Own Your Six Square Feet

Todd Henry [00:00:02]:

Hey friends, welcome to Daily Creative. My name is Todd Henry. I am your host. In 2005, Teruo Yabe was handed one of the least enviable jobs in Japan. He was asked to turn around the company responsible for cleaning the bullet trains at Tokyo Station. In short, morale was terrible, turnover was high, and as a result, complaints were constant. The work itself was considered dirty, dangerous, and frankly, a dead-end job. No one wanted to do it.

Todd Henry [00:00:32]:

His predecessors had tried all of the obvious things like more supervision, more inspections, and more checklists, but every one of those attempts just made the situation worse. It was terrible and complaints were increasing exponentially. But Yabe went a different direction. He stopped treating the cleaners as invisible labor and started treating them as the people responsible for a passenger's entire experience on the train. Each crew member owned one car, roughly 100 seats, with about 7 minutes to turn it around before the next departure. That's it. One car, 7 minutes. It's your car.

Todd Henry [00:01:09]:

The thing that changed was who owned it, who owned the experience. Incredibly, the previously disengaged crews began proposing their own improvements. They redesigned their own uniforms. They shaped the trash bins for a new line. They even came up with an idea for a nursery area at Tokyo Station. Passengers who began watching the newly engaged cleaners work, they started picking up after themselves. It was contagious. Today, the cleaning turnaround on the train is known as the 7-minute miracle, and rail operators fly in from around the world to study it.

Todd Henry [00:01:45]:

It truly is remarkable what has happened. Now listen, nobody on that crew was handed a bigger job. Nobody said, hey, all of a sudden now you are VP of Cleaning or something. Instead, people were given permission to fully own the job they already had. Many creative pros I meet are waiting. They're waiting for a better brief or for a client who listens or for a title that finally makes their opinion count. In the meantime, there is a small patch of ground that is unambiguously theirs. And frankly, it often goes Untended.

Todd Henry [00:02:24]:

Call it your 6 square feet, the 6 square feet around you. It's the part of the work that no one else can do for you and no one else can take. It's things like the quality of your thinking or the questions that you ask before you start. It's the thing that you refuse to ship because you know, it just, it's not right yet. It's the relationship you refuse to let wither just because there's tension. It's owning the things around you, not the things out of your control, but the things within your sphere of influence. In my book, The Brave Habit, I argued that bravery is not a personality trait. It's not something people are just born with.

Todd Henry [00:03:01]:

It's a practice and it shows up whenever 2 things are present at once. The first is an optimistic vision of a better possible future. The second is a sense of agency to bring that future about. So we need a vision of how things could be better, an optimistic vision versus a pessimistic vision. And we need to believe that we have agency to help bring it about. We may not be able to fully bring it about, but we can contribute to it. Vision without agency is just wishing. Agency without vision is just pointless motion.

Todd Henry [00:03:35]:

Now, most creative pros aren't short on vision. I meet a lot of incredibly optimistic visionaries in my work. What often erodes is agency, and it erodes quietly. We think, well, that's not my call, or that's not my department, or they'll never approve that, or they'd never go for that, or that client will always fill in the blank. That voice sounds reasonable, which is precisely why it always wins. Fear almost always comes disguised as wisdom. And if you lead other people, the story lands a little differently, right? Yabe's real contribution wasn't a speech about taking pride in your work. He didn't stand up and tell everyone, you need to take more pride in your work.

Todd Henry [00:04:19]:

Instead, he gave people genuine authority over their small piece of the operation. He gave them ownership and then he honored what they did with it. He let them make decisions. He let them speak up about how the experience could be better. He let them own the entire experience, not just cleaning up after people. Ask yourself what you're doing that quietly signals to your team That their 6 square feet actually belong to them? Are you reinforcing optimistic vision for them? Are you speaking agency into them? Are you helping them see how they can contribute to the bigger picture? Listen, people don't act bravely just because a leader asks them to. They act bravely because they believe that their small action could actually matter. It could move things forward toward a vision that matters deeply To them.

Todd Henry [00:05:13]:

They act bravely. They do brave work. They contribute fiercely. They put emotional labor into the work when they believe in something bigger than themselves. And when they believe that their small action, their risk, their act of bravery could move things toward that vision. So here's my challenge to you. Start where you actually stand. Defend it, improve it, take responsibility for what happens there.

Todd Henry [00:05:41]:

Take responsibility for your process. Know what you do when you're actually working and then do it to the best of your ability. 7 minutes in one train car turned out to be enough to change an entire industry. You can do the same. I believe it. So own your 6 square feet. Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you'd like more of these podcasts, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

Todd Henry [00:06:10]:

I put them out every week. I've been doing so for 20 years. If you'd like all of our full interviews, we often have interviews on the show. You can get them absolutely free at dailycreativeplus.com. It's free. Just enter your name and email address. We'll send you a private feed to get all of the interviews and bonus content absolutely free. My name is Todd Henry.

Todd Henry [00:06:28]:

If you want info about my books or my speaking events, I speak to dozens of events every single year. Would love to have you check that out at toddhenry.com. Until next time, may you be brave, focused, and brilliant. We'll see you then.