253. The Power of Creative Play in the Workplace with Jamie Woolf and Dr. Christopher Bell

Ready to transform your workplace from a creativity desert into a thriving innovation ecosystem? Jamie Woolf, the first director of culture at Pixar Animation, and Dr. Christopher Bell of Creativity Partners reveal the unexpected connection between play, power dynamics, and breakthrough ideas.

Their conversation shatters common misconceptions about creativity in the workplace. Forget the notion that creativity belongs only in "creative" industries – it's about solving problems that don't yet exist, making it essential for finance teams, healthcare workers, and every organization seeking innovation. The experts share why traditional approaches to workplace culture often miss the mark, especially when it comes to power dynamics between leaders and teams.

The discussion takes a fascinating turn when examining how leadership impacts creativity. "75% of people say their boss – not workload or deadlines – is the most stressful part of their day," Dr. Chris reveals, highlighting how unintentional behaviors from well-meaning leaders can stifle innovation. You'll discover practical strategies for flattening power distances without diminishing leadership authority, creating environments where everyone feels empowered to contribute their best ideas.

Perhaps most compelling is their exploration of inclusive storytelling as a foundation for creative cultures. They explain the difference between making people "feel" included versus ensuring people "are" included – a distinction that transforms how teams collaborate and innovate. The conversation concludes with a powerful framework for media literacy that applies equally to workplace communications and broader social narratives.

Whether you're leading a team that needs a creativity boost, working under challenging leadership, or simply fascinated by what makes innovative cultures tick, this episode offers actionable insights to transform how you approach workplace dynamics. Visit creativity-partners.com to learn more about bringing these principles into your organization.

🌐 Connect with Jamie and Dr. Christopher:
• Website: https://www.creativity-partners.com/
• Jamie's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-woolf-a41416b/
• Christopher's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-christopher-bell-887280206/

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

What if the key to innovation isn't found in a boardroom but in a playground? What if creativity isn't something you're born with but something your workplace either unlocks or shuts down? And what if inclusion isn't about making people feel welcome but making sure they have a voice that shapes the room? In today's conversation, I'm joined by Jamie Wolfe and Dr Chris Bell of Creativity Partners, an organization that helps leaders build cultures where people don't just fit in, they flourish. We discuss why play is not a distraction from work it's essential to doing our best work and how any team in any industry can unlock creativity in any industry can unlock creativity. So if you're looking to unlock creativity in your organization, you're in the right place. Let's dive in and stay tuned to the end for some amazing insights about the role of media and social media in today's society around inclusion. You're going to be quite shocked.

Mick Spiers: 1:10

Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Leadership Project. I've got a special treat for you today a two-for-one deal. We've got two very special guests with us today from Creativity Partners, an organization that helps you to cultivate amazing cultures and in particularly creative cultures. What does it take to create a creative culture and how do bad bosses kill innovation and creativity and, more importantly, what can you do about it? So Dr Chris Bell is the president of Creativity Partners, is a former university professor at the University of Colorado and also worked at Skydance Animation. Jamie Wolfe is the CEO of Creativity Partners and was the first director of culture at Pixar Animation.

Mick Spiers: 2:06

At Pixar Animation, where we've seen, I'm going to say, a very slow progression in the way some of organizations, the way media represents cultures and inclusion over time, and that might be something that we touch on as we go. The main part we're going to talk about is what does it take to create a creative culture and how leaders can impact innovation and creativity in your organizations. So, without any further ado, jamie and Chris and I'll come to you one at a time I would love to know what inspires you to do this work around creative cultures and I'm really curious to know how the two of you meet. So, jamie, I'd love to come to you first on this one.

Jamie Woolf: 2:47

I think it goes back to my childhood. Actually, I grew up with a single mom who was a teacher, but her father, my grandfather, said you could be a teacher or a nurse and she really wanted to be a journalist. And so she did make the most of a teacher career elementary school teacher and did brilliant work. But what I saw was two things One, what happens to a human being who doesn't do the work that they really want to be doing in the world. And secondly, working within an organization where the circumstances were very disempowering low pay, not enough resources, principals that didn't really support teachers.

Jamie Woolf: 3:31

And I think from that experience growing up, seeing the exhaustion, the burnout, I wanted to help organizations and human beings to feel their full agency and their gifts and their potential in the workplace. And how I met Chris is I saw his amazing TED Talk and I said I want to meet this person. So I invited him to come to Pixar and I got him in a room with our executives and so if you haven't seen the TED Talk yet, I recommend you Google. Dr, chris Bell and TED Talk. That's what brought us together and we've kind of been working together in different forums ever since.

Mick Spiers: 4:15

Outstanding. Jamie, I'm absolutely certain we're going to talk about that TED Talk at some point in today's discussion. It really hit home for me as well in today's discussion. It really hit home for me as well, and the story you just told is part of it. Nurse or teacher Very interesting Societal expectations, parental expectations already channeling someone, in this case a female, towards nurse or teacher. That's really interesting. We'll come back to that, I'm sure.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 4:42

Chris, I'm going to cliff notes a whole bunch of stuff because I have such a long and winding road. But essentially I study media academically and my part of the field is consistently under siege, particularly in the modern climate, because I study what has loosely come to be termed DEI, although, as I tell people, I don't really do D or E, I just do I. And if you do I, then D and E will take care of themselves. And so that has brought me into all kinds of interesting spaces, because I'm very concerned with how we treat other people, both in our personal lives and in the workplace, how other people get to exist in the world and our relationship to them. And so I do a lot of work around gender. And that brought me into Pixar through this TED Talk.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 5:47

That's brought me into this space where Jamie was sort of able to open my eyes up to this whole other half of the equation, which is sort of the corporate half of it.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 5:57

It's the people part of it.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 5:59

You know, I've been so focused my whole career on the work on the tangible things, on the toys, on the movies, on the video games, on the things that we can see and interact with.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 6:10

There's this whole human culture side to it, the people part of things. And the more I got into that work dealing with the people, the more Jamie and I sort of connected over that and over the way we, jamie and I, sort of connected over that and over the way we construct workplaces and a lot of my research area around. You know, things like play and creativity and innovation really lined up with hers, coming from a more HR, corporate training kind of a side, and we found this really sort of very cool place in the middle where we our work sort of slams together and we've been able to take this out to companies and, you know, studios and all kinds of interesting places and interesting people to say creativity can flourish anywhere, creativity can come from anywhere, and how are we making that environment conducive to creativity? And also how can we create environments where people can show up in their full selves and do their best work?

