Creative Leadership: Time for change | Linda Green | TEDxLiège

Summary

In her TEDx talk, Linda Green delves into the intricacies of leading highly creative projects at the BBC over her long-standing career. She introduces her three guiding principles: Patterns, People, and Purpose, which helped her navigate challenges and drive innovation. By breaking traditional patterns, leveraging diverse networks, and focusing on purpose-driven projects, Green shares how these approaches can lead to significant breakthroughs, such as the success with "Blue Planet" and the revitalization of "Top Gear." Ultimately, her insights underscore the importance of creative leadership in making impactful changes.

Highlights

• Linda Green shares three guiding principles: Patterns, People, and Purpose. 📊
• The story of "Blue Planet" showcases how breaking audience patterns led to a massive success. 🌊
• Revamping "Top Gear" taught lessons on adapting content to fit audience needs. 🚗
• Purpose-driven ideas led the BBC to a successful coverage of the 2012 Olympics. 🥇

Key Takeaways

• Break traditional patterns to bring fresh ideas to the table. 🚀
• Engage diverse networks for innovative solutions. 🌐
• Purpose-driven projects have the power to motivate and achieve great things. 💡
• Listen and adapt to the needs of your audience. 🎧
• Simple and emotional ideas resonate deeper and lead to success. ❤️

Overview

Linda Green opens her talk by recounting her experiences at the BBC, focusing on how breaking patterns, engaging with people, and having a strong sense of purpose helped her lead innovative projects. Her approach is aimed at making creative changes and implementing fresh ideas effectively.

One example she shares involves the success of "Blue Planet," which soared by appealing to previously untapped audience segments and challenging existing patterns. Another example is the evolution of "Top Gear," where listening to the audience and adapting the program content played a crucial role.

Green emphasizes the importance of purpose, illustrating this with the BBC's ambitious plan to cover every Olympic event during the 2012 Games. Her talk is a testament to the power of creative leadership in driving noteworthy changes and achieving remarkable results.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Overview The chapter 'Introduction and Overview' begins with the speaker addressing the audience about what to expect in the next ten minutes. The speaker intends to share three stories that were gained from experiences leading creative teams and projects at the BBC. The speaker humorously mentions the long duration of their career at BBC, spanning twenty years, and makes a light-hearted comment about their age.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Sharing Highs and Lows In this chapter titled 'Sharing Highs and Lows', the speaker aims to convey the importance of embracing both successes and failures. The speaker plans to share personal stories that highlight various highs and lows, emphasizing the necessity of acknowledging both to maintain balance and avoid feeling downcast. The central theme revolves around the 'three P's' - a guiding principle to help navigate challenging situations and implement necessary changes effectively. The narrative is poised to inspire individuals to confront difficulties head-on and make significant changes with a structured focus on these three fundamental areas.
• 01:00 - 02:30: Story of Patterns The chapter titled 'Story of Patterns' delves into how patterns play a crucial role in human cognition. It highlights that from a young age, we rely on our brain's pattern recognition systems to understand the world. The speaker aims to transform ideas into reality by using patterns to address challenges innovatively and enjoyably. The chapter also touches upon the speaker's experiences working at the BBC, though these details might be explored further in the text.
• 02:30 - 04:30: Good Story: Blue Planet The chapter titled 'Good Story: Blue Planet' discusses the concept of organizational dynamics, focusing on the emergence of new ideas through breaking existing patterns. It leverages a quote from Einstein to emphasize the need for changing thought patterns in order to address current problems effectively. The challenge presented is to adopt new ways of viewing and solving issues.
• 04:30 - 09:00: Bad Story: Top Gear The chapter discusses a contrast between a good and a bad story in the professional realm, particularly related to program development. The narrator talks about receiving a big break into program development, specifically with wildlife programs at the BBC. The chapter highlights that wildlife programs are crucial for the BBC, especially given their declining viewership figures at the time.
• 09:00 - 15:00: Purpose and BBC Olympics The chapter titled 'Purpose and BBC Olympics' delves into unique selling points and the intrinsic value of data. The narrator expresses a deep appreciation for data, suggesting it offers insights and opportunities not typically explored by others. A notable anecdote is shared where the narrator conducted a survey at the BBC about favorite animals, which was initially mocked by colleagues but ultimately reveals the unexpected potential of data-driven inquiries.
• 15:00 - 16:30: Conclusion The chapter delves into the unexpected finding that women have an affinity for underwater animals such as dolphins, starfish, and seahorses. This realization was a pivotal point, leading to the creation of the concept for 'Blue Planet'. The chapter highlights how this key insight drove the thematic development of the project.

