Anne Jacoby

Anne Jacoby has spent over 15 years cultivating creativity in business. In her role as founder of Spring Street Solutions, Anne partners with leading companies to build innovative, connected and inclusive workplace cultures, offering custom workshops, executive coaching, business culture strategy and learning program development. She previously served as employee #7 at Axiom, a global leader in on-demand legal talent, which she helped launch globally across 14 offices. She has also served as VP of Learning, Development and Culture at RGP, a global consulting firm with 5,000+ professionals. Before her transition to the corporate world, Anne spent 15 years as a professional singer, actor, dancer and voice-over artist, developing a healthy obsession with storytelling.

Anne's Website

@annejacoby.author on Instagram

Today, we ignite and unlock your own creativity, but also the high-performance culture, happiness of your own teams inside and out, clients, the whole sort of stakeholders.  In today’s episode, we chat with Anne Jacoby

Anne is a professional keynote speaker,  author, entrepreneur, and Founder + CEO of The Spring Street Solutions Company. She’s on a mission to cultivate creativity at work, through corporate culture strategy, custom workshops, and leadership programs.   

Anne grew up in the theater. She was a performing artist, a singer, an actor, a dancer, prior to getting into business.  She went to Northwestern University to study theater as she was determined to create a career out of the performing arts. When she went into business, she thought that her creative background was actually a liability she tried to hide it.  Later, she went to business school, where she realized creativity at work is essential.

Through her company, she helps leaders and individuals build creative cultures to thrive in this new world of work.  

When she’s working with companies or clients, she starts by finding out what the organizational purpose is, the why behind why your company exists, and what you're aiming to do in the world.  Everyone is creative at work, everyone has the opportunity to make incremental, positive change, to reinvent that, is essential in business across the organization. Thinking that only the marketing department is creative, is the kind of thinking that's blocking a lot of ingenuity and innovation that can rise within all parts of your company. 

Some steps you can take in your company or even personally if you want to implement something new and different can include:

• Psychological safety and really getting a good read on whether your team members feel comfortable sharing their ideas.
• Forming those human connections across our organization.
• Belonging is a big lever for organizations to build community, to drive up employee satisfaction, understanding if people feel like they belong and, feel included.

With the new way of work, it's now an opportunity for leaders to use this as not a liability but as a strength and a way to differentiate themselves and their organizational culture.  

Research done on creativity and the benefits in the workplace include, increased productivity and increased feelings of belonging & improving the feedback loop which lets leaders understand what people are craving, what people want out of their work experience.

For individuals trying to increase their creativity, they should build a connection with their audience, with the person that is consuming your art. It's about building that connection to really listen and to connect the dots.  keep at it, keep refining, keep getting that feedback from whoever the audience is, keep reinventing. 

In conclusion, from working with leaders across many different companies, there's a change in leadership, they are starting to recognize what employees want out of their work experience and they're open to change, while now prioritizing employee wellbeing. 

Copyright 2024 Mark Stinson

auto-generated transcript:

Well, welcome back friends to our podcast, unlocking your world of creativity. And if there were a way for you to ignite and unlock your own creativity, but also the high-performance culture, happiness of your own teams inside and out, clients, the whole sort of stakeholders. Well, you'd wanna know about that. And so today our guest is Anne Jacoby and we're gonna talk about spurring creativity, cultivating that at work, and I'm sure it spills over into life in general. Doesn't it Anne, welcome to the program.

It absolutely does. It's great to be here, Mark. Thanks so much.

Well, just, we were laughing as we turned on the record button here and so full of creative energy right now, we're like jumping off the screen of zoom we're popping out of the microphone, you know, and what, what is your own, I guess, source of energy and creativity, you know, you've gotta bring it to work every day. It's not just all fun and games. You gotta make clients happy and you gotta keep your teams happy. What is your sorts of inspiration?

Oh, for sure. Well, I mean, I think, I get my creative juices from a lot of different things. I think tapping into curiosity is huge. I love to learn. So I'm always looking for new things to kind of grab onto, learn about people, to connect with like yourself. And that really does fuel my creative energy. And my engine,

There you go. Well by way of title, and work background, Anne is the CEO and founder and entrepreneur, and she's a public speaker and author, her company is spring street solutions and you've really dedicated this whole company to creativity.

