Cindy

Droog

Read Cindy's bio and previous columns

October 20, 2008

CEOs Could Use Some Toddler Creativity

Sometimes, I enjoy watching a CEO do what my son does when he drives his giant fire truck around the house. He just yells, “Get out of the way everybody!” as he’s plowing along.

And guess what? We all do as he asks.

This has, more than once, involved my jumping hurdle-style over him and the truck, barely missing kicking him in the nose. I’ve also seen my husband move faster than I have in years – during a Detroit Lions game to boot – to avoid speeding truck and son.

Even his baby brother, who can’t walk yet, has learned that speed-crawling is a sport worthy of practicing when his big brother is en route to (hopefully) fictional flames.

And while I’ll be the first to tell you that I hate when corporate executives cry wolf, acting like something is in full-frontal-California-forest-fire-destroying-natural-resources-and-killing-people-along-the-way mode, it’s a fact that every once in a while this kind of behavior is necessary.

For example, the guy who signed the credit card receipt for thousands of dollars in spa services for AIG? Why he wasn’t fired swiftly, and in fact, doused with 90 mph water coming out of a hose at the same time, is beyond me.

I once worked for a CEO who wasn’t afraid to do what it took to get a job done, and I admire that guy. Probably because I’m one of those people who looks at every side of an issue as if it were not an octagon, but an octogenarian-agon. And who considers the feelings of the person in the cubicle next to me as equally as the guy who snubs me at the coffee station.

But when I worked for that guy, I jumped some hurdles, dodged some very fast trucks, and in the end, learned to adapt and excel whether I agreed with his every move or not. 

I think it would behoove CEOs to act more like toddlers in other ways, too. Take their creativity, for example. My son can see something when nothing is there. He looks at a dish towel, and two minutes later, it’s a windy flag that just blew over a family of wooden block snow people (not that you can tell, but that is what he says it is). Or when he looks at the sticks all over our backyard, and 10 minutes later, they’re an Army camp with one Matchbox car per tent.

I’ve only read about one or two CEOs who can do that – who can create something amazing from what already exists. This isn’t the same as starting a new company from scratch. Those kinds of people are everywhere. I admire them, and in fact, it’s a hobby of mine to read about them, and even keep up on their careers after they move on.

But to totally transfigure something is hard. I know that. But in my career, which has been short in comparison to many, I’ve heard – and way too many times – “Well this is like turning an ocean liner or a tanker ship around.”

Frankly, that is the scariest thing I’ve ever heard a corporate executive say. Essentially, they are telling you that you’re on the Titanic. That you should be hoping someone is kind enough to offer you their seat on the lifeboat.

During tough times at work, I’d rather see a leader do what my toddler does to his Play-Doh. He has a snake that he wants made into an airplane? He squishes the old. He makes the new. He presents it, not for approval or affirmation, but just as fact. And even if it looks nothing like an airplane, we accept it, learn from it and move on. And we realize that wasn’t so hard after all. 

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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