Mick Spiers: 7:12

Outstanding, chris, and I'm really glad the two of you did meet and if it took a TED Talk to make that happen, you know that's great. I'm glad that you met because you got very complimentary skills. Very complimentary skills and your powerful work, chris, about building inclusion into storytelling and the role the media plays. I'm going to tease the audience and say I want to come back to this the role the media plays in reinforcing some of those societal norms and some of the expectations that it's a really interesting topic and I think there's things that we can do, not just in the media but immediately in the workplace, that can address the way that we look at inclusion. You and I are potentially kindred spirits on this one, because I say that D and E are meaningless unless you have I. If someone doesn't feel included, it doesn't matter if you have a workplace that's very diverse and you've done lots of things around equity and you've got multicultural environment. If no one has a voice or feels that they belong. I'm sure that we're going to come back to that.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 8:18

Even beyond that, just to caveat that, even beyond that, one of the things we say all the time at Creativity Partners is we're not in the business of making people feel included, we're in the business of making people be included, and those are two very different things.

Mick Spiers: 8:33

I can't ignore that. Tell me more. What's the difference?

Dr. Christopher Bell: 8:37

The way I explain it is like this let's say, we're going to throw a party. You and I are going to throw a party, right, and we're going to throw a party. You and I are going to throw a party, right, and we're going to invite all our friends and they're going to come over to our house and we're going to have a good time. We're going to get some food, we're going to play some music and it's going to be a really good time, right, all our friends come over, but it's still our house.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 8:57

You and I decided when the party was. You and I decided who was going to come to the party. You and I decided what food was going to be there. You and I decided what music was going to be there, and all of our friends will feel included because we invited them over and they're all having a good time, but it's not their party. That's very different than if we tell all of our friends we want to have a party and we get everybody together and go. What kind of music should we have and what kind of food should we have, and when would be a good time for us to have it and where should we have the part? Now everyone is actually included. Everyone is a part of the process. They don't have to feel included, they are included. It's two very different things.

Mick Spiers: 9:33

Yeah, very good, I love the definition. I'm feeling an element of ownership that comes along at that point as well. I don't just feel included, I also feel I'd feel part of it. But I also feel I'd feel part of it. But I also feel like I've got some ownership of the result and, yeah, really good, chris. Okay, all right, so I'll tease the audience. We're going to come back to more depth on some of the inclusion element and the storytelling at the end. Creativity what does a creative workplace look like? Some people may not even feel that. What does it look like Jamie look like? Some people may not even feel that?

Jamie Woolf: 10:04

What does it look like, jamie? Well, we always share that creativity doesn't just come out of an organization like Pixar, which you can obviously see okay, creativity and making films and the art and the story. But creativity also comes out of organizations where Chris and I have worked with finance teams, with procurement teams, with healthcare workers, because creativity, as we define it, is solving problems yet exist. You're seeing something, you're envisioning something that doesn't yet exist, and so we want to expand the definition of creativity so that people don't say, well, I'm not creative, because we believe that all human beings are creative. You're creative when you're figuring out how to get your kids to childcare and make it to work on time. You know, it's just an expansive view of creativity.

Mick Spiers: 11:06

Yeah, really good, jamie. I'm glad the examples you even gave there so funnily the two of you sitting there. You know you've both worked in very creative industries that people instantly think of creativity. Pixar would be a company, skydance would be a company that they would instantly think, oh yeah, that's a very creative field and they won't necessarily think well, I can be creative in my workplace and it doesn't have to be just in fields like engineering. It can be in finance and you could be solving internal problems inside the company or external problems for our customers if you have the platform that allows you to be creative, which is going to be where we go with this. Would you like to add anything, chris, about creativity and innovation? What does it mean to you?

Dr. Christopher Bell: 11:55

Work is not natural. It's not. Work is not natural. We are literally the only species on the planet that works. It's not a part of the natural kingdom. You know what is a part of the natural kingdom? Play. Every species on the planet plays. We work. Everything else around here plays. And if you want to get more out of people, if you want people to be more invested, if you want people to be more innovative, if you want people to be more innovative, if you want them to have better ideas, you don't need more work at work. You need more opportunities for people to play. You need more opportunities for people to be creative, for people to be collaborative, for people to work together, for people to bring their fun selves to the table and to do it in a low stress, low pressure, low stakes environment. You need that it's not optional, and in the places where people make it optional, those workplaces suffer. Play is the most important part of work if you want work to actually get done.

Mick Spiers: 12:58

Yeah, this is powerful already, for sure, chris, and I can reflect on that myself, and I'll ask the audience to do that. You know that when you're having fun, you do become more creative and a bit edgy, etc. Etc. It feels different when you're having a bit of fun. In fact, I get myself lost in a flow state. If it's fun, I lose track of time and I just get, oh, what if we did this? What if we did that? I lose track of time and I just get, oh, what if we did this? What if we did that? All of a sudden, and there's no pressure of structure and all this kind of stuff. We're just having a bit of fun and before you know it, we have a eureka moment where we land on something.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 13:35

And that's where innovation comes from. And I don't care if you're making a movie or you're making a spreadsheet. Fun is fun and there has to be a way to make that other stuff fun, and if it's not, it will become tedious, it will become work. We get locked into this like work sucks kind of a space. But it doesn't have to. We make work suck. It doesn't have to be that way. There's always somewhere to find creativity, to find fun, to find the innovation in everything that you do.

