Brad Eather (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Selling's Creative Podcast, a podcast exploring creativity's role in sales, leadership and business. I'm your host, Brad Ather, a digital communications consultant, supporting businesses and professionals adapt to digital.
Innovation is one of those buzzwords that gets thrown around a lot in the corporate world, yet it's so often misunderstood. We think of global giants like Apple.
or Amazon, companies that define entire industries. But what happens when you shrink the lens to a smaller scale? On the one hand, businesses love to call themselves innovative. On the other, most lack the vision, leadership or skill sets to genuinely disrupt their markets. So what does it really take to be innovative? My next guest argues...
That the answer isn't found in shiny buzzwords, but in something more fundamental. Creativity, the topic of this podcast, but not creativity as a personal trait but as a skillset, something that can be learned, practice and be applied every day to solve problems and generate original ideas that truly drive outcomes.
Christopher Sellers has spent the last 15 years hopscotching between corporate and creative worlds, writing and performing his own theater, designing problem solving assessments, and consulting with executives on how to embed creativity into business strategy. He's the author of two books, including Why Smart People Aren't Creative, and a thought leader who believes creativity when properly understood is the missing engine behind real innovation.
Today, we're going to unpack why most companies fail at creativity, what leaders get wrong about innovation and how developing creative intelligence might just be the single biggest differentiator for the future of business. Welcome to the show, Christopher.
C (02:00)
That's a hell of an intro, Brad. Thanks for having me, man.
Brad Eather (02:02)
forward to this one. Chris, one of the things that you talk about a lot on your socials is the idea of innovation theater and more to the point, getting rid of it. Can you describe to me what innovation theater is and how does it manifest? What does it look like?
C (02:03)
Hahaha!
Yeah.
Yeah, sure. The short answer is design thinking. I'll expand. I'll expand. there, okay, there's design thinking and brainstorming. It's, I think we've all seen it. We've all been in the room where it's like, Hey, let's blue sky some ideas. Like, here's a problem. Let's come up with some ideas. And you get together in a group and all the buzzwords of collaboration and diversity and different mindsets and all these sorts of things. And so you might even have done workshops and incubators like this, where you get
different people from different divisions into the room. And they all come at that, come at the problem from their different angle. And you say, throw all of these solutions onto the board. Some facilitator comes along and sort of maps these out and go, this is great. Now we've got some steps and you all feel better. You slap hands and walk away. Like you've made an actual change, but then, you know, the next day that change never comes. There's no implementation. The idea falls apart. Leadership aren't behind it. There's no budget or you can exert any excuse that you want, but it's this performative nature of
If we have enough ideas, there will be a good one in there somewhere and then we'll know what the good one is and then we'll execute on that. And to be honest, it's high school, primary school logic of get everyone around a table and like you all contribute. while it's great for social cohesion and it's great for teamwork to feel included.
When we're talking innovation and if you're talking, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of budget where you actually need to execute and deliver a project or a solution or an innovation that delivers and can consistently be effective. These are probably the worst ways and the most inefficient, expensive ways to go about it.
Brad Eather (03:59)
I'd like to sort of reshape it, go back a step, because what you've just described there is...
C (04:03)
Yeah.
Brad Eather (04:06)
The problem, the problem that you're seeing in businesses. Go back and talk to me about your career. What kind of experiences have you had in both the creative world and the corporate world that's led you up to working some of these problems that you're currently dealing with?
C (04:07)
Yep. Yep.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So look, a really good example and it's something that you touched on earlier in earlier podcast was this assumption, like whenever we're talking about creativity specifically, STEM and corporate will come along and they'll raise their little fist and they'll say, well, it's not just the arts, we're creative too. You know? But then the quiet part out loud is sure, but the arts is also creative. Okay. So you can't just dismiss it because you don't understand it.
Now here's where things deviate because in corporate and STEM, they believe creativity and innovation is driven by a process. If we find the right process, then we can, we can execute effective innovation all of the time. On the other side of the fence is you've got the artists where they believe creativity is the cult of personality. I'm, I'm creative. I'm special. I'm unique. have a voice, right? And
Having worked 15 years of hopscotch between corporate and creative and a background in the arts, I can tell you categorically that both of those statements are false. Like not every artist is intrinsically creative and capable of exceptional ideas or exceptional work of consistent exceptional and original work. And creativity innovation is not driven by process. In all industries, skills drive process.
