Creative consistency: every leader’s secret weapon.
Do you ever find yourself on repeat?
“I thought we just talked about this last month,” you think, as you sit in another meeting with the same people having a similar discussion. Regardless if the problem is that people just can’t seem to latch onto the concept you are sharing, or they get it but aren’t empowered to affect change (which is why you’re talking about that thing again), people absorb information differently at different times. You can’t change the way their brains register what you say, or whether they’re paying attention to you, or whether they even care. But you can change the WAY you deliver the message, as long as you are CONSISTENT in your underlying themes.
To establish yourself as a strong leader, people need to know what you stand for, and what you don’t. If you waffle (ah! indecision) or are unable to clearly articulate your values in a meaningful way that others remember, trust will erode. As a result, people won’t want to follow you because they don’t know what to expect from you.
Instead, learn how to carry a pocketful of themes that can be thrown around in every meeting, deliverable, etc. but use them in a way that doesn’t sound stale or like a broken record. Like donuts… yeah, donuts are the perfect example of creative consistency. All baked from the same core ingredients, but creatively applied toppings create unlimited delight that appeal to all different tastes.
Here are a few ways to apply the principles of creative consistency in your work:
1. Tell a story.
Yes, most of us deliver presentations in PowerPoint. Unless you know of a radical new way to deliver visual messages to small audiences on a software platform the general human can figure out how to use, me thinks it’ll be around for a while, so best embrace it, matey. Luckily, you can find ways to tell stories, even in PowerPoint.
In your presentation, focus on telling a story that supports your underlying mission but is easy for everyone to understand. Some people won’t ask questions openly about things they don’t understand (don’t want to disrupt the meeting, don’t want to look stupid, whatever…). So if you’re too specific, or technical, or otherwise niche, it’s likely that you’ll see glassy eyes or heads nodding but not really comprehending. Especially if you seek superficial agreement at the end of each sentence, right? And if they don’t actually get it then why the hell did you spend all that time making slides and presenting to them?!?
Your story can be simple, but it should have a clear beginning (setting context), climax (this is where you state the impacts), and resolution (or maybe that’s what you’re seeking).
No story is good without some emotional impact. Ideally, state it in the view of your customer or the person/people impacted by the decision you seek or message you’re sending. You want your audience to empathize so they will be more engaged, more likely to listen and absorb, and more likely to get the message.
2. Modify your imagery.
Last month you had a bunch of bullets on your slide. Yawn. Who wants to look at a bunch of text? You could’ve just sent me an email and I could’ve replied at my leisure. You invited me to this meeting and you want me to pay attention so entertain me, damnit.
Okay seriously though, you need images. Graphics. Maybe .gifs or videos. Just make sure it’s interesting so people will beg for you to tell them the accompanying story instead of reading ahead of you and not listening to what you’re saying. Think you’re not creative enough to make some slick visuals? You’re a painter, remember? You can even read children’s books to get inspired and creative about how you’re approaching a visual concept.
3. Modify your language.
Now, there are certainly times when bullets or text are appropriate, but keep the writing to a minimum and use different styles so it’s fresh. You can also surround your text with images/visuals to keep it interesting, per #2.
- Start your bullets with action verbs that are clean and easy to understand (e.g., Investigate… Deliver… Analyze…).
- Grab quotes from customers or others in your organization to add some different perspectives.
- Use the same font, but change the font styles (italics, bold, sizing, etc.) to add special emphasis on the key takeaways.
- Segment your content with lead titles and other hierarchies so people can choose what level of detail they want to absorb: the top line, or the details below.
Overall, you want the text to be impactful, so eliminate unnecessary, superfluous (c’mon Medium, you don’t have strikethrough font for ‘superfluous’?) content and focus on the main points.
The only caveat I’ll add to that last point is try to speak specifically about things instead of generically. For example, instead of saying “as the team evolved, skillsets grew and culture changed,” you could say, “The five new team members brought different perspectives from their past roles, resulting in a more open-minded office where innovative problem solving naturally occurred.” Yes, it’s more superfluous, but in that second statement you could picture the scenario in your head more easily, couldn’t you? That’s an example of storytelling that helps create a memorable message.
4. Use data
There’s no debating a good set of data that supports your message and for which you have a reliable source. It can be from your organization (internal) or from a 3rd party (external), but make sure it’s relevant and the source is stated. Obviously to support it you’ll have some combination of imagery and text. If done well, this could be the deciding factor in next steps you’re seeking from your message/delivery.
Obviously you won’t dump a .csv file into a slide, so go back up to #2 and consider the imagery (in this case, graphs, that you will use to support your story).
Add milestones or markers that indicate some change occurred that impacted results. This helps provide context for others who may need more background.
5. Engage different people
People interpret messages in different ways. It could be a personality thing, a chemistry thing, or just an information processing thing, but one thing is for sure: if you’re having trouble getting your message across to someone, it might be time to talk to someone else. Not only does it spread the news farther and wider, but it will also expose you to different reactions and feedback you can use to become stronger and a better messenger.