Mick Spiers: 14:10

There's a thread I'm picking up here, chris and Jamie. I'd like to test this with you. I'm going to come to you with it, jamie. When I listen to that, I feel like one of the lessons we need to learn is that creativity also can't be forced, like I'm picking an organization where you're all going to work harder until you come up with better creative ideas. That it doesn't work. It doesn't work like that, jamie. What's your reflections on that?

Jamie Woolf: 14:34

Well, I also think that you can't force fun. So it takes some mastery to figure out how to not be cringy about we're going to play, we're going to have fun, because I know for me, I hate it when facilitators come in and say you know we're going to do, trust falls or whatever it is like. The way that we introduce play is strategic and very intentional and very creative. It's not disconnected from the collaborative common ground and we also meet people where they are. So if they're trying to solve vexing problems around climate change, we're not going to just play and not connect the debrief to the complicated problems that they're wrestling with. So it's not gratuitous play and it's not frivolous.

Jamie Woolf: 15:32

And one of the things that people always mistake at Pixar is you know, people are playing ping pong and they're, you know, doing creating miniature golf courts and and it looks frivolous, but it's not frivolous because there's an intention behind it and we need to make that very clear about. It is a workplace. I mean, it is a place where people are getting their paycheck and it's the necessity of putting food on the table. So that takes some mastery and that's what we do. Is we put a lot of thought into how to introduce play?

Dr. Christopher Bell: 16:12

Yeah, not every workplace is the same. Some people need certain kinds of play and other people need other kinds of play. And that's part of what Jamie and I do is when we come in to do our team assessments and we come in to sort of evaluate the workplace and try to find ways to make it more creative, more innovative. Part of that is what is the structure here, who are the people here and what do they need? Right, yeah, correct, a place, like you know, a creative industry. They may need their play focused. They may already have a lot of play and it just needs to be focused in a particular direction.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 16:48

Right, someone who has no play in their workplace at all? You can't go in and be like let's build a bunch of some miniature golf courses and blah, blah, they're not in that place and that's not the kind of play they need. They might need something more subtle, more refined, small, smaller boundaries. So, as Jamie said, there is some skill, some mastery to the assessing of what people need in terms of that play and creativity and then helping the people there figure out how to implement it, because Jamie and I are going to go home Like the play we bring is the very short-term kind of we're here today and we're going to play, but the important lessons of that is how do we then sustain this? How do we build this into our workplace so that it carries on after Jamie and Chris go home?

Mick Spiers: 17:37

Yeah, there's two important ingredients that I hear there, chris. One is where I think there is something missing in many organisations, which is the dialogue or the conversation. A lot of executive leadership teams sitting there getting worried about you know. We've given the team all of these things and we still don't know what they want. Did you ask them? Did you ask them what they would like to see happen? So that was one thing I picked up from what you were saying then, chris. And then the second one is the sustainability. It's not. Oh, we took everyone for a fun bowling afternoon. We did that three months ago. Why aren't they happy? It's got to be sustainable as well.

Mick Spiers: 18:21

So we're hearing it can't be forced, creativity can't be forced, the play can't be forced. I'm going to say, uh, jamie, coming to you on this one, that there's going to be a couple of different categories out there. There's going to be people that are sitting in very conservative industries that have never tried something like this before and they don't know where to start. I'm going to say there's going to be a potential second category of people that have put beanbags in the lunchroom and and table tables, et cetera, et cetera, and thinking, oh, that's it, I'm done now. Well, it didn't work. How do companies start the right way with introducing creative play into the workplace?

Jamie Woolf: 19:00

Yeah, well, I would say there's creative play and then there's just creativity, right? So and I don't want to throw out some cookbook example because it's you know there is a diagnosis process at the beginning where we're really figuring out what is most needed and where people are and who the personalities are. But at the very fundamental level, there's the need for inquiry and curiosity. So it's that mindset setting of we don't know, we're in a state of not knowing, we're living in the question marks, we're showing intellectual curiosity and humility, and one of the things that Ed Catmull, the former president of Pixar, always said is I'm wrong more than half the time, and by him modeling that as the president of the company, it freed people up to have that mindset of not knowing.

Jamie Woolf: 20:04

And I think most organizations in a meeting. You're busy proving yourself and you're trying to get in. You know a comment that makes you look smart so you can get the promotion or get the boss's favor. But what if we turn that on its head and we said no, this is about inquiry, about not knowing, about uncertainty, about posing the right questions. So I think that's a good starting place, whether you're in a wildly creative company or one that's more conservative.

Mick Spiers: 20:36

So there's two things I'm taking from that, jamie. One is the first thing you said, which is don't go cookie cutter, don't look at the company down the road and go. Well, they did this. Start with diagnosing your own organization. Who are the players? Have a dialogue, ask them, what would you like to see happen and what's preventing us? Have a really good, curious conversation, diagnosing the current state before you try to move to a new state. And then the second part I picked up was the role modeling. So if you want to build an organization that's got that curiosity, you want to build an organization that's got that humility to be able to say, hey, I don't have all the answers. Start with yourself. Start with yourself. Role modeling that behavior. All right.