And creatively speaking, that's as true in the arts as it is in corporate and STEM where there's hundreds of millions of dollars of invested. So what I've found having worked across pretty much every industry that you can think of and consulted specifically for creativity and innovation and how to adapt and emotional intelligence and these creative skillsets that you need is that it's skills based. so when it comes to creativity, there is a distinct lack.
of creative skills in corporate and most schools and things like that. have technical skills in abundance. Technical skills are what you're taught in school. It's what you're graded on. It's what every, every profession needs to be competent. Yeah. You're a musician. You need to know how to handle a guitar, what chords are, where the fingers go in order to be considered a competent musician. And that's the same in, if you're an accountant or if you're a coder or if you're an engineer, there are competencies that are required. That's
That's ingrained. Creative skills are something else. Creative skills are what allow you to adapt, which enables you to use emotional intelligence, come up with original ideas to creatively problem solve outside of that technical skill set. So we have an abundance of technical skills and a lack of creative skills. The problem collectively is that we mistake technical expertise, school smarts, high scores, big wages with creative intelligence.
And they're two, two very, very different things. And so this is why you see a consistent failure of innovation at startup level, 90 % fail in, in, organizations, McKinsey reports, 90 % of organizations leadership are dissatisfied with their own innovation. So there's obviously something wrong. and if there's an abundance of smart people with smart processes, it can't be for a lack of process. So it might have to be something else. So that's where I'm.
coming from.
Brad Eather (07:30)
that you mentioned there and something that I've sort of come up with through the process of this podcast, ⁓ is the emotional intelligence piece. You mentioned that creativity can happen through, leadership and, and, the ability to onboard people onto into an idea. ⁓ we've explored it quite a lot on this podcast for our own leadership.
C (07:36)
Mm.
Yep.
Yeah.
Brad Eather (07:56)
But how do you think that that emotional intelligence piece is actually manifested in terms of a creative skill set that you were talking about?
C (08:05)
Yeah, sure. I'll give you, look, I'll give you an acting example because that's my background. When I walked into, when I walked into acting college for my second round audition down in Sydney, I snuck away and didn't tell anyone, but basically they gave me a bunch of monologues that I had to learn. So I get up and I perform a monologue, but from Europe by David Gow. And it's a young Australian boy who's in Europe for the first time. Cause he's followed a girl over there. And it's his heart. It's his heart rending broken hearted little lost boy speech, you know, full on drama, full on.
emoting. you know, I loved it. And they go, that's great. They give me a little round of applause and that's fantastic. And then the three, the three directors who were on the panel, we went, great. Can you try that one more time? Except this time you're a commercial salesman selling soap. So, so emotionally they're asking me for precisely the opposite, right? And to deliver that truthfully. Now,
To anyone listening in any other world, in any other interview, this is a ridiculous, ridiculous request, okay? But in the acting world, it is asking to flex a specific skill set. And that is, can you shift from one emotional state to another one and deliver it truthfully? And the skill set for every actor has to be, yes, I can do that. I can give you a range of different emotions on impulse.
Right now that's, that's the skillset that's required. And you might go, cool, Chris, what's, what's the point? And I go, well, I'll tell you is that to tap into these skillsets immediately, you first have to understand them and feel them and embody them. So if I can embody how someone else feels, I can communicate that to you. So if you took that insight alone and applied that to UX, User experience,
Brad Eather (09:46)
That's the user experience
C (09:48)
So if I want to, I'm about to invest a hundred million dollars into a project. I'm going to go to our, our survey sample and go, what did you think? How did you find it? What are your problems? They're going to give me a lot of responses back. Right. But you know, it's the emotional intelligence that allows you to understand that not everything that is written is literal. There's sometimes there's some themes that are underneath, like, you know, we might talk about banking for instance, all of you hate banking fees. It's all too hard and whatever else you start to scratch the surface and realize
You don't really trust banks. So trust is the issue, not the, not the surface problems that are being identified, but trust. so if you couldn't emotionally as has emotional intelligence as a skillset, if you can start to define that from your customers, all of a sudden you have unique and valuable insights that other competitors and other consultancies don't have. And that's how you leverage specific information and specific insight to design innovation that, you know,
members and customers are going to want to pay for.
Brad Eather (10:49)
that's a really nice way of saying it. I, I, from, from, from a, from a selling perspective and how I creativity in the sales role, we often talk about, discovery calls and applying empathy to your buyers to really understand their issues. But taking that lens, this is kind of how I see creativity playing out in, in, in a lot of ways is like.
C (10:51)
Hahaha!
Right.
Yeah. Yep.
Brad Eather (11:13)
taking an insight like that you've just provided there from an acting world and then applying it to how someone is approaching a discovery call hope the listeners out there can see that instantly you're actually going that level deeper. You're actually personifying rather than empathizing.
C (11:22)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And then, and your communication, you know, and a big thing in sales is quite simply listening. So imagine like you tap into this thing and all of a sudden you've got a client going, and then this, and then that, and can you believe it? And they're like dumping all of this insight that you need to do your job effectively. But you've just managed to tap in really subtly to something that is sort of just below the surface. And it's, it's a hugely
understated and misunderstood, I believe skillset like, yeah, like empathy gets thrown around. servant leadership, all of these terms just get thrown around. but essentially it comes, it comes down to the practical use of emotional intelligence is if you can emotionally put yourself into the shoes of somebody else, you have a hell of a lot better chance of
actually understanding their problems if you want to solve them or actually being able to take and lead them somewhere if you want to go there. You know, so actors just use it in a different, in a completely different medium. But the skill of emotional intelligence and being able to drop in and drop out of that is hugely valuable in communication.
