Creative Leadership: Thriving in a Changing Industry with Tim Hogan

Welcome to the Athletics of Business, a podcast about how the traits and behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance. Now your host, Ed Molitor.

Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. I am your host and CEO of the Molotor Group, Ed Molotor. If you've been with us for a while here as a listener to the Athletics of Business podcast, you have heard us talk time and again both during solo cast as well as with our podcast Guest about our foundational program Victory Defined, which is the core component of our work with our coaching clients, both the Leader Enroll Coaching Program and the Emerging Leader Coaching program, as well as our corporate work that we do with the workshops and keynotes. And today's guest, Tim Hogan, is one of the gentlemen that brought that program to life, that helped us clearly articulate how we can make that the core component of all of our work.

If you haven't been with us for a while, let me give you a quick overview what Victory Defined represents. First of all, we know this Victory undefined is Victory unfulfilled. So in other words, relentlessly pursuing winning as to what it means to you when we break the word victory down into B is values, I is intangibles, c Creativity and it's that piece that we're going to talk a lot about today. T is for team, O objectives, R Rules of the game and Y is you. Now let me tell you, before I talk about what we dive into in this incredible episode, let me tell you a little bit about Tim.

Tim is the CCO at the Hogan Creative and he is an Executive Creative leader who specializes in developing unexpected yet memorable brand experiences and has done so in environments ranging from startup boutiques to global behemoths for nearly 30 years. With generosity and a sense of humor. He has an incredible sense of humor. Always has.

It's one of the things that resonated.

With me when we first connected back in high school almost 40 years ago. Tim specializes in assembling and inspiring diverse cross disciplinary teams to push beyond the brief, delivering memorable work and meaningful business results. Unlike many creative leads who administer directives, Tim defines opportunities dependably, delivering simple truths that lead to bigger ideas. Simple truths that lead to bigger ideas. Tim's work has been recognized by a variety of award shows and publications including the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Graphis, communication Arts, Strathmore, W3 Print Magazine and South by Southwest Interactive, and he is a frequent competition judge, student portfolio reviewer and guest speaker. Tim lives in Evanston, Illinois with his incredible wife and three beautiful children. And when not working, he can usually be found riding a bicycle, wearing something unflattering.

Okay.

Which many would disagree with. There's something about Tim, and you'll pick this up in the conversation. When I first met him and spent time with them in high school, beyond the sense of humor, beyond the personality, there's something deeper. And Tim was one of those guys that, not knowing what his chosen field of endeavor would be, I just had this gut feeling that he'd be wildly successful in life and have a big impact on others, which is absolutely what he has done. And inside of this conversation, we're going to talk about staying resilient during challenging times by relying on trusted individuals and the power of creatively reframing situations, which is something we talk about all the time. I firmly believe that having the ability to be creative and reframe novel solutions and reframe challenging situations and adversity is a superpower.

We talk about leadership and problem solving, emphasizing the importance of distilling problems into simple truths, which leads to creative solutions. Again, delivering simple truths that lead to bigger ideas. I absolutely love that simplicity and simple truths lead to bigger ideas.

Now, I want to mention this before.

We jump into the conversation. We talk about it towards the end of our time together, but Tim has an amazing LinkedIn post that just resonated with me. It's resonated with so many people that I've shared with on our VIP list. By the way, if you want to jump into our VIP list, we would love to have. Have you just go to themolitergroup.com and go ahead and fill out the form and we will get that to you every single Friday. It has so much great content. We share a story, we share the lessons, we share an exercise, a book, a podcast, give you the resources. Just amazing reviews on that. But his LinkedIn post, it's at.

Tim Hogan.

Okay. Is seven ways to coach Like a Creative Director. You'll absolutely love it. So I'm gonna get out of the way, let you enjoy this amazing conversation I had with my dad, good friend, Tim Hogan.

Tim, thank you so much for joining us on the Athletics of Business podcast. This has been a long time coming. I mean, I, I am so excited to have you here. We've known each other for years. I. I talked about it in the intro. Always had a ton of respect for not only what you do, but how you do things. So thank you so much for taking time out of your Schedule to join us today.

Thank you for having me, Eddie Molitor. This is a real treat.

I'll tell you what, the listener doesn't often hear me refer to as Eddie Molotor, and there are many stories behind that, and we'll roll with that. But it's funny, because you really have. We've known each other, I don't want to say how many years.

No, let's not.

We'd be dating ourselves, but back to high school, you know, And I've. At times, I've admired your journey from afar. At other times, we've really connected and spent some time together. And really, one of the few blessings or several blessings Covid had was reconnecting us, and we had the opportunity to do some work together. So I appreciate you, and I appreciate the time that you and Peter spent with me. And it is paid tenfold in terms of what it's done for us, what it's done for our listener, what it's done for our clients. So thank you.