Mick Spiers: 21:21

That leads us, I think, to an interesting thing that we all discussed before we hit record, which is about how bad bosses can impact creativity. Now here's the thing that I want to start with. I'm 99.x% sure that everyone out there that's got a bad boss, or even if you're a bad boss yourself and you don't know it yet, no one wakes up in the morning and rubs their hands together and go oh, this is great, I'm going to go to work, I'm going to be a real jerk today. No one does that. So why do bad bosses persist? How does this evolution? Like only one in five people in the world truly love their job and like their boss, one in five, so that means four or five of us are missing the cue somehow. How does this keep on persisting, chris?

Dr. Christopher Bell: 22:11

Yeah, I mean it's a real problem. We were talking beforehand about how most of what we consider bad boss behavior is unintentional, right? Because if it is intentional, you should quit your job. If you have a boss who is intentionally waking up in the morning rubbing their hands together and being like I'm going to be a jerk today, you work for a supervillain you should go ahead and quit that job. Most of what we do is unintentional, but that doesn't mean it's not real. It doesn't mean it doesn't actually exist, right?

Dr. Christopher Bell: 22:45

75% of people say that their boss not their workload, not the hours, not their deadlines their boss is the worst part of their day, is the most stressful part of their day. 57% of people have left a job because of their manager, and so you feel like that's real, that's not make-believe, that's what people say. So all of us at some point have probably had a bad boss. But the converse of that is, if you are a leader, for 75% of the people who work for you, you are the most stressful part of their day, and that requires some self-reflection. That requires some self-examination of am I a part of the problem for my employees? Everyone wants to say no, I'm a great boss, and what we are saying is are you?

Dr. Christopher Bell: 23:42

Let's find out? Is are you? Let's find out? Because all of us can be put into places where even the best bosses can accidentally exhibit really bad behaviors that are very much detrimental to the people who work for them. So let's give you the grace of you're trying to be a good boss. Let's find out if you actually are. And if not, here are some things we can do to help move you in the right direction.

Mick Spiers: 24:09

Yeah, really good. It is the bosses, the difference between whether someone has a good day or a really bad day. And I can tell you when they go home to their families, if they've had a bad day, they don't go home to their families going. Oh, you won't believe what my spreadsheet did to me today. All right, it'll be. You won't believe what that jerk did today, what he said or how he made me feel, or she. You wouldn't believe what Mick did today. He's the worst boss in the world, right? It's always the human beings right, you know very good.

Mick Spiers: 24:41

So, Jamie, same question how do people start If people are listening to this going? Am I a bad boss? How do I know if I'm a bad boss and how do I take the first steps to be less bad?

Jamie Woolf: 24:54

Well, one of our areas of focus are the incentives, the power infrastructure, the power dynamics in a workplace that aren't good for anyone, including leaders. So the incentives are often get the numbers up, get the profit, get the results. They're very short term and there's a ton of pressure. So it's not like we're vilifying bad bosses. They are the victims of organizations that are holding them accountable to making profits, for example, that they might not have complete influence over. So they're stressed out and we all know when we're stressed out we're not at our best. So we're going to have our tempers might flare, we might feel impatient, we might if we're the type of person to get cautious, we might get paralyzed. We're going to show up as our worst selves under that kind of pressure.

Jamie Woolf: 25:51

And then the second thing that happens to leaders is the higher up you go, the more distorted the truth and the more distorted your sense of power advantage is. And so we're blind to the advantages of our power. Like many bosses will say well, I'm not intimidating, I'm a good person, my door's always open. They're not aware that just by virtue of their title they are intimidating. And to say I have an open door policy, then the onus is on the person to have the courage to walk into the boss's office. Like, take a minute to remember when you were early in career would you have walked into your boss's office. Is there a problem?

Mick Spiers: 26:35

Yeah, really good, jamie. So I think we do lose sight of that power dynamic. We absolutely do. The further we go up, we think that we're really friendly, et cetera. But it doesn't matter. It's that job title is a little intimidating and, to quote Stan Lee here for a moment, with great power comes great responsibility, and we need to remember that.

Mick Spiers: 26:57

The things that were ringing very true for me, jamie, when you were saying that, and I love the empathy of what you were sharing here. I'm going to use two examples here. Let's say that a boss wants to embrace empowerment and trust in their team, but their boss is micromanaging them. It makes it very difficult for you to empower and trust your team if your boss is micromanaging you every day. So the tone does come from the top, or it could be. How is performance measured? If performance is being measured on very short-term financial results, well, my behavior is going to be driving short-term financial results that might be at the expense of the people, instead of succeeding through our people and building a long-term sustainable business. I might start taking actions that make my numbers look good this quarter, but maybe it's not the best thing and I feel bad myself going home at the end of the day going oh cringe, but my performance is being measured that way. How does that sit with you, chris?

Dr. Christopher Bell: 28:02

How does that sit with you, chris, yeah, no, I mean, I think all of us, whether we are the person who works the front desk or we are some sort of coordinator, middle management kind of person, or whether we're the vice president, if you have a boss, there's a particular mindset you get locked into about feedback, about speaking up. There's a risk involved. There's a risk involved and for a lot of people they sit there and they go. My boss said they have an open door policy and I'm seeing this thing. That's happening and I'd love to raise this issue.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 28:45

But I got to feed my kids and I got a mortgage payment due and I got to pay my car note. So how about? I shut my mouth and I put my head down and I do my job and I'll go home and I'll complain to my wife about the worst boss in the world. I'm not going to, I'm not going to take advantage of that open door, because there is a power blindness. There's a power distance between you and the person who supervises you and they can say they want you to come in an open door, but if they don't actively come to find you and ask you questions and solicit your feedback, most people are not going to freely offer that. They're just not. It's too much at risk.