Brad Eather (12:38)
Because the way that I see it is like translating for the customer.
C (12:42)
Yeah,
it's a really good analogy.
Brad Eather (12:45)
I'm just asking you this because of your acting experience. But when you were acting, rather than just seeing surface level and you're like, you're trying to tell like a complete character arc or the story beneath it, how do you go about actually identifying those core truths within the character so that you can actually, yeah.
C (13:00)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
All right, bro. You want to go there? All right. Let's, let's throw that for all the listeners at home. This is a really nerdy acting thing. Look, acting in itself has like an entire skillset, you know, that that's required. And what you're specifically talking about is script analysis and enough us to translate into corporate. It's like, that's, this is data crunching. Like a script provides you with all of the data and all of the information that you need for this story in those characters and all of the motivations.
It is your job to find it. It is your job to dig deep, to translate, find the sub themes, to find all of the gray data and the hidden messages that aren't in the dialogue, for instance. So you start to uncover these motivations, right? That's an actor's job. First is script analysis and research. So through that, that then informs who this character is, what their motivations are, how they behave, the relationships they have with people, all of those sorts of things. And that, and...
Good research then informs the choices that you're going to make. And then the skill then is to present this as if you're saying it for the first time and have strangers in an audience believe you. Like that's, that's the gimmick.
Brad Eather (14:16)
I've always admired certain actors who I feel really good at understanding that part. I think that that's maybe the bit that differentiates an actor with legacy from an actor that is a character actor.
C (14:31)
Yeah, I hear you and I'll let you really know that probably a little deeper nerdy insight because I used to write my own stuff The first thing all good actors will say is like it starts with the script like a a Bad actor or a weak actor can be supported By an exceptional script like it'll make them look good, but even Daniel Day-Lewis can't save You know a YouTube short it's it's just it's impossible. You can hear it. So There's there's a specific craft
Time in writing and I'm sure for all of you who are watching streaming at home words They've just dialed up the quantity and left out the quality you feel it and so every time like a quality script comes along with a Quality cast like it sings to you. It's a harmony like Jesus That's good and you might you don't have to be a film kid to appreciate it Like even a layperson good that was that's cool. Like that just works for some for some reason But yeah, it starts it starts in the data
It starts in the script and then it starts with your research.
Brad Eather (15:31)
Nice. So we talked about emotional intelligence being one of six creative skill sets. Give us an overview of what the other five are.
C (15:39)
Sure thing. problem solving, fix something that's broken. There you go. There's an elementary one. innovation improves something that already exists. There's two, emotional intelligence. We've talked about adaptability is, is one, the ability to intelligently and dynamically adapt in the moment. We can talk about that a little bit later. There's also, that's, that's the reactive form of adaptability. The proactive form is when I recognize something like transferable skill sets, like that.
over there could be adapted perfectly to fit over here. That's what composition is another skill set. So the ability to make something like aesthetically pleasing, easy to use, easy to adopt, taste nice, all of those sorts of things and knowing how to break that convention like Picasso, for instance, he doesn't have symmetry in any of his paintings, but his composition is specific to generate an emotional result. And the last one is originality.
Originality is a skill set. can absolutely be learned. It can absolutely be developed and it can be absolutely be executed. Anyone that tells you that there's no such thing as originality is lazy. There you go.
Brad Eather (16:41)
So
that was one of the things that struck me when we had the conversation prior to the podcast is the idea of that innovation isn't just the ability to add on to something already exists, but come up with a completely original idea.
C (16:47)
Yeah.
Well, yeah, that's what I would reason. Like if you want to do it well, look, for those at home, when Brad and I had a chat, I made the quip that, you know, STEM reduces all of creativity to innovation and problem solving because they kind of devalue the rest. And to be honest, they're the two lowest branches on the creativity tree because anyone can fix a problem. Like if something's broken, they go, yeah, I can fix that. And anyone could improve something that already exists. Like that's high school logic. Like here's a problem.
Here's a scenario, make it better in your opinion. Like that's about as advanced as high school thinking gets. So my challenge was sure, like that might be creative, it might be innovative, but why don't you design something original from scratch? And you can start to understand that that's a giant creative and cognitive leap that one has to take. They're two, two very different things. John Williams, John Williams, John Williamson.
writes all the original soundtracks for a whole bunch of stuff, stuff you've never heard before, but has remained iconic. You didn't copy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. didn't copy, didn't mimic, didn't innovate, design from scratch work like, and consistent prolific work. That's been original. Hans Zimmer's another one, Picasso. We could go on. I could go on, but you can see the difference between just like this 1 % incremental innovation, which is popular because it's, it's easy to genuine innovation where like,
Brad Eather (17:53)
Williams.
