What Can Business Learn From Show Business? with Simmy Kustanowitz 

Mike: [00:00:00] Simmy Kustanowitz is the founder of Clock Tower Innovation and an Emmy nominated television producer, turn corporate showrunner. After more than 20 years producing hit TV shows like Impractical Jokers and Adam ruins everything. He now helps companies apply entertainment style thinking to business challenges Simmy partners with organizations like BlackRock.

Citigroup and Google to improve communication, spark innovation, and turn big ideas into clear, engaging initiatives. He also delivers keynotes and workshops that help leaders rethink how their teams solve problems and move faster. Can’t wait to dive in, today with sim on ways to rethink the way you think as a leadership team.

Simmy, welcome to the show.

Simmy: Mike, thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Mike: Beautiful. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to this. 

first question I always ask is, from all of your [00:01:00] experience and in entertainment and now working with,with corporations, what do you believe is the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?

Simmy: So I, there’s a lot of words I could use. The one that really comes to mind right away is clarity. I find that when. Leaders that I’ve worked with, whether it’s leaders that I’ve worked for, or leaders that I’ve, I’ve consulted with, or leaders that I’ve coached, the ones that lead with clarity are the ones that are most successful and the ones.

Who get the most done and get the most outta the people that are working for them. Because so often in businesses, really, of all kinds, there is a lack of clarity. There is a,we know what we’re supposed to do, but we don’t know why we’re supposed to do it. Or there’s confusion when it comes to workflow or chain of command.

The more clarity you can bring to the table, I really believe the better leader you’ll be.

Mike: in, in my newest book, one of the things I say, and in my keynotes, one of the things I say over and over is [00:02:00] unclear expectations lead to unacceptable results. So I’m with you on Clarity and Smy. 

I’ve gotta ask you, and this may have nothing to do with value for anyone, but it’s super interesting to me, the show Impractical Jokers.

So my buddies and I grew up in the Bronx and I know those are like Staten Island guys, right? And whenever me and my buddies would watch that show, we would say that was us in high school. Like these guys, we could have done that. What was it like to work on that show? I gotta ask that.

Simmy: I mean, that is what the way you just described the show is A, what I hear all the time from fans, and B, what I think a big part of the secret sauce has been for the show. The fact that when you’re watching the show, you feel like you grew up with these guys, or you went to college with these guys. I mean, it’s just such a relatable show.

And I mean, it’s really to the credit of the Impractical Jokers, the guys themselves, that they carry themselves with this real, personable. Way that makes you feel like you know them. And and [00:03:00] that was when I started working on the show. I actually started working on the show in season two, so the show was already up and running when I got started with it, and I had the same reaction from day one.

I said, I feel like I know these guys. these are the guys who I would’ve been hanging out with in college and they’re around my age. and, but even if, you know, if you’re a kid and you’re watching them. At your older or if you were in your eighties and you’re watching the show, there’s something very relatable about them, and I think that’s why it’s a show that appeals to so many people.

Mike: Yeah. Love it. Love it. 

So let’s start out with kind of the question that I think will probably drive everything else we talk about, which is what does running a TV show have in common with running a leadership team?

Simmy: So the short answer is everything, believe it or not. I’ve found that, there’s so much that, as I always say, there’s so much that show business can show business because when you are running a TV show, it’s all about bringing everything together in a way that, that like I, [00:04:00] that here comes that word clarity.

Again, you need to be able to lead with clarity, but you are as a showrunner, as an executive producer. You are overseeing the show and all the logistics and bringing everything together and really, you are tackling an entire ecosystem with a focus on creativity for sure. But you are coordinating different departments and keeping everything on budget, and you have to keep the train on the tracks.

And I find that so many of the skills that I used as a showrunner. Have translated to the business world. That’s why I refer to myself now as a corporate show runner, because the work I’m doing feels so similar. You would, I, I speak to people all the time, in particular from the entertainment industry who I’ve worked with, and they say, how are you working with banks?

How are you working with law firms? It’s so out of your purview. This is, so this, you know, we’re not in Kansas anymore, right? it’s so outside of the bounds of a TV studio or a TV set, but I find that the muscles that I built in television. Really translate to the business world. So, you know, I’ll give you one example.