Yeah, I'm glad to hear that the. The results are rolling in and things are working out the way that you're. You were hoping. I wish I could say it was a good client relationship for me on my side. It's always tricky.

Yeah, that's the way it goes. All right. But we had a few laughs. We had a few laughs along the way. I mean, you guys put me through the ringer, that's for sure.

And you survived it, and you came out the other side looking.

I did. Pretty. Pretty much unscathed. Yeah. Now tell us about the work that you're doing right now, you know, and kind of reverse engineer your journey, how you got to where you are today. Because you and I had a conversation yesterday, and the way you pieced it together for me and the way you articulated it just all made so much sense. Can you walk our listener through that?

Yeah, maybe. I'll start with how I got into the side of the business that I'm on. And it started kind of when I was. When I could hold a pencil. The first thing I started doing was doodling. So I was always kind of distracting people with sketches and drawings and paintings. And I was always taking an art class, either at school or just on the side. And so I knew I was gonna do something in. I thought I was gonna be an illustrator. You know, I was recreating MAD magazine and drawing record covers and skateboard designs in the neighborhood for the Kokalis brothers. And so it was always interesting to me, you know, to create stuff and to make things out of nothing. So I knew I was going to try and pursue something in that vein where I am in my career.

I started by going through the traditional graphic designing identities and business materials and visual communications for, you know, just a variety of types of companies. And I was still figuring out exactly what my particular bent was. It didn't really occur to me until I think the late, maybe mid to late 90s, when the web started to become a thing. And I was like, you know, this is going to change things. So I better make sure that as a designer, we have a foothold in it because it was being designed by developers. You know, everything was floating and wheels were spinning and it just looked like garbage. It was hard to use. So that's where I started thinking. Applying design, thinking design logic, composition and user experience at an early stage became real attractive to me.

So that sort of brought me into what ended up being sort of digital design, omnichannel design. And from there I just kind of, I kept looking around the corner to see what was the next media, the next technology that I could sort of incorporate into my own skill set and to try and remain relevant. So I still do that today with AI and with all of the technology, technological changes that are happening right now, it's like, it's just critical to stay abreast of that and to see what's coming around the bend and how that's going to influence the work that I do and the skills that I need to stay on top of it. So. Right. You know, I guess to answer your question, that was a long way to get to the answer to the question.

But I'm sort of at a transition point. I've been through a number of sort of career iterations from Worker B all the way up to where I am now, which is, I think, more of a creative leader, thinking more strategically about how to position brands and less about how to create logo marks, for instance. And so I'm looking at, you know, I think I, as I said to you yesterday, I feel like I, I have a lot of skills and experience to offer in a. In a number of different verticals. So I'm exploring some of those. You know, Covid became an opportunity for me to hit pause and step back and look at, you know, my book of work and what I think I do well.

And I went through, you know, some of the similar exercises we put you through with figuring out what is my value prop, what's my differentiator.

Right. It's not as simple as it sounds. I mean, it's awesome. I mean, you do a deep dive and you talk about increasing your self awareness, but I don't know about you, I still have bumps on my head from banging against the wall.

Yeah. Especially when, you know, the way that we started with you was, you know, pick a handful of words from. I think there was like 500 words.

You came back, narrowed it down. Hey, don't say that or something. I narrowed it down.

Right. But it is hard. It's hard because you think, you know, you look at it through different lenses to the, to certain people, I am this. To, to myself, I'm this. And you have to isolate that down to a single word. And that can be tricky. But it's helpful, I think, because then that becomes the mantra that you go into every meeting sort of saying, right.

I want to go back for a second. Because you talk about looking around the corner, right? And to see what's coming next. I mean, we're dealing with a, a pace and rate of change unlike anything we've ever seen. It's only going to increase probably exponentially.

Right.

With everything that we have coming down the pipeline. How do you do that? Like, how do you look around the corner? What, how do you anticipate what's coming next? And how do you mess around with that to see what works and doesn't work?

Yeah, it's, that's really tricky. I mean, it's the, it's discerning the signal from the noise, right? Because everybody wants to have a voice in this convers. And there's a lot of, you know, chicken Little, the sky is falling scenarios that I'm hearing because, you know, who's going to lose their job first? Is it the copywriters? Is it the web developers? Is it creatives in general? Or are entire channels and verticals going to be eliminated? None of that's going to happen. You still need human beings to make the connections and to create those insights that relate to human beings. So I think, you know, we're just, we're broadening our sets of tools right now. So how do I do that?

I just kind of make it a point to every day find articles that are relevant and talk to people that are sort of making moves in this space that for me becomes the signal. All of the other articles that, you know, sort of hand wringers and worriers, I try to avoid, you know.

