Saying, Wanting, Trying

Todd Henry [00:00:02]:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Daily Creative Podcast. My name is Todd Henry. Have you ever caught yourself saying one thing, wanting something else entirely, and then trying to build a third thing that matches neither? Well, today I want to talk about why that happens and what we can do about it and how it impacts us as creative pros and as leaders. But first, just a quick note. We are opening a new round of applications for Creative Leader Roundtable. So if you lead a talented, ambitious group of people and you want a community wrestling with the same questions that you are, check us out@creativeleader.net I won't go into a lot of detail, but just check us out, see what we're about, and if it's something that you think you'd be interested in, apply there and learn more about us and let us know what you do, and then we'll have a conversation and see if it could be a good fit for you. So creativeleader.com net now I want to share a framework I've used for years, both to help people reconcile what they're actually trying to do with their life and career, and also to help organizations name a dynamic that I call dissonance.

Todd Henry [00:01:07]:

Dissonance, which I wrote about in the Accidental Creative, is actually pretty simple. We see one thing, but we say another, or we articulate. We're about one thing, but we actually find ourselves doing something entirely different. It's the gap between why we do what we do and what we actually do. So an organization says it's about one thing, and, you know, they maybe etch that in marble on the wall, and everything about it signals that something completely different is what we truly value, what we truly are about. So let's talk about my first encounter with this. I want to give you an example of how this plays out, and then we'll talk about how it applies to our life. One of my first encounters with this was in Nashville in the 1990s.

Todd Henry [00:01:48]:

I was an aspiring songwriter. I spent a lot of time around people who were actually making it, people who were actually writing songs that were on the radio. They were on the road playing big shows. They were actually doing the thing I wanted to do. And one day I asked someone on the business side of the industry a question that had been bugging me. Why do some of the best songs written by some of the most talented people, people in the world never actually make it in the marketplace? Why did they not get exposure? Why can you walk into a random club in Nashville on a Tuesday night and hear something that's better than anything You've heard for years on the radio. And he said, todd, let me walk you through how this actually works. He asked me how people discovered music, and this was long before streaming.

Todd Henry [00:02:35]:

So the honest answer was, well, radio. Radio was the gateway. If you get your song played on the radio, you got discovered. If you got discovered, you sold records, and then you could go out and tour, and you build a fan base. The whole game came down to one question, which is, can you get your song on the radio right? He said, now, why do radio stations play songs? Is it public service? And I'm like, no, of course not. They monetize it. I wouldn't have used that word back then, but they monetize it. They run ads between the songs.

Todd Henry [00:03:02]:

They'll play a couple songs, and then they'll play ads. And that's how they pay the bills. He said, exactly. Now, which songs make them the most money? Is it the best songs, or is it the songs that people keep listening to the longest? And I said, well, of course it's the ones that keep people listening. He said, here's how they figure that out. And then he went on to explain something that I had never heard. He explained that stations would call people on the phone, play them snippets of songs that they were considering as singles or the songs they would release from records, and he would ask them to rate each one on a scale of 1 to 5a, essentially asking, would you keep listening if this came on the radio? And what they found surprised people. Songs that scored straight ones got tossed immediately, obviously, but so did the fives, because the songs that people loved also tended to be polarizing.

Todd Henry [00:03:55]:

The very qualities that made a song someone's favorite also made it someone else's least favorite. What consistently won over time were the threes, or the slightly above threes. They were good enough to hold your attention, but not so distinctive that it risked losing you. So an entire industry, songwriting producing radio programming, Quietly organized around chasing the three. Not the best song, the song that most likely would keep you listening just long enough to sell the next ad. Okay, so here's why I tell you that story. There are three modes we operate when we chase our ambitions, Whether through leadership, through our own work, in our relationships, Whatever it is we lead, our teams, run our organizations. And those three modes don't always agree with one another.