When I worked in live television years [00:05:00] ago, there was a show called Total Request Live, TRL that, I was the head writer for many years ago. That was a live television show. It was my first experience in live TV and it taught me so much. It was like bootcamp for my brain because I had been used to working on all these different shows where we had time.

We, we would sit around and brainstorm and come up with solutions, and if it took another day or two then that’s fine. Suddenly I was thrust into this live TV show. Where we had to come up with solutions in a minute. ’cause you’re back on the air in 60 seconds and when you’re back on the air in 60 seconds, there’s no time for paralysis by analysis.

You just have to go. So that taught me how to solve problems and embrace a ticking clock and look at it as a competitive advantage rather than something to fear. And that. When you translate that to the business world for leaders, if you can embrace a ticking clock, if you can think like a live TV producer and teach your team how to think like live TV producers, you’ll get a lot more done.

Mike: So I wanna dig into [00:06:00] that one, a little bit since you bring it up, because to your point, you know, most leaders look at time pressure as an enemy of good thinking, you are saying it’s the opposite. Dig into that a little bit as to why that’s true and what you’ve seen in reality.

Simmy: Mastering the clock has been the key to everything that I’ve done both in the entertainment world and now in business. It is a hundred percent a tool to be used and not something to be feared. When you, when I put it this way, when I am leading a workshop, if I just set a timer, just that simple act, if I set a timer for 10 minutes and I say, we’re gonna come up.

With 10 ideas in the next 10 minutes for how to solve your latest problem or,let’s generate 10 challenges, right? 10 challenges that you’re facing right now. The difference between me saying to a group of CEOs, let’s spend, you know, let’s spend as much time as it takes. Let’s just sit here and brainstorm a bunch of challenges that you’re facing.

That versus I’m [00:07:00] gonna set a timer for 10 minutes and we’re gonna come up with at least 10 challenges each of us over the next 10 minutes. The difference is gigantic. It is it there, there’s no way to explain it without seeing it. But that’s the key to all my workshops and all the work that I do with companies is I set timers.

That’s one of the reasons why my company is called Clock Tower Innovation, because the clock is such a big part of everything that I do. So when you embrace that ticking clock, everything changes and it really is something to. To embrace and to appreciate, and that’s, that has driven everything that I’ve done.

Mike: And especially in these days of. How fast everything’s moving. And I feel like that’s such a cliche with, you know, when I, you know, I’m 61 years old. When I started my corporate career back in 1987, people were saying things are moving faster than ever. Like, it’s a cliche to say that, but you know, with AI and how fast everything’s moving, we don’t have time to spend three or six months coming up with a strategy because at that point the world has passed us by.

Simmy: Without a [00:08:00] doubt. And I think the mistake people make is they look at a ticking clock. They look at a deadline, they look at pressure as something to fear and something to panic over. and one thing that I talk about in my keynotes is the notion that one minute can feel like an eternity or it can feel like a panic attack, and the choice is in your hands.

So. I, and in my, in these keynotes, I always show two clips that, that, that really clarify this point. One is a clip from a show that I used to work on when I was a network executive at the Turner Networks called Billy on the Street. Where Billy, who is this comedian, would run around the streets of Manhattan, shove a microphone in people’s faces and just ask them random questions to see how they would answer under the pressure.

Not necessarily but ticking clock. There was no timer, but just this frenetic comedian with a microphone in your face. How are you gonna answer? And there’s this one amazing clip where he runs over to this lady who had just gotten out of a yoga class, random woman, and he says, excuse me, miss, I’ll give you a dollar.

If you can name a woman. Just name a woman [00:09:00] and she panicked. She stands there and she says, just name any woman. He says, just name a woman. He starts yelling at her name, a woman, she can’t do it, and for 30 seconds it, she stands there and eventually he just runs away. Right? I then show another clip of Mr.Rogers. 

Mr. Rogers gave a, not from the show,but Fred Rogers gave a commencement address. It was shortly after 911 and he said to everyone in that graduating class, I think it was Dartmouth, he said, I’m gonna give you all an invisible gift. It’s the gift of one silent minute to think about somebody who has helped you along the way.

