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Sir Andrew Strauss is the former Captain of the England cricket team which he led to become the number one team in the world for the first time in England's history. He then became England's Director of Cricket and he's recognized as the architect of the country's first ever one day World Cup victory.
In 2019, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to charity, sport, and cricket.
Being captain of a cricket team requires the same skills needed to run a business. Amplified.
Managing world class talent while your work is being broadcast, and your success and failures, both personal and collective, are being recorded, analyzed and critiqued in real time, requires a range of rare skills and temperament.
Unlocking the potential of others while taking responsibility for the outcome is at the heart of the attributes required for the job.
Andrew and I met in London a few days ago, and as you'll hear, our conversation covered a lot of ground, both professional and the deeply personal.
From his achievements to the loss of his wife.
By the time Andrew Strauss turned 33, he'd achieved what every cricket fan in England grows up dreaming of. Captaining your country to victory in Australia. In my lifetime, it has only happened three times.
Seven years later, he lost his wife to cancer.
Most of us do not achieve so much so young. Nor lose so much so early.
For Andrew, the combination has encouraged him to ask questions of himself earlier in his life than most people do.
Unlocking creativity in others means building trust with those around us. They want to know who we are and what matters to us.
Fulfilling our own potential means answering those same questions. And in my experience, that happens when we ask ourselves this. What else do I want to know about myself?
Most leaders strive for success relentlessly, head down, and only later do we take stock of the choices we've made.
How will you judge if you've lived a good life or not? What else do you want to know about yourself?
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Who do you trust?
Jim Stengel is the former CMO of P&G, and he's now a hugely successful author, speaker, coach, consultant, and advisor. He's also the host of the brilliant CMO Podcast.
In our conversation, Jim and I started to lay the framework for how we think that leadership is going to have to evolve as the confidence in most institutions, including government, continues to deteriorate.
Being creative on demand is perhaps one of the hardest things that we ask any human being to do. Because every act of creativity requires an emotional leap by its creator.
That's why the best creative thinking usually comes when you have confidence in yourself and trust in the environment around you.
Now, it's impossible for any of us to predict with any certainty what the next four years are going to look like. What's reasonable to expect is that they will not be ânormal.â So in these circumstances, it's very likely that some of the people around you are going to feel a lot less safe than they have before. As leaders, creating an environment that people can trust, regardless of what's going on in the world, will be more critical than ever before. And that starts with giving people reasons to trust you.
Establishing trust is a simple equation. Say what you mean, then do what you say, and do it consistently.
So what do you stand for? And what will you stand for when the chips are down, and the pressure is on? Why should people trust you?
Get that right, and I promise you, you'll change your corner of the world for everyone around you.
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Fehlende Folgen?
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Welcome to the first episode of 2025. A year that promises to be unlike any other on so many levels.
This episode is designed as a provocation, an inspiration, and a roadmap for the leaders of businesses, for whom unlocking creative thinking is critical.
Over the last four weeks, I've talked to 12 exceptional leaders from a diverse set of experiences and perspectives. I've asked them how the best leaders will lead in 2025. From those conversations, I've identified the three leadership practices that will be critical to leaders of creative businesses this year.
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What does your company reject?
Karl Lieberman is the Global Chief Creative Officer of Wieden + Kennedy. Wieden is a reference point among creative companies in many industries. For almost 45 years, they'd been impacting culture and driving business for their clients by unlocking the creativity of their people. .
Creating the kind of environment in which people feel safe to put all their ideas on the table is the easiest thing to aspire to. And the hardest thing to do, in my experience.
It means giving people a voice. It means being open, genuinely open to another way of looking at the world. And to the possibility that being criticized is much more desirable than being ignored.
These criteria are at best challenging for most leaders to accept. Control and predict are much more natural. But predictability and conformity are creative kryptonite.
To unlock creativity and unleash its power to maximum effect, you have to be willing to break the norms, to encourage the irrational and sometimes even the absurd.
You have to reject predictability for possibility.
And when you're yelled at, because no one has ever done it like that before, you have to be willing to shrug.
You'll hear all that and more in my conversation with Karl.
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What are you willing to compromise?
Lina Polimeni is the Chief Corporate Brand Officer at Eli Lilly and Company. This is a business whose work is often the difference between life and death, where they are trying to cure cancer, and where the outcome is very personal.
In the middle of that reality, your own leadership journey is fueled by a lot of food for thought.
No one can lead effectively without compromise.
But what we choose to compromise has a huge part to play in whether weâre successful.
