We’ve been so inspired by the corporate culture at Peloton, we are giving away Peloton Commercial Bikes! Sign up for a Big O Creative Services 101 Workshop by February 29, 2020 for 16 team members or more, complete the curriculum, have 80%+ participation in the post-workshop surveys, and we will give your company a Peloton Commercial Bike for your office or wellness area.
Your Peloton Commercial bike package will include one year’s commercial software subscription, hand weights, a mat, delivery and all local sales taxes.* We believe creative & physical wellness are inextricably linked to corporate wellness! So, invest in your employees’ creative wellness with us, we’ll invest in their physical wellness for you.
Like Peloton, at Big O, we believe creative practice is a really great ride!
Lasting Change Takes Practice
In part one of this blog, “The Courage to Change” we talked about how hard it is to admit that lasting change takes more than one action. One workshop, one great healthy meal, one exercise class, one pill, one anything just won’t do it. To make real, consistent change, you have to make change a practice.
And we’re not going to sugarcoat it. Within that consistent practice, you can’t just phone it in. In the example of exercise, for instance, no matter what the infomercials promise, it’s not going to be a feel-good experience. To do it – to change your body using exercise, you have to get really, really, extremely, muscle-achingly, sweat-pouringly uncomfortable. Endorphins and post-workout rush aside, it’s gotta’ hurt a little.
It’s the same with changing your corporate culture – especially if you’re part of your company’s leadership team – you’re going to have to get uncomfortable. You may not have to physically sweat, but make no bones about it, the discomfort is going to be real!
Which brings me to the second thing Denis said, and the real reason we called this series:
“The Courage to Change”
If you’ll remember, the first blog in this series talked about my favorite instructor Denis Morton. Like the truly inspirational coach he is, just as I was getting to the end of my New York ride and truly losing steam (they forget to tell you that when you get into the live ride at the studio – you’re so hyped that many make the mistake of coming out of the gate way too hard!!), he said some deeply important things that made me dig in and pull out every last breath I had.
(BTW — that was after he gave me a shout-out for my 250th ride! Here’s the picture proof. I’m #RedGladiator on the Peloton leaderboard) ==>
He said “whether you’ve got the courage to change today or not, you clipped in already…courage isn’t necessarily about doing the thing that’s going to get you interviewed on the news. Sometimes it’s about doing the thing that needs to be done that you don’t necessarily want to do.”
Why is that important to what we’re doing at Big O Creative Services?
Well, it’s because we are asking you to do something truly courageous—examine your shortcomings.
Leadership takes a kind of bravery and vulnerability that corporate cultures are just now recognizing are important.
The other day, we taught a mini-module in baton twirling and one of the older managers in the group shared with us something that truly changed his relationship to his people. He said “I realized that one of my team members who was much younger than me was picking up this skill of baton-twirling much faster than I was. He was more coordinated and naturally ‘got’ the tricks we were learning. And I felt embarrassed and frustrated. After all, I’m supposed to be his leader.”
We immediately asked “so what does that tell you?”
And he responded, “that I need to trust that there are skills my team members have that they may simply be better at naturally than I am. Embracing new tech, for example, is easier for them than for me sometimes. And I need to not be embarrassed by that, but rather recognize that these skills make my entire work group’s performance better. And they make me better. I can learn from them. Being a good leader doesn’t mean being the best at everything.”
It’s not something he felt like doing. He was uncomfortable. But he has since shared with us how much better his relationship is with his team members and how much they are responding to his trusting in their many talents. That takes courage.
The process works: the data says so
It also takes a trust in the process. But you don’t have to accept that on faith. Gallup data tells us there is a 17-59% improvement in KPIs in areas from improved profitability to reduction in turnover for companies who practice creativity regularly. So even though you may feel silly, or uncomfortable, you can rely on metrics to allow you to “I want that discomfort” and embrace it (and toss those numbers out to any doubting Thomases in your company). You can be secure in thinking that if you spend an hour in discomfiting creative practice that has nothing to do with the widgets you manufacture, you’ll eventually make a better widget.
The process can’t be one and done
Now remember, as we reminded you in our earlier blog, it takes pressing “repeat” often on the discomfomfiting practices. And you will get more comfortable with the things that challenge you. So you’ll need to keep raising the bar. Did you take a beginner ballet class? How about teaching the discipline of regular, repeated barre basics to your team and discus with them how certain “boring” tasks that fall under their remit should be done first — to build the muscles of discipline needed before they get to the truly creative aspect of their work.
Much like cycling training, you build on your speed and resistance by doing drills. And just when you get comfortable in a set of ranges, it’s time to up the ante and get uncomfortable again. The practice of challenging yourself to grow in your creative practice, and get uncomfortable again and again, doesn’t necessarily get easier.
As we like to say among our rabid Peloton fan groups – “It doesn’t get easier. You get stronger.”
Oh, By the Way, Speaking of Peloton Commercial things…
We post this as part two of our series about our Peloton experience on the heels of a controversy over a Peloton Commercial. Suffice it to say, the opinions are as varied as the expert artists who lead the workshops that Big O Services provides. Our personal experience with the company, the product, the service and the experience is stellar. So that’s just really all we’re going to say about that.
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*Our lawyer said to let you know, official terms and conditions for the Peloton Commercial Bike package will be available by Jan 3, 2020.