And he pauses. He just stops for one minute. And when you sit there and you wait for that minute to pass, you realize how long one minute is and what you can accomplish. In one minute. So Billy Eichner iss experience with that woman, I mean that 30 seconds felt like two seconds because she panicked. And if you watch that Mr.

Rogers minute, it feels like you’re sitting there for an hour. Time is flexible and it’s all about how you approach it.

Mike: Wow. That’s great. That’s great. [00:10:00] N

ow, so, so in, in moving from Hollywood to Fortune 500 boardrooms, what are in addition to this idea of the ticking clock, what do other organizations get wrong about creativity?

Simmy: They, well, a couple things. I think a lot of organizations look at creativity as a luxury. As something that, oh yeah, we know. We know we should be more creative. We know we should be telling our story better. We’re not doing a good job of telling our story. I hear that all the time. They don’t realize how important creativity is to success and to moving the needle.

And, I also think that they, a lot of people get overwhelmed. Get a little defensive and say, oh, we’re not a creative group. You know, we’re a, we’re a bank, we’re a,we’re a tech firm. Creativity’s not our thing. I get that all the time when I start. When I start one of my workshops, because people know that I come from the TV world and,they assume that this is gonna be a [00:11:00] session.

Like if you brought in an improv troupe and they said, we’re gonna get everybody creative, let’s go. And that’s not what I do. What I do is all about structured creativity. I teach people how to, like I said, embrace a ticking clock, but how to come up with solutions in creative ways. And to help people realize that creativity is not about being an inherently creative person.

You don’t have to be somebody who acted when you were a child or who made everybody laugh. There are ways to be creative that are outside the box and you know, so much of what I do is pulled from my experience in entertainment. And to this point, I always talk about a show that I used to oversee.

Called Adam Ruins everything. This is a, it’s a, it was an educational comedy show that was on True TV hosted by a comedian named Adam Conover. And this was a show where it was a scripted show where this comedian Adam would, pop into a scene. At the beginning of every episode you would see, let’s say two characters in a restaurant.

And it looked like the opening scene of a TV show. One of them would say something and suddenly this comedian Adam would [00:12:00] pop in magically and take the characters on a journey showing them why everything they thought they knew about that topic is actually wrong. So it was this educational show and he tackled topics like prison recidivism, immigration taxes, right?

The, these were very dry topics. And when he pitched the show to me and my colleague in 2017, we had doubts. We said, are you really gonna be, we were a comedy network. Are you really gonna be able to make this into a comedy show? and in my sessions I always show the people that I’m working with, a clip of the show and how he took,the clip that I always share is about unemployment.

How he took something as dry as, and serious as unemployment and brought it to life because he creates this fake game show within the con the construct of this TV show. And it works so well. And so I think a lot of leaders think, you know, we are a serious business. you know, I’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies that say what we do is very serious.

We have to stay serious. But what they don’t always realize is that the employees at that company, a lot of them are in their twenties and they’re going out to bars on weekends. Why? Why not [00:13:00] demystify the content? Why not bring some level of levity to what they’re working on and doing? It’ll help them appreciate their jobs more.

They’ll wanna stay at the company, so it’ll help with retention. And there are easy ways to do it, and that’s a big part of what I do with companies.

Mike: Simmy, when we talked in preparing for this, you had mentioned to me, these, you know, four. I dunno, four, four pillars of thinking or four rules to think by. I am not sure what you call it, but you talk about structured creativity, so I wanna get into the structure a little bit. What are those four rules?

Simmy: So the four pillars of what I call the clock tower method are Time, Volume, Creativity, Repeat. Those are the four pillars, and I go through them. That forms the backbone for my keynote, which often leads into more interactive workshops where, where we explore, different, different challenges the company’s facing or different initiatives they’re trying to move forward on using, brainstorming exercises that I bring to the table.[00:14:00] 

So those four pillars, I mean, I covered time and talked about the ticking clock and the how everything begins with respect for the clock. the quote that I always bring up is Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of Saturday Night Live, was asked what it’s like to produce Saturday Night Live, and his answer was simple.