C (18:17)
let's say Uber, Ride Sharing's been around since the horse and the carriage. It wasn't new, but they took the insight of that and applied it to cars exist. We can leverage this in a new way. And they disrupted and changed the landscape and it won't go back to what it was. So you have a choice. You can execute for the small steps that you think that you need or creatively and innovatively, you can, with the same amount of brain power.
Execute for something exceptional.
Brad Eather (18:42)
Mm.
So like you've drawn a parallel there between the artist as the creator with when you're talking about composers and, and creativity is as in the Uber example where you're taking something that existed and essentially placing it in a new context. What, so if we're going to take those two lenses as the creative as an artist who can create something original.
C (18:53)
Yep.
They adapted it to a new context,
Brad Eather (19:11)
And the business who can adapt for commercial gain. What, what do you think is the sort of middle point between those two brains, I suppose, and maybe frame it in a way that's like, what a company is actually confusing in this conversation when, they're actually saying this is innovative.
C (19:31)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. Um, to, to start at a base level, I think when companies say we want to be innovative, they don't actually know what they mean. You know, they, they, there's, they've got a budget. They've had a mandate handed down again with a whole bunch of buzzwords and then someone on the board or someone within management is expected to execute, you know, and when it comes, and this is sort of why I am sometimes in an unpopular.
Brad Eather (19:44)
Mmm.
C (20:00)
because then I'm the guy in the room who's like, well, exactly what do you mean? You know, what are we trying? What's, what are we trying to fix? You know, and I tend to break these scenarios down into, into three starting categories is either you have a project that you want to deliver. You have a problem that you want to solve, or you have a position that you're in that you want to get out of, right? It starts with those three things, you know, so break it down. Now, if you don't know,
If you don't know what any of those things, three things are for you with a budget or whatever, then you've got a real problem. You know, it's, it's already performative. All right. But if you can say, this is a problem that we have, churn on engagement and we're losing members, we're suffering loss. We want to be more cost efficient. You can start to number these things down. get great. So you're in this sort of position. You have this problem. You have a project. can start. Tell me where you are.
like in geographical terms, do you know where you are? you know what you're looking at? And then from there, I'll say, right, what's your ideal outcome? And like, well, that timeline is this, our budget is this. I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not concerned with that right now. What's your ideal outcome? Like, where do you want to go? Because the other problem that I find companies again, who want to be innovative is it's just sort of thrown as a term at the wall. And it's like, again, what direction do you want to go in? You know, and even, even
The artistic creatives sometimes get lost in this as well, like picking a direction, like which way is North and all, but I feel I'm kind of like, and every day will be different, but that's what separates amateurs from professionals. Okay. Professionals pick a spot. They work to achieve that spot. And once they get there, then like, cool, we'll work to achieve to the next spot, you know? so you need a base point of where you are and then you need a North star or a vision of where you want to go to. And then you can actually start to build.
constructively build your innovation and get creative about this is the problem that we have. Our ideal outcome is out there. And the reason I frame it as an ideal outcome is because generally as people we're lazy and we just want to make it to the next quarter or like get 51%, you know, just to pass, right? So when I say what's your ideal outcome, then it's like, well now we're earning millions and we're, we're,
disrupting and we're doing this. And I'm like, great. It sparks that little bit of imagination. It's like, push, push the fence out further. Like, let's see how far you can go. And then you see how far you can take it with the team. Right. And then you've got this, what seems like an impossible goal and it's out there. And so then the last thing you do, the very last thing you do is frame it in terms of what's our budget, what's our timeline and what are our resources.
Brad Eather (22:21)
Yeah.
C (22:41)
And normally project managers do that the other way around. go, here's the problem, here's our resources, make the idea fit within that box. And I don't do that. Like, here's your problem, what's your ideal outcome? And I bet you we can get there with the resources that you have. that's, you talk about constraints and creativity, that's how you leverage it. Not by being arbitrarily dogmatic. It's by being constructive about where you are.
Brad Eather (22:57)
Yeah.
C (23:06)
how you wanna get there and what resources we can do to get that. And you'll be surprised, you will be shocked at what a team can actually achieve when you're clear on what you want and clear on what you can use to get there.
Brad Eather (23:17)
You asked me at the top of the podcast about what my experience was with the innovation theater piece. And I think as, as you've just sort of talked about that, what I find workshops really useful for is answering the first question, which is what is the problem? We can walk away with that from a workshop relatively easy, but then the next bit that you're talking about is how do you actually implement it? And I, and I, and I think that.
C (23:24)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, yeah.
