How Non-business, Creative Skills and Experience Can Help With Leadership

For a long time, I considered the years I spent as a student participating in a popular comedy TV show as wasted time. Although I was working, I couldn't pursue a serious career because my passion for comedy and humor consumed a lot of time and energy. My classmates moved forward in business while I traveled for shoots and performances.

Now, looking back, I can say that my career success in the tech sector is largely influenced by the unconventional experience I gained in a creative collective. Let me try to explain what KVN (the name of the show where comedy teams compete) taught me and how my non-business experience helps me in business.

Living "in a team and with a team" (the concept of a collective)

It may sound cliché, but the ability to live and get along in a team, understand its culture, respect the personal boundaries of its members, and maintain the necessary distance is extremely important for effective leadership.

This is especially true in tech companies where a large portion of people are often true introverts. They are brilliant, professional, and talented individuals who simply don't enjoy socialising. I have been told many times that I have achieved significant success in managing challenging teams, and at some point, I realised that I was applying the experience I gained during… tours. Spending several weeks together with the folks in the same space, creating, rehearsing, refining, and performing (and so on in a loop), you quickly learn how to be part of a collective and get along with different people. This skill and knowledge let me to get a long with a variety of colleagues quickly and efficiently.

Understanding the concept of a real deadline

Each of us has probably missed a work deadline at some point. I don't believe it has never happened to you. Now imagine that in the case of a comedy show, postponing the deadline is physically impossible. Tickets to the audience are sold, your fans have come, cameras and lights are set up—you must perform, and you cannot be unprepared. In other words: "This release must happen."

That feeling that the shoot cannot be rescheduled forever instilled in me a sense of discipline, the importance of planning, and a "get s*** done" approach.

I think I have been able to convey this level of importance and responsibility for deadlines to my colleagues across the globe precisely because of this experience. Sometimes, I even make a direct association with television production, which cannot be rescheduled or canceled.

Brainstorms: Fun creativity vs methodology

I think it's no secret that the most successful creative individuals, such as actors, musicians, and artists, may appear "crazy," but they systematically and strategically think about their craft, and the word "business" is just as important to them as "show."

On the other hand, people involved in comedy are often quite serious, even gloomy, in real life.

Why is that?

I was surprised to learn that the process of writing the funniest jokes, sketches, and performances is a serious, structured, and sometimes even quite dull process. Of course, during brainstorming sessions, passing around notes with punchlines and reprises in complete silence, there is room for uncontrollable laughter and joy, but it only accounts for about 20%, while the remaining 80% is serious brain work that requires maximum concentration. Behind every crazy and "easy" creative success lies serious, routine, structured work. This is another example of experience that I apply to leadership. If even humor writing is approached systematically and with a serious face, then systematicity should definitely be present in any business process.

Persistence: Mistakes and rewrites

For any creative humoristic collective, there is no scarier word than "Editing." Censors, sometimes getting carried away, can leave you practically without a script, sometimes just a day before the performance. This has happened to us more than once: "Something is not funny this time." It's hard to overestimate the resilience, stress resistance, and grit acquired through such experiences. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger—this is definitely about such a situation. Now I truly appreciate this experience because it serves as an excellent example to motivate the team. Not giving up in a difficult situation for business is another skill I acquired in a creative, far from business-like collective. And how much perseverance is required to come back to a tournament after a defeat and elimination... Definitely no less than when starting a new project after the previous one "failed to take off." Perseverance is the key to success. And this obvious business truth was taught to me not by business experience in my student years.

Outsourcing vs. In-house

The eternal debate of what is better, in-house or outsourcing, for a range of processes? At some stage of business growth, when resources are depleted, every manager asks themselves this question and faces a choice. You won't believe it, but it turns out I have already encountered this task... while engaging in humor. The thing is, the foundation of success and the main resource of any humoristic collective are its authors (scriptwriters). And during "hyper growth," for example, when your team suddenly enters a higher league by winning a competition, this resource may not be sufficient. That's when the "humor market" offers external, hired authors who can be attracted for outsourcing.

Like in regular business, I had different experiences working with such outsourcers; I will just say that I learned many lessons and mastered the rule of balance, excuse me for stating the obvious. The balance between outsourcing and in-house is the key to profitable growth and success. It's hard to believe, but I discovered this long before becoming an executive manager in a tech company, all within the same creative collective.

Networking with Competitors: It's Normal

Often, we avoid and even fear our competitors. However, as practice shows, healthy networking with competitors is beneficial. Many years ago, I was inspired by this idea, thanks to the very same KVN (comedy show). Imagine that during preparations for competitions, during editing and performances, almost all participating teams spend a lot of time together. At some point, you stop treating other folks as your competitors whom you need to outsmart intellectually and artistically in a couple days.

Often, interacting with other creative collectives gave rise to great ideas and sometimes synergistic collaborations. The ability not to fear or avoid competitors but to engage in a unique form of careful networking with them also came to me when I was involved in comedy during my student years.

Fundraising

Yes, as strange as it may sound, I was involved in full-fledged fundraising back in university when I sought sponsors for our team. The thing is, besides being an actor and author, I was also the director of the collective.

Tours, costumes, props, and engaging external (outsourced) authors (sometimes it was simply impossible without them)—all of these required substantial funding. So armed with a pitch and presentation, I demonstrated the positive impact that our humoristic collective appearing on television had for the university. The impact, by the way, was real. During admissions interviews, prospective students often mentioned choosing our university because it had a popular KVN team at that time. Back then, I didn't understand, but later I realised that I managed to "raise the money" and “close some rounds“ several times with the help of a some kind of peculiar “elevator pitch”.

Final Thoughts

Sometimes, seemingly non-obvious experiences can be applied in extremely useful ways if you listen and understand what this non-obvious and strange experience has given you. And how you can apply it. Don't be afraid of the non-obvious, unrelated, creative experience—it can turn out to be very valuable. Have you ever had the experience of applying skills acquired in an interesting and unusual way in business? Share in the comments. And if you like the article, I'm ready to share other examples of non-obvious experience and its application in leadership.