legs, looked at us for a couple of seconds (which felt like an eternity), and when it’s curiosity was satisfied it turned around and ambled away in the opposite direction.

I was simultaneously relieved and amazed that the whistle had worked. I asked my aunt, “Are there times that you’ve used the whistle, but the bear still charges?” to which she replied “Yes. I’ve been charged many times. That’s when it’s important to have a calm, well-trained guide.”

Agency work is similar. We do our best to assemble well-thought-out timelines, scopes and processes to make sure there are no surprises. Weekly status calls are scheduled and carried out religiously to ensure that feedback is timely, clients are happy, and that delivery occurs on the promised date.

But what happens, despite our best-laid plans, if something goes awry along the way? What if we blow the whistle every 20 seconds, and the bear still charges? That’s when you really feel the value of a calm and experienced client services partner - both on the agency and client side. 

Whether you know it or not, and regardless of the kind of work you do, a portion of your day-to-day interactions require client services. As a matter of fact, the hardest thing you will do today could benefit from client services or soft skills training.

Giving hard-to-tell feedback to a team member. Telling a client you’re out of budget. Alerting your production team that the timeline is more aggressive than originally planned. Those things that somehow shift to the bottom of your to-do list and create a knot of anxiety in the pit of your stomach require client services training. A skilled guide and partner.

Client services best practices have always been somewhat apocryphal. Word-of-mouth tips and tricks passed down from manager to manager, year over year, never written down. The closest thing to “holy writ” that we’ll ever get in the agency world.

A few years ago, I decided I was going to document all the client services techniques I’ve learned over the years to create a kind of guide book or training manual for my teams. Over time, I’m hoping to pressure test these little tips one-by-one with my friends and colleagues.

I’ll start with my favorite client services trick that I use when preparing for a difficult conversations - or even worse - preparing for a sure-to-be heated disagreement. And that’s using the element of surprise. Mind you, I’m not talking about skullduggery or dirty tricks. I mean subverting expectations in a good way as a means of getting to a mutually satisfactory agreement.

Think back to the last time you were gearing up for a big conflict. How did you prepare? Did you scour through your notes? Did you look through your paper trail of emails? Did you talk to colleagues to document every single instance that proved you were right and they were wrong? Did you come armed to the teeth with documentation and with your heels firmly dug in ready for a fight?

I know that’s how I did things for a long time, until someone surprised me in the most unexpected way possible. I was dreading a contract negotiation call. I knew it was going to be tough and laborious. I prepped my script relentlessly in the days leading up to the call. I was ready for a drag-out fight.

When we got past the initial pleasantries of the first few minutes of every business call, my client said, “Hey Landon, I just completed a negotiation course. If it’s OK with you, I’d like to test out what I’ve learned with you to see if we can get to an agreement that’s good for both of us.” 

I was not expecting the call to start that way. Immediately my guard was down, and I wanted to be his partner in this endeavor. I wanted to help him improve his negotiation skills. Hell, I wanted to learn how to be a better negotiator. And most of all, I wanted to broker a mutually beneficial agreement. In an instant, we were in this thing together.

From then on, I changed how I approached all difficult conversations. Yes, I made sure that I had all the documentation and information that would protect me and my team from risk. But I also thought through several possible positive outcomes that could benefit both parties. And I followed the example of my client and started each conversation with, “I know this is going to be difficult, but I’m feeling really positive that we can work out something that we both feel good about.”  

And it turns out science validates this approach. The book “Surprise” by Tania Luna and Dr. LeeAnn Renninger describes The Surprise Sequence and how it can lead to positive negotiation outcomes. Negotiations and tough conversations are hard and scary for everyone. Acknowledge it. Let them know you’re worried about it as well. Tell them you’ve prepared multiple scenarios that will hopefully get to where they want to be. And you might be surprised to see you’ve found a companion instead of an angry, charging bear. 

Do you have any feedback, notes, or additions to this essay? Do you have any other client services tips or tricks? Let me know in the comments or through a direct message. I’d love to hear from you.