If what we end up sacrificing is a pathway to discovering that we are already enough⊠If what we end up sacrificing is a road to realizing that the best version of who we are can help others become the best version of themselvesâŠ
If that is what we are compromising, then the cost of that will be the realization that we behaved as others wanted us to. And when they are a part of our past, remembered or forgotten, what we will be left with is a journey that is not the one we started out on. A destination that is not where we wanted to go. And a dream that is always around the corner.
We can be what others want, or we can be who we want to be. We always have that choice.
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Edited highlights of our full length conversation.
What are you willing to compromise?
Lina Polimeni is the Chief Corporate Brand Officer at Eli Lilly and Company. This is a business whose work is often the difference between life and death, where they are trying to cure cancer, and where the outcome is very personal.
In the middle of that reality, your own leadership journey is fueled by a lot of food for thought.
No one can lead effectively without compromise.
But what we choose to compromise has a huge part to play in whether weâre successful.
If what we end up sacrificing is a pathway to discovering that we are already enough⊠If what we end up sacrificing is a road to realizing that the best version of who we are can help others become the best version of themselvesâŠ
If that is what we are compromising, then the cost of that will be the realization that we behaved as others wanted us to. And when they are a part of our past, remembered or forgotten, what we will be left with is a journey that is not the one we started out on. A destination that is not where we wanted to go. And a dream that is always around the corner.
We can be what others want, or we can be who we want to be. We always have that choice.
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Are you centered?
Kerry Sulkowicz is the Past-President of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the Founder and Managing Principal of Boswell Group. They provide leadership advice to boards and CEOs.
Kerry and I have been friends for a long time, and he has taught me much about the psychodynamic aspects of leadership. Whenever we talk, his advice strikes me as clear and straightforward, and always very human.
Being centered doesnât happen through accident, chance, or hope. It happens by intent.
And that intent is driven by recognizing two obvious truths.
Leadership is lonely.
And leadership is stressful. Much, much more so than many are willing to admit publicly.
The old-world view is that leadership demands that you project strength, certainty, invincibility. Even in the face of threats that can feel like they are existential - because these days, for many businesses, they might be.
If some days that means you feel like youâre a leader in a fight for survival, well, thatâs not surprising. Because thatâs exactly how your brain responds to that set of circumstances.
And under that kind of stress, the part of your brain thatâs responsible for executive function, for risk assessment, and problem-solving, and for planning, suddenly starts to develop tunnel vision. And at the same time, our amygdala kicks in and suddenly survival gets added to the emotional maelstrom, and then finally comes the impulse to hurry up and do something. Anything.
Being centered is the shelter in that storm. Itâs held up by a strong sense of self, by awareness and honesty about how you respond under stress, and itâs helped by having a clear and multi-faceted definition of success.
Those foundations, when combined with a willingness to take a little time to turn down the short term noise, and dilute the adrenaline fueled feelings of urgency, will give you the ability to lean on yourself and think things through.
Leadership is sometimes about taking action and it is sometimes not.
But it is always about being centered.
So, how well do you know yourself?
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Edited highlights of our full length conversation.
Are you centered?
Kerry Sulkowicz is the Past-President of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the Founder and Managing Principal of Boswell Group. They provide leadership advice to boards and CEOs.
Kerry and I have been friends for a long time, and he has taught me much about the psychodynamic aspects of leadership. Whenever we talk, his advice strikes me as clear and straightforward, and always very human.
Being centered doesnât happen through accident, chance, or hope. It happens by intent.
And that intent is driven by recognizing two obvious truths.
Leadership is lonely.
And leadership is stressful. Much, much more so than many are willing to admit publicly.
The old-world view is that leadership demands that you project strength, certainty, invincibility. Even in the face of threats that can feel like they are existential - because these days, for many businesses, they might be.
If some days that means you feel like youâre a leader in a fight for survival, well, thatâs not surprising. Because thatâs exactly how your brain responds to that set of circumstances.
And under that kind of stress, the part of your brain thatâs responsible for executive function, for risk assessment, and problem-solving, and for planning, suddenly starts to develop tunnel vision. And at the same time, our amygdala kicks in and suddenly survival gets added to the emotional maelstrom, and then finally comes the impulse to hurry up and do something. Anything.
Being centered is the shelter in that storm. Itâs held up by a strong sense of self, by awareness and honesty about how you respond under stress, and itâs helped by having a clear and multi-faceted definition of success.
Those foundations, when combined with a willingness to take a little time to turn down the short term noise, and dilute the adrenaline fueled feelings of urgency, will give you the ability to lean on yourself and think things through.
