Hey everyone, welcome to the Herding Tigers podcast. My name is Todd Henry. I'm the founder of Accidental Creative, and we offer a bunch of books, including the book Herding Tigers, be the leader of creative people need. And here on this show, we talk specifically about what it is talented creative people need from their leader and how to provide it more consistently.
You know, a lot of leadership advice is targeted at kind of general population workforce issues, and the issues faced by creative pros, people who have to go to work and make it up every day, solve problems under pressure, invent things, make things, design things, and then share them with the world. The pressures faced by these kinds of people are unique, and all of us know that. We often don't have language to describe what makes the work unique. So here on the show, we give you some language to use when you describe what it is you do, and also ways to interface with your team and lead them strategically through some of those unique challenges.
And today we're going to talk about exercising ghosts, not exercising as in running in calisthetics, exercising as in getting rid of the ghosts in your organization. Ghosts exists in every organization, and let me explain what I mean. I was working with an organization one time, and we were talking about an idea that a particular manager had for a project. They were trying to innovate in a certain space, and he had this idea, and his manager's manager said, well, that'll never work because we tried that back in 1987, and it failed, so we'll never be able to do that.
And I paused for him, and I asked him, well, you pushed back, right? He said, no, he was dead set on the fact that this idea would not work, because it had failed what, 25 years ago or 30 years ago, right? Or at the time, do you think a few things have changed in the last 30 years, of course? But what was going on in that circumstance was that the manager's manager was living by what I call a ghost rule.
A ghost rule is an invisible narrative that guides our behavior. It limits where we're willing to look for ideas. It limits how we're willing to engage with other people. It limits the kinds of ideas we're willing to share with other people.
It limits the ways in which we're willing to engage with the organization. Ghost rules are assumptions about the way things have to be based upon our past experiences within the organization, or sometimes based upon others' shared experience within the organization. It's things like, and I'm sure you've never heard this before, in your organization, things like, that'll never work around here, right? Or so-and-so will never go for that, or the client will never let us, or et cetera, et cetera.
These are the kinds of ghost rules that live in so many organizations, and the problem is ghost rules are often repeated and unchallenged, meaning these become a part of the way we think about our organization and are never once called into question. So they self-perpetuate. A new hire is brought into the organization, and from day one, they just assume, well, that'll never work around here, or so-and-so, and go for that, or those kinds of ideas aren't welcome, or these kinds of people aren't invited into meetings, things of that nature, and the ghost rule lives on. So here's what I challenge you to do this week.
You don't have to do anything about it yet, but I encourage you this week in your conversations with your team. I want you to be on alert for ghost rules, and I want you to record them when you hear them. So for example, if somebody says, well, that'll never work, or the client will never go for, or we tried that once and it didn't work, so we can't really go that direction. I want you to be alert for those moments when ghost rules begin to appear in your conversations, and just write them down.
When possible, call them out, of course, if you see a pattern, call it out, but for now, just record them, write them down. Where do you think they come from? Why do you think they exist? And perhaps most importantly, are you guilty of perpetuating any of these ghost rules with your team?
When you're ready, have a conversation with your team about ghost rules. Ask them, hey, what are some invisible assumptions and narratives that you think need to be challenged? Is there any place where we are living according to a false assumption, where we're limited looking for ideas because we don't necessarily believe certain kinds of ideas are acceptable within our organization, or that certain kinds of people can introduce ideas, or that certain kinds of people can work together in the organization? Have this conversation and then exercise the ghost rules.
Whenever you hear them, prune them immediately. Call them out and don't let other people engage in them, okay? Ghost rules will kill your team's engagement. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this episode.
If you liked it, please subscribe to the Leaderless. Once a week email, just once a week at ToddHenry.com slash Leader. Go be the Leader your team needs. We'll see you next time.