Sparks EMEA’s Post

👀 What does creative leadership mean to you? 🥳 Does the creative leadership in your organisation celebrate potential? 💡Are you able to foster and harness creative leadership in your business? ⚡️Is culture the starting point for your theory of capital? If not, why not? 🫣Is there a gap between your workforce’s skills and your leaders’ ability to model the creative skills they want the workforce to develop? These are some of the questions Leah Brown FRSA MSoM helped participants explore at the UK Creative Festival last week. At The WayFinders Group we are passionate about educating the next generation of leaders with skills to unearth potential and empower them succeed to in a complex world, because culture matters. When culture is viewed through a narrow lens without flexibility for people’s unique experiences and personalities, challenges, silos, and dysfunctions are inevitable. Our sub-brand ClearPaths has a focus on training individuals, organisations and communities so they can communicate effectively, learn together, build organisational resilience, and work collaboratively to chart an uncharted path, make a difference, and achieve their mission. More can be found on our website: www.charttheuncharted.com. Do take a look! Kallure HostHelp Leah Talks Ltd Social Enterprise Kent Kent & Medway Local Skills Improvement Plan EKC Group Social Enterprise UK Saeed Olayiwola Andrew Wallis OBE #WayFinders #TheWayFindersGroup #leadership #development #training #problemsolving #creativity #innovation #training #facilitation #coaching #organisationalresilience

It was a huge privilege to have a platform on stage at the UK Creative Festival last week. I had the best time moderating a three-hour session on how to “Empower Our Future” with Dina Green Alice Heggie Brad Levy Natalie Reuter and Rama Gheerawo. The session brought together key institutional stakeholders and influential leaders to map out and plan future initiatives to support education, training and employment opportunities, to help ensure jobs requiring innovation and creativity are accessible to local young people as they grow and develop within the creative clusters regonally in Kent and Essex, but also all across the UK. The topic of creative leadership was explored further across the Festival in fantastically led design workshops with Madelaine Dowd and in sessions like “Culture as a Superpower” with MR LEE© Tamara Barton-Campbell Ben Cross and Yaz Keil. MR LEE spoke so candidly and movingly about the values his family committed to across generations. Rory Sutherland Christoff Taylor Laura Jordan Bambach Jonathan Reid and Charlene Chandrasekaran held their audience captive. In order to “Supercharge the Industry”, speakers discussed the importance of fostering creativity and diversity in the workplace, emphasizing the need for a culture that encourages vulnerability, collaboration, and empathy. They highlighted the value of making space for diverse voices and unfinished ideas, and stressed the importance of managing reverse life. The speakers also emphasized the interconnectedness of creativity, empathy, and resilience in navigating life's challenges. They emphasized the need to break down traditional education systems and prioritize collaboration and creativity in leadership, and suggested embracing failure as a way to foster growth and learning. If we really want to build a more equitable, dynamic, sustainable, effective creative sector, we have to focus on culture. And guess who is focusing on unearthing and empowering leaders in that kind of cultural transformation? ➡️ The WayFinders Group. 🎤 Happy Friday all. Until next week! Ogilvy Young Creators UK Jeremy Green Dina Green Sara Maddocks Michael DaCosta B. The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design Creative Estuary Creative Circle Awards #founderledbusiness #TheWayFindersGroup #transformation #creativity #leadership #entrepreneurship #leadershipdevelopment #changemanagement #mission #culture #courage #conviction #education #change

It was awesome to be among 250+ storytellers, marketers and creative professionals representing communities and destinations doing great work at City Nation Place in #Houston this week! In addition to partnering with Patience Fairbrother on a talent attraction roundtable and releasing DCI's Talent Wars report, I left feeling so inspired about place marketing and the work that we do at Development Counsellors International. Here are just a few of my favorite takeaways. #CNPAmericas24 #econdev #destinationmarketing   1️⃣ Your brand is not your logo. You must answer who you are and your brand ethos first. 2️⃣ Slow down and do the research. Know that it takes time to listen to your community, talk with residents, partners and stakeholders, and understand outside perceptions. 3️⃣ Your story must be based on authenticity. Your actions create your narrative. Find authentic creators and storytellers within your community and partner with them. 4️⃣ People support what they co-create. Make sure to involve your stakeholders, community and partners. They will then become your community's best ambassadors and cheerleaders.  5️⃣ Collaboration is worth the effort. Building trust among your community partners takes time. Lean into what you're good at and allow partners to bring their strengths to the table too.