Leadership is sometimes about taking action and it is sometimes not.
But it is always about being centered.
So, how well do you know yourself?
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What is your pain for?
Taban Shoresh is the Founder of The Lotus Flower, a UK-based charity that supports women and girls that have been displaced by conflict, and helps them to build sustainable futures. Since 2016, the charity's projects have impacted more than 60,000 women, girls, and community members.
Every now and then, you meet someone whose story stops you in your tracks. Tabanâs story starts with her being arrested in Iraq at the age of four. Three weeks later, she's ordered onto a bus that will take her to the place where she and other members of her family will be buried alive.
At the end of 2021, before Russia invaded the Ukraine or the war in Gaza, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide stood at 89.3 million. There were 27.1 million refugees globally, half of whom were aged under 18, which makes Taban's story one of millions and completely unique.
She has experienced staggering trauma, she has known realities that I'm sure I would not have survived, and she has taken all of that pain and turned it into creative leadership of the most consequential kind. As you'll hear, for reasons both global and personal, she's in a hurry.
All of us have suffered pain. What we use it for is a question that will stay with me for a long time after this conversation.
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Edited highlights of our full length conversation.
What is your pain for?
Taban Shoresh is the Founder of The Lotus Flower, a UK-based charity that supports women and girls that have been displaced by conflict, and helps them to build sustainable futures. Since 2016, the charity's projects have impacted more than 60,000 women, girls, and community members.
Every now and then, you meet someone whose story stops you in your tracks. Tabanâs story starts with her being arrested in Iraq at the age of four. Three weeks later, she's ordered onto a bus that will take her to the place where she and other members of her family will be buried alive.
At the end of 2021, before Russia invaded the Ukraine or the war in Gaza, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide stood at 89.3 million. There were 27.1 million refugees globally, half of whom were aged under 18, which makes Taban's story one of millions and completely unique.
She has experienced staggering trauma, she has known realities that I'm sure I would not have survived, and she has taken all of that pain and turned it into creative leadership of the most consequential kind. As you'll hear, for reasons both global and personal, she's in a hurry.
All of us have suffered pain. What we use it for is a question that will stay with me for a long time after this conversation.
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Is that good?
Heather Freeland is the Chief Brand Officer at Adobe, a business that, as Heather describes, is undergoing significant change to prepare itself for the future to come, and the one that is already here.
In a company long known for providing powerful tools to creative people, the advent of Generative AI is both a threat and an opportunity. How human beings maintain our relevance sits at the very heart of that tension.
Is that good?
In the quest to become leaders that make a difference, there are many powerful questions to ask ourselves.
What do I want to find out about myself?
What is success?
Both of these are intensely personal, and can be answered, albeit with some serious and honest reflection, from within.
But, âIs that good?â usually stretches us out into the world. We are inclined to ask, through what lens? Against what criteria? Measured by what result? Based on whose experience?
But at the end of that journey of data collection, consultation, and analysis, the answer to, âIs that good?â is still waiting for someone to decide.
Michelangelo, when asked how he had created such perfection from a piece of rock said, âI simply removed everything that wasnât the David.â
If human beings are to create a dividing line that AI can not cross, the question, âIs that good?â may be the beating heart on which that barrier depends.
âIs that good?â is heavy lifting. It requires clarity and confidence.
Muscles we should probably start building today.
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Edited highlights of our full length conversation.
Is that good?
Heather Freeland is the Chief Brand Officer at Adobe, a business that, as Heather describes, is undergoing significant change to prepare itself for the future to come, and the one that is already here.
In a company long known for providing powerful tools to creative people, the advent of Generative AI is both a threat and an opportunity. How human beings maintain our relevance sits at the very heart of that tension.
Is that good?
In the quest to become leaders that make a difference, there are many powerful questions to ask ourselves.
What do I want to find out about myself?
What is success?
Both of these are intensely personal, and can be answered, albeit with some serious and honest reflection, from within.
But, âIs that good?â usually stretches us out into the world. We are inclined to ask, through what lens? Against what criteria? Measured by what result? Based on whose experience?
But at the end of that journey of data collection, consultation, and analysis, the answer to, âIs that good?â is still waiting for someone to decide.
Michelangelo, when asked how he had created such perfection from a piece of rock said, âI simply removed everything that wasnât the David.â
If human beings are to create a dividing line that AI can not cross, the question, âIs that good?â may be the beating heart on which that barrier depends.
âIs that good?â is heavy lifting. It requires clarity and confidence.
Muscles we should probably start building today.
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Why are you doing what youâre doing?