And speaking of change, you've seen a lot of it, right? And I Have to imagine there's been times where you're like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Can you talk to us a little bit about how you persisted, like how you developed that resilience and still kept the creativity through the challenging times?

Well, I mean, it's different with every iteration, right. Because we've been through several different. There was the dot com bomb, right. Turn of the century. I was victim to that. You know, were right on the front line. That's sort of the, it's the, it's. The potential downside of being on that cutting edge of media and technology is we're really susceptible to frequent change and you know, the inflation of the thing and then the deflation of the thing to find its own natural balance. So yeah, with the dot bomb, what I did is I just, you know, I know you do the same thing. I found people I trust and I stuck with them. And we started a new company out of that.

And then when, you know, the housing crisis in 2008, we had a lot of our clients were in that sort of industry and were impacted by them just removing all their marketing dollars entirely. So once again, I sort of retreated into a core group of guys and gals that I trusted and that I felt like we could sort of pivot from that and we moved on. And you know, this latest one with all the tech bubble burst, again, I think people over hired in the, during the pandemic because all the different platforms were still growing, they hit that level and again I was kind of, I was at that front line and that bit me in the butt. So I think the resilience is maybe partially just this group of trusted individuals that I can sort of fall back on.

But then the other is just, I've seen it, you know, I know that there's light on the other end of it. So I'm able to sort of put it in perspective. I think that's the value of having a little bit of experience and a little bit of foresight.

So your journey kind of evolves. Right. And walk us through like back to what we talked about yesterday, like where you're at now, what you're doing and what your approach is to what you're doing.

Yeah, I've sort of, I've gone through a large agency experience for a number of years, 10 years. I've kind of seen everything on the agency and creative side of the business. I'm kind of looking at what are some other areas where creative leadership is needed. And of course My answer to that as well.

Everywhere.

But, you know, where is a place where I feel like I can make a good argument. So more and more, I feel like that could be on the brand side, you know, client side. It could be something in tech startups, it could be teaching. And so I'm experimenting with a little bit of all above. You know, we have a mutual buddy who has some startups that he's working on, and we see an opportunity there for, you know, to bring storytelling to the game. You know, those guys know their technology, they know their science, they know their market, but they don't always know how to tell their own story or how to present themselves in a way that makes them seem more legitimate than they may be, especially in the early stages of fundraising.

So I think there's lots of opportunity, especially in the Midwest right now with people spinning these tech startups up. So we're exploring where we can plug into that and still keep our sanity and make a little money on the side. But yeah, again, I think it comes back to those relationships. So I've reached out to guys that I went to college with. I'm collaborating with a lot of people that I haven't seen in a while, and that has been really, I don't know, it's fulfilling because I'm getting out of that sort of myopic, driving down the agency lane and just going from creative role to creative role, elevating up. And now I'm sort of going back to a little bit more exploration, experimentation, and making things again.

So let's jump back real quick to the storytelling, right, and helping people find their story and in that startup space. And I have to think that's a lot of fun, that's very rewarding, and it's a really cool thing to sit down and do that together. What are the biggest challenges with people being able to identify their story and connect that to their voice and be.

Able to tell that, yeah, it's challenging because they're so proficient and efficient at understanding the depth of their offering their product or their service. They tend to forget that they need to sit on the other side of the table. They have to put that hat on of a novice or somebody who has VC dollars, and they're looking for opportunities. And it's not because your science is better than the next company that's coming in, which in oftentimes is like 10 minutes later. It's about that imagining an arc of a story, you know, get me at the first point and then build it up and then let me know how I can get involved. And so startup clients tend to be really bad at that.

Well, I mean, I can remember sitting down with you and Peter and like, so. So what do you do? What do you mean? You know what I do? Like, it's like, come on. You know, it'd be like, our science is good, right? Like, it's just, here's what our science does. Our science is good. I will tell us the story.

I mean, right?

What do you mean, the story? I'm telling you the science is good, and here's what it's going to do.

Yeah.

So how do you get them to peel back and actually start diving into it and take the time, right? Like, catch their breath and take the time and step away from the execution, execution. To really put that together.

Yeah. It's asking good questions. I think it comes down to getting them to talk about something personal because everybody, you know, they try and make it this thing that is just a business or it's just an entity, but it really is about. They had a relation to something in their lives that caused them to want to pursue this as a solution to that problem. And, you know, in the case of the company we're working with right now, he saw it in his own sister, you know, she went and had a surgery and something happened, et cetera. And we're like, whoa, pause on that. This is like six or seven meetings in. And we're like, this is interesting. This is like, this is compelling. Because it gets me on the. On the emotional level.

So I didn't know that it was six or seven meetings in.

I mean, for my partners, I had heard the story. Yeah. The guys I was working with, they had never heard that. And they were like, what is this? Is this is it. This is the hook.

Yeah.

Makes me know you care. This connects you to the solution.