He said, we don’t go on because we’re ready. We go on because it’s 1130. And that summarizes how you have to think in live television and applying that to business is a big part of what I do. So that’s time volume works. With time. I’m a big believer that it’s not just. Setting a timer and saying, you know, we’re having a half hour meeting instead of just, we’re having an open-ended meeting, but it’s saying we’re gonna walk outta here with five ideas or with 10 ideas.

Those are, setting quotas and hitting those quotas helps your brain unlock in a different way. and I actually find that the quota part of it, volume, which is the second pillar, can teach people a lot about how to use ai. Because people might say, alright, you know what, I can ask AI to generate a list.

Within two seconds, why do we need to sit and brainstorm for 10 [00:15:00] minutes? Well, when you set a timer for 10 minutes and you force yourself to hit a quota and say, we’re gonna come up with 10 ideas in the next 10 minutes, if you’re in that final minute and you are too short, right? you are at eight ideas, nine ideas, you will push yourself to come up with something that you might not have thrown out there, but it’s, and it might be the wildest wackiest idea.

But you force yourself to do it. Your brain finds another gear to hit that quota, and I find that in a lot of my sessions. That’s where you find the magic when you push yourself in that 11th hour. That’s something that AI can’t replicate is that magic of unlocking a solution. The 11th hour, that’s that, that requires a spark of humanity.

So that’s volume.

Mike: Do you recommend when you talk about volume? I wanna dig a little bit deeper on this one and get specific ’cause it impacts the work I do and how I do it. And I use pod, you know, big secret is I use all these podcasts,interviews is free consulting for me. So here’s some free consulting, but.

But when you tell a team, oh, we got 10 minutes, we’re gonna come up, we’re coming up with 10 ideas in [00:16:00] 10 minutes, do you do that and just boom, now the team is brainstorming and trying to come up with 10, 10 ideas? Or is there value in saying, Hey, you know, let’s take. Two minutes and as individuals, I want you all to write down or I use post-it notes and flip charts so we get everybody, you know, everybody put, you know, put everybody, put at least five ideas up on the board and you know, in the next two minutes, is there value to the individual work and then the group work?

Or is somehow, is there more value in just getting the group to work together from minute one?

Simmy: Everything I do begins with personal brainstorms. I call them power brainstorms. I’m a big believer that you start small and then you widen out. You can have a brainstorm where it’s just a whiteboard and you say, okay, everyone throws out ideas. But when I’m referring to that 10 ideas in 10 minutes. That is done on a personal level.

I actually have everybody take out a piece of paper and a pen, which feels so archaic in today’s world, but there is something [00:17:00] very special about sitting in a quiet room for 10 minutes and just thinking and writing down ideas. It’s the same way if you are on a flight and the WiFi’s down and you just look out the window, there’s something therapeutic about it, but often that’s where you’ll come up with your best ideas.

People say, oh, I come up with my best. Thinking in the shower, right? It’s because you put your phone down and you actually think for a little while. But I’m not suggesting that’s where it ends, that’s where it begins. So you start with that personal brainstorm of just you and a piece of paper, and then you open it up to the room.

And I’m also not, suggesting that every, all solutions can be found in 10 minutes. But adding that structure to the brainstorming process, and starting small and then opening it up to the room. You will become a lot more efficient and you will come up with solutions in a much, more coherent way.

just to give you one example, if you have 10 people in a room, let’s say I’m, let’s say I’m, I am, leading a workshop for a company and there’s 10 people in that room. If I say everybody piece of paper and a pen, 10 [00:18:00] minutes, you have to come up with 10 ideas, right? Over the next 10 minutes, at the end of those 10 minutes, I will set another timer for one minute and say, everybody put a star next to your best Three ideas.

Everybody in the room, all 10 people, put a star next to your best three ideas. At the end of that 11 minute brainstorm, if there’s 10 people in the room, you’re gonna have 30 top ideas right to kick off a brainstorm. Now there’s gonna be some overlap, and it’s not all, they’re not all gonna be the best ideas.

You’re not gonna get gold in 10 minutes, but you are gonna have a li have a list of 10 ideas as a starting point, and that is gonna be far more effective than if you just sat with a whiteboard and said, okay, who’s got an idea?