6. Find analogies
I volunteered to pack care boxes for troops via the United Services Organization (USO) recently. One of the leaders, who seemed like a nice older veteran, gave thorough instructions to set us all up in an organized fashion. But during the first minute of the assembly line, two of us recognized a bottleneck and hustled over to resolve it.
You’d pick up a bag: it was hard to open. Immediately you had to grab a piece of paper (a survey) from a big stack and stuff it into the bag: the paper stuck together. Then you’d move down the line with your bag, grabbing one of each snack or toiletry items and dropping the bag at the end with “the squeezers,” who would remove the air and stuff the boxes. You’d return to the line and wait your turn to stuff another bag.
The first two steps took as long as the remaining six steps, so we had to fix those first two issues to free up the line and remove the wait. Otherwise we’d spend half our volunteer time just standing in inefficient lines (gag me). My observant colleague and I jumped in and started opening the bags for people and laying out the papers so they were easy to grab off the side of the table. Immediately the line started whizzing by and in no time, we had filled our portion of the group’s 1,500 bags.
“I wish I had this assembly-line view of my entire work chain,” I thought to myself.
Because how amazing would it be to see the performance of your deliverables, your team, and yourself, and visually understand the bottlenecks that prevent a clean production flow? How much easier would it be to know where to step in and adjust a process that benefits the entire team’s efficiency?
I immediately considered drawing an assembly line sequence diagram to depict my team’s work so we could pinpoint opportunities for cleaner handoffs… which brings me to my final recommendation.
7. Draw sequence diagrams
Some nerds like me loved their university business operations class. Some nerds like me still love observing operations and understanding where efficiencies can be gained. Only a few brave nerds will actually take charge and do something about it once they recognize the problems to be solved.
Be a nerd. Draw sequence diagrams. Creatively applying your message will resonate with other nerds. Then, you can bravely change the world together.
Okay, just to reiterate, applying creative consistency is all about using these tools to modify the way you’re saying things, not necessarily modifying what you’re saying.
Now, all of the above is a good way to execute your plan, but what, in fact, is your plan? What is your message? Do you even know? I know mine.
Three words: easy, integrated, and personal.
That’s how I want customers to feel when they use our products. Every message or presentation I deliver ladders up to those things. If it’s not helping to achieve one of those goals, I don’t support it.
Spend some time thinking through your message and purpose. It’s not long and complicated. It’s short and simple so everyone can understand it, remember? Then, weave that theme and purpose throughout everything you do.
While the audiences, topics and type of deliverables might change, your message should always be consistent. This is part of what building a strong team centered around trust is all about. It’s also about building your personal brand. You can say the same thing to a group of executives that you say to a group of developers; you just approach it a little differently so it resonates with your audience.
Even to an international audience, who may have slightly different understandings/ translations, there are opportunities to achieve consistency. Given that 80% of communication is body language, that’s the obvious critical factor, regardless of the flag colors flying on the soil. Your tone, your demeanor, your facial expressions and your overall temperament say the most about you and your message, and transcend all languages.
I recently walked through a central park in Munich with two locals and a colleague from China — extended colleagues I had met (for the first time) only four hours earlier. We approached a small hill, atop which stood a beautiful temple, and the sounds of a guitar and soft singing wafted down. As we climbed, the singing got louder and I could hear ‘Summer of 69’ by Bryan Adams. I had to sing along, of course, but under my breath a bit since I had just met these guys and didn’t want to appear the obnoxious American. At the top, looking out over the city, the local University students changed songs as their guitarist led them through a gentle yet enormously impactful, ‘Yesterday’ by the Beatles. We stood and admired the view, but what I admired even more was the vibe. The scene. The hippy-like culture of peace, love and togetherness.
Only 20 minutes earlier I had watched a bunch of surfers in wetsuits jump into a small river in the park with enough water flowing under a nearby bridge that it hit a dip and created a natural wave. They took turns testing their skills while others watched and supported from the side.
Twenty minutes before that, we had walked by a group of people salsa dancing in a small temple in the middle of the French-style gardens.
The common element in all this? Communal humanity. People like gathering for a purpose. People like feeling warm, happy, and restful. They like congregating to share a moment of fun and smiles. They like being entertained. And they like a challenge (ehem — singing, surfing or salsa).
But to pursue a challenge there must be structure and consistency. None of this requires that you speak the same language; it requires body language.
It requires someone to strum the first chord, own the first wave, or take the first step.
And it requires those brave leaders to creatively and consistently apply their messages that it’s okay to sing together, it’s okay to surf in that river, and it’s okay to salsa with a stranger. In the business world, it requires imagery, tone, text, and supporting data. It requires you talk with other people, tell a story, and even draw a sequence diagram from time to time.
So alas, perhaps creative consistency is not our secret weapon, but rather our secret peacemaker.
#noregrets
This article was originally published on LinkedIn by Kim in August 2019.
Kim Shyu is a Digital Product Leader with experience supporting B2B and B2C companies. Her expertise in Product Management is honed through a relentless pursuit to deeply understand her customers and build personalized digital experiences that exceed their expectations. See more on LinkedIn.