But once you get to that point, like, you get to that hook, like, you get to here, this is it. How does that change everything then?

I think it gives brand purpose. Right. So we always talk to people that are working on the brand side, saying, so what is it that gets you out of bed in the morning? Why is your product or your service so. So interesting and so useful to consumers or to other businesses that you feel the need to drive it forward every day? What is that thing? And they lose sight of that. I think we all do. Especially when you get into the evolution of any business, you sort of forget about that, you know, that purpose, what is it that's that I love about this job, right. Or this company? And so we just have to kind of keep asking smart questions and boil it down for them.

And again, signal and noise try and remove a lot of the things that they know and get to the things that they feel.

So once you get to that purpose, right, and kind of that emotional attachment to why it is you do what you do. Huh. How much of a game changer have you seen that be for brands and products and things of that nature?

Yeah, I mean, I think just gives, especially on the project level when we're involved. You know, I'm thinking back to when we worked with Patagonia and when you get to something that is core, you know, and it translates into something that we can then package as like, let's just say, for instance, a digital experience. And they all look at it and they're like, that represents who we are in a way that we would never would have imagined. And then it builds on itself. It just gains momentum and they start to want to do more of that. So in the case of Patagonia, it was, we, we called it was the tail wagging the dog because they had been, you know, pumping out these amazing sort of field note magazines in print for 40 years.

The task that we kind of came in to solve was how do we translate what people love about the brand when they read these field notes and they get these stories from people sleeping in bivouacs on the side of mountains and really testing the gear. How do we bring that into this weird sort of digital space where, you know, it's emotionless, it's all functional. You're just trying to get from point A to point C and hopefully buy something in the process. And we said, it's the same damn thing. It's just you have to use the same language. You have to use beautiful photography. You have to bring them in, draw them in, and then get them to believe it. The buying will sort of take care of itself.

So, yeah, I saw that transformation for them was if I held the two sort of experiences up next to each other, it's. It's just dramatic. You know, one feels like people are pouring themselves into it even in a digital environment. And the other is just like, it's a very functional sort of boxes and arrows. You get what you need to and you get on. So we watched time on site would increase by. In some cases it was like 10 to 15 minutes. We created this sort of really Immersive. Immersive. It was tin shed and people could find little nuggets of information all around this 3D environment anyway.

But you know, that's just one example where I think the ethos of the company, of the brand, of the founder, of the people that worked there, we took the time to inject that into the work and it.

Built on itself on a project, something like that. With Patagonia, what's a collaboration like, right, like how do you share ideas and how do you stay open to others ideas while trying to, I don't want to say sell your own, but to communicate your own. How does that go?

Well, for us because were small, were lean, were agile, were able to like, went to Ventura, California, we camped out there for weeks at a time, which is, man, I have so many stories about that. But you know, the guy that worked at the front desk was a professional Frisbee player. Let's just say that sort of starts the, to understand what the personality of the place is like. But I think for us to really immerse ourselves in their culture, in their products, in how they source and make the things that they sell, that really allowed us to become sort of subject matter experts. I think that's the neat thing. That's why I like what I do is you sort of have to quickly, you have to really learn a lot about a company in a short amount of time.

So I think that's sort of what allowed us to do it was just being able to go on site and sit arm to arm, make them realize that we are actually all on the same team and we want the same thing. So they trusted us when we would make suggestions because were coming from a place of understanding what their business objectives are, knowing what their quarterly goals were and behaving like parts of the business.

So, so this is going to sound like sort of a silly question. How significant is trust in the whole process with your client?

Yeah, I mean you're leading the witness there, but it's. Well, with Patagonia it led to a separate, it was like an 8 year long relationship. With Kohler, it was almost 10 years. So I think the first year I think we really had to earn, we had to earn that respect and that trust and that became a partnership. And where we would sit in on briefings, we would help shape project briefs and we would come up with ideas on our own that then we would be able to sell them. So yeah, trust in our abilities and our expertise, but also just trust that we're, you know, we're going to do everything that we can to help them achieve their goals. We're not going to blow off deadlines, you know, we're going to put our best people on it. Whatever the case may be.

I think they, you know, once you earn that trust, you're in such a great position.

What about when you see something in the creative process, right? Like you see something, you feel something, but the client might not be buying into it. Like they just might not be completely on board. Again, it's not that they don't trust you, it's like, I don't know, what do you do then? How do you get them? If you're so convinced, like this is it, we need to do this, how do you get them to the other side of that thought process?

A good question. You know, it's different with every project, I think there's hills you die on and there's hills you don't. At the end of the day, we're creating.

How do you differentiate, though?