Mick Spiers: 29:30

There's too much skin in that game. Okay, all right. And now we're getting even further disconnected because people aren't even speaking up anymore. So that disconnect as the person gets higher and higher up in the organization. People aren't even telling you the truth anymore because their fear of the conversation is too high, and we need to change that balance for sure, all right.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 29:49

If I work the front desk and you're the CEO, I'm just going to get your coffee and I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

Mick Spiers: 29:55

Yeah, really interesting. So we do need to create. There's a powerful situation here with the role modeling. If we're going to tell people I've got an open door policy, we get the behavior that we celebrate, reward and tolerate. When someone does speak up, we better make sure we damn listen and to make sure that they feel that the benefit of speaking up outweighs their fear of doing so. Otherwise, they're going to shut their trap again and they're going to walk off and just be miserable and not say anything in the future, and you can't fix what you don't know about. So if you're not listening, you're not hearing what the problems are, that you might be the one that has the influence to change that. All right, so, yeah, really good.

Mick Spiers: 30:35

Okay, now I think we've given some hints to leaders about what they need to do here, whether it's about the creativity and play, whether it's about am I a bad boss, yes or no, do a bit of diagnostic, do a bit of a conversation to your team what's it like to experience me as a leader? And really listen and take action. Let's flip the script. What about people that are listening to this show going? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good for Chris, good for Jamie, but my boss is a jerk. How do I start with that, jamie?

Jamie Woolf: 31:12

Well, first of all, we always say you should not have to survive your boss. You just shouldn't have to survive your boss. And so, given the realities of the prevalence of bad bosses, the first thing that we advocate for is to find your people, find support, find a coalition so that you don't feel like you're alone. It can be a very disconnected place now that we're working virtually, so we have to get creative about how we build those relationships, but we can feel emboldened when, not that we're finding people to trash, talk our boss, but just for people to give us that feeling of connection and being whole and being seen. So, you know, find your people, find a coalition.

Jamie Woolf: 32:00

The second thing is because it is so scary when we are coaching people who have a bad boss, we often find that they haven't even tried to broach a conversation, and so sometimes it is just having the courage, even just to get the data to say you know, when you interrupt me before I finish speaking, it makes me feel bad and see if they're receptive, if they're really defensive, or they, you know, are looking at their phone while you're talking and not even listening. That's enough data to tell you to go to the other thing that we say which is really get out. It's not worth your mental health, and so that's no easy task, especially if you have a field where there's only a limited amount of jobs out there in your field. So take the time you need, but we do say get out, because it takes 22 months after you leave a bad boss on average to recover mentally from the confidence that's been diminished, from the mental health hit. So get out.

Mick Spiers: 33:10

Okay, all right. So before people start resigning, I want to make sure people picked up on some of the key parts that you said there, jamie, which is remember, to practice a little bit of empathy. Your boss is generally not turning up purposely being a jerk. They've gone off the rails at some point. They're not doing it on purpose and they can't fix what they don't know about. So the things I'm hearing from you, jamie find your allies, because you do need a support crew when you're going through something like this, and then start with something. Actually try, start with something and maybe start with something small and see how the boss reacts. If you do that, I'm going to say seven, 10 times you've tried to draw something to their attention and it's gone bad every time. Yeah, then I agree with you. You're in the wrong place. Go and find your tribe somewhere else. How does that sit?

Jamie Woolf: 34:01

with you. I'm glad that you mentioned the empathy, and I was neglectful and not amplifying that, because I do think that most of us are human, whatever power we hold, and so, remembering the pressures that that person is under, that maybe made them in a bad mood and it wasn't about you, and that's not to give them an excuse, but to lead with compassion, respect and empathy.

Mick Spiers: 34:24

Yeah, really good, All right. So let me reflect on some of the things I'm taking away so far, because then I'm going to flip a little bit. We're going to go to a bit to about inclusive storytelling, which really captured my attention. So if you're in one of these organizations, there are things that you can do if you want to be more creative. But start with not cookie cutter. Start thinking about a diagnostic of where are you today and where do you want to be. Have a dialogue with your team about what would good look like, what would great look like, what do they want to see happen, and embrace that.

Mick Spiers: 35:00

Creativity is through play. It's through having a bit of fun. It's not a process that you can institutionalize and go. You must be more creative. It's got to be something that people really get into and the leader sets the tone for this. You can be the one that role models, the behaviors of making it a bit fun, being curious, being humble, being the inquisitive mind that says, what if we did this? And you can have these role models.

Mick Spiers: 35:30

And then we've discussed around what happens in this bad boss dynamic, whether you are the bad boss or you're dealing with a bad boss. Take the time diagnose again, boss, or you're dealing with a bad boss. Take the time, diagnose again and try, try, try, try. Practice some empathy. Have allies around you and then try and bring to your boss's attention the things that are not landing the way they think it's landing, because there's a good chance they're being disconnected and don't even realize that they're being a bad boss. There's some calls to action there, whether you are the employee or the team member or the boss. There's some calls to action that Jamie and Chris have shared today. Now I wanna get into inclusive storytelling and we're going to tease everyone and say please go and watch Dr Chris Bell's TED Talk. It is amazing. It captured my attention, without any doubt. What does inclusive storytelling look like, Chris? And I've heard you use the terms to make it transformative instead of performative.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 36:29

Yeah, yeah. So two things. Number one and it's sort of the bridge between what we've been talking about and what we're going to talk about, which is number one attitude reflects leadership. Attitude reflects leadership. So, if you are a leader and you're like my team isn't motivated, my team isn't creative, my team isn't whatever, whatever, it's time to take a look at what you're doing, because attitude is reflective of leadership. Number two is nobody wants to be creative in front of you, nobody wants to play in front of you. They want to be creative with you. They want to play with you. So, if you're a leader, you can't give stuff to your team and be like here's some stuff for you to do. Leader, you can't give stuff to your team and be like here's some stuff for you to do. You have to be a part of it, you have to be an active participant. I say both of those things to say.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 37:30

