My Startup Story: Creative Transformation begins with us
Originally published November 19 2019 on LinkedIn
I cannot believe it’s been over a year since I left my stable management job at Boeing for the life of a solopreneur! I have been reflecting a lot on the journey the last month, and want to share some nuggets of what I’ve learned, and how I’m changing things up for the next year.
When I walked away from a path to executive management at the largest Aerospace company in the world, to starting a business completely by myself, I traded a clear vision of the future, for one that was completely unknown, a blank slate! What I did know, was that it felt like I was about to climb a very tall mountain, and all I could think about was how tall and anxiety inducing the journey ahead of me was. It felt insurmountable!
In the months that followed, I spent a lot of time building my brand, my website, my social media presence, developing my business plan and value proposition, and networking in the Seattle business community so I could learn about the issues and trends that matter most to organizations right now. I call this phase laying a foundation, and while I was working a lot, it felt like I was working super hard, without any thanks, recognition, or compensation, which are all things I had come to depend on for my self-esteem. When this was gone, I had to find an alternate source of self-esteem. What was my value or worth when I wasn’t earning money, or receiving feedback from others on how I was helping them?
There were days where I felt completely lost. I was riddled with self-doubt, fear of judgement, fear of failure, and paralyzed by a need to project an image of perfection. I even had days where I would go online and look for jobs, my ego craving the sort of stability and status that I know comes with a great title and place of employment, rather than being what felt like at the bottom of a heap of people, all trying to “make it”. Social media sometimes contributed to my feelings of inadequacy, as I dangerously compared myself to others who were seemingly more qualified, confident, or accomplished than myself.
In Spring 2019, I made a goal to put myself out there as much as could. I had laid a foundation — now was the time to confidently go out into the world with my message and my offerings. This was my moment. I could hide at home and continue to lay a foundation forever, or I could hit PLAY, and start climbing the vertical cliff.
My 2 daughters spent a month with family in Florida, providing some breathing space to create (important!) and that same month, I delivered my flagship Creativity course over 3 weeks to a group of 12 people at the Riveter, Seattle. Developing a curriculum that was playfully experiential, rich with theory and learning, and ultimately, helped my clients feel more creative (25% more creative!) with only 4.5 total hours of class time, was a huge challenge, and an important milestone for me. Feedback from the class was amazing, and one of my participants ended up hiring me to lead a workshop for her Microsoft build team.
That month I also delivered my first paid workshop to a large group who work for a global foundation owned by a billionaire philanthropist. The client had these words to share with me after:
“It was fantastic to see the team using a totally new medium to wrestle with our big challenge of engaging influencer audiences, and I was excited to see the creativity and enthusiasm across the team. Thanks for reminding us of the value of thinking outside the box — and pushing ourselves to seek new solutions and communicate with each other in different ways.”
I also delivered 2 keynotes each to an audience of over 200 people, weaving in personal stories of my own struggles and experiences as a change agent over the course of my life. Feedback from those sessions was also phenomenal. In fact, hearing some of the stories afterwards, moved me to tears, as I realized that helping others to transform, is at the heart of my personal mission, and my ultimate WHY.
The seed from which I started my business was delivering culture and strategy workshops wrapped in a container of play and creativity. In fact, the name of my company, Spille, means play in Danish. The other Danish word for play is Leg (root of Lego) which means unstructured child’s play, while Spille means to play with purpose, boundaries and rules. I believe that bringing a spirit of curiosity and playfulness into our organizations, helps us think more creatively, solve problems better, build healthier cultures, and ultimately be happier human beings. Research overwhelmingly proves that humans learn better when we are playing, relaxed, and using our bodies.
While this is still at the heart of my mission, my business model has significantly changed, and I’d like to tell you the story of how that happened.
The most significant work I did this year, started when I was approached by a friend who is an Executive Director at a local organization with 11 staff who are at an inflection point in their journey. They are turning 10 years old, and ready to level up their culture and strategy for the next 10 years of growth. She explained to me that they were struggling with the following issues:
- Candid communication: Providing honest feedback, navigating conflict, promoting dissent
- Navigating leadership styles: Situational servant leadership vs directive leadership, particularly under pressure
- Strategic clarity: They have a strategic plan, but its very long and detailed. The whole team felt stuck in firefighting mode in the daily grind, and wanted help thinking long term and big picture.
- Increasing engagement and buy-in from all of the staff, many of whom were struggling with burnout, and overwhelm.
I designed a program for this client that addressed the above issues. During the first couple of months, I led a discovery process with them and coached both the staff and leadership. The culmination of the discovery was a consulting report that outlines my findings and recommendations, along with 5 pages of proposed tactics for them to free up capacity, gain cultural and strategic clarity and renewed levels of engagement and purpose. The leadership, staff and board were thrilled with the results. The remainder of the engagement has involved me leading a communication workshop, partnering with their operations manager to author an operations roadmap, and delivering an epic playful visual strategy workshop.
The ah-hah moment for me came during my work with this client as I saw lightbulbs going on during coaching sessions, and the increased value I could provide when I was embedded as a consultant. “Duh”, I thought to myself. I can provide much more value through a program model, rather than a workshop model, because it leverages my skills as a coach, engineer, manager, global thinker, and organizational designer. It is also highly aligned with the work that I did at Boeing, leading and transforming high performing teams.
The biggest personal learning for me, is the importance of being open to change, even when you have a plan. Secondly, there is great power in surfacing and exploring your own deeply held beliefs, as they inevitably manifest as creative blocks, that prevent you from taking risks and doing things differently. The other major learning, is the importance of carving out space for your own health and happiness, because our best ideas come from brains that are healing, relaxed, and happy.
Which leaves us with my new business model:
I deliver creative transformation programs to knowledge driven organizations who want to level up their culture of creativity, engagement, and strategic clarity, to increase performance and innovation.
Please get in touch if you’re interested in learning more about my program or know someone who would benefit from it.
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Thank you for reading!
Playfully yours,
Jyoti