Well, I, I'll give you an example of one that I felt was worth. Worth. I wrote about this on LinkedIn. It was, it was a spirits brand were working with and were repositioning them. We're, we're trying to get them to break into a, a different market and expand their, you know, what their brand means. It didn't mean much. It was sort of lumped in with all these, you know, hip hop artists and models and bottles. And it was this aspirational sort of nonsense that felt like everything else. So our team created a campaign that was all about authenticity. It was all about bringing your own. Whatever you got, bring it sort of thing, accepting of all different types of people and different lifestyles and that was relatively new at that point.

I think in the marketplace there wasn't a lot of people going into that area yet. And so we had this one moment in the, in the launch campaign as a TV spot that's 30 seconds long. And in the middle at right at the center part of the spot, we had this cross dressing man in a bodega shopping, full makeup, full sort of rag and looking really sort of fierce. And it sort of encapsulated everything about the spirit of the campaign. And knowing that were working for a more conservative. You know, they sell beer and they sell liquor, but they know who their bases and they didn't. They tend not to want to overreach in a lot of ways when it comes to communications. But we fought for it because we thought this was what was going to help them stand out.

Right.

And they couldn't quite see that, at least at the brand manager level. And then we said, would you just take it to your bosses and see what they think of it? We'll cut together two different versions. One has this character in the center and one doesn't. And without even hesitation. The answer was absolutely unanimous. It was like that one, you know, the first one, the one you guys are recommending is way better. It's more compelling, it's more memorable, it's more interesting. It shows, you know, it's a reflection of society. And so anyway, that was sort of. There's tiers of decision makers and you could see that there's potential for us to play a little bit of political chess.

Right.

We'll go after it. But yet, you know, and you can fight and fight, but there's a point in which you. They're going to be like, you know what? Stand down and. And you have to make a decision at that point whether, you know, whether the account is worth losing over it.

Right.

And we, this one, we kind of thought it was. And, you know, the. On the back end of that, Eddie, I think the benefit for our team is they then, you know, I was the creative lead on this, so that the team that was in the trenches putting this work together, they now know that I'm going to go to bat for them. And so there's a trust that's built internally. So there's that team building component.

Right, right. And that gives them. That gives them a little bit more. I mean, we can use the term psychological safety. It gives them a little bit more confidence in taking risk. Right, right. And going ahead and rolling it out there.

Yep, that's right.

And now I'm gonna throw something at you. Okay. And I know the listener can't see me right now, but I'm looking something up because I, I absolutely love your writing. Like, the stuff that you post on LinkedIn is awesome. There's so much to get from it. I. I will share the link with clients of mine, coaching clients of mine. But your. Your banner on LinkedIn is so simple, no pun intended when I read it. Okay. So powerful. I really want you to talk about it. Simple truths lead to bigger ideas. Yeah, let's talk about that.

Yeah, I just updated that recently. And you know, where that came from is a session I had with Peter Zaf. He and I Did not surprise me at all.

Yeah, it sounds exactly like something Peter would say.

Peter, Yeah, a wordsmith. And he's. He has an ability to sort of isolate and synthesize down to really great nuggets.

Right.

And so that was one that came from a value proposition exercise were going through. So what are your values? What's your personality? What's your tone? And he kind of played that back to me. I, There was, you know, just a bunch of stuff that I threw sort of at him, and when he sort of played it back as, you know, you're the guy that sort of has big ideas, but you try and keep it simple. And I, I, I totally. That resonated with me. I never really articulated it that way.

I was gonna say, have you thought about that? Like, did you int. I'm the guy who has big ideas, but I simplify them?

No, not really. Because, you know, I, I do love things that think. The things that stick with me are the things that I think are. Are the most simple. You don't have to stretch to get it. You get it, and it hits you in the back of the head, and then it sticks with you. Great strategists, I think, operate that way. They make it seem so dumb that you're like, why the hell did I not think of that?

But that doesn't necessarily mean when the idea first came to their mind, that it was as simple as it ends up being.

Absolutely not. That's the, I think that's the skill. That's the magic. Great artists and musicians, you know, you can listen to a four chord progression and be like, I could have done that. But you couldn't do that. You had. There's, there's so many parts that are, you know, that influence the output. But anyway, yeah, I've worked with a lot of great strategists. Peter's definitely among them. And that's where that came from is just. He held a mirror up to me, and I think that was sort of where it landed.

So let's take this for a second, and my wheels are turning. Okay. I'll try not to hurt myself as I think deeply here, but simple truths lead to bigger ideas. And I step back and I look at. From a leadership standpoint, right? The team that I'm leading or cross functional teams that I'm collaborating with. To me, that screams this. From a leadership standpoint, let's deal with reality in real time and call it what it is. We can dress it up all we want, but when you really distill it down. This is what it is. And now let's take this bit of truth and let's come up with creative solutions to it instead of sitting here and bitching about it all day.

