Intentional or not, in your life are four different areas of mentorship.

1. Those you learn from (input)
2. And those who you teach (output)
3. Those you get along with (feedback)
4. And those who you don’t (challenge)

It’s not uncommon to complain that we have nobody to teach us, be lethargic about teaching others, run from relationships that are challenging, and to simply surround ourselves with those who will pat us on the back.

But a healthy “mentorship circle” needs to be populated in each area. Like so:

1. Mentors (input): Maybe this is an older, wiser fellow who takes time to show you new things. Or perhaps it’s a book or a podcast. The point is to continually look to outside sources for wisdom. Despite your narcissistic perception that you do in fact know everything, the truth is you don’t.

2. Mentorees (output): Having an outlet to share your own wisdom with others is needed both for your sake and theirs. You’re not too young to mentor others, regardless of the medium.

3. Peers (feedback): Having friends and peers whom you see eye-to-eye with will help you overcome tough times and roadblocks in life. They are there to bounce ideas off of, give input, and help. Also, you are there for them — a good friend and a good peer is someone that will encourage you when you’re doing well and tell you when you’re doing wrong.

A dear friend of mine once said: “You’re not truly my friend until you’ve corrected me.”

1. Peers (challenges): Learn how to get the most possible growth in the midst of your difficult relationships and situations. It’s boring to alway have someone patting us on the back and telling us how awesome we are. We need adversaries, hurdles, and challenges to keep us moving and growing.

This spring will mark the two-year anniversary of my tenure as the director of marketing for the International House of Prayer. And this post is my way of affirming that I think it’s okay to write about things in which I am not a thought leader.

It has been two years since I worked as a full-time designer. Which means I’ve had two years of board meetings instead of creative meetings; two years of creating reports instead of mock-ups; and two years of hiring, budgeting, and business planning.

And it has been a great two years. And, it has been a horrible two years.

I adore my job. It gives me plenty of opportunity to work hard with lots of fantastic, clever, and fun people. Every day presents a new challenge which I’m usually up for. I love my responsibilities because I think I’m good at them. And I even love the hurdles and frustrations I face regularly because, thanks to them, I seem to be learning something new all the time.

This morning, I woke up thinking that if something is worth doing it’s worth doing poorly. Which at first seems to be completely opposite of what we always hear: “If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.” But I think both are true and should actually be considered together. That anything you do you should do the best you can, but even if you don’t have it perfected before you start, for goodness sake, man, still start.

My uncertainties, struggles, and discoveries as the director of a marketing and creative team are something I’d very much like to talk about more here on shawnblanc.net, but I honestly don’t know where to begin.

I started to briefly in “Marketing Shoes” and in my responses to Cameron Moll’s questions on leading an in-house design team. And posting my 1:1 form was another attempt at it.

But talking about management, leadership, marketing strategy, and creative solutions from a corporate-feeling, non-profit organization’s standpoint is something I don’t feel very smart in. (And I generally prefer to only talk about things which I feel very smart in.)

The truth is I am learning every single day — as if I’m living on the cusp of where my education meets my responsibilities, and each day I just barely learn what I need for that day’s work. And I’m not learning as much about typography, layout design, or Photoshop as much as I am about how to give a short and sweet PowerPoint presentation, or how to keep my staff in the creative zone, or how to get board-level approval on a new homepage design.

And so there are times when I hope to write about more than just design or software or other nerdy things. Such as marketing, leading, managing, and creative solutions that don’t involve Adobe Creative Suite. I hope it not only helps me learn more, but that it also gives you permission to write about the things you’re not an expert in, either.

For the past 90 days I have been learning to tie the laces in my new shoes.

Just shy of two years ago I began doing freelance design work for our Church in my spare time. Until last fall, when I was hired on as a full-time designer (read: less pay per job, but more jobs). Then, last April, I was asked to take over and be the new Head Cheese of the Marketing Department.

For starters, I don’t like the name “Marketing Department”. It feels like an outdated name, still given to describe broken and uninventive design teams all across the country.

I think “Invitation Department” would be more fitting, but truth be told, I don’t very much like the word “department”. It sounds too corporate and hemmed in for the work and mission we have before us.

Perhaps we are the Marketing Department according to the Org Chart, but if you were to hang out in our office for a few days you would see we don’t operate like a department; rather, a team.

So Invitation Team? Um, no.

Creative Ingenuity and Design Division? Closer. But still no.

My mind is blank. Suggestions are welcome. Moving on now…

There are a lot of other issues I’ve had to stare at, beyond just who we are. As a designer I’m used to problem solving; that’s much of what design is: problem solving. But as head of design and marketing, I have a much different problem to solve.

Instead of figuring out how to take my client’s needs and turn them into graphical solutions built on scratch paper and Photoshop art-boards, I am figuring out how to take a national ministry’s needs and turn them into solutions built on workflow, teamwork, creativity, productivity and budgets.

Hold on, though…

…because even before that happens; before I can solve any solutions — before we can soar as a design and advertising team — I have to first fix the department.

Right now we are broken. We are an 8-ounce, garage-sale-find, coffee mug being asked to hold 5 gallons of Aquafina. We need to grow. We need to scale; and we cannot lose one ounce of our strength or surrender one drop of quality in the process.

Therefore I have been having near-daily conversations with my white board. I have been attempting to put my thoughts into colored scribbles, and from there trying to find (and give) clarity through motivational speeches (and more white board scribbling) at our staff meetings.

Currently our problem with growth isn’t so much man-power, as it is infrastructure, work-flow and focus in the office.

If the problem was man-power it would be a simple solution: hire more designers. But I already have the designers. The solution I need won’t be found through addition.

I believe the human sprit wants – and even needs – to be challenged and given hard-to-reach goals. I also believe that put in the wrong environment day after day, that same human spirit will forget about its ability to imagine and grow.

How then does an office draw the line between focusing on the task at hand, and friendship amongst co-workers? How do you weigh the balance of creativity and productivity while on the clock?

How do you uphold strong expectations and enhance the creative process without micro-managing?

Apple’s corporate environment has one key to the answer. During my interview with Daniel Jalkut a few months ago he said something that I have thought about near daily ever since:

…when I look at software, I look at it through this ambitious, striving for perfection type of lens that I picked up from Apple. And I hasten to add that I don’t think my products are by any means perfect. It’s the thing about perfection. It’s really hard, probably impossible. But what Apple does is strive for it anyway, even if it’s impossible. I came to respect that attitude very much, to the point that I can no longer relate to people who don’t share that view.

Apple has established a culture in their office of hard work and pursuit of excellence. How did they get there?

A culture like that doesn’t emerge from rules and motivational phrases printed out and posted in the bathroom. It comes about by example. It has to.

Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great, outlines that the first building block for breakthrough and momentum in a company is what he calls “Level 5 Leadership”.

That doesn’t just mean the boss is really smart and organized. It means that sprinkled all throughout the company are “the right people”. Folks that are motivated, lead by example, and want to grow.

Having the right person doing the right job is contagious. The wrong people will either rise to excellence and become the right people or else they will quit.

The good news for me is that my office was already mostly full of the right people; they just didn’t know it. Which is why I have spent the last 90 days trying to empower and embolden my “right people”, so they and I can lead the rest of the team by example.

What is the best way to empower someone? With boundaries.

Tell them what their job is, hold them accountable to it, and don’t let emotion get in the way. After a few awkward bumps they will become a better employee and a happier person.

Happy people do amazing work. Empowered people own their job. Emboldened people take initiatives and find new answers. And with a team like that, problems stop being problems and they start being challenges waiting to be annihilated.