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Transcription
Robin Bordaly is introduced as Izzo's dad, and they have a conversation about creativity. Robin is an executive in technology companies and has been a CEO multiple times. He talks about how he feels most creative in the morning and enjoys doing creative thinking outdoors. He also mentions that switching off and doing something else can sometimes lead to creativity. Robin uses creativity in large-scale communication, motivating his team, and encouraging others to be creative. He discusses common misconceptions about creativity in the technology field and emphasizes the importance of collaboration and feedback. He advises his younger self to see creativity in small and frequent ways rather than big impressive moments. He mentions that his audience for creativity includes employees and customers, and their receptivity to creativity may vary. The conversation ends with Robin asking if there are any more questions. Alright, um, could you introduce yourself first, please? Hi, I'm Robin Bordaly. I'm Izzo's dad, and I'm looking forward to this conversation about creativity. Yeah, okay, so I'm gonna ask you a few questions. So maybe a 20 minute interview about who you are and how creativity has shaped your life. So first, what is your occupation? Yeah, so I'm an executive in technology companies. So I've been a CEO three times, and that's what I do. Great. So what jobs have you had, like, in the past, or current day, too? So as I just mentioned, I've been CEO three times of companies at different stages and sides. So I founded a company, so I had one co-founder, so started very small. I've been CEO of a company when it was about 25 people up to about 120 people. So between about a million revenue and 20 million revenue. And then the last company I was CEO of was a company that had over 800 employees globally and over 200 million in revenue. So I've been CEO of different sizes of organizations. Great. Where do you feel most creative? This is pretty open-ended, but yeah. Where? Physically where? Yeah. Oh, that's a great question. I don't think I feel creative necessarily in one particular place. But I think there are three things I think about in terms of creativity. One is I tend to be more creative early in the morning. So if I've got something to create or think about, I like to do it earlier in the day. I just notice I'm better that way. Second is I like to do a lot of creative thinking outdoors, right, not be stuck inside of a room, but be out walking or hiking. I find being out in nature more conducive to my creativity. And then the other thing is actually sort of switching off, like going and maybe exercising or doing something else, trying to switch off your brain, which is sometimes when creativity will happen. It's almost like a background process while you're doing something else. What are some ways you use creativity on a daily basis? On a daily basis? That's an interesting question. Do I use creativity on a daily basis? I think there are sort of a couple of areas, maybe even sort of three areas where I try and use sort of creativity most often. It might not be on a daily basis, but it's frequent when I'm running an organization. The first is large-scale communication. So one of the roles as a CEO is you're often communicating in front of large groups. It could be 20 people, 200 people, 800 people, the whole company. And it could be across multiple time zones and multiple geographies. So one of the areas I always try and use creativity is in my communication. And that might be visually, like what are interesting images to grab people's attention. It might be in the specific language or choice of words I use. Or it might be in trying to make the presentation interactive. So that's one big area. The second is trying to sort of motivate and challenge my senior leadership team. So people react to different types of environment, different types of challenges. So constantly trying to think about something new that will actually bring the best out of an individual. And then the last is to actually try to help other people be creative. So try to encourage other people to be bold and creative. Often in sort of the products there, when you're trying to think about building a new product, how do you encourage other people to be creative? So it's not actually being creative myself, but how do I encourage them to be creative? Thanks for answering that one. That was hard. This one's probably good because, or I feel good, like relates kind of. What are some common misconceptions like such, stereotypes about your field and like related to like creativity? Do you think? That's a great question. Yeah. So you kind of work in like AI, right? Yeah, yeah. So I think maybe one misconception might be that creativity is not needed inside of a technology company. It's more about structure and organization and following the rules or following protocols. Creativity is definitely needed in terms of imagining and building new products. But I think the other misconception is creativity is sometimes thought of as a very pure process where it's sort of one person by themselves having a great creative thought. The best creativity I've seen is where there are really strong feedback loops and you have an idea, you test an idea and you get feedback and then that actually feeds into more creativity. So I think the other one is that creativity shouldn't be open to feedback, right? So that it suffers from feedback. A little bit like the artist just wanting to make a picture on their own and not have feedback on it, just be pure. But I think certainly in the technology world, feedback is really important into the creative process. Okay. How do you initiate creativity? Like how do you look for ideas when you don't have any or like when you're starting from scratch? I