Yeah, I think the process that we. So that is how you write a great brief is you keep asking why? And then you say, okay, well, what is the human insight that we're responding to? What is the cultural insight that we recognize that we have permission to speak within? What are the solutions that will allow us to address those simple truths in the form of a brief? If you have a really tight brief that is really clear and really concise, ideas should just start falling out of it. And the ideas can continue to grow as you work through execution in different channels and media and whatnot. But the idea itself, I'm answering, this is the problem. It's a really clear problem. And here is a hundred different ways to solve that.

So you come up with multiple ideas, right? Come up with multiple solutions. How do you embrace one only to find three, four months later that the other one might have been better? What's the process in that? Or do you let the other ideas go once you come up with the. The one?

Yeah, we tend to rally. You know, I'm a collaborator, so it's never just, you know, we're going to go with this one and then go make it. Anyone who's been on a team that I've led knows that I want your opinion on it, whether you're the project manager, whether you're the lead writer, whether you're the strategist, even the client. You know, I'm. And that's not to say that I don't make decisions. It's just, I want to get everybody's viewpoint. I want to, I want to make sure that we pressure test it before we get to that next step. Because once we go down the path, there's no going back. You know, we create another project. If we liked a better idea three months from now, we wish we would have done it that way. Then we'll just do another project.

But once we make that decision and we start going down that road, we have to all commit to it and shape it. And that's another. I think another thing I learned from mentors that I, I've worked under is in my world, you put everything up on a blackboard or you put everything up on the wall, the metaphorical wall, and whoever's the creative lead goes and sort of just pulls stuff down that doesn't work in his mind or her mind, throws it on the floor, and you're left with what is a group of potential ideas. In my mind, that was always, I don't want to say it was a lazy approach.

I just feel like that you're missing a lot of potential seeds of ideas that could be built on because you just need to call, you know, there's this sort of, there's the time, there's the money, and you really have to just get to a solution, which I'm of course all for. But I think there's a way to, to allow people to sort of build on their own ideas if you can.

My.

My role, my goal as a creative lead is to recognize those seeds in the ideas and help build them. Here's what I think is working here. It may be the most tiny thing. I can barely see it. But if you feel good about it, give this another go. If not, let's move on rather than, you know, this sucks. I need 10 more ideas. Give me 10 more lines, whatever that. Yeah, that approach always turned me off.

And how, and you've alluded to this. I mean, you've actually said it. But how important is it if an idea maybe isn't what it needs to be to still keep digging at that idea? In other words, to keep asking questions, like, even if you just see there's something there, it's not that though, but there's something there. Let's keep digging in, let's keep asking questions. How significant is that?

Yeah, I think I, I may have done another LinkedIn article about that, but it's sort of like you just keep asking why, if a creative team is. Is telling me this, is. This is answering all of the components of the brief, my question is, okay, well, why this is going to work in this media channel?

Why?

You know, and I think the more we just keep kicking the tires on it until it's. It's clear from every perspective, from an account, from creative strategy, that the idea is going to work, we just keep grilling on it. That's just sort of the creative process. Iterate, iterate, refine.

You referenced mentors. What are some of the significant things in addition to what you've already talked about that, you know, just one or two things that your mentors have really impressed upon you over the years that have played a significant role in your success?

Well, there was a period, I want to say maybe four or five years ago where I was kind of Stepping up from creative director, group creative director, to an executive level creative director. And so I was in a lot of pitches. I was pitching all the time. You know, that's the sign of a healthy agency, is that you're always pitching. And so I was doing this. You know, some of them, they were back to back. And so there was a lot. It was a lot to keep track of. It was kind of a lot of energy that I was putting into it. And so, you know, whether. Whether we won the business or not, I'm always trying to learn from the experiences and keep improving. But I was working with a lot of people from across the network that I hadn't worked with before.

And there was one piece of advice that one of my mentors gave me that kind of stuck with me, and that was, before you enter any room or any meeting, take a minute and consider what the people in that room need you to be, and then show up as an expert version of that person.

Wow.

Because it was like overcoming your own. You get so many voices in your head as you're going through this. As you know, you're trying to remember the parameters of the pitch, or even if it's not even a pitch, even if it's just a meeting with a bunch of your staff or if you're meeting with potential investors, I think you have to sort of imagine what they need you to be. And in my case, that could be anything from, you know, like the eccentric art major to the techno whiz or the. The creative leader, whatever that is. You know, I had to sort of mentally prepare myself to. To own that role and go in and be that guy, because it puts all of them at ease. And you know what I mean?

Yeah, I absolutely love that. So. So stop, take a minute and think about what the people sitting in that room need you to be, and then walk in there and be the subject matter expert on that.

Yeah. And there's a little bit of fake it till you make it.