Mike: Yeah. And one of the things I love about that, and I’m glad you confirmed the way I do it,which is start with the individual and part of the power of that is I find if we just start out, if let’s. Let’s talk about this as a group. Every group, every leadership team has a couple people that like to talk and are, you know, they believe they’re kind of naturally creative and they’re gonna come [00:19:00] up with ideas and there are always a couple of people in the room that like to follow.

and they like to be quiet and kind of listen first and talk later, and there’s value to both of those. But what winds up happening is certain people dominate the conversation and some amazing ideas from the quieter folks in the room. Never see the light of day, but in your version of it, all those ideas see the light of day.

Simmy: It is leveling the playing field. That’s why I refer to it as a power brainstorm because it gives everybody in the room power. and by the end of that brainstorm then you can get into the larger conversation. But it levels the playing field from in introverts to extroverts, and you have, in leadership teams, you have all kinds, you have leaders that are extroverted and those that are a little bit quieter.

So that sort of brainstorm really helps. so that’s time and volume. those are the first two pillars and they really work together. 

Creativity is what I was talking about before with, you know, how to think outside the box and bring creative ideas out, even if you don’t consider yourself create, creative by nature.

I’ll give you an example of a [00:20:00] campaign that I ran. There’s a Fortune 500 company that has 250,000 employees. It’s one of the world’s biggest banks, and they were having all sorts of issues with,They,they released a survey, where their employees chimed in on concerns they had. And it was the same thing that I see at business after business, which is, you know, like I said at the beginning, we know what we’re supposed to do, but we don’t know why.

And we’re all working in silos too much and, work from home versus work in the office. There’s too much confusion. All these issues that they brought up. And so this bank hired me and my, creative team to address these issues in an out of the box way, right? These are very non-creative issues.

What we did together was we created an animated campaign where, we invented an ecosystem of these creative animated characters that represent arche types of people that work at the bank. So, one animated character, works way too fast and doesn’t,doesn’t wait for feedback from anybody.

Another one is the opposite and just noodles on everything and, and never does anything because it’s paralysis by analysis. [00:21:00] We created these characters and animated these short vignettes where the characters face the kinds of issues that the people at this bank face. And so now when people see these vignettes that, that come along with emails or in the elevators on screens, they feel heard and it’s like holding up a mirror.

So that is a creative way to tackle a very non-creative or very inside the box issue. So that’s creativity. And I talk about the work that I do with these different companies on that level. And then finally it’s repeat. that is the final pillar, but a very important one. I talk about the importance of repetition and how people often shy away from repeating something if it’s working.

And I always say lean into it. Impractical Jokers is the show that I talk about with that fourth pillar. Jokers has been on the air for over a decade, over 300 episodes, and people always ask me. How do you avoid repeating yourself after 300 episodes? And I always say repetition is a big part of the secret sauce.

That is a big part of what works for the show. If we didn’t repeat ourselves, then the show would not have lasted this long. Repetition is a very important, [00:22:00] piece to lean into when you’re working, at an organizational when you’re trying to lead.

Mike: One of the other things, when you and I first talked a few weeks back, you talked about this idea of, the press conference from the future

Simmy: Yes.

Mike: and, you know, as a way to get creative, and I remember really liking that idea. say more about, about what that is as a tool or a technique.

Simmy: So there are a couple of different ways to approach, envisioning goals, thinking about the future, every company. Likes to start off the year with what are our goals for this year? And by the time you get to Q4, it’s, let’s start talking about goals for next year goals. Goal goals, right. But I don’t think people approach it in the most effective way.

And so one exercise that I love to lead for teams is something that I call press conference from the future where everybody brainstorms. It starts off with a power brainstorm where everybody sits with that piece of paper and they write down goals that they have for their team over the next, over, let’s say over the next year.

And then I say, we’re gonna [00:23:00] host a press conference that’s going to take place. We’re gonna pretend that this is taking place one year in the future, or maybe sometimes five years or 10 years in the future, depending on what the company is trying to do. And then I split the room into groups and I say each group is tasked with.

Generating writing a statement that is going to be read at this press conference. 20 minutes from now, you have 20 minutes to write a statement. And then they present this statement at this press conference from the future, and the rest of the room turns into the Press Corps and they fire away with questions and they poke holes.