Creative Leadership: Time for change | Linda Green | TEDxLiège Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hello in the next ten minutes I'm going to share with you I'm going to tell you three stories gain from leading highly creative teams and projects at the BBC over the last believe it or not I was there for twenty years I am old I'm
• 00:30 - 01:00 going to share with you much some highs you know I need to do that because otherwise I'm gonna feel bad up here but I'm also gonna be brave and share some lows with you today and I'm hoping that the stories I tell center around three very simple things three what I call my three P's three areas of focus will help you when you're tackling really difficult challenges and you need time for change you need to make change happen they'll help you to make those
• 01:00 - 01:30 ideas into a reality they'll give you a new way of facing those challenges and also I hope they'll be fun ways and give you some exciting and innovative ideas at the end of it that's my goal so my first story I'm going to share with you is all about patterns now we all have patterns I mean that's obvious isn't it that's how we function our brains our pattern recognition systems so we we use them for a very young age to understand the world around us the challenge for me working at the BBC and
• 01:30 - 02:00 working with the topic of the organization is that the higher up you go the more patterns you have and actually the new comes from being able to break those patterns it comes from you being able to look at things in a different way Einstein said that if without being able to change our patterns of thinking how can we solve the problems that we've created with today's patterns of thinking that's the challenge and that's the challenge we
• 02:00 - 02:30 have in every profession we working and whatever you are in the world now the goods this is a good story and the bad ones coming next okay the good story was I got my big break into program development when they asked me to help them with animal programs so wildlife programs at the BBC and they had a kind of slump so program figures were falling and I don't know if you know but obviously for the BBC that's really important animal programs are one of our
• 02:30 - 03:00 kind of unique selling points the things that we pride ourselves on so I was like yeah okay let's do this now I love data who doesn't love data okay I love data because it opens doors that other people don't normally walk through and I did this survey and I was laughed at and the BBC when I did this I ran a survey and I asked people what are your favorite animals and my colleagues are the BBC were like silly but I discovered
• 03:00 - 03:30 something I discovered that women love underwater animals come on girls you love a dolphin don't you yeah starfish yeah seahorses come on I'm going to hit the right one at some point okay now that key point led us to create blue planet do you know I don't know if
• 03:30 - 04:00 you know blue planet but it was like for the BBC it was great because it was the biggest-selling and actually I think it's only just been knocked off the charts top-selling show or series the BBC made so that was great you know I managed to do that so so the reason that works was Pickers normally wildlife programs appeal to men so by bringing in the women we suddenly got a
• 04:00 - 04:30 massive audience so it brought conventions on lots of different ways it boat it broke conventions in the way that actually we had music written for women so you didn't hear the noise the kind of noises of the animals we got so many complaints about that so many complaints and I'll talk about that a little bit more later so it did that and also the whole marketing was geared to women it had their storylines were more answer for more so blue planet did well and what I'd say
• 04:30 - 05:00 is that that was my good story so there's a bad one coming next but in terms of kind of my favorite definition of creativity is buy a coffin Vergara and they say it's the ability to modify self-imposed constraints it's your ability to break patterns so when you're looking at anything any project you're working on any challenge you have think to yourself what do I always do and think think to yourself okay look if you can even list them and think what else
• 05:00 - 05:30 could I do what other door could you open that no one else has been through so I'm now going to move on to my second story which I told you is my bad one so I want you to be kind and not laugh too much okay so this is about people you've noticed why they're three P's aren't you because the first one was about patterns and this one's about people so we know the power of networks has been well-documented we know that the impressionist movement was in part thanks to the kind of the
• 05:30 - 06:00 connections between different artists at that time we know this that Newton's scientific discoveries were helped by discussions with 25 other eminent scientists at the time we even know that the there's been a study that has been made that shows that the top kind of acclaimed twentieth-century musicals on Broadway like like West Side Story came from the interconnections between different social clusters at the time so
• 06:00 - 06:30 networks are important what we also know is that actually it's the size of the network apparently we can only keep in our heads 50 ideas at a time of different people so hue the poop is in your 50 that's one question and we know also it's linked to diversity how diverse is your group all do they all are they all like you and the other areas the quality so those three areas now in terms of patterns I'm sorry in terms of people and I this is Emily I
• 06:30 - 07:00 mean so I'm forgetting it now because I'm worried about telling you this story that's the truth how can I tell them this can I do this at Ted can I really do this I don't eat breasts Linda I'm going to tell you so millennium I was riding the crest of the wave of blue planet there I was you know I was very young and I thought this is great and I got asked to increase audiences to top gear do you guys know top gear right okay now
• 07:00 - 07:30 okay so um I was in a pattern I was in a pulse I'm going to show something that it's going to shock you because I've tried to delete it from every YouTube site I can go to as I was in a pattern and I thought okay here we go male skewed program what do I do I attract women yeah kind of makes sense doesn't it oh dear should we have a look at what it was like
• 07:30 - 08:00 [Music] in tonight's top gear okay now I can relax okay so audiences fell to under three million which was very bad Jeremy Clarkson left for the first time