normally try and have one idea and then get lots of early feedback on it. So I think it's really hard when you've just got a blank page or a blank slate and you've got nothing. So just get an idea down on paper and then try and flesh it out and then get feedback on it. And then that might spark, oh, I've got a different version of this or no, the direction of the game is wrong and you need to pursue another. So you need to get something down on paper to get feedback on, but will actually then give creativity. So I get a lot of my creativity from feedback from other people. So I don't view creativity as sort of an isolated, separated process. It's not one person sitting, thinking, having thoughts. It's sort of rapid feedback loops. Yeah. And it doesn't matter if the first idea is sort of good or bad. Because I think sometimes a lot of people are just like, I don't want to show anything. The important thing is to get the feedback and that will get the creative juices flowing. Yeah, so this is talking about collaboration and feedback. Do you think collaboration is important for success, especially surrounding creativity? Yes. I think for the vast majority of people, you will only be successful as to how well you bring other people along, not you as an individual. I think in sort of what we see in the media, a lot of people that are held up as successful, let's say they're artists or they're athletes, sometimes you look at them as individual. It's like, oh, well, that's because of their talent. It's them as an individual. I think there are roles in society like that, but they're the exception rather than the rule. For 99.9% of people, you will be successful based on how well you can collaborate and help a team perform rather than you as an individual perform. Yeah. Do you have any favorite people you've collaborated with or stories about collaboration and creativity? Interesting stories. I think the thing – I don't have – let me think about that. I've collaborated with so many people, it's hard to pick out one or two, but I think what I would pull out is what have I learned from those collaborations, which is collaboration and creativity can come from anywhere. It's not necessarily from the, quote, smartest people. A comment someone makes, a piece of feedback someone gives, a reaction that someone shares can spark a creative thought. So, yeah, I haven't got a story about a particular individual other than you should talk to a large, broad cross-section of people with different perspectives, different roles. Especially if you're thinking about an organization, often a lot of great ideas come from people that are hierarchically near the bottom of that organization, sort of from a reporting perspective. But from a creativity perspective, they'll often have a lot of – listening to them is a great source of initial creativity. Gotcha, gotcha. Is there any advice you'd give your younger self? A lot, but just about creativity. Yeah, related to your creative process. Yeah, I would – don't think of creativity in the sort of classic, traditional sense of some amazing invention or some piece of art, right? I think creativity can happen in lots of small and more frequent ways rather than these sort of big, bad, impressive moments, right? When people think of creativity, they often think of a big invention like the iPhone, right? Or they think of a wonderful piece of art like Leonardo da Vinci's Statue of David or something, right? They're thinking about the Mona Lisa, right? Some impressive piece of art, right? Whereas creativity can happen in lots of small ways, you know, sort of on a more frequent basis. So that's probably what I would – Do you say you have like an audience related to creativity or is it all for yourself? No, I think that in my role as a CEO of an organization, I broadly have two audiences. The first is the employees within the organization and then the second is the customers of that organization. And their receptivity to creativity may differ between those audiences as well. So I do think about the audiences. For some, they want to be much more pragmatic. I don't want to be involved in an idea that it feels very raw, half-baked, early, right? I want it to have more pragmatism in it, more practicality. So yeah, I do think those are the two main audiences. And I think about sort of receptivity to participating in a creative process, right? Not everyone's the same. Do you have maybe one more question? I'm going to be around for a minute, so I think like fishing would be pretty good. Or do you have any questions like for me, maybe? You don't have to, but – No, that's okay. That's okay. Do you – Do you – Do you see – Did you think of – Are you surprised by how I use creativity at work, or do you think of me as a creative person? Like a little bit. What are examples of creativity you've seen? Within you? Yeah, just within the family. You're always making those quizzes and stuff, and you're pretty creative with your movie choices. But I never thought of – Well, actually, your job at Figure 8 – Well, I don't really know too much about what you do at work. But no, I think the quiz is a good example, right? We've tried to – Because our family is a first-generation American family, right? Nomi and I were born in the UK, and we have these holidays that we didn't necessarily know much about. That was my – It's like, okay, well, how can I try and make these more fun and more – Sort of combine sort of fun with some learning, right, about these holidays as well. So you're right, the quizzes are – That's what I was talking earlier on about, trying to get feedback loops and trying to make things interactive. Yeah, interactive is a big one. Okay, I think we're going to end that here, unless you have any final comments. No, no, thanks for using me as a guinea pig. Yeah, thanks, Daddy. You're welcome.
