- Just ahead on our WTVP 50 years of leadership series we're talking about Creative Courage.

Tonight's critical conversation brings discussion from three more great Central Illinois leaders and it all starts right now.

(upbeat music) Good evening, thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Amy Burkett and I'm really excited for our leadership conversation tonight on Creative Courage.

But let's start by defining what it is.

Leadership experts say creative courage is a prerequisite for future success, and here are three ways to cultivate it.

You've got to embrace being human which is being okay with being wrong sometimes.

You've got to observe, listen, ask questions, be humble, learn, and repeat the process.

And learn from others who already have it, which is exactly what we're going to do right now.

So let's meet our panelists.

We begin with Katie Kim CEO of the Kim Group.

Katie I wanna you to help people understand what it is you do, tell us a little about your business and how you show creative courage.

- Yeah so simply put we make dreams come true.

So we work with a lot of small businesses, existing businesses within our community and really help give them a support system to grow their business, launch their business, take it to the next level.

Sometimes that is finding them a space in real estate, sometimes that's more coaching them and guiding them to the next level, but in a basic nutshell that's what we do every day.

- And how do you show creative courage?

- Basically letting an environment be able to be fostered where people are okay to fail.

I always say we're failing forward and be able to throw any idea out.

In our conference room we have a huge whiteboard in there and we are constantly drawing on it and collaborating.

And when you talk about creative courage, a lot of times what I see is that people need that support system.

That again, it's okay to fail.

It's okay to try something and maybe it doesn't work out but they help you work through those processes to then take it to the next level.

And that's what we really strive at the Kim Group to do is really create that safe space.

And also what I term pollinated collisions is actually the term I tell my clients all the time is we're gonna make sure that you know the right people 'cause you're always just one relationship away from a breakthrough and we wanna make sure you get that next relationship.

- Such great advice.

Next up we have John Morris, he's president CEO of the Peoria Riverfront Museum.

And John I know you spent a lot of time here at WTVP as well about a decade.

I understand and development.

- That's right Amy-- - Tell us about leading the museum and how you exemplify creative courage?

- Well thank you for moderating this panel.

Thanks to WTVP for putting together this important conversation on creative courage and leadership in our community just when we need it most.

So for three and a half soon be four years now I guess, I've been present CEO working for really tremendous board of people who care deeply about the Central Illinois community.

Steve Jackson our board chair and 21 board members and 4,000 people who really share one thing which is to help us build a community of... People who wanna inspire each other and be inspired by each other.

We do so as the only museum of art, science, history and achievement in the nation.

A privately funded institution located right smack dab in the middle of the richest farm ground in the world, the beautiful river valley, the great folk culture, the oldest French shuttled community in the Midwest, the oldest continuously settled community in the Midwest.

So our job is to build confidence and I would say this to creative leadership, without confidence very difficult to be creative to step out and forward.

So the museum believes it is a fundamental tenant of what we're doing is to build individual and collective confidence in this region.

- Great advice.

Next up Patrick Kirchhofer Peoria County Farm Bureau manager.

Patrick talk to us a little bit about what you do and how you're able to exemplify creative courage.

- Thank you, and I'm the Farm Bureau manager for Peoria County.

And the Farm Bureau it's an organization of farmers and in Peoria County we've got around 1500 farmer members and total membership of around 12,000.

And it's one unified voice for agriculture is what Farm Bureau is to our members.

And as far as creative courage, I'm just trying to empower our farmers and our farm community.

Every spring season they're taking a risk, putting out a new crop, whether that's corn or soybeans or wheat and taking care of their livestock.

And they're susceptible to pest, diseases, weather and every spring it's courage that farmers have to take to step out and plant that seed.

- Never thought of it from that perspective.

Thank you so much for sharing.

We've got one more guest this evening coming towards via Skype.

Paul Ritter is the co-founder Celebrating High School Innovators.

Paul talked to us my friend a little bit about your organization and how you exemplify creative courage.

- Well gosh I can't say thank you enough, it's a tremendous honor.

I'm a high school teacher at Pontiac Township High School and being able to work with some of my board members on the Celebrating High School Innovators awards program we're looking for the best and brightest students.

Not necessarily designed by ACT and GPA, we're looking for creativity and innovation.

And really those two things could be more critical at this time in our life.

And what's awesome is to be able to find these kids let them all introduce themselves to each other and network and by building that it answers the question, wouldn't it be cool if, dot, dot, dot, dot and then they finished the sentence.

And so the idea is finding out what it is that they're passionate about, bringing them together and then celebrating what it is that they do then giving them that hand to go one step further.

- One step further is what we all try to do when we're talking about creative courage.

So I just wanna open this up to the group and on what someone else's perspective on what do we think some of the limitations are that prevent people from showing creative courage.

Anyone can jump first.

- I'd like to hit that.

- Okay.

(laughing) - All right, so think about this we as a society really get to a point where we teach people that it's not okay to fail.

In fact failure is one of those things that people are afraid of and so if we teach them that right off the get-go then they're never willing to try, all that creativity is squashed out of them.