Gabriel Schmitt has just celebrated his one year anniversary as the Global CCO of Grey.
Greyâs proposition is that they have been coming up with famously effective ideas since 1917.
Gabriel is somewhat younger than that, but over his career, has learned one of the most important leadership lessons that I think often gets overlooked.
The importance of context.
A few years ago, I wrote an article for Fast Company called The Four Weapons of Exceptional Creative Leaders.
I got some pushback on using the word âweaponsâ in the context of creativity. My response was that if youâve ever done battle with the status quo, then you already know that you need to bring some serious weapons to that fight.
Context is the beginning and the end of the leadership journey. Without it, you have no ability to answer critical questions, like where are we on our journey? How much further do we have to go?
Context is the reason why you are trying to make that wild idea.
It is why you hire that person.
It is why you invest in that technology.
It is why you make that decision.
It is why you come up with the answer.
It is why people follow you.
And without it⊠everything else is just a guess.
So why are you doing what youâre doing?
And are you sure?
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Edited highlights of our full length conversation.
Why are you doing what youâre doing?
Gabriel Schmitt has just celebrated his one year anniversary as the Global CCO of Grey.
Greyâs proposition is that they have been coming up with famously effective ideas since 1917.
Gabriel is somewhat younger than that, but over his career, has learned one of the most important leadership lessons that I think often gets overlooked.
The importance of context.
A few years ago, I wrote an article for Fast Company called The Four Weapons of Exceptional Creative Leaders.
I got some pushback on using the word âweaponsâ in the context of creativity. My response was that if youâve ever done battle with the status quo, then you already know that you need to bring some serious weapons to that fight.
Context is the beginning and the end of the leadership journey. Without it, you have no ability to answer critical questions, like where are we on our journey? How much further do we have to go?
Context is the reason why you are trying to make that wild idea.
It is why you hire that person.
It is why you invest in that technology.
It is why you make that decision.
It is why you come up with the answer.
It is why people follow you.
And without it⊠everything else is just a guess.
So why are you doing what youâre doing?
And are you sure?
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How well do you know yourself?
Lisa Smith is the Global Executive Creative Director at JKR.
Fast Company have called her a visionary designer, citing in particular her work for Burger King, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Chobani and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They described her work as unique because âit has consistently changed the visual landscape, disrupted popular aesthetics, and started trends of its own.â
When you meet Lisa, her energy is infectious. As youâll hear in our conversation, she wants to make a difference.
She also knows herself well enough to have learned that her energy sometimes needs an adapter.
We are driven by instincts, starting with the genetic code that we must survive.
Against that context, self awareness comes second and is usually filtered and diluted by other impulses.
The ability to stand back and accurately reflect on the impact we are having in real time, is a lifelong quest for most of us.
But when you meet someone who has learned to understand themselves multi-dimensionally, who sees themselves in mirrors that reflect all angles, the good and the works in progress, our trust in that person rises like the proverbial tide - predictably and visibly.
That remains true even if, especially if, they show up as less than their best selves but can acknowledge or forewarn us that they can see, and feel and acknowledge that - sometimes preemptively.
Lisa is not alone in her ambition sometimes turning her into a bulldozer.
She is rare in her ability to see it happening before it happens and to warn those around her that her form of leadership encompasses all the elements of âlead, follow or get out of the way.â
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Edited highlights of our full length conversation.
How well do you know yourself?
Lisa Smith is the Global Executive Creative Director at JKR.
Fast Company have called her a visionary designer, citing in particular her work for Burger King, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Chobani and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They described her work as unique because âit has consistently changed the visual landscape, disrupted popular aesthetics, and started trends of its own.â
When you meet Lisa, her energy is infectious. As youâll hear in our conversation, she wants to make a difference.
She also knows herself well enough to have learned that her energy sometimes needs an adapter.
We are driven by instincts, starting with the genetic code that we must survive.
Against that context, self awareness comes second and is usually filtered and diluted by other impulses.
The ability to stand back and accurately reflect on the impact we are having in real time, is a lifelong quest for most of us.
But when you meet someone who has learned to understand themselves multi-dimensionally, who sees themselves in mirrors that reflect all angles, the good and the works in progress, our trust in that person rises like the proverbial tide - predictably and visibly.
That remains true even if, especially if, they show up as less than their best selves but can acknowledge or forewarn us that they can see, and feel and acknowledge that - sometimes preemptively.
Lisa is not alone in her ambition sometimes turning her into a bulldozer.
She is rare in her ability to see it happening before it happens and to warn those around her that her form of leadership encompasses all the elements of âlead, follow or get out of the way.â
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Which direction are you going?