They say, wait, hold on. You said you were able to do this. How were you able to do it? And it helps people improvise. What their goals are and really envision where they’re headed. it’s similar in nature to just sitting around a room and saying, let’s come up with some goals. But the gamification of it really helps unlock something every, all of my workshops have two key focuses.

We simplify and then we gamify. ’cause I think that when you use entertainment levity as a Trojan horse, you wind up accomplishing a lot more and you walk away with some [00:24:00] real practical output and results.

Mike: So talk a little bit more, I wanna dig into a little bit more the simplify and gamify. So when you say simplify, what does that mean? What does that look

Simmy: Simplifying is the power brainstorm. Simplifying is let’s sit and just think and write down some ideas and build a list. Right? There is, there’s something that I do called unstack and unpack where I have everybody in the room. If, let’s say, some companies I’m brought in for different reasons.

Sometimes I’m brought in to help. to help oversee and kickstart a campaign. Sometimes I’m brought in because a company needs to tell their stories better and often, I’m brought in to help a company overcome challenges that they’re facing because they’re very overwhelmed by how many challenges they’re looking at.

So what we’ll do is we’ll start off by simplifying. I’ll say Everybody, let’s generate. challenges that you’re facing people write it down on a piece of paper. Then I open it up to the larger room where we build a list that I have up on a projection screen of the challenges that they’re facing.

and in five minutes we might come up with 20 challenges or [00:25:00] more At the end of that, very cathartic and maybe terrifying brainstorm where people are throwing out challenges. We start unstacking the different challenges into compartments. We say these four issues have to do with marketing. These two issues are a vet chain of command.

These four issues are out of our control. Let’s set them aside. Once you unstack, it’s a lot easier to unpack. So that’s what I mean by simplifying. It doesn’t have to be complicated to address challenges. Simplification really works. So that’s simplifying. And then gamifying is the,the exercises like press conference from the future and some other exercises that I bring to my teams.

And I find that we, that everybody walks out. a lot better off than they walked in with real output and a really a new framework to deal with challenges in the future.

Mike: Yeah. What I love about the Press conference from the future idea is. You know, it’s one thing to have that sentence, but then you get the questions from the, for the Press Corps. And it sounds like, although I’ve never done it, I’d love to try it. It sounds like what you wind up with, so [00:26:00] many companies think, you know, oh, we’ve got a plan, we’ve got a business plan, we’ve got a strategic plan.

What’s your strategic plan? Oh, you know where our goal is a hundred million in revenue this year at, you know, 15% profitability. It’s like that’s not a plan. That, that, that’s a few important numbers. But when you with this exercise, you’re talking about it, it challenges you, it forces you to make sure your set of goals are more three dimensional.

it’s really a three dimensional vision on what you’re creating versus just, you know, it’s these numbers and these three initiatives, that’s our plan.

Simmy: Exactly, and it’s, and it winds up, it’s a very safe room because everyone in the room. Is working under the understanding that, you know, this is not a real press conference and everybody knows that this was done in 20 minutes. And so even if someone in the room fires away with a question that’s hard hitting, there’s a smile with it because people recognize, okay, this is an exercise we’re doing, which [00:27:00] gives everybody in the room permission to proceed with this exercise in a collaborative way that’s not gonna feel.

Scary. It’s not gonna feel competitive. and that’s a big a basis of everything that I do. the room is disarmed by the fact that this is a playful exercise, but it has real significant output.

Mike: How does you know a leadership team that may initially think, or a company that may initially think well. We’re not a real creative bunch. We’re, you know, we’re we do banking or, you know, the, we’re more serious and not creative. how do you build that muscle? I imagine, you know, doing a one-time workshop or a keynote may be helpful, but how does a leadership team actually build that muscle over time?

is it just about repetition or is it more than that?

Simmy: Repetition’s a big part of it. it’s something that I think, there’s no question that, an issue with so many companies is they bring me in for a workshop and then if it’s just a one and done, [00:28:00] it’s inspiring and they love it and I get amazing feedback on it. But then a few months later, it’s in one ear out the other, and they’re back to their old ways.

you need to keep pushing, you need to keep practicing. It is really like, like a muscle. So, I come in and I will work on quarterly workshops where each time we are addressing different issues. ’cause I think it’s important to, to keep this sort of thing going. But it’s what I’m doing these workshops for leaders.