Todd Henry [00:04:48]:

There's saying, there's wanting, and then there's trying. So if you'd asked a musician in the 90s what they were trying to do, and I did this often, here's what they would have told you. They would have said, I want to be a great artist. I want to make music that defines a generation. I want to stand the test of time. They would have told you that they want to be a great artist. That's what they would say. But if you really peeled it back, what many of them actually wanted was something else.

Todd Henry [00:05:20]:

I want to be discovered. I want to be famous. I want people to know my name. That's intent. And it rarely matches the presentation, right? So they say one thing because it sounds like the right thing to say, but they actually want something very different. And then there's this third thing, which is trying. It's what we actually do. It's what proves out our true intentions.

Todd Henry [00:05:43]:

And in this case, what these artists actually tried, in many cases, was to make music just good enough for radio, but not so good that it risked being polarizing. Their actions lined up with their real intent, not their public presentation. Okay, so why does this matter to you? Not because you're trying to get a song on the radio. At least some of you may be, but probably not. It's because the same gap shows up in your organization, with your clients, and in your own leadership. People around you say one thing. They present a version of what they want. That sounds right.

Todd Henry [00:06:16]:

It sounds like the thing that they should say. But what they actually intend is often something very different, something they might not even say out loud, something maybe they're not even being honest with themselves about. And what they actually try to do lines up with that hidden intent, not the polished presentation. So on the surface, everything can look fine. Everyone's nodding along, seemingly aligned. But that's just a presentation. What matters is understanding people's real intent and then watching what they actually try to achieve. Because sometimes that's working against the very mission that everyone claims to share.

Todd Henry [00:06:50]:

The way this plays out is we see somebody doing something, and it doesn't make sense to us because it doesn't line up with what they're saying. Well, their actions, what they're trying to do, is actually bearing out their true intent. Nobody in the story I told you said, I just want to make forgettable music that fills airtime. Nobody presents that to the world. They said, I want to be an artist. But what they intended was fame. And what they tried to build reflected that intent, not the artistry they claimed to want. So here's my challenge for you this week, and I.

Todd Henry [00:07:22]:

I listen. I know this is a very different kind of episode from what we typically do, but it's something that's been on my mind because I'm encountering this in a lot of organizations right now. When it comes to things like how we adopt AI, for example, we might say what we really want is to create an environment where we can be more. We can more efficiently do the human work that we really want to do, the human driven, human infused work. But what is actually happening is we're automating away our intuition, we're automating away our judgment. We're falling into what I call the plateau trap, where we're just getting stuck at a certain level, or we're falling into what I call the proximity trap, or we're standing next to work that we had no part in actually making. So we're saying one thing, but we're wanting another. We're trying a third.

Todd Henry [00:08:11]:

And often that third thing is the attempt to bridge the gap between the first two. Maybe it has nothing to do with either one. Here's what I know. Dissonance never stays hidden. It might for a while, but eventually it reveals itself and it creates problems in our organization. It creates problems around us. And listen, here's the thing. If you're a leader presenting one thing while intending another, the people around you can feel it, even if they can't name it.

Todd Henry [00:08:35]:

And when that gap exists, it puts everyone around you on unstable ground. We've talked about the importance, and I wrote about this in Hurting Tigers of stability and challenge being the two things that ambitious, talented people need from their leaders. And they are in conflict with one another. So a leader living in dissonance can't offer either. So don't aim for the three. Don't build a career, a team, or a life around what's just good enough to avoid friction. Find the courage to close the gap between what you say, what you actually want, and what you're building towards. So all three finally point in the same direction.

Todd Henry [00:09:11]:

I hope this was useful. I encourage you to sit with it this week. Where is what you're presenting, what you're saying, and what you're or what you're wanting and what you're actually trying? Where are those three things in conflict? Where is it creating dissonance in your life, in your work, and in your leadership? Hey, thanks so much for listening as always. If you want our full interviews, bonus content and more, head to DailyCreativePlus.com just enter your name and email and we'll send you a private feed with everything in full. My name is Todd Henry. For more of my books, my speaking, and more visit todhenry. Com until next time. May you be brave, focused and brilliant.

Todd Henry [00:09:45]:

We'll see you then.