Nils Leonard, one of the co-founders of Uncommon - the award winning global creative studio - has been a regular guest on this show since I started Fearless seven years ago.
In all of that time, Iâve wondered abut his partnership with his two co-founders, Natalie Graeme and Lucy Jameson.
Why did they decide to go into business together? How does it work and what might get in the way?
And what makes the Uncommon partnership particularly worth understanding is the extraordinary consistency between what they said mattered to them when they started, and how they show up today.
This conversation, on a wet, rainy Thursday morning, at an outdoor restaurant in Cannes, shows why this partnership has worked so successfully so far and raises some questions about how it will need to evolve to guide the companyâs next stage of evolution.
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Edited highlights of our full length conversation.
Which direction are you going?
Nils Leonard, one of the co-founders of Uncommon - the award winning global creative studio - has been a regular guest on this show since I started Fearless seven years ago.
In all of that time, Iâve wondered abut his partnership with his two co-founders, Natalie Graeme and Lucy Jameson.
Why did they decide to go into business together? How does it work and what might get in the way?
And what makes the Uncommon partnership particularly worth understanding is the extraordinary consistency between what they said mattered to them when they started, and how they show up today.
This conversation, on a wet, rainy Thursday morning, at an outdoor restaurant in Cannes, shows why this partnership has worked so successfully so far and raises some questions about how it will need to evolve to guide the companyâs next stage of evolution.
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What lessons have you learned?
This episode features the return visit of Jon Cook, the Global CEO of VML. I interviewed Jon for the first time a year ago, eight months after he had died while going for a run in his neighborhood.
Today, he is the CEO of the world's largest advertising agency. We covered a lot of topics during our latest conversation, from the qualities that he brings as a leader, to navigating mergers, to the impact of AI. We also talked about a simple but powerful truth that I think a lot of leaders have a hard time remembering when they're facing stressful situations - that we are already better than we think.
Leadership is lonely. It's a cliche because it's true. Those feelings of isolation usually leave our doubts and insecurities to wander through the garden of our minds, unchaperoned.
Given enough time and enough space, those insecurities can become a permanent part of our self-image and self-beliefs.
Talking to someone who can help us to fully see ourselves is always helpful. Of course, I'd say that. I'm a leadership coach. But we have ways to help ourselves that can be powerful, too.
One of the simplest is to look back and to see our past achievements for what they are. Achievements, experiences, skills, and wisdom.
And if you take a few moments and you write that list of achievements down, you'll be better prepared, not only to meet this moment, but you'll also be able to quiet the part of you that thinks that nothing you do is ever good enough.
Self-awareness is the most powerful asset that any leader can develop. So, make that list right now.
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What will be the impact of AI on the creative industries, and how can we meet this moment?
This is the final episode of my series of interviews over the last few weeks leading up to and through the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.
It offers a map for the future based on those conversations, and observations of the speed of change. If you havenât seen it, look up the Volvo ad that was just published on social media. It took one person, 24 hours to create.
This ad could not have been made in May, when I started this series of interviews.
Creativity and innovation are oxygen for the world's best businesses. Increase the flow and they soar. Limit the supply and they wither and ultimately die.
That has been true for longer than anyone reading this has been alive.
What is also true is that until now, that creativity, that ability to come up with original ideas that solve problems has been limited to human beings.
With the arrival and advances in AI, will that still be true five years from now? Two? Tomorrow?
Over the last few weeks, I've interviewed ten different leaders from across the creative industries. Brand leaders, agency founders, global agency heads, global client leads, production experts, creator community experts, consultants, and an advertising industry legend.
And while I was at Cannes, I talked to two dozen more about where the creative industries are headed and what they need to do to ensure their future.
These industries are a complex eco system of competing and contradictory forces built on what I believe is the worst business model in the world: selling original ideas based on how long it took to conceive and deliver them, and then giving up the ownership and the economic benefit of those ideas forever.
It is the equivalent of pricing a Picasso based on how long it took him to paint it. It is selling every patentable idea based on the cost of the labor, while ignoring the impact on people's lives.
According to some reports it takes 24 hours to build an iPhone. Imagine if Apple broke that down into a scope of work and then sold each iPhone for the cost of that scope and, with it, the ownership of the IP. For how long would they remain the most valuable business in the world?
The daily advances of AI challenge every aspect of the creative industries. From defining and articulating the problem, to conceiving, creating and delivering solutions. Every part of the process is being radically changed. And the extent of that change is limitless.
So what should we do about that?
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