Leadership guide shows how to cultivate success in zoo-like workplace
While a batch of books out there helps business leaders instill creativity in their employees, Nigel Collin emphasises the idea of working with what you've got. In Herding Monkeys: How to Lead Creative Talents of Your People and Get Commercial Results (ISBN 0977573516), Collin seeks to show managers and executives how to inspire and nurture the creativity their employees already possess.
After over a decade in the creative sector, Collin realised that success comes from tapping into employees' gifts and talents. He claims that leading creative individuals is a lot like herding monkeys; employees can appear to be all over the place, but most of them enjoy working in a communal setting that affords them opportunities to succeed as a team.
Collin believes that a great leader must focus on three things to achieve commercial success: herding monkeys, creating zoos and shooting ducks. Herding monkeys, the book's primary focus, involves developing leadership skills that inspire people to think, feel and act differently than most. Creating zoos is about having a strategy for building a culture and environment that supports and engages creativity, while shooting ducks explains how to focus on the right ideas and how to execute them.
"It's important to support and nurture the mavericks and thought leaders of a business," Collin said. He added, "They're the ones in a business that help you beat out the competition, bring about change, fuel the innovation pipeline and ultimately drive the overall performance and success."
Rather than viewing creativity as a hard-to-control quality, Collin seeks to show business leaders how to get in the driver's seat of their employees' process. He provides them with the necessary skills so that they might become more connected to their jobs and their success.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
