When I first saw the film Amadeus as an impressionable teenager, I had a lot of sympathy for Salieri. Not for what he did to Mozart of course, but for the frustration and disappointment that drove him to it. Listening to his account of his early life and motivations, they sounded perfectly noble:

While my father prayed earnestly to God to protect commerce, I would offer up secretly the proudest prayer a boy could think of. Lord, make me a great composer! Let me celebrate your glory through music - and be celebrated myself! Make me famous through the world, dear God! Make me immortal! After I die let people speak my name forever with love for what I wrote! In return I will give you my chastity, my industry, my deepest humility, every hour of my life, amen!

After this pious prelude it was hard not to share Salieri’s astonishment and disgust at the childish, lecherous, drunken Mozart, and to question God’s purpose in bestowing the gift of divine music on a “giggling, dirty-minded creature”:

But why? Why would God choose an obscene child to be His instrument? It was not to be believed!

It just didn’t seem fair.

Yet every time I’ve watched the film since, my sympathy for Salieri has waned a little more. And not just because I’ve seen the ending, or the Director’s Cut which makes his crimes against Mozart and his family more explicit. The seeds of Salieri’s downfall - and the justice of it - are plainly there to see in that speech about his ambition: Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa at Design Your Writing Life has tagged me with the Thinking Bloggers meme, so here goes with five bloggers who give me food for thought:

1. Tim Sieddell at Bad Banana Blog provides me with a constant stream of thought provoking art. He also asks questions about art and advertising that make me think about them in new ways.
2. Mark Forster at Get Everything Done makes me think hard about how I spend my time each day and gives good advice on how to free up more time for productive thinking.
3. John Eaton at Reverse Therapy reminds me that the best thinking doesn’t happen in the head but in Bodymind.
4. Deb Khan makes me think about creativity and people and what makes an impact.
5. Brian Lee at Geniustypes makes me think about life, money, creativity and whether there are easier ways to make a living.

And Lisa has plenty of thought-provoking material herself - well worth checking out if you’re a writer.

Excellent piece by the experienced creative director Gary Sharpen in this week’s Campaign, on the issue of hiring and developing young creative talent. He relates how a creative director at a top direct agency told him “We don’t do placements and we don’t hire juniors - we don’t have the time to develop them”. Sharpen then goes on to describe the business case for investing (not spending) time developing junior people:

Time is, of course, money. When we invest time, we invest money. We may have to spend that little bit extra time with juniors, but the return on that investment is substantial. They will give you a fresh angle on an old problem. They will suggest media that you didn’t even know existed. They will enthuse the senior members of the creative department (and give them some healthy competition). They will bring an excitement to a project because it isn’t the umpteenth car insurance or charity brief they have worked on, it’s the first. All of these things, and more, create an energy that is infectious and which will be felt throughout the agency. They will deliver great work and, after all, its great work that our clients are paying us to come up with. It isn’t just altruism we are talking here, it’s business. This use of your time will deliver a very healthy return on investment for your company.

“I don’t have the time” is probably the single most common reason I hear from managers and directors for not coaching their teams. And it doesn’t just apply to graduates - people at all levels can benefit from being challenged and supported by a manager with good coaching skills. But as Sharpen points out, it’s not just the recipients of the time and attention who benefit - there is also a lot in it for the company.

Fair enough, you might think, I can see the benefit for the team members and the company, but if I’m the manager I’m the one who’s got to find the time and I’ve got plenty of other things on my plate. What’s in it for me? Here are some of my usual answers:

• Better performance from your team - as a manager, your job is to get the best out of the team, it’s hard to do that without investing time and energy in helping them improve.
• More commitment- think of the boss who was most interested in and supportive of your professional development vs the one who took the least interest. Who did you work hardest for?
• Knowing what you need to know - it sounds obvious, but if you don’t stop to listen to people, you could miss valuable information about the people, situations and problems you are working with.
• More and better ideas - people notice what you are interested in and respond to it. If you show that you value their ideas they will bring you more of them. If you take the time to help them understand why some ideas work better than others, they will start bringing you better ones.
• More capable people to delegate to - you can’t do everything, so the more people you can trust with important tasks, the better. The more time you invest in development, the more of these people you will see when you’re looking around the office.

None of this is rocket science. Listed like this, it looks like common sense. But it can be hard to keep it at the front of your mind when you’re under pressure.