I do this for all different, all different levels. I’ve done summer interns and I’ve done C-suite executives. But when it is the C-suite in particular, a big part of my push is when I get to that fourth pillar of repetition, you can’t stop here. This has to be the beginning. It cannot be the end.

If this is the end,then this was all for Nod. So, yes,I think that pushing and practicing and doing it again and again is the key. and when I say that, I don’t mean that I don’t expect a CEO to the following week. You know, get up and host a fake game show about addressing people’s challenges.

Like, like I do in my workshops. I understand that there’s, I come from the [00:29:00] entertainment world and so this is more natural to me, but it’s just, it’s the simple frameworks of setting timers and keeping an eye on the clock and setting quotas. It’s those,just starting with those elements will help you be more creative and help you push forward in more productive ways.

Mike: Y

ou mentioned. Ai earlier when you talked about like, why do I need to brainstorm ideas? I can just have AI come up with a number of ideas. the bigger topic of ai. how does it factor in? how have you seen it factor in? Is it helping the creativity process? Is it hurting the creativity process?

Simmy: It should be helping if you’re doing it right, if you’re harnessing AI the right way. And that’s a big focus of my work. Then AI is an incredible tool and it’s something that is gonna help all of us in a number of different ways. But you know, in terms of creativity, what it, when it comes to creativity, it’s the same as everything else.

If you fear it or if you don’t know how to use [00:30:00] it or if you give into it and you say, well, AI’s just gonna do everything. Then you’re gonna lose. So I use AI constantly. AI is a huge part of my work. You know, I use it for research. I use it for, it, it helps edit some of my content. if I am generating a list, then I will feed it into AI and ask for other, other avenues to take.

AI is incredibly helpful, but I find that a lot of people don’t know how to harness it. They don’t know how to use it the right way. if you want to use AI and creativity, then. You have to learn to use it as a tool rather than a crutch. the analogy I’ll use is if you think about a first date, right?

You picture a perfect first date. You have a couple sitting there in a beautiful restaurant. The food’s amazing. it all looks great. But if you don’t have the chemistry between the two people, if you don’t have good conversation, there’s not gonna be a second date. AI can build the restaurant, it can create the food.

It can give you a great list of. Topics to talk about in that date, [00:31:00] but it can’t get you over the finish line in terms of that spark that requires humanity. And I find that when you are problem solving, when you’re generating ideas, when you’re brainstorming, AI can help you generate lists. It can help you formulate something, it can help you compartmentalize.

But you need to be meeting as a team. You need to be writing down ideas on a piece of paper. You need that creative spark from within you in order to get it across the finish line.

Mike: Yeah,I see too many people, and I’ve gotta be careful of this myself. Too many people. Just relying on AI for the creativity. You know, I don’t have to think anymore because AI can go think for me and, you know, gimme 10, 10 new ideas for solo episodes of my podcast. Boom here. Oh, great. I don’t have to think about this stuff.

and there’s certainly value in that. You may be able to generate some ideas, but we don’t, we certainly don’t want our creative muscles to atrophy and just delegate all that. To, [00:32:00] to Claude or chat GPT.

Simmy: Well, yeah, I think it’s important to not let your cre your creativity atrophy. I agree. But I also think it’s really,it’s lazy and I, it’s very easy because it’s right there in front of all of us now. Right. It’s so easy to plug something into chat GPT and say, okay, well I’m done. And again, it will get you a lot of the way, but it can’t, it’s not gonna get you all the way there.

and what I do is I help companies. Get that extra mile. Right? and there are people who think that AI is overblown or they’re trying to avoid it. I embrace it with both arms, right? I love ai. It’s incredibly important, but I think you need to learn how to harness it. And you need to make sure that you’re not relying on it for 100% of what you’re doing.

Even if it’s do, even if it winds up doing 80% of what you’re doing. That 20% that’s remaining is so critical, and that’s where I come in.

