Don't believe every trend, and even consider being a trendsetter. The only way to ever possibly set a trend, is not to follow every trend. Don't be afraid to wait it out before investing time and capital in new and seemingly popular opportunities. You know your markets, so if you feel you have the pulse of the moment at your fingertips, explore that zeitgeist as a leader, and not a follower.
The setback of narrow vision can be fatal. Look at the world through the eyes of other people. In today's complex world you have to become an integration thinker. Like statecraft, entrepreneurship that engages millions of people, is a mixture of politics, technology, and finance requiring deep integration thinking from its leadership. Get outside of yourself! Do anything you can to expand any narrow thinking, or "set" ways. Expose yourself to as many new people, ideas, challenges, and viewpoints as possible. The more you can learn, connect, and integrate, the more you can evolve and grow.
Good relationships are at the heart of all success. Success belongs to the thoughtful; tragedy to the neglectful. Every aspect of every business transaction is a relationship that requires thoughtfulness and respect. Respect is the universal currency accepted everywhere. Treat others with respect and you will always be wealthy because your community is your real currency.
All success comes through other people. You cannot isolate yourself into prosperity. Social media must first and foremost be — social. The tenants of huge social media success are the same principals of being a good neighbor. You must be genuine, available, caring, supportive, friendly, and of good intention and good will. If you want to prosper, you must delight in seeing others prosper. Never forget that fifty-percent of social success, whether in social media, or the real world requires the other party's happiness and success; that is your clients, customers, and consumers.
Leadership resources should be used to provide employees the protection and freedom they need to feel safe and valued. Real leaders use their strength to shield employees from the foul machinations of common corporate culture. When you shoulder that weight, and release your team from the suffocating pressure all too common in today's corporate culture, they will rise to great heights of loyalty and creative brilliance.
If you want cutting-edge genius from your employees, what are you providing equally cutting-edge and genius? Don't ask for what you cannot give. Lead by example. Care for your "employees," those "employed" in the endeavor of expressing their unique fingerprint of creative brilliance.
Too few leaders understand the style of benevolent governing that sets the best in people free. Creating an organic creative culture takes patience and a true understanding of the importance of freedom and respect. Control and domination do yield some results, but are not the tools of the master-crafters who are fueled by freedom and passion. True brilliance is wild and messy, not obedient or orderly. Control and greed; what more can be said—this is the 20th century summed up. Control and greed should be the definition for poor leadership. Fostering and partaking in the rare brilliance of a truly creative culture is an art-craft—not business. The human resources department needs to be seen as the "Holy-of-Holies" in the corporate temple. Employees should be respected above all — especially above single dimensional profits. If there is no respect for the employees, then you have the wrong employees or the wrong management, or both. Freedom, respect and commonwealth form the triad par excellence of any healthy relationship or creative culture.
To even have a conversation about uncommon brilliance you must develop a new vocabulary of freedom, which is mostly foreign in corporate cultures. This communication involves a type of two-way trust between you and your "employees". There are many ways we contract with others. Repressive relationships create resentment, while trusting relationships create the free space for magic to happen. Cultivating creative magic is like growing crystals; with the proper ingredients and environment the laws of nature take over and the crystals appear. It is the same when we are trying to crystalize production of the most coveted human resource—creative brilliance. First, the right environment and ingredients must be present. It is your job as a leader to provide those ingredients and environment, and then let the laws work for you. Similar to the laws guiding the formation of crystals are constructs which allow ideas to flourish and crystallize in the mind. It is not the job of leadership to force or direct creative output, but only to create the environment. Creative culture is achieved through wise and gentle cultivation, not direct manipulation.
When cultivating a creative team, don't make the common mistake of only looking for technicians. And don't fool yourself into thinking you can just "hire" smart people and manage them with traditional leadership if you want to achieve something spectacular. Brilliance and super-creativity can only be cultivated and recognized by creative brilliance itself. You can't ask for or get what you don't understand yourself, and this is one of the key challenges of leadership.
Gimmicks, manipulation and force are the old ways. The ethological sphere of business is evolving along with the mass consciousness. Life and social evolution is like a breath; out with the old and in with the new. The old ways of force and control will no longer work in the new coming world, and those who cannot evolve will perish. Sales and marketing is not something we do, it is something we are. All prosperity comes from a deep and sacred place within.