If we want environments in which people truly feel invested, truly feel creative, truly feel like they're bringing their full selves to the table, we have to do as much as possible to do what I call flatten the power distance, to flatten the power distance. So most workplaces have a sort of a vibe about them, where some people are down here and some people are up here, and when you say what I would like to do is to flatten that so that everyone's on the same level, immediately the people who are up here go. What you want to do is take away from me so that I'm down here with these people, and what I'm asking you to do is not to do this and move these people down here. What I'm asking you to do is to take these people and move them up here. So I'm asking you to flatten the power distance, not by lowering yourself, but by raising up other people, and the way that we do that is we invite their stories into the workspace, we listen authentically to those stories in the workplace and we actually receive and respond to those stories in ways that let people know they matter. Those are the three things I'm asking people to do.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 38:48

I think we all get bogged down in the language around this. I don't want to do DEI, or I had to go to diversity training, or I don't even know what they mean when they say equity, or blah, blah, blah, and what I say is throw all that stuff out the window. Throw it out the window, because what I'm asking you to do is this I'm asking you to say hey, mick, let's go to coffee and me and you sit down and I go. Where are you from, mick? Tell me about your you know? Where'd you go to school? Tell me, you know, what do you like to do on the weekends? What do you? Blah, blah, blah.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 39:20

And then you say here's what I like to do. And oh, did you know this about this place that I grew up and I go? I visited there once and it was a really cool one, and you and I are telling stories, and in the process of you telling me your story and me telling you my story, it's a lot harder for you to go back to your desk and be like I hate Black people, because when you say stuff like that in your head, what I always hear is I don't know any Black people, I don't know any gay people, I don't interact with women in this way. I've never talked to somebody from this part of the country or whatever. Whatever.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 39:55

I think exposure is the number one disinfectant for bad relationships in the workplace. I think people need to be exposed to each other more, and so I think opportunities to have conversations, opportunities to share stories, opportunities to tell each other about our lives, makes it an awful lot harder to generalize, makes it an awful lot harder to paint everyone with the same brush, because now, I don't hate white people, I hate Jamie and I actually don't hate Jamie. I like Jamie and Jamie is cool. And now I have a person I humanize, I individualize, I localize in a way that makes it a lot harder for me to be awful to other people yeah, really powerful, Chris.

Mick Spiers: 40:46

I'll share some of the things I'm taking away. So I'm hearing ditching terms like I and you, and making it more we a bit more co-creation, but doing so by raising people up. So the inclusion is to draw people up into the conversation, and I'm going to use a term that you hear all the time. You hear about executives getting down in the trenches and I'm hearing the opposite from you. How about lifting people out of the trenches and having a really good conversation with them? Then, if we want to create an organization that has got diversity of thought, people need to feel included. How do they feel included? Get curious, Learn a bit about their background and what inspires them and go and take a coffee meeting with them like curiosity. A great connection is at the other end of that curious conversation. Then you know, like and trust each other more and then you can co-create more because you feel like you've got a bond with those people. How does that sit with you, Chris?

Dr. Christopher Bell: 41:46

You are not a set of hands that draws advertising. You're a person who went to art school because you like to draw and there's a thing there. You are not a thing that sits in a. You're not a database creation machine that I parked in a cubicle. You're a person who has kids who are important to you and they have hopes and dreams, and you're trying to send your kids to college.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 42:18

Like the more we can, I, I, I, I admittedly in my work, make a lot of fun of very serious people. Capital V, capital S, capital P, with a little trademark symbol behind it. I do make a lot of fun of very serious people because most of us, the vast majority of us, do not do things fun of very serious people, because most of us, the vast majority of us, do not do things that are very serious. We don't. And because everything doesn't have to be, I don't want people to be getting down in the trenches with other people because we are not at war. We're not at war.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 42:55

We tell stories about animated characters on a screen, right. We're not at war. We sell coats in the mall, like come on. So because of that, there's always space to humanize, there's always space to talk to the people and guess what, even in war, the reason we like war movies so much is not because of the battles, it's because of the two people who have to sit side by side in the foxhole. That's the thing we connect to. It's not because of the battles, it's because of the two people who have to sit side by side in the foxhole. That's the thing we connect to. It's not the guns and the bullets and the bombs.

Mick Spiers: 43:26

Including their backstory. Including their backstory, Chris. Including their backstory.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 43:30

You don't love Saving Private Ryan because you like the storming the beach at Normandy. You like Saving Private Ryan because it's a story of a mother who lost four of her five sons, and the one son who's left is out there in a field somewhere and we care about him and we're gonna go get him. Like he has a backstory, he has a family, he has a history and that's what you care about. When everyone uses all this, we're in the trenches and we're at war and blah blah, I always remind people. We're about people stories, the stories of the people who are in the thing, and that matters. Whether we are shooting guns across a field or whether we're all just sitting in cubicles designing an advertisement, the people are the thing that matters.

Mick Spiers: 44:14

Yeah, it really could. And that's where we can build that empathy when we understand that person's backstory and what's important to them the person that went to art school because they like to draw. What is it about drawing that likes? How does it light you up? Get curious and know more about them. Jamie, I want to come to you with a curious question. The three of us are together on this conversation today because you saw Chris's TED Talk and it inspired you to reach out to him. Tell me how you felt watching his TED Talk.

Jamie Woolf: 44:46

Well, as somebody who has two kids and daughters, and first of all, I was just so emotionally overtaken when I saw Chris as a father, the deep care he has for his daughter, I mean I have to say like I'll get to the other things, but like whoa, true confession, like I didn't have a father who was like that, you know, I had more of a typical father off to work, not you work, kind of absent.