I have. Yeah, it's, it's been a big part of my life journey Mark, and probably worth winding, rewinding a little bit, and talking about my creative roots. So I grew up in the theater. I was a performing artist prior to business and was a singer, actor, dancer, went to the LA county high school for the arts, went to Northwestern to study theater. I really thought I would create a career out of the performing arts. And then I made a huge pivot to business and I thought that my creative background was actually a liability. I kind of tried to hide it. Because here I was talking to general counsel and business leaders and I didn't really have a business background. I later went to business school, but what I found in my big aha moment was creativity at work is essential. When you're building a business, you have to tap into creativity. And so now I help other organizations do that

Well, and the buzzword these days is storytelling. Whether it's internally with your teens or externally with your brand, you were doing storytelling before. I think it was a buzzword

That's right. Storytelling is huge. And I couldn't agree more. I think a lot of the time when I work with clients, we start with that organizational purpose, that story. The why behind why your company exists, what are you aiming to do in the world? And so I think starting there is a great way to start the creative culture that I talk a lot about.

Well, and you've gotta hear, I was wondering what you say from clients, who might say, well, you know, we have a creative department, so we'll let those people, or we have the innovation, we have the R&D people, the rest of us are trying to get the work done. What is all these fun and games?

Oh my gosh. You're, absolutely right. I do hear that a lot. And I think obviously all of us are creative. Accountants lawyers, anyone can be a creative person and bring new ideas. And I think it's that mindset that we all have the opportunity to make incremental, positive change, to reinvent that is so essential in business across the organization. So you're absolutely right. Kind of carving it away. Hey, marketing handles are creative, that's it? Those are the creatives. That kind of thinking is really blocking a lot of ingenuity and innovation that can rise within your company at all, all parts of it.

Well, let's try to drill down into some specifics if we could. Now you've just published a creativity culture guide which, I mean, that's just the kind of roadmap most of us need to unfold and say, okay, turn by turn directions. How do I do this thing? What have you found works for you?

Yeah, well, the guide is interesting because as I coach clients, as I work with them on either workshops or culture strategy, I kept hearing, well, gosh, how do I do this myself? Right? What are the tools? What's the roadmap? And so this is really my attempt to create some sort of chapter guide. Chapter by chapter guide to think about things like purpose and values, how do we bring values to life? What are those behaviors look like? But then also from a business operational standpoint, what are our norms within the company? What do we cover in meetings? How do we develop more creativity to inspire that as you mentioned, not just within the marketing team, but really across all of our functions? And so that's what the guide helps to do is to activate all of those creative muscles that should exist across the team.

So if I was leading a team and I said, we've gotta do something give us one or two steps that we could take away from this discussion and say, we really want to implement so new and different. How could we get started?

Yeah. A big thing is a psychological safety and really getting a good read on whether your team members feel comfortable sharing their ideas. A lot of times there's a culture of fear and people are so worried about making a mistake that they're not even kind of bringing their ideas to the table. And so I think that's a really important first step for any organization to think, okay, we want, a well-connected company. Do people feel safe? So that psychological safety I think is kind of table stakes. I think another thing is just connection. Are we forming those human connections across our organization? Do I really feel inspired by my colleagues? And then finally belonging. Belonging is a really big lever for organizations to build community, to drive up employee satisfaction. And so understanding if people feel like they belong and, feel included is another big lever.

So I think Anne, I've seen in some of your blogs and articles, this new world of work. And I think if people only read the last couple of, postings or only listened to your last couple of podcasts, they would think, oh, well she riding the wave of this new world of work, but you didn't invent this a year and a half ago, did you?

No, this has been a long time coming. And I think, we can look at all the trends of not only the pandemic changing the way in which we work, the, when, where, and how that we work, but you, you see, we've got five generations in the workplace Korn ferry released data that says if we don't solve for this talent drain by the year 2030, 85 million jobs could go unfilled. I mean, there's a real gap in our talent market. And I think the solution to that is establishing a culture where people really do feel they can create and they can bring their creative ideas to work and they feel valued. So I think this is a long time coming. You're absolutely right. It's not, and maybe the pandemic was a catalyst, but I think we've seen a lot of these converging trends happening for a while.

