Introduction

• Pete Sena (@petesena) is the founder, CEO, and CCO of Digital Surgeons, a design, branding, and digital marketing consultancy
• Pete explains his responsibilities as Chief Creative Officer

The intersection of creativity and productivity

• Create / Produce vs. Creativity / Productivity
• The seesaw of effectiveness and efficiency
• Creativity is born from curiosity
• Productivity is how people are a pro at their craft
• Critical thinking is important for becoming great creatives
• Being "Creatively productive"
• "Creativity is just connecting things." -Steve Jobs
• "My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success." -Isaac Newton
• Understanding shortcuts
• Repetitive vs. Unique

Managing creative duties and other responsibilities

• How productivity differs in a CEO and a CCO role
• “Labels are important but be careful how they define and limit you”
• Set a vision
• Remove obstacles
• Methods for giving all roles the attention they need
• Mitigating affronts to productivity in different roles

Tips for managing creative people

• Stop managing creative people!
• Understand their motivations and enable them
• Servant leadership
• Daniel Pink’s Drive: three intrinsic motivators
• Problems that are unique to creative teams and their work
• Pete's advice for a new manager of a creative team
• Dividing work up in a creative team
• Find out why work is important to the team and client
• Translating the needs and wants of the client
• Look at team members, project requirements, brands, rules, etc.
• Logistical planning meetings for dividing tasks and ensuring consistent messaging
• Create concepts to review
• Find opportunities for people to collaborate

Cultivating a creative skill

• Critical thinking is clearly listening to the intention of the person who is saying or writing something
• Design thinking exercises
• Combine uncommon things (three columns exercise)
• Idea discussion > brainstorming
• Keep using it. If you’re not, then the skill will diminish.
• Outside of work: make a vision board, mash sources from media (e.g. magazines)
• Improving a creative skill over lunch breaks
• Why do you want to start that creative thing? (5 why’s)
  • If there are multiple answers, split them up and explore them
  • Elon Musk's first-principles thinking
  • Use existing tools, read, and watch others
  • Micro progress and the power of getting started, a James Clear interview
  • Make a game out of it
• Other ways someone can grow a creative skill
• The importance of motivation, inspiration, technique, gumption, and experience
• Knowing where to focus your energy when developing a skill

Related links

• Digital Surgeons
• Warren Berger’s Three-Part Method for More Creativity on Farnam Street
• Pete Sena blogs about productivity on Medium
• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott for better writing
• Write Dumb: Writing Better By Thinking Less by James Dowd

Related episodes

• 017. Atomic Habits by James Clear - Part 1
• 018. Atomic Habits by James Clear - Part 2

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