I think it's just tap into what you're good at, and that's just being you. But I just love the whole idea because how many times do we rush into something? You know, we talk a lot here about, like, be the face and the voice that your team needs to see and hear as a leader. And that's what that is right there. You know, think about it and being intentional about it. Right. That's interesting, is that people, when they start thinking about creativity and creative processes, they don't think intentional, they don't think strategy, they don't think organized. And there is an element of all of that to the creative process, is there not?

A hundred percent. And that is. Yeah, you're right. I think people think exploration. They think, you know, send them in the back room, turn the music up, everybody get a cigarette or whatever it is that. Yeah, yeah. And the reality is, I've always found that creatives operate much better within a sandbox. If you have a brief that allows them to sort of know where the walls of the brief are, the ideas are just going to be sharper, they're going to be faster, they're going to be more targeted. And that's how our creatives actually operate.

And that's what. When Peter, you and I sat down, that's one of the things you guys really distilled upon me. And even though I believed it to be true, I don't know that I really ever saw the significance of understanding what our constraints are. Not to understand what our limitations are, but to understand the boundaries. We're working inside. And let's just go, let's go get creative. Like, let's just go make it happen inside. Because now we know what we're working with.

Exactly. It just, it frees you up in a lot of ways because otherwise it can be paralyzing, you know, all over the place. Be all over the place. You'd never get it done. That can be a perception of the flaky creative.

Well, and it goes to the. But it does, Right. Like even. Even just decision making in and of itself. It's like we always. Not always, but we have a tendency to focus on what we don't have, what are the resources we don't have, what is the time that we don't have, what is the money that we don't have? How are we going to make this happen? Well, what about what we have to work with?

Yeah.

And what about what we do have? And now let's go squeeze that sponge dry. And what can we do with it?

Yeah, that's also very true. You can perceive it as limitations. Right. We're only doing a digital or social campaign for this brand. We're not going to be able to do a Super bowl spot. So to your point. Well, let's try and make something that's going to make, you know, stop somebody's thumb. Something that people are going to share. Yeah. Let's beat the hell out of the.

Brief now before we start to wrap it up, because I'm going to jump into another LinkedIn post here that I absolutely love.

Okay.

And you probably can guess which one it is, but I have something written on my. On my whiteboard here. And for whatever reason, it resonated with me many years ago, and I still look at it when I need to be drawn back into it. But better is good. Different is best. How significant is that? Just to find a way through your story and through your voice to be different than the competition, than to be different than what you were before. How significant is that in your world?

I mean, it's what I'm working on right now with my own value proposition. There's a lot of guys that are my age that have similar experience and have had similar skills, but not all of them do what I do. Not all of them build teams like I do. Not all of them build friendships with the clients the way that I do, or come to the table with a sense of humor the way that I do. So my mom would say, you're always trying to be different. What is wrong with you? You're always trying to be different. You just fall in line. And my dad would always. Behind the scenes, he would always say, hey, that's kind of a badge of honor.

Yeah.

You know, they were always wise, aren't they? Yeah. I mean, there's always something you remember, right? But, yeah, growing up, I was always trying to. You know, I don't. I wasn't trying to get attention by being different. I just think there's people that have a different point of view, are more interesting. And so, yeah, I. Look, when I'm hiring people, especially skills and experience are great, but what are you bringing to the table? I think is going to be a unicorn. What's unusual.

So great segue, by the way, into what I'm about to. To ask you as we wrap this up. And thank you so much for taking the time. And it went way too f. We need. We need to do this again.

I mean, we really do.

Matter of fact, I have an idea. Speaking of, Peter, I have an idea, something we can do. Oh, great. But your. Your LinkedIn post a couple weeks ago, 7 Ways to Coach, like a creative director. And this, the picture of you and your son is awesome. It is awesome. I'm gonna read the seven. I want you to pick one and just roll with it. Okay, I'm gonna go through. I'm gonna go through all seven first, because, I mean, seriously, this was great. Number one, start with why. Number two, set goals. Number three, encourage mistakes. Now, the listener, if you're writing these down, don't, because I'll put the link to this LinkedIn post. I'll put it in our show notes. Okay. So you can go to it. All right, so start with why. One, set goals. Two, encourage mistakes. Three, four, get uncomfortable.

Five, empower autonomy. Six, love this five to one ratio of encouragement to critique. And seven, the one a lot of us forget in the rat race. Right. Have fun.

Yeah.

Pick one.

That's a tricky one because I really like. I like the encouraging mistakes a lot because we've used that. And I think in the article, I say there's a physical, almost like a signal that you make with your hand, so I know you're ready to move on to the next play. And I found that to be so useful.

Talk about that. Go, Go. You've told me that. But tell the listener, like, what that is like, because you just showed it. But that concept of when someone on your baseball team. All right, let's talk age here. How young?

Yeah, they're. They're 9 and 10 years old. Most of them are 10. So it's young kids that are just starting to develop some skills.

