If you want cutting-edge genius from your employees, what are you providing equally cutting-edge and genius?
Freedom, respect and commonwealth form the triad par excellence of any healthy relationship or creative culture.
Fostering and partaking in the rare brilliance of a truly creative culture is an art-craft—not business.
True brilliance is wild and messy, not obedient or orderly.
Control and domination do yield some results, but are not the tools of the master-crafters who are fueled by freedom and passion.
Creative culture is achieved through wise and gentle cultivation, not direct manipulation.
It is not the job of leadership to force or direct creative output, but only to create the environment.
Repressive relationships create resentment, while trusting relationships create the free space for magic to happen.
To even have a conversation about uncommon brilliance you must develop a new vocabulary of freedom, which is mostly foreign in corporate cultures.
You can't ask for or get what you don't understand yourself, and this is one of the key challenges of leadership.