For anyone who's interested in how class impacts careers and how you can best support people from working class backgrounds in the workplace, make sure to sign up to join our free webinar on 14th March & share with your networks! Our panel will be discussing our recent research findings, as well as the lived experiences of people from working class backgrounds in the creative industries, and putting forward recommendations for employers in the sector on improving access, representation & support 👇

I've noticed a definite shift this year towards more conversations about class in the creative industries (including taking part in a Q&A about the topic with Penguin Random House UK last month), and Creative Access are right at the forefront of the discussion. We'll be sharing findings from a recent piece of research on the impact of class identity on careers in the sector at our webinar on 14th March. If you want to hear more and be part of the discussion, sign up now and help us spread the word! Details below 👇🏽 #class #webinar #training #creativeindustries

It's so important in place marketing to take the time to involve your stakeholders and to bring the community along. Too often do we see people wanting to launch a brand, a website, a campaign quickly with limited research and feedback....and almost always when they do that, something comes back to bite them. This is also coming from someone who likes to activate, so I get the need for speed, but sometimes slowing down reaps larger rewards (which is probably a good motto for not just place marketing, but life in general;). #econdev #economicdevelopment

This was a fun one. On Tuesday at Fast Company’s 10th annual Innovation Festival, I spoke to Ryan Reynolds about how he balances his business and entertainment work — MNTN , Maximum Effort Effort — how he thinks about the notion of overexposure, and of course, the Voltron of all his work, Wrexham AFC . Here are just a few takeaways: On his overall approach to work: "I want to be careful that it's not a TED Talk, where it's that idea that I did something amazing and here's how I did it and here's how you can too. Because I always find that to be preposterous. We’re all fucking winging it. At Maximum Effort, my company, our North Star is bringing people together in smart, fun, and unexpected ways. And that leads to a lot of interesting opportunities when you’re treading in joy." On his (and co-chairman Rob McElhenny) primary role in Wrexham AFC: "Our job is to amplify the feeling in the town. Our job is to...create affinity for the club through storytelling. And the great thing about trying to create affinity through storytelling with this club is that you just have to tell the truth." On overexposure: "Everybody's everywhere all the time now anyway with the way social media works, and the way everything else kind of works. But I do think, when I finished Deadpool & Wolverine, that was probably an apex moment in my life in terms of the experience making something and not just the outcome of it." #FCFestival #FCIF10 For more, check out my feature on Reynolds in the latest issue: https://lnkd.in/eZPvJueE

Interested in the impact of class on the Creative Industries? Sign up to join our free Webinar 14th March at 12.30pm, booking link below ⬇️ #Webinar #Training #CreativeIndustries

What a great event! Today I had the pleasure of speaking on an all-female panel at the Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse Workforce in Sussex event, organised by Sussex Chamber of Commerce as part of the Future Skills Sussex initiative at Plus X Innovation. Our conversation, chaired by Dan Wallman (TechNative Digital), included brilliant insights from Mo Kanjilal (Watch This Sp_ce), Liane Richardson (Thakeham), Danielle Alsey (Plus X Innovation), and Grace Prior (Silicon Brighton). We all shared our experiences around diversity and inclusion, and what stood out to me was how many of us started the day feeling like we weren’t ‘experts’. Yet, as the conversation flowed, it became clear that we had LOTS to contribute, having made real changes within our own organisations. From Midnight’s perspective, we’ve been working hard on this front too: - Helped set up a Sussex PR Diversity group to improve D&I in our industry. - Partnered with Watch This Sp_ce for training on unconscious bias and inclusive recruitment as well as inclusive communication. - Started our B Corp journey, resulting in better policies and processes. - Sent out an anonymous staff survey to assess where we stand on diversity. - Joined the The Girls' Network – Alex Hankinson and I are starting our mentoring journey next month! I'm sure we were preaching to the choir but it was wonderful to hear from one of the attendees that she felt inspired to go back to her workplace and feedback on what she'd heard and learned with a renewed incentive to persuade the decision makers of her company to make changes. If you feel your organisation could do more in this area, maybe it’s time to start that conversation. It was also great to hear from Cathy Smith at LATEST TV LIMITED as well as Emma Cleary from Flexibility Matters and Neha B. from Wonderpack.eco who are all doing amazing things. Check out the LSIP report here for some eye-opening statistics: https://lnkd.in/ebiRC-uF Ana Christie #diversity

e.l.f. stands for every eye, lip, and face, even in America’s corporate boardrooms. E.L.F. BEAUTY is only one of four companies who have a board of directors that is two-thirds women and one-third diverse. We think it’s about e.l.f.ing time to “Change the Board Game.” A diverse board not only ensures companies reflect the diverse communities they serve, but it’s also a proven metric to increase the bottom line. And what company doesn’t want more profit? We are taking action to “Change the Board Game,” and helping women and diverse candidates take a rightful seat at the table. We’re kicking things off teaming up with the NACD (National Association of Corporate Directors) and sponsoring 20 brilliantly talented and diverse candidates to enter their “Accelerate Program,” designed to give board-ready candidates the connections, networks, know-how and opportunity they need to join corporate boards across the country. And we’re not stopping there. Stay tuned for big things to come. Tag someone you think is board-ready in the comments (tag yourself if that “someone” is you!), and let’s change the board game together.