Right.

They're real passionate about showing up for their teammates and being good.

Right. You.

Nobody wants to suck. So that's why I think encouraging mistakes for me is like, you have to. Everybody's going to have to suck before they get good.

Right.

So.

Amen.

But they get in their head, Especially in the game of baseball, if you're on the pitcher's mound, I would say it's the loneliest place in sports. And at nine years old, you start cranking your wheel and you get down on yourself and you can't get out anywhere on the field if you make a mistake. I got this from coach of Northwestern women's softball. Had a clinic that we all went to, and she said, I make every player physically show me that they're ready to move on to the next play by doing something with their hands. So we just have them brush it off their shoulders and then take a deep breath and go on to the next play. Then we're. We're ready to go. But I think the.

That.

That is great, and I love it, and I've employed it and we. We use it every game. But for me, I think the kids.

Love it, too, right?

They do. They really do. And, you know, I think about how that translates back to teams that I've led. You say something stupid in a meeting where the client's there, you feel like a complete turd, you know, and you get down on yourself, and then you shut up for the rest of the meeting. I wish I would have thought of something like, you know, a brush off or like give me the finger. Do something so I know that your mind is right and ready to pursue. That might be my favorite one. I think have fun is just like, that's an overriding umbrella that we have to keep drilling. This is baseball, for Christ's sake.

Yeah. And I just like, the whole process feels more predictive and consistent and it's just, you know, it's funny because I sit there and I, I think, I don't know if it was a poster when I put this, or it might have even been now, you know, what it was in the speech, a talk I gave the other day. I would prefer to write everything down because I always assume the worst when people are on their phone at like their child, their kids events. But I always have, you know, the notes app on my phone. Literally, like every youth sports game I coach. I think of something for the book, I think of something for my next keynote, I think of something for my next letter to my list. Right.

Like there's so many things that we can glean just in the day to day from raising our kids, from just the everyday interaction, everything we do. When I saw this post, I'm like, this is awesome.

Well, it fits neatly into your athletics of business, which, you know, for most of my career I've been a sports fan, but using the sports mechanics, the things that you do as part of a team that translate to the work that you do, you know, I, I kind of cringed at that because being on the creative side, where it's sort of the opposite side of your brain in some ways. But now more and more, as I'm coaching, you know, my kids, teams, everybody needs the same thing from a leader or a mentor. Right. They need to be seen, they need to be appreciated. They need to know that you have their back and that they're going to improve. They're going to sort of model your behavior and they're going to get better. So I think that's 100% applicable.

And there's really, there is a creative side to sports. I mean, you know, my point of reference obviously is basketball, but I think about the hours of watching film and trying to figure out how to beat Iowa State, you know, how to beat Texas, how to beat Kansas, or how to get that recruit. Like, how do we create a powerful moment for that recruit when he's on campus to connect with us, to connect with our team.

That's ideation. You're Right.

Yeah. Yeah. How do. What do. What do we do? Like, how do we create moments for our team? Like, what do we do different? What do we. What do we do today? Because we're flat. We're struggling. Let's go do something, you know, let's teach them something about, you know, and I look at, like, Popovich with the San Antonio spurs and some of the things he's done with his players, and it's. I just think there is a creative side to it. And when those worlds collided for me, when I figured that out years ago, things became a lot more fun. And I think sometimes, often people think about the lessons athletics teaches you about life is work ethic, which it's all true, right? Work ethic, teamwork, communication. But I also think there's a huge creative piece to it. That's really cool.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I totally think you're right.

So it makes sense that I was your guest today. I guess.

It absolutely makes sense. It always made sense. It made sense the second I asked you. Right? It made sense months ago. Tim, I can't thank you enough, brother. I appreciate it. This was a ton of fun. Is there somewhere folks can go to find out more about you? We'll put that all in the show notes. You want to share that with them? Any social media hands?

Sure. I've got Tim hogencreative.com you can see some work and as Ed mentioned, we'll. We'll link to. To my articles on LinkedIn, which I'm hopefully going to start getting more regular on. But yeah, that's two good places to start.

Yeah. Tim, you're awesome. You're great at what you do and you're an even better person, if that may make sense. I appreciate it spent and, you know, you mentioned. And for the younger listener, you'll figure it out when you get to be our age, which really isn't that old. But things come full circle, right. Like the people that you respected and hung with years ago, you find yourself collaborating, working together. And I think that element of things you've been through in the past at very influential times in your life and the trust that you created has a lot to do with it.

Yeah.

Well, I appreciate you thinking of me and yeah, I love what you're doing with the athletics of business and the Molitor Group and continued success to you, buddy.

Well, thank you. Thank you for all your help and all your insight and all your guidance. I appreciate it. I look forward to some future work together.

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