Brad Eather (23:46)
the creativity aspect from my experience is that it's cyclical, but very small circles. We can't develop a business strategy. We can have an outcome that we're working to achieve, but we need to work iteratively because the creative process is a learning process as well. It's always, you're always...
testing the waters and then once you've found the truth, you come back. For example, from my record producing days, quite often we'd have the core of the song and to add the frills, you know, we would try this line on this instrument. No, doesn't feel quite right. Try it on a different instrument. Wow, that's actually opened up like that's changed the middle section. And that's, that's the iterative process that I
C (24:13)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brad Eather (24:40)
I feel is lacking from a lot of business strategy. Strategy makes it too, we go from A, B, C, D and doesn't leave room for expression.
C (24:51)
I hear you and I'll also add because I'm this kid. It also doesn't seem to be accepting of the guy that like walks out of the room, then comes back in half an hour later and go, here, I've done it. And like it's complete, like complete box and dice, everything. There you go. There's your strategy. There's your package. You set for six months, you know? And then every consultant and every middle management just freaks the hell out. Cause like, there's no way it's impossible. It's like, no, it's done.
You know, because I'm that kid, you know, it's, it's, I, I'm less, less so collaborative because writing in general is, is an isolated sport. So, so, and, and, and in the consulting world, it's, it's the same. It's, it's, I'll work with the client for like, what do you want to do and what, and all these sorts of things. And it's like, you give me all the blocks and you leave me and I will take them away and I will play with them and I will come back to you with a solution and generally not.
an iterative one, like here's the complete thing. Now it's not to, it's not to say that I'm amazing or anything else like that, but there's what there is in the book. actually talk about how we're talking about process and we're talking about brainstorming and how they're not effective. and design thinking isn't effective. And even a guy at MIT who would run the design thinking workshops for Google would say the same thing. He'd come in, like you do the session.
It's post-it notes, it's high fives, it's all these sorts of things and nothing was actually executed. But what was interesting is he'd noticed that the few lone geniuses would go away and come back a week later with a fully fleshed out finished project and hand that in. You know what I mean? And so if when part of creativity and part of innovation, the whole point is to be atypical.
Brad Eather (26:32)
Yeah.
C (26:41)
to be non-standard, to be outside of the box, to be not the norm. And your entire business is built on checks and balances and processes and politics and going through managers and approvals and all these sorts of things. Is there room in your organization? Does your leadership have the scope to accept and to understand like a project like that? And I guess that's a question for everyone to ask because in a lot of my experiences, it's been no.
Like the iterative process is safe because everyone's got hands and sort of oversight on it. Do you know what I mean?
Brad Eather (27:14)
Hmm. Yeah. I also find, the corporate world is not necessarily the most, comfortable for creative types that we like to, suppose.
have preset expectations of what our people are gonna do and creative people may be seen sometimes as a bit rebellious.
C (27:38)
I look and some of that is some of those is fair. Some of this is fair. There's look the the arts kids have a reputation and depending who you talk to, it's a good one and a bad one. And I always get told like I'm one of the good ones. Like it's like that's some sort of a compliment. But my, my, my, I guess my response has always been like professional is as professional does you have just as many incompetent erratic managers.
Brad Eather (27:42)
Yeah.
C (28:03)
coders, engineers, accountants, lawyers, as you do artists. It's just like artists seem to get, it's easier to punch the arts kid, right? To bully the arts kid. But when Jane's having an affair, you know, in the office, like, that's fine. You know, it's, it's same, but this, and this is the thing. What I will draw the line at is like, if you say that you want creativity.
Brad Eather (28:12)
You
C (28:25)
And if you say that you want innovation and if you say that you want new and original ideas and, and, and these skillsets, right. And you understand that innovation in itself is a multi billion dollar industry for every government around the globe. But you want to laugh and bully the arts kids. You you've something's missing, but there's a massive disconnect, right? So
I mean, be selective about who you work with, but understand that there's an immense amount of value in other industries that you might... you are probably blind to.
Brad Eather (29:02)
What I'm thinking of, I don't know why this come up, from a, from a large societal lens, we zoom all the way out and we think of something as, as simple as, what are they called? Woodworkers, you know, or, stonemasons, masons, creative professions that have been lost because of all these new advances that we've had and
C (29:14)
Yep. Yep.
Brad Eather (29:24)
where do those creative people go now and how do they lend themselves to new work modes is an interesting one.
C (29:33)
well. Like remember how like the microwave was sold as like, you'll never have to cook again. And like all your meals will be instantaneous and nutritious and you'll have so much more time to spend with your family. We can also accept that not every innovation is accurate, true or good for you. So.
Brad Eather (29:43)
Hmm.
And that is something that I believe is bubbling under the surface at the moment when it comes to AI as well. It's not...
C (29:56)
1000 % agree, 1000 % agree.
Brad Eather (30:01)
Whatever the outcome of AI is, we are not being sold the truth. We're not going to be more proficient. We're not going to be more efficient. We're going to be, we're going to be something else, something different. But I think, anybody that's dabbling in that world should be conscious of the realities something else that you've mentioned that
C (30:10)
No.