Mike: Do you see in the types of companies that you. Work for different size companies, different industries. do the same ideas and same [00:33:00] methodologies apply across all those industries? Or are there any differences that you see that are important?

Simmy: There are always going to be differences from company to company, but what I’ve been struck by, and this is maybe what surprised me the most when I made the shift over from entertainment. To the corporate world is the universality of challenges. It really amazes me how I keep seeing the same challenges at company after company.

broadly speaking, again, it’s the issues that a real estate company is dealing with are going to differ from what, from what a, an a private equity firm is working on, of course, but generally speaking, it is leadership. Co, confusion. It is, you know, we don’t know,what’s supposed to be in my purview versus what’s supposed to be in, in their purview, you know?

we are working as our own department, but not cross departments enough. AI adoption is creating confusion. I keep seeing the same issues over and over again. And at a certain point, [00:34:00] I realized, well, if the, if so, many of the challenges are universal. Then if my solutions are working for one company, they could work for anybody.

And that’s why what I do now work so well for so many different organizations and so many different industries because the issues that people face are often so universal and a lot of them are similar issues that I was dealing with in television. A lot of the problems that I was seeing when I was working at a network, I worked at the Turner Networks for eight years as a network executive.

It feels so familiar to me the challenges that I see at a bank because. They are the same kinds of challenges that I was dealing with, when I was in my TV world. And so much of it comes down to inefficient workflow and, and yeah, a lack of creative thinking.

Mike: So say a little bit more about how you know you and your company work. With organizations. You talked about keynoting, you talked about going in quarterly with some companies. What are the different ways you help your clients?

Simmy: So it always depends on what the client’s needs are, but, [00:35:00] I’m typically brought in one of three ways, either for one day, for, you know, part of a day as a keynote speaker, or to lead a workshop. that’s one way, and that’s really about inspiration. The second way is typically more on, on a monthly basis, where I’m brought in for strategy and I help a team look under the hood.

we do a full audit on what’s working and what isn’t working in with regards to whatever challenge they’re trying to overcome or whatever initiative they’re trying to kickstart. I’m brought in to help. See what has worked and what hasn’t and develop a path forward in the entertainment world, we would call that pre-production, right?

It’s before we actually produce something. That’s the strategy component. And then there’s what I refer to as the corporate showrunner piece where I’m brought in to execute and to oversee a campaign. And so, I bring in various team members that I have worked with through the entertainment industry.

To help execute a plan to help ex execute an initiative. There’s one, fortune 500 company that I’m working with right now on their, for, they have a big [00:36:00] anniversary coming up in two years, a big company anniversary. So I’m helping them generate ideas and a plan for how to celebrate that anniversary.

Whether it is a content plan or whether it’s to, to host an event. There’s a lot of different ways that you can celebrate a large milestone like that. And so depending on what it is. I will pull in people from my network and, people that can help take something from point A to point B.

I’ve found that a lot of creative agencies that are brought in don’t have the ability to do what Clock Tower does. Because of my experience in the entertainment industry, a lot of creative agencies can do just enough to justify their paychecks, but they don’t really know how to move the needle.

And what Clock Tower provides is an ability to connect with audiences. In a way that is unlike what creative agencies can do because connecting with audiences is what I’ve done my entire career.

Mike: Where should people go? Simmy if they wanna find out more about you? The work you do with clients, your keynoting, where should people go?

Simmy: The best place is to my [00:37:00] website, clock tower innovation.com. you can also find me on LinkedIn and reach out. I’m always happy to. To connect with people via LinkedIn. But if you go to clock tower innovation.com, you’ll see every, you’ll see a list of clients and testimonials. but most importantly, there’s a button in the top right corner.

It says, schedule an appointment. Click on that, and then we could start a conversation.

Mike: So helpful. I know that every once in a while there are podcasts where when I’m done with the podcast, I think once this is edited, I gotta go back and listen to it again because there were, I don’t know if you, I’m taking some notes as you’re talking because there were definitely some ideas here that I want to grab.

so, I know this stuff is gonna be super helpful. To, to any leader, any leadership team, I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team Simmy, thanks for helping us get there today.

Simmy: My pleasure, Mike. Thanks so much for having me. 

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