• 08:00 - 08:30 and one guides got dumped for drink-driving and that had nothing to do with me but I was like oh my goodness I mean how bad is that you know you can't really get worse than that so I licked my wounds and I thought right BBC being the BBC they didn't sack me gave me another chance and I actually decided right I'm gonna listen I'm gonna really listen now and what I did was I took 20 producers and myself and I went to spend a night not myself with lots of
• 08:30 - 09:00 men I mean like that sounds wrong doesn't it I mean I spent it was before I got married though anyway that's an aside but anyway so we all went town we spent a night with a guy and his friends and we went out and we came we came back about week later and there was some amazing stories now remember this is the Millennium so it's not our time now and the guys came back with stories like this that they would do things like dare
• 09:00 - 09:30 themselves to close their eyes for as long as possible on motorways they do they did or turn their lights off in the dark when they're driving on country roads come on there's always one that goes I do that now it was the Millennium and that's why I said that because actually life was was different to the waiters now these guys were a little bit bored you know they wanted a thrill didn't they so it led to one of our
• 09:30 - 10:00 biggest insights and lots a huge range of very successful programmes for men including the relaunch of Top Gear through one insight which was how can we give men a rollercoaster ride on TV that was the insight from that so you know I learnt a very tough lesson that time I mean I did redeem myself to be fair you know we you know it did work out in the end but I learned that I really need to share my ideas with people talk to people listen so it say to you
• 10:00 - 10:30 who is in your network who is in your network how can they help to champion your ideas as well as challenge them and help you develop them and make them successful right so that's my second story so that was the good and the bad this one's the important okay this one's around purpose so my final story centers on purpose now it's very important for many reasons but I'm going to share with
• 10:30 - 11:00 you in a second how the BBC pulled off its biggest ever event at the same time as moving three and a half thousand staff to suffered so that's in the north so we're in London a lot of the news and sports people were in London and they were being asked to move to soften I don't know if any of you know but that wasn't going down well we in the BBC or outside of the BBC so it was very tough call but I'll explain that in a second
• 11:00 - 11:30 so let's talk a little bit about purpose why is it so important the fact is when you guys walk out of here and come up with an idea I want to make it into reality if it truly is different people are going to disagree with you they're going to stop you they're going to say it doesn't fit with our world it's not right it doesn't fit with our patterns so it requires determination and it requires tenacity and I believe and I've seen it working with people now for a long time that if you believe in that
• 11:30 - 12:00 idea if it has purpose and meaning to you then you you know what that is and you can really sort of say what that is and you can share it other people will believe in it too and they'll make it happen and the way we now know that the brain operates to support this and I'll explain just very briefly because I'm not a neuroscientist say that straightaway I'm not but I do love anything through the brain and it works by the brain has three parts working
• 12:00 - 12:30 that's at the same time to switch on the ideas which actually come behind your right temporal lobe from here to switch on this bit requires your salience network which is here too to close to get to to light up when something is emotional and resonates with yous that's the first thing and the second thing is this bit needs to close down the prefrontal cortex is to quieten down so it needs to be the idea needs to be simple firstly and secondly it needs to be relevant or emotional for that to
• 12:30 - 13:00 work so it needs to be simple and emotional and the best example I can show of this and show you in a second was the BBC's coverage of the digital Olympics in 2012 so as I said they were doing two things they were doing the 2012 Olympics and moving people and they came up with an idea which was simple so the idea was we are going to record every sport from every location every day that's a lot
• 13:00 - 13:30 that's a lot of feeling pics and the relevance bit was you can watch it we're going to make sure that our audience can watch it on whatever piece of glass they choose and the reason that was so special I had such meaning those two things in terms of being very simple idea we knew we had to record everything we knew that as staff and producers and it was on every piece of glass was it was that wonderful moment where you had a kind of aligning of the stars you had
• 13:30 - 14:00 a massive event with lots of content and we all had our smartphones and more mobile devices so it was a it was it was a why now so I'd say to you whatever your idea is that you want to have happen and turn into reality why you why should you be doing this and why now I'm going to show the team that it's just going to talk through what that was like for them doing the Olympics short clip
• 14:00 - 14:30 this summer the greatest show on earth arrived in London to every athlete waiting ready prepared to take part in these games welcome to London but to bring the greatest show to the whole of Great Britain we knew we needed one of the greatest broadcasting ideas of all time we decided to show every session of every sport every day we've got 14 hours a day here on BBC 3 16 hours over on BBC
• 14:30 - 15:00 one and to make it available on television radio computers mobile tablets and the latest connected TVs we did it so the entire nation would never have to miss a moment okay we cut it there because I have a got I haven't got rights to show you all the stuff that's after that they joking it's just a safe time okay so what happened after that was we all gave up weekend's we traveled up and down between London and soul foods because we wanted to do it there
• 15:00 - 15:30 was that motivation because it felt like it had real purpose and it was very very very clear so my last point is I'm I hope that when you're faced with turning your ideas into reality and you want to make them happen that you use my a ninja and are successful using my three P's so do remember patterns people and purpose thank you very much you