Brad Eather (30:24)
has actually come up in a previous podcast. There was an episode where someone said that they didn't think creativity could be taught.
C (30:36)
Right.
Brad Eather (30:36)
Run me through, you've got a polar opposite opinion. I'd love to hear, yeah, your take is on that.
C (30:39)
Thousandcent, yeah.
Cool. I'll give you a really simple example. The skill of adaptability, right? So the ability to intelligently respond dynamically in the moment, for instance, for one of them. Call it improvisation. Now in the acting world, if you've ever watched, whose line is it anyway? Like that, this is, it is pure improv. So it's, it's coming off the top of your head, coming up with lines and scenarios and just sort of rolling with it. Now for those who aren't theater kids, improvisation,
is a skill that can be taught. And it's based on three very strict rules. It is like you always say yes. So, you know, Brad says, Hey, we're going to the supermarket. say, yeah, sure. And then you try and build on that and let's get bananas and let's get whatever. And you can never say no. So the whole point is whatever Brad starts with, we snowball and you just keep snowballing until it goes wherever and it will get ridiculous. That's the point. That's what innovation is. That's what adaptability and improvisation is. Right.
It might shock you to know that like not every actor loves improv There are probably 50% of actors hate it because I want my line. I want to know what your line is. need to know what your line is. So then I can say my line. And if you deviate from script, I'm lost. So right, right. So yeah, you laugh, but this is, it's a skill. It's a skill that can be taught to dynamically and intelligently adapt in the moment. Right. same thing with musicians and jazz.
You've seen it. You can have a classically trained pianist. It can't play jazz. Can't adapt. Can't go with the flow. Completely, completely lost. These are great art examples, Chris. How does this apply to real life? Cool. I'll tell you. I've worked with a lot of military operatives and I've worked with a lot of emergency response operatives and even people that serve like frontline, like colleague support, right? Training is great. Training will keep you alive. Technical training, how to operate, what, you know, to run, fight, hide.
or the tactics that they employ, they also understand the first bullet that goes through your head or the training goes out the window. So how do you stay calm and how do you adapt intelligently and dynamically in the moment? And these are skills that these operatives train in and out, in and out, in and out, because they want that reflex polished, they want it sharp.
The same thing with emergency responders. You get to the site, you start performing first aid. It's going, you know, it's going perfectly fine up to step two and three, and then something goes wrong. How are you going to adapt in the moment to keep this person alive? Right? So adaptability that it's the same skillset. You should all be able to recognize that the same skillset in acting translates to improvisation on stage in music translates to jazz and an improvised like whatever in the
In the military world translates to keeping oneself alive and killing the bad guys. And in the healthcare world translates to keeping this person alive. Right? Because not everything goes to plan. In the core... Now, to bring it full circle, in the corporate world, this translates to how do you pivot, bro?
Brad Eather (33:42)
Yeah.
C (33:43)
because all of you, all of you, all of you did it terribly. Pivot is a terrible word. What you mean is how do we adapt? How do we adapt to the circumstances? Right. And it demonstrated, it demonstrated a classic lacking of this fundamental creative skill. So for those, and this is just, this is one of six. This is one of six, right? Yes, it can be taught. It is taught. You can get better at it.
Brad Eather (34:05)
Mm.
C (34:12)
And it's universal and applicable across so many different industries. They apply it in their own mediums in their own different way for their own different outcomes. And that's just one. I could wax lyrical about the rest, but that's one of my favorite examples.
Brad Eather (34:26)
Yeah. So if I was a, leader in a, an organization that actually wanted to enable my staff with, with these creativity skills, let's take adaptability because we're already on the subjects. What's what's, what's, what's one thing that I could implement today? That's just, just something nice and simple.
C (34:38)
Yeah.
Yeah, okay, it's a good question. I'm gonna go with an analogy that we talked about before, because it's a really, really good one. Enzo Ferrari built Ferraris, you know, was the most popular and famous car manufacturer in all of Italy. And then one day a young farmer came up to him and said, dude, I've got a couple of your cars, they're really, really cool. Your clutch keeps breaking and it's kind of expensive to replace. I have tractors, I build tractors. What if you put a tractor clutch?
in your Ferraris, because then they'd stop breaking, they'd be amazing. And Enzo Ferrari in no uncertain terms told the young country bumpkin to hit the bricks champ. Two years, 18 months later, Lamborghini was born. That farmer was Ferruccio Lamborghini and said, you don't like my idea? Fine. I'm going to build my own sports cars with clutches that don't break. Right. So in Enzo's mind and in lot of leadership's mind,
For this problem, for this fixed problem, there's only ever a fixed solution, right? Whereas creative people and creative types might ask, if this problem exists here, it's possible similar problems exist elsewhere. So how do they solve it? And if they solve it like that, like with a tractor clutch, is it possible to put a tractor clutch in our Ferrari? And if so, then what else could we borrow?
that we could steal, that we could adapt to make work for us, to make our car better, to make it cheaper, to make it run faster, to make it cooler, to do all these sorts of things, right? So this is like a little bit of creative awareness and you start to look outside of your own industry. Not at, not, mean, and not, I don't mean it at competition to go like what are other apps doing? mean, outside of your industry to go, well, how did they, how did they solve it? Did they have the same problems?