Jamie Woolf: 45:22

And so the fierce passion that Chris shows in his TED Talk and with vulnerability, about what kind of world he wants to create for his daughter. And then, after that, all of the evidence that he shows about the disparity in what is accessible for boys in terms of consumer products and for girls and what that impact is on girls in our society. Disney and Pixar and you know how it's been for me shopping for, you know, having two kids, who one is non-binary, now one, you know, a daughter. Neither were girly girls, and you know there were no consumer products that I felt got my kids. So there was just there was a heart connection. And then when I met Chris, like okay, this heart connection is, this is going places, this relationship has legs. And here we are now, all these years later.

Mick Spiers: 46:32

Yeah, well done. So for those that haven't watched it yet and I do encourage you to go and watch it Chris talks about the media's role, and when we say media we're through to motion pictures and what you find in the supermarket aisles, et cetera, the way that gender bias is reinforced and that when you go looking for superhero characters, as an example, you won't find very many female superhero characters in the supermarket aisle. I won't spoil the TED Talk. Go and watch it. You're going to be shocked by what you see. Chris, I can tell you.

Mick Spiers: 47:08

I wrote an article a few years ago, I believe, that gender bias is reinforced even before you're born. So I'm going to share a story about when my wife was pregnant with my son and we were sharing the story and saying, oh, you know, we're pregnant and we're so excited. And then people would ask with curiosity to begin with oh, do you know if you're having a boy or a girl? I say, yeah, yeah, we're having a boy. The reaction was always oh, you must be so proud. And I'd always stop and think well, if I said I was going to have a girl, what were you going to say?

Mick Spiers: 47:42

It feels very real, I can't put my finger on it. And then when I watch your TED talk, I go yes, we continue to reinforce this in all of our shows. If you watch something like Cocomelon, I can tell you and they try their best, I think, to be a bit more balanced, but they'll have five monkeys jumping on the bed, the song, and three of the monkeys will be boys and two will be girls. And then I think about all of the storytelling in my childhood. If there was a girl in the story, she was the token and the rest were boys. It's very real. It's very real. How do we fix this, chris?

Dr. Christopher Bell: 48:19

Well, I think it's a how do we fix it? Well, there's a lot of moving parts here, right, but what I do think, number one is you know, evil dies in the light, right? I think when we shine lights on things, people, you know, things crawl out of the darkness when you shine a light on them, and so I think that's really important. Having the conversations is important. I always say that it doesn't matter what you, because I work with students a lot, right? So, you know, in academia, and I always tell students or parents or whoever when I'm working with people, it doesn't matter what you want to do in life, it doesn't matter what job you have, it doesn't matter where you live, how you vote, where you raise your kids.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 49:08

The most important skill you can have in 2025 is media literacy. It's understanding what you are consuming and what's behind what you are consuming. It's understanding what you are consuming and what's behind what you are consuming. I say, you know, media literacy sounds really scary and sounds like a big term, mostly because the vast majority of adult human beings on the planet are functionally media illiterate. They don't understand how media operate because media are designed for passive consumption and so you don't know how to consume actively. So I always say three questions. If you can answer these three questions, you are more media literate than most adult human beings on the planet.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 50:02

Anything you watch, anything you read, anything you hear, anything you consume, you can ask who made this, what is this trying to teach me and who benefits from me learning that? And if you can ask those three questions, you're in the ballgame right. Who made this, what is it trying to teach me and who benefits from me learning that? I say if you want to change the relationship that we have to each other, whether that's around gender or around race, or around religion or around nationality, or pick a thing, generations, pick a thing.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 50:34

If you want to change the nature of those relationships, teach people to ask those three questions, because there's a vested interest in media. There's a vested interest in you not asking those questions. Why? The why is not ideological? The why is financial? They don't want you asking those questions so that they can sell you stuff. They don't want you asking those questions so that they can sell you stuff. So if you can get past these things, it makes it more likely that you are going to be savvy about what you consume. You're going to ask good questions, you're not just going to be led around by the nose. It makes it more likely that you are going to be able to enter into conversations with other human beings, because you're not just believing what you're reading or believing what you're seeing on television or on Facebook or whatever. You're actually able to have human conversations and you understand there are people who benefit from you believing certain things, even when those things are not true, and oftentimes, especially when those things are not true.

Mick Spiers: 51:41

I'm going to say that I like what you said about bringing light to the dark. What worries me in the last thing you said is the resistance from change will come from the people that are benefiting from the status quo. So it's not going to necessarily be easy, but I do think you're right. The heart of what I'm hearing, chris, is critical thinking, and I think we are losing our critical thinking skills and we just consume, consume, consume.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 52:06

We're not losing them, they're being taken from us. There's a difference we're not losing them, they're literally actively being taken from us?

Mick Spiers: 52:12

Yeah, Okay. So, like we said, what is the source of this? What is its provenance? Is this a trustworthy source? What is it trying to teach me and who is benefiting from me Thinking, doing or feeling something different? Because I just consumed this yeah, really powerful.

Mick Spiers: 52:31

I want to quickly bring this to the workplace a little bit, this inclusive storytelling. I'm going to stick my own hand up here and share some feedback that I recently received. First of all, I'm going to stick my own hand up here and share some feedback that I recently received. First of all, I'm proud that person told me, by the way, because I would have had no idea if I didn't know. So they had the courage to tell me about this.

Mick Spiers: 52:48

But I can tell you that when I do storytelling in the workplace and I'm trying to fix this by the way, that's really hard my metaphors 90 out of 100 of them are sports metaphors and I lose people that aren't interested in sports Bang straight like that, and quite often, by the way, I'm Australian, so quite often it's cricket or rugby. If you're not Australian, you probably don't even know what the hell I'm talking about. So one thing I'm going to say in the workplace around inclusive storytelling, think about your audience, and if the person can't see themselves or relate to the story, the story is not going to work. How does that sit with you, Jamie?

