The School of Greatness - 810 Lead with Love

Episode Date: June 14, 2019

COMMUNICATE YOUR VISION. Being an effective leader is difficult. Some do it through fear. Some do it through understanding. And others lead with love. You could be super demanding and scary and get what you want. But is that the kind of life you want to lead? Probably not. Often, leading in a way where you understand other people’s concerns will be the most beneficial to you. There’s a lot you can learn from others. Ask yourself: how can you bring people together in a way that satisfies their needs as well as your own? For this Five Minute Friday, I revisited a conversation I had with the legendary director Jon Chu where he shared how he communicates his vision on set. Jon Chu directed the films Crazy Rich Asians, Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3D, and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. Jon graduated from the USC School of Cinema-Television where he won the Princess Grace Award, the Dore Schary Award presented by the Anti-Defamation League, the Jack Nicholson directing award, and was recognized as an honoree for the IFP/West program Project: Involve. Learn how to enlist others in your vision and lead with love on Episode 805. In This Episode You Will Learn: The kind of leader Jon wants to be (1:00) The importance of synergy in creativity (1:30) The most important thing Jon has learned about communicating his vision (1:45) How to talk to people who have concerns about your vision (2:30) If you enjoyed this episode check out the show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/810 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes.

This is 5-Minute Friday! Welcome everyone back to the podcast. Very excited about this episode. It's with a buddy of mine named John Chu, who's an American film director, film producer, screenwriter, and cinematographer. Best known for directing the movies Step Up 2, The Streets, Step Up 3D, Justin Bieber's Never Say Never, and G.I. Joe Retaliation. He's an alumni of the University of Southern California School of Cinema Television,

where he won many awards. You look at other leaders, and you look at people like our president or you look at other ceos of how they run their business some people do it through fear some people do it through communication and love some people do it through understand there's so many different ways and all are effective to be honest uh it's sort of what fits your own style and what kind of life you want to live as well. Because as a director, I could scare the shit out of people and do big tantrums and leave the room and quit and get what I want.

And that would be actually really darn effective. And sometimes I do want to do that to get it wrong. But I don't really want to live that life. I think life is bigger than those things. And that affects your energy anyway and i just choose not to do that uh and i do think that um like a computer like a multi-processor as a group as long as you're choosing the right things there's a lot of great ideas that can be mined and those things together have a synergy that one person could never create

sure and uh and so i love that idea but as i get through it i think the the most important thing i've learned about communicating the vision or getting a unified vision is literally just one by one like when it's too daunting to think like oh i need to get i need to make sure everybody we have that scene in the right place i need to like send blast out we have that scene in the right place. I need to send, blast out this email that cuts down their ideas and gets to the vision. It's literally like- It's one by one conversation.

Sitting down, talking to someone, looking them in the eye and saying, let me understand your concerns here. Most people have concerns for the right reasons. They may not have the right answer and you may not have the right answer. But as long as you have the same goal of trying to fix this concern of like i'm just not feeling this character um you know some person could say well can you cut this scene i think you listened more of the note of oh what

does it mean that they don't feel this character which means they actually don't care about what they or they don't know what they want in this movie which means it's not about that scene it's about two scenes before that and so by communicating with that actor it's like you know what i think it's actually this point in the scene where you open your diary and we see exactly what you want so by this point later we'll be rooting for you instead of not knowing why you even want that thing and i think it goes it's a much more effective way. It takes a lot more time and a lot more energy and a lot more back and forth, but it's a much more, I think, healthier way. But also that process of finding it makes you connect with that actor, with that producer, with the studio much more. And it is a harder process.

Much harder than just saying, suck it up, do your job, let's go. Yes. I always say I would do, I would make movies movies for free if you gave me a camera and actors like let's go i'll do it all day long you know i can eat ramen all day long it doesn't matter uh what i get paid for is dealing with the politics and doing that job um which i you know which is also part of storytelling it's also a part about understanding why you want to tell this story or why well why other someone else wants to everyone came to this story for a different reason. And by understanding the purpose that everyone came here for, you may not be able to fulfill that for every single person,

but you can find your balance of how you want to fulfill those things. And maybe they have a purpose that is actually bigger than yours that you jump on.