Brad Eather (36:26)
Mm.
C (36:35)
you know, and then you can start to adapt principles. It is the concept of transferable skills that a lot of people talk about. Like if you have these skills here, then they can trade. If you're a good communicator over here, then you're a good communicator over there. Like it's, it's universal. So this addresses and this little scenario, this analogy addresses like creative problem solving, like how do you solve something that's broken? Do you have to use the same part or can we adapt another part? It addresses innovation.
Brad Eather (36:40)
Mm.
C (37:00)
because you're improving something by adapting in something else, it addresses adaptability, and it might even address originality when you start to pull in other things specifically to make them work for a certain purpose. So there's a simple example.
Brad Eather (37:12)
Cause
I love it. This was what I was pointing towards when I said that creativity is a learning process. You looked at me a little bit funny the last time, this is where I think that learning is fundamental to creativity. Because if you're naturally curious and you're looking outside into other industries and you're continually learning, it can then be applied to creative thinking.
C (37:21)
Mm-hmm. I did.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brad Eather (37:42)
What's your experience there? What would you have to say?
C (37:47)
Yes. Look, if you're, if you're naturally, if you're naturally curious and you're taking other things in, then like that, that's that's a win-win. There's no lost time there folks. Or even if you discover something like, I'm kind of bored and you moved on, great. You find what hasn't worked. Look, a fun, a fun, fun anecdote that I'm going to out myself here is like, I'm quietly playing with a deck of cards while we talk because my hands fidget, right? But I taught myself sleight of hand during COVID because I was fascinated.
Brad Eather (37:48)
Yeah, yeah.
C (38:16)
with the 52 factorial, right? And to be a super nerd for a minute, for those who don't know, 52 factorial is the math of how, like the order of a deck of cards, because it creates a sequence of like one all the way through to 52. And so every time you shuffle a deck of cards, it creates a new sequence. So the concept that you can have 52 fixed data points and shuffle them and create new sequences and you could end the odds of ever creating the same identical sequence twice.
Brad Eather (38:44)
Billions
C (38:45)
is one correct. It's hundreds of millions of billions of trillions. Like it's impossible.
Brad Eather (38:45)
to ones Yeah Yeah
C (38:50)
So from 52 data points, have unlimited, unlimited potential for original originality and all these sorts of things using these kinds of techniques. That's math. That's math. That's applied to cards that I tend to use to demonstrate principles, to show people and to impress girls at parties. Like, you know,
Brad Eather (39:03)
Yeah.
Okay.
C (39:15)
That's that in a deck of cards. So that's, so I agree. I agree. If you, and this is the biggest, this is the biggest sleeping giant of creative skills that I never get to talk about. And you've actually raised it for me. So thank you is that we tend to value creativity for its output. Like give me an idea, give me a solution, give me a pro like whatever, right? The, the untapped genius of creativity is not what it can, it's not
what it can output, but how you use it to interpret and translate and learn, right? To learn the things around you, right? So if we're talking, let's go back to adaptability for a hot minute. And we're sitting here looking at a deck of cards and I'm playing with a deck of cards and understanding the math and going, well, these principles of like being original, because the whole point of sleight of hand magicians is to create an original card trick. So how can you?
Brad Eather (39:51)
Mmm.
C (40:11)
with the same 52 cards that have been around since the 18th century come up with an original effect, right? And understanding that principle, if you can do it with a deck of cards, then you can do it with anything. then, right? So applying that creative lens to the subject, which is why, which is a little fun fact of how actors, for instance, tend to learn really quickly, like other languages or, or,
Brad Eather (40:18)
Yeah.
C (40:36)
musical instruments or all these little bits and things that the character needs to do. know, like Adrian Brody learned to learn to play the piano for the pianist. All this sort of stuff that layman goes, man, they're amazing. And go, no, it's, it's a skillset, bro. It's, it's, it's a skillset that's applied to a craft. So imagine like the next time you walk into like, here's what the data says and here's what the reporting says. And you go, well, there's some themes here and they're really similar to other themes that we've seen before. You know, so
Brad Eather (40:40)
Hmm.
Mm.
C (41:04)
So if we can identify that and we can identify this, then we have a bit more abstract insight into what's actually going on. And you're right, that's something that AI will never replace.
Brad Eather (41:14)
Yeah. Cause I think from a communications lens, what you've just pointed to there with, that component of creativity. One is that if you want to be communicating, need to be interesting and learning, things that are outside your wheelhouse is interesting to a lot of people. The other thing is that
C (41:27)
Okay, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, I agree.
