Exploring Your Creative Genius: Episode 39
A bit nervously at first in our last episode I celebrated my father, Loran Nordgren, and the exciting and creative life he has lived and is living. I noted the episode was inspired by a bit of harmonic convergence—the previous weekend was my 1st Anniversary at WCHL, and it was my father’s 95th birthday, so I gave myself permission to talk about him.
I shared how especially in the 50’s and to some extent still in 60’s he revolutionized the Plumbing and HVAC industry and co-created a new business category while still very junior in his organization—he started as the assistant to the assistant Merchandising Manager, at Rheem Manufacturing and it was a slow climb up the ladder.
The lessons we can tease from the show.
- Get used to it. He was able to visualize the changes needed in the way Wholesalers and Contractors were responding to the Baby Boomer Housing Boom because he was living out in the field, in their supply houses, while they are serving customers, listening to how business was getting done and how folks wanted to get it done. I share the idea that when you want to learn about something new get used to it, then study it. Our creative brains move from the whole to the details much more effectively. He invested a lot of time getting used to it, learning their language and their hopes.
- Be Big Somewhere. He learned this from Theodore Levitt and taught it to me. When he started his own marketing company if he took clients from all industries he would likely have been a bit player. But he focused 100% on the Plumbing, Heating, and AC industries so he was able to work with big names like Trane, Carrier, State Industries, Owens Corning…he knew their needs better than they did. He was a leader.
- Open-ended directions. I witnessed time and again that when a big project was just kicking off he’d bring the creative team together and get them excited about the importance of this work they were taking on and what it had to accomplish and then he always invited the team to bring their best ideas for how it would be accomplished. He dramatized the mountain to climb and asked them to bring their best to plan the trip. Creativity is invited in that open space and folks are delighted to offer it.
- Emotions drive decisions. It’s something great marketers and salespeople know in their guts: We make our decisions emotionally and then rationalize why it is good to act on that decision. In a world that was selling products by the technical specs, with little effort to excite, my father brought dramatic storytelling and showmanship and audiences loved becoming customers.
“Exploring Your Creative Genius” takes an expansive view on what it means to be creative and entrepreneurial in an ongoing conversation led by Carl Nordgren — entrepreneur, novelist, and lifelong student with decades of experience growing his own creative capacity and assisting others to do the same in exciting new ways!
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