Yeah. I guess I'll pick up on that and wonder out loud. When we say the new world of work, I think if people think, we mean working on zoom or working remotely, or smaller teams, or global teams that there's so much more to it that I think you, you were describing the what and the how of the work, not the why and the purpose and so forth.

Absolutely. Yeah. I do think people are, are latching their heads a bit especially as we navigate our team's gonna be distributed for much longer than we expected? Are most companies gonna be going hybrid? What does that look like and how do we preserve and strengthen our culture in these times and really use it to our advantage? And I think that's the opportunity for leaders nowadays is to use this as not a liability again, but really as a strength and a way to differentiate yourselves as organizational culture. It's an exciting time.

Yeah, certainly. And you wonder if, we always kind of play on the right side of the brain with us creative types, but there's gotta be some data there's gotta be the return on investment of creativity. What have you seen with you and your clients?

Yeah. Thankfully there has been a lot of great research BetterUp labs has done a ton of research on creativity and the benefits in the workplace. And it does impact things like productivity and organizational mattering and belonging. A lot of these things that companies are desperate to figure out and creativity can really be again, this powerful tool to activate a lot of those good things. So I think the proof is in the data thankfully too, back it up. But it takes a lot of hard work and continuous listening. I think that's another, thing that my companies are, are trying to figure out is how do we create this feedback loop? So we're really hearing, not just top-down strategies, but really hearing from the ground up, what people are craving, what people want out of their work experience.

Well, we skipped by part of your, past bio and I didn't want to go too far because so many of our listeners are at the theater. You know, they're the singer-songwriter sitting on a stool, trying to make a connection with the audience or they are the voiceover we've, had 'em all on this program. And I know that they're listening. What were some of the lessons learned? Because a lot of people would look at where you are now and say, oh, great, successful entrepreneur CEO. But what about me back here, holding the microphone in front of I guess a crowd that's not laughing?

Right. Yeah, no, I hear you and I have so many friends who are in the Broadway community and who have really suffered during this time. Yes. Specifically, during the pandemic, I think all of us, whether you sit in a company, whether you're a singer-songwriter, a filmmake,r all of us have that opportunity to tell a story and to really use a story as a channel to communicate a message. And so I think, to your earlier point, Mark bringing that storytelling into the business environment, you as a creator have tools, you have, real assets that companies are desiring right now. So if you ever wanna make a pivot to more of a corporate life, you have so many skills and talents that are needed right now. And, could be used to your advantage if that's a path you wanna pursue. Yeah.

Well, let's imagine we're having coffee with some of those people right now and they go, oh, I don't know what you mean. Tools? What tools could I offer a company?

Yeah. I mean, I think it comes down to connection and to build a connection with your audience, with the person that is consuming your art or your creative output it's about building that connection to really listen and to connect the dots. And I think that's what creators do. We brainstorm, we build connections and then ultimately we decide, Hey, I'm gonna move forward with this. And then I'm gonna get feedback and I'm gonna reengineer it. So I think it is a continuous process. We're all creating all the time. So it's kind of step by step, just keep at it, keep refining, keep getting that feedback from whoever the audience is. And then keep reinventing. That's what we do.

Well, you've given us real encouragement beyond just the dose of energy and creativity yourself. But I think a lot of people are wondering these days, aren't the company executives, worried more about the labor shortage and aren't, they worried more, of course, the health of their employees and so forth and trying to get new clients themselves. Is it nice to have a creative consultant come in and kind of give us some of this, but you're kind of giving us the no, it's really essential side of the story.

Yeah. I do think, and whether it's me or someone else, I think having an outside perspective who can pull together all of the pieces of what's going on, be that objective eye to say, "huh, this is really what I'm hearing." Sometimes when you're within an organization, you get a little blinded. I've been there myself, I've been in house and you don't really see all those blind spots. And so having someone come in really zoom out a bit and help you see things that maybe you can't see from the inside can be really valuable. But I think the culture, in general, is going to be a big focus in 22 and beyond. I think people are trying to figure out how do we differentiate ourselves from all the other choices that people have because the talent market is so competitive, right now that's gotta be the main focus. And I think building a culture that supports creative ideas, creative thinking that energizes people motivates them is a real attraction in these times.

Yeah. I guess if it gives somebody, that's the company I wanna work for number one, and that's the company I want to go to work for, go into work, whether it's signing on every morning or going into the office.