Jamie Woolf: 53:30

I just went straight to an executive meeting that I used to go to regularly, where for the first five or 10 minutes the men would talk about sports, and I immediately felt if I didn't already feel like the outsider because I was the you know one of maybe two women Now I really felt on the outskirts because they're all bonding and I don't know what the hell they're talking about. So I resonate with that.

Mick Spiers: 53:58

Yeah, okay. So that's a. It's a small call to action to finish the show when you're doing it's. It's inclusive storytelling, but it's also inclusive language. Think the language that you use is really powerful. So think about the language that you're using, thinking about if there's implicit bias in the questions that you ask. So ask when, when you go back to that curiosity that Chris and Jamie were talking about before, ask very open questions, questions that don't have any judgment in them whatsoever, and then we can start breaking some of these the power of language and making sure that our stories are relatable to everyone, not just a small subset of Australians that like cricket and rugby. Okay, all right, there's been so many great takeaways from today's conversation, chris and Jamie, I'd like to take us now to our rapid round. These are the same four questions we ask all of our guests, and I'm going to give you both the opportunity to answer all of these, but we'll need to be kind of quick. So what's the one?

Dr. Christopher Bell: 55:04

thing that you know now, chris Bell, that you wish you knew when you were 20? I wish that I knew that there were doors that I thought were closed, that were only closed because I didn't have the courage to move.

Mick Spiers: 55:20

Okay, that were only closed because I didn't have the courage to move. Ooh, okay.

Dr. Christopher Bell: 55:22

Like I wish I knew that it was going to be okay for me to not live in the same five-mile radius of all of my friends that I grew up with, of my house, of my parents. I wish I knew it was okay for me to spread the fly a little bit.

Mick Spiers: 55:37

That hits home really hard. All right, really good. What's the one thing you know now, Jamie Wolfe, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Jamie Woolf: 55:45

I just say the first thing that came to mind. It's very personal. I wish I knew now how lucky I was to be an only child raised by a single mom. I often looked at my friends who had, you know, big families. I now know that those families are probably fraught with all sorts of things and I had such a close relationship with my mom, but I think I felt somewhat less than a lot of my childhood because of that.

Mick Spiers: 56:18

Interestingly, I like the gratitude and I think we lose sight of having gratitude of what we have and thinking about what we don't have. We do that far too often. Yeah, really good, jamie, what's your favorite book?

Jamie Woolf: 56:30

I don't know. It's hard to zero it down to one favorite book. I cannot do that. But one book that really stayed with me and I thought was so beautiful and such great storytelling was by Gabriel Zevin, called Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

Mick Spiers: 56:47

Okay, another one. Okay, all right, I'll have to look into that one. All right, really good, chris. What's your favorite book?

Dr. Christopher Bell: 56:53

Easily the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Mick Spiers: 56:55

Okay, there's a lot of creative storytelling in there. That's really cool. Okay, what's your favorite quote, chris?

Dr. Christopher Bell: 57:01

what's my favorite quote? Um, oh man. What's my favorite quote? That's a. That's a hard one. Um, I was gonna try to come up with something, something, you know, clever, or whatever, but I think, at the end of the day, I'm a spider-man guy, you know, and with great power comes great responsibility wow, we just came full circle from before.

Mick Spiers: 57:25

Yeah, really good, it's really important. That's it. Yes, it comes from a spider-man story, but think about that in the workplace. Yeah, really good. Jamie, what's your favorite quote?

Jamie Woolf: 57:37

again. I don't know if it's my favorite, but be the change that you wish to see in the world, because I think it gives us all agency to be powerful outstanding, and the role modeling that we were talking about before as well rings very loudly in that one.

Mick Spiers: 57:51

Finally, there's going to be people listening to this and, whether it's inclusive storytelling or, more importantly, changing the creativity and and innovation culture in their workplace, how do they're going to be curious to know more about your services and how they can get started. They want to do this, but they don't know how. How do people find you, jamie?

Jamie Woolf: 58:15

Our website is wwwcreativity-partnerscom and you can find us. I'm Jamie at creativitypartnerscom. Chris is Chris at creativity-partnerscom.

Mick Spiers: 58:29

All right, brilliant. I'm so glad that the world brought the two of you together. You have incredibly complementary skills and you're both very purpose-driven and you're on a mission that I think is a really powerful one, not just about the creativity and the innovation, but about the change in the workplace. People spend up to one third of their life in the workplace. They don't deserve to work in a workplace with a toxic culture. They all deserve to work in a workplace where they feel included and where they feel seen, heard and valued, that they're doing something important. So thank you both for finding each other and thank you both for the work that you do, and thank you for your time today sharing your wisdom thank you so much, mick.

Jamie Woolf: 59:13

You're listening and questioning is so beautiful.

Mick Spiers: 59:17

It really is what an amazing conversation. A huge thank you to Jamie Wolfe and Dr Chris Bell for joining us today and sharing their wisdom with such clarity, compassion and courage. There's one thing I hope you take from today. It's this Creativity isn't a job title, it's a mindset. It's not reserved for artists or animators. It's for anyone who solves problems, makes decisions or dreams of doing things better. And, most of all, creativity requires inclusion not just making people feel included, but making sure they are included. They have a voice, ownership and a seat at the table, and we as leaders have an important role here. We can either create a platform of creativity or we can be the one that's stifling the creativity in the organization.

Mick Spiers: 1:00:09

In the next episode, I'll be sharing my own takeaways from today's discussion with Jamie and Chris. Talking about inclusion and talking about cultures of creativity is talking about inclusion and talking about cultures of creativity. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Project at mickspearscom. A huge call out to Faris Sadek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP Joanne Goes On, gerald Calabo and my amazing wife Say Spears. I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to the Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey, as we learn together and lead together.