Yet it needn’t take all that much time. More often than not it’s a change of mindset and behaviour that’s required, rather than freeing up a whole day for ‘training’. Like stopping and asking a question to unlock someone’s thinking. Or taking five minutes to listen to that ‘half-baked’ idea to see whether something can be done with it. Or making the effort to find out about someone’s ambitions and interests and how they relate to what they are doing in your agency right now.

You probably do some of this already - when you feel you have the time. You might not realise how much time, energy, enthusiasm and creativity you could create by doing it a bit more.

The Centre for Creative Business has just released a new research paper on investment in the creative industries. Creative Business - Crafting the Value Narrative argues that:

Investors and creative businesses alike need to address an ‘analysis gap’ in the creative industries if they are to continue to evolve into the backbone of the new intangible asset economy.

Common prejudices about risk, volatility and resistance to methodical analysis have prevented investors from talking seriously to creative industries about money for growth, creative industries about money for growth, leading to a perceived ‘financing gap’.

In fact, creative businesses are no different to other businesses in that the tools of financial analysis apply equally well to creative firms.

If you’re wondering how to convince investors to finance your company, you should also have a look at Money Talks, an article by Centre for Creative Business Chief Executive Greg Orme, in which he reveals some of the tough questions you are likely to be asked - and the kind of answers the money men will want to hear.

When I interviewed Greg last year I found him very well informed about the micro-level details of running a creative business as well as the macro-level context of the creative industries, it’s well worth having a browse through the articles and courses available on the CCB site.

I had a great time last week with the Wardle McLean team, doing some facilitation for their away day. It’s interesting to read Kevin McLean’s take on the aikido activity I did with the group - I introduced it as a way of highlighting the difference a sense of purpose (peaceful resolution) can make to apparently mundane activities (basic drill steps). It also struck a chord with Kevin as a metaphor for conversation, which seems obvious to now, but wasn’t the reason I introduced it. That’s one of the nice things about this kind of activity - it acts as a metaphor with a rich variety of meanings for the participants, taking you to places you wouldn’t reach if you focus too literally and narrowly on a specific topic or situation.

The Wardle McLean Art of Conversation blog is well worth checking out, as is their Little Book of Qualitative Wisdom. As a practitioner of a conversational art myself, I can relate to a lot of what they say about research conversations. And I like the way the flipchart just happens to be showing the words ‘endless’ and ‘inspiration’ in the photo.

I’ve made my Introduction to the Enneagram series into a free e-book, featuring all the posts and Sandy Renshaw’s illustrations.

It’s published under a Creative Commons licence which means you’re free to copy and share it with others on a noncommercial basis.

Download the Enneagram e-book.

The final post in my Introduction to the Enneagram series is up now on Successful Blog - Working with Others.

The whole series:

0. Introduction

1. What is the Enneagram and Why Should You Care?

2. The Heart Types

3. The Head Types

4. The Body Types

5. Working on Yourself

6. Working with Others

A big thank you to Liz Strauss for inviting me over to Successful Blog and introducing me to a new audience. And to Sandy Renshaw for producing fantastic illustrations that were always perfect first time - as an Enneagram One I appreciate such attention to detail!

The next post in my Introduction to the Enneagram series is up now on Successful Blog - Working on Yourself.

For me, this is the point where the Enneagram really becomes interesting - i.e when the question changes from “What’s my type?” to “How can I use the Enneagram to change my life?”.

The series so far:

0. Introduction

1. What is the Enneagram and Why Should You Care?

2. The Heart Types

3. The Head Types

4. The Body Types

Thanks to Sandy Renshaw for the illustrations.

The next post in my Introduction to the Enneagram series is up now on Successful Blog - The Body Types.

The series so far:

0. Introduction

1. What is the Enneagram and Why Should You Care?

2. The Heart Types

3. The Head Types

4. The Body Types

Thanks to Sandy Renshaw for the illustrations.

It feels like the entire human race is migrating onto Facebook - I joined a couple of weeks ago and it’s a lot of fun joining the dots with people in various social networks. I think I’ve linked up with at least one person I know every day since I joined.

I’ve just created a Wishful Thinking Group on Facebook - I’m hoping it will be a good place for Wishful Thinking readers to connect and share ideas, and for us to get to know each other a little better. You can link up with fellow readers via private messages and adding them as ‘friends’ - and there’s a discussion board and a ‘wall’ for public messages.

I hope you enjoy the group, let me know if you have any ideas for making it a useful and inspiring place for us all.

If you’re wondering what Facebook is all about, this tour should give you some idea. My impression so far is it’s a lot of fun without nearly as much hard work as blogging. So far so good!