Exactly. Yeah. And that,

Have you seen, have you seen a difference in the, I'll say receptivity or at least the implementation of some of these concepts, whether they be a smaller company, you know, the startup culture, they seem to be more nimble versus maybe the fortune 500, the large ink, 5,000 kinds of a company. Do you see differences?

Yeah. Well, I work across the board, so I work with startups to Fortune 100s and I will say my big observation is leadership is changing. They are starting to recognize what employees want out of their work experience. And they're open to change, which is of course, very energizing and exciting to see that kind of change in receptivity. You know, I'll give you a tangible example of one of my clients where they're actually using wellbeing as a quantifiable score, that they are tracking over time. And they're implementing changes to build that into their business strategy. And five years ago, that would be highly unusual, but based on where we are and based on how important wellbeing is I think we're starting to see these shifts where that's getting prioritized. I think that's a really positive thing for the workforce.

And I was wondering also a lot of your business and your work is based on these sort of group workshops, some interactivity team play. How has that changed and evolved in our zoom-focused world?

Well, there's been a lot of,

I know I miss traveling out to the hotel conference room to have a workshop.

Absolutely. My friend. I know those are great. And I, I do miss the energy of a room full of people. It's undeniable, but I think what's exciting is technology is enabling us to in some ways be even more inclusive. So I'll give you an example. One of my clients has a Google sheet where ideas are filled in anonymously. And so there's no bias in terms of, oh, well, my boss said this, I'm gonna agree with it. Really, the ideas are assessed in isolation and not with a personal attribution. And I think that that's really powerful to bring more people to the table to bring really the best ideas to the forefront. And then to also encourage more honesty, more, "Hey, this isn't working for me, and let me tell you why." So I think there are a lot of great things that come out of this sort of environment where we can bring in different kinds of voices and all get better.

Well, diversity and inclusion is certainly at the front of a lot of our minds right now, but more than an HR issue, let's think of it as a creative opportunity that if you're not bringing in those diverse voices and those, inclusive thoughts, I love the idea of this kind of anonymity, because then the old judgments, you know, it's like, well, they're a junior person, or they came from this department or they came from this country or wherever, all of a sudden that kind of goes down, doesn't it?

That's exactly right. Yeah. It's a really nice equalizer for zoom and we're all reduced to these little boxes on our screens.

Well, we couldn't be more equal now. Everybody's got your two by two right there. That's right. I love that. Well, Anne, the thinking of connections then, are you looking to make any new connections, as we're moving through 2022 what's ahead for you, what kind of people do you want to team up with and who knows? They may be listening to the show.

I love to collaborate. So please do contact me. I respond to everyone. I just one of the things...

I am proof of that people. I reached out, she said, yes,

That's right. No, I think we get our best ideas when we open it up when we connect with people who are from us who have different experiences. So again, going back to the growth mindset and learning. I learn by connecting and so any kind of social connection understanding what people are passionate about in their work lives, in their, hobbies. I'm, I'm a sponge. So I really do get a lot of energy from that.

Fantastic. Well, where's the best place we can find you and connect with you and learn about your work.

Yeah. Feel free to check me out on Annejacoby.com on LinkedIn Anne Jacoby, and also springstreetco.com. And that's where my creativity culture guide is.

Oh, okay. And that's where we can get that and download that

Exactly.

Oh, fantastic. Well, listeners, I hope you've enjoyed this conversation. My creativity has been elevated just in the last few minutes and Anne, I really appreciate you coming on the show.

Thanks so much for having me, Mark. It was a blast.

My guest has been Anne Jacoby. She's an entrepreneur, author, public speaker, and CEO of a great company called spring street solutions. And she's dedicated to really elevating and cultivating that creativity at work. And as you can see that all the issues from home and family, bringing them to work only helps bring more ideas to the table and the more we can bring all that experience to work the better. Right Anne?

Absolutely.

Well, great. We'll come back again, listeners. Next time we'll continue our around-the-world journey. We've stamped our passport in LA today, but we'll continue our around-the-world journey. We've got guests lined up from all over Europe, South America, and even Asia. So we'll look for creative practitioners who can stimulate our creative thinking and help us unlock our world of creativity. We'll see you next time.