Brad Eather (41:34)
you're able to contextualize multiple different points of information. And if you've ever tried to explain something to a four year old and they don't get it, well, you don't say the same thing twice. They're not going to understand. You need to live in their world and figure out how they see the world so that you can pull. And the same thing is
It doesn't change in the business world when you're speaking to different stakeholders, someone in finance is not going to speak the same language as someone in marketing and that creative piece where you can actually show a deck of cards to contextualize an idea or borrow from borrow from a movie or, know, like anything's possible when you allow yourself
C (42:07)
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah.
Brad Eather (42:23)
to bring two disparate ideas into the conversation. And when it comes to communication, that's often so it's more communication is more about miscommunication than it is about communication because you need to understand what a miscommunication is to actually fix the problem and understand how to be an effective communicator. ⁓ And I think that that's a creative.
C (42:45)
Yeah, I hear you.
Brad Eather (42:49)
but increasingly more complex when we start putting digital tools into things and start bringing into the conversation like how different individuals engage through a different mediums. One thing to communicate one to one, completely different thing when you're taking into consideration skill sets required to engage through digital media.
Listen, I think, I think we're at the end of the podcast. It's been a really, really nice chat. And I've, think there is so many different points throughout this conversation where I have gone, hang on a second. That's what we would like. That's what we would, that's what we've been talking about in other episodes. Like for example, the adaptability piece for anyone out there, I would recommend going and listening to,
our the happiness episode where Declan Edwards talks about his take on what it means to be resilient and his take was that resilience is a buzzword and what they mean what they really mean is how to be trained adaptability that was a nice through line that I always like to draw parallels between the different conversations for anyone out there listening
So to finish this off, I'm really excited to hear your answer to this question. But Christopher, what's your definition of creativity?
C (44:14)
I okay. am creativity is a language. Creativity is a language. I know we've talked about, I've talked about skillsets and sort of everything else, but fundamentally creativity is a language and like any language you can learn it. It has its own rules, its own grammar, pronunciation, perform its pronouncements, all that sort of stuff. has its own linguistics, right? and you can learn them and you can become proficient. Like, and I always just like,
It's Creativity is like French. Everyone speaks a little, right? But you can, you can all tell the difference between someone who knows a handful of words, someone who's a little bit conversational and then someone who's fluent, right? And if you are generally invested in innovation or creative outcomes, and if you have budgets of hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions, then I would want to be working with fluent.
creatives not part-timers who can barely order a croissant. So that's the way that I explain it. And the beautiful thing is it's like, it is a little bit, it is challenging. It is challenging because like, like English to French, it forces you to think in a different way, like to use the exact same alphabet, the exact same alphabet and think, speak, write in a completely different way. Right? So that's, that's the ideal analogy I give for like
Brad Eather (45:29)
Mmm.
C (45:33)
technical folk and creative folk. like you're using the exact same alphabet, but one is English and one is French. If you put them up on a board, everyone would go, that's English, except for the French speakers, right? Now, if you're really, really creative, you would recognize that it's both at the same time.
Brad Eather (45:51)
Yeah.
C (45:52)
Right? So there's my answer. Creative is a language. It can be learned. You can become proficient and be fluent.
Brad Eather (46:00)
And I'm presuming that a lot of these, well, a lot of these concepts that we're talking about now are in your book, right? Have you got your book there?
C (46:08)
Yeah,
so the language one is an implied creativity, but why smart people aren't creative is here. It's funny that you're talking about communication and miscommunication and making it simple because it's literally a picture book. So I think I've written the first thought leadership picture book on innovation and creativity. But precisely for the reason that you describe, it's like, if I can make this as simple as possible, and if I can make this as irrefutable as possible, then surely there'll be some value there for people who care.
Brad Eather (46:18)
Yeah.
C (46:36)
so this is what it's about. Why smart people aren't creative. And I make the case that you don't have a, you don't have like a creativity problem. You specifically have a creativity problem when it comes to ideas, but it also, have a creativity problem when it comes to leadership and how you validate innovation, right? Because you, you are the guys who are approving things like the segue for a hundred million, you know? So how do you validate the next big thing or know what to invest in?
And that's what I seek to address and give you the skills and thinking to do so.
Brad Eather (47:07)
Also, where can people find you? Where can people find the book if that's...
C (47:11)
Yeah,
thanks man. So my website is cssellers.com or you can go to LinkedIn and it's Christopher S Sellers or you can find Brad and there I will be. I've got a baby YouTube channel with a few little instructional videos on it but normally my website or LinkedIn is the best place to find me. I'm always hanging out.
Brad Eather (47:30)
Awesome mate. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. Thanks everybody for watching or listening wherever you are listening. If you've enjoyed the episode, make sure to like and subscribe and in the meantime, happy selling.
