Imagine speaking to some of the most Lion-awarded creative directors, chief marketing officers, agency leaders, copywriters and just all-round creative legends from across the globe as part of your regular Friday diary for nearly three months.
What would you ask them? How would you try to extract all their creative genius, wisdom and insights in the call?
I had the privilege of figuring that out as the course leader of the first LIONS cMBA cohort. Always happy to be the nosiest person in the room, I was lucky enough to host these weekly conversations over 10 weeks and speak to creative folk I have admired for many years. In a strangely intimate setting for an online call, we heard refreshingly honest, heartfelt insights and learnings from their incredible creative careers, which at times felt like confessions rather than a Q&A with industry legends.
Based on what they’d been exploring in the course content that week, our learners of creatives and marketers from across the world could ask our creative star power how they’d managed some of those issues in their careers.
The course content covered everything from how to have a Lion-winning creative idea, make it category disrupting, evaluate it, develop it, have the right culture to help it grow and then pitch it. Phew.
Over the weeks, the Lions cMBA cohort also had an opportunity to imagine themselves in the shoes of an official Cannes Lions Jury, and judge the work across several Lions, before hearing from the Jury Presidents who presided.
Know thyself
There’s a school of thought that getting into the habit of reflective practice – that is reviewing and questioning your actions and experiences to develop – is key to becoming a better problem-solver. Research suggests that it’s even what separates extraordinary professionals from the average. Since we encouraged our learners to reflect weekly on what they were studying and experiencing it seems only right as the course leader I do the same.
So, I’ve been reflecting on these 60-minute sessions over the past few weeks and revisiting the live calls. In doing so I’m stunned to discover that the transcripts run to over 200,000 words. Having written a book (80,000 words that took me the best part of a year) and with the average novel running at around 90,000 words, it dawned on me that this first cohort and our speakers have effectively contributed to two novels and probably a cheeky novella.
That’s a LOT of conversation about all things creative. And doesn’t even begin to include the on-demand elements of the course, which includes reviewing 500 pieces of Lion-winning work and hundreds of hand-picked excerpts from Cannes Lions stage talks. It’s been intense!
I absolutely loved curating the learners’ questions, drawing out themes and facilitating the sessions, although at times the speakers seemed to be having so much fun that I felt like I was eavesdropping on a lively private chat (I’m looking at you Vicki Maguire and Susan Hoffman).
We covered so much ground – each week was different depending on the direction of the learners’ questions, the chemistry between the speakers and their diverse range of insights, experiences, geographies and points of view. An hour never went so fast.
Each part of the curriculum is backed up by someone who has stood on a Cannes Lions stage and shared their view on a key topic (from managing a relationship between a marketer and an agency to learning from failure and creating the ultimate – Titanium Lion-winning work).
So, what are some of the recurring themes from our incredible speakers? That being actively curious, raising your creative antennae, and being open to the world around you are some of the most important things creatives can do to get better at their craft. One of the other big themes was about talking less and listening more.
This quote from Trainingindustry.com seems particularly relevant:
“Hearing happens in our ears, but listening happens in our brains. When you truly listen, what you hear can change you.”
Hone your creative antennae
Listening, I learned so much every single week about persistence, being yourself, finding your people, learning from every experience (the good the bad and the ugly) amongst so much more shared wisdom that our speakers revealed in their quest for creative greatness.
They spoke of listening to your own innate wisdom and voice, to others, to sometimes hard truths.
As part of a conversation we had about asking for, and giving, support, Hoffman said sometimes we have to be able to be open to hear the hard things:
“Have the courage to go ask for support, and have the courage to really handle the truth, and when you can, and it’s hard, believe me, but when you can, you learn so much.”
If you want to hear more from Susan, check out her insights on empathy and support, by way of a decades-old letter from her then boss Dan Wieden in this short YouTube film.
On listening to culture, the inimitable Josy Paul, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer at BBDO India, had this to say in response to a question about how he identifies the ‘little and big cultural cues that grow into amazing ideas’ and he talked about the physical spaces in BBDO that facilitate that kind of approach: “I like to keep listening, because I find by listening, I get beautiful things fed to me.
The white room: where confessions are encouraged
“Everything is white. You sit on the floor, there’s a red candle. People come and sit in that room 20-30 people, anybody. Everyone’s invited. And we talk about a subject, not about a brand or about a category, a subject. People start sharing stories. And through those stories, those confessions, they result in a very deep sort of a truth, and I find that that confessions go deeper than insights. From that personal comes the universal, and that’s what I do when I’m seeking insights.
You’re always at play. You’re always listening. You’re always processing. You’re always cross-synthesising. You’re feeding off each other.
I am not an influencer. I don’t want to be an influencer. I’m an influencee. I’m an antenna. It’s like, just throw things at me. I try to receive all the time so that I can be influenced.”
Inspiration is everywhere
Our guests for week nine were Havas’s CCO Vicki Maguire in conversation with Wieden + Kennedy’s Executive Chief Creative Officer Susan Hoffman. Frankly that call left me feeling like I’d stumbled into a fabulous, sweary, private conversation between great friends. No facilitation needed (in the best way possible). Vicki echoed Josy’s idea that creatives must have an antenna and be open to everything.
She shared with us:
“You can find inspiration anywhere, and if you can’t, you’re not looking hard enough. So, I just go on walks. I go and sit on a bus and listen to people, and sometimes I dive into other people’s imaginations by reading a book I would have never chosen, or a film that didn’t appeal to me.”
2023 Design Lions Jury President Quinnton Harris, the Co-Founder and CEO at Retrospect, emphasised the importance of listening to your inner voice when asked what advice he’d offer his younger self:
“I’d say, keep listening to your heart and take care of yourself. Prioritise your wellness and creative expression over everything else. As you build things that matter, your hands will get a little dirty. So, what I mean by that is you know, you’re not going to be perfect. Everybody’s not going to be happy with that and you may unintentionally hurt people as you shine brightly. But don’t be afraid, because you’ll just be fine.”
If you want to find out more about the LIONS cMBA and join the next cohort https://learning.lions.co/bundles/lions-creative-mba