And thankfully I get to be a part of an education system that embraces that and it sounds weird to say that you embrace failure.

But in order to get to the position where they're truly pushing their potential you have to be able to do that and do so comfortably.

- So many things always bring us back to that dirty little F word of failure.

Thank you what a great perspective.

Katie do you have anything to add?

- Yeah I actually love when Paul was saying that because I always almost make my clients feel comfortable to fail by sharing some of our failures.

And sharing some of the things that might seem at first a failure, but how then did you transform it into something that's a positive-- - But that takes courage.

- It takes courage.

- I mean that is the courage to be able to admit that to people.

- Absolutely and really the support network.

And going back to what Paul doing with the kids at school.

And I love it and what he's doing is bringing that energy that it is okay to fail and it's okay to think.

And one of the things I always ask our small business owners when they're first stepping out of maybe creating their business in their home and taking it to the next level, is did you graduate high school without a teacher?

You know in the simple answers we'll no.

Okay, okay great.

Did you learn how to walk without your parent?

And did you...

If they went to college.

Did you go to college and not have a teacher there?

And so often in life we have teachers and people that influence and encouraging us, coach us all along the way and then we graduate we get into the real world and we're like okay (clapping) now you're on your own.

Well, you didn't get there by yourself.

So why do we not make it okay and acceptable to have coaches and have support networks so we really look at like supporting them and like with WTVP all the channels and the support that you give and that education you're planting those seeds in the community, in their mind that...

I mean I remember watching Curious George with my kids and I mean he screws up a lot.

I mean he gets into a lot of trouble-- - But we love that little monkey.

(laughing) And there's a little bit of that little monkey in all of us.

- Yeah (laughing) exactly.

And so we referenced those things because we get it back to the basics.

And if we start making things so complicated and just get back to the basics and support ourselves with that community and and have that support that it is okay to fail and fail forward and talk about the wins that come from it.

I mean it's a beautiful process when you can get comfortable with failing.

- Absolutely, Katie I wanna build on that and ask Patrick, how do you help people have the courage to lean on each other?

- Well we had a private example of that a couple of years ago whenever hemp started to take off here in Illinois and nationwide.

And in 2019 we probably had 20 to 25 farmers that were courageous and attempted to grow hemp.

And the bottom fell out at the end of the year.

And it just took a lot of support from other farmers sharing knowledge, and it's just one of those things that you gotta try, you gotta educate yourself and lean on others that have experience in that same field.

And it was a difficult year, but farmers are very resilient and they come back and try again the next year and that's what we see.

- Excellent, John talk to us about the experience that you have.

And while your museum is open to the public and everyone can benefit has it been a little more challenging during these COVID times?

- Yeah.

- To show the courage.

- Yeah tremendous (indistinct) challenge.

But first of all let me reflect on how much I agree with what Katie and Paul said earlier about failure.

Without failure there is no true maximization of success.

There you have to have failure and you agree, you have to have hardship, you have to have failure.

So secondly I did wanna mention that our museum celebrates history, because history informs the present and inspires the future.

So let me remark that we're sitting here in the studio of WTVP, one of the most dynamic community licensee public television stations.

And you mentioned earlier I had the privilege of working with this team for 10 years of my career earlier.

But this was creative courage to bring to our community an incredible asset to spark learning and build up this community which it has done as Katie mentioned earlier or family and almost every day in my life there's some benefit that comes from importing tremendous concepts of ideas around the world and also telling the stories of the concepts that are right here.

So when Phil Weinberg, who was at Bradley university at the time had this crazy idea to start a public media station.

Went around knocking on doors all the philanthropists.

Today, Leslie Matousek and her board and her team are the heirs to one of the great Creative Courage moves in the history of Peoria, in my opinion.

Because we got this station for ourselves here.

And as a historian in part at the museum I look down water street to this beacon of light radiating through the most powerful communications.

You can have mass communication, a digital and otherwise a constant creative tools for all of us.

- Thank you, John.

Well, Mark Twain said, "Courage is not the resistance to fear, "mastery of fear-not the absence of fear."

So you've got to master fear, you know it's part of courage how do we set up and how do we go?

We're gonna start with Patrick on this.

How do we master the fear so that we can put together and have the courage to move forward and have progress?

- Well mastering fear is tough but you gotta be resilient and you gotta lean on other people, and people that have experience in that field.

And you just have to try it even though you may fail time and time again you just got to get back up and keep trying it season after season.

And just lean on others with experience, I mean that's what you have to do.

- Paul, it's your turn.

I wanna talk a little bit more about the courage that you're able to show with the young people that you work with.

- Well I mean, it all starts at an early age, right?

If we're going to change the ball game and change this act as we go through this, it's gotta start at an early age.

And so the idea is you have to be able to coach them throughout, but at the same time you also have as a coach have to have the courage to let go of the reigns.

Because all too often what we try to do is we try to say this is the way to go and this is what needs to happen, and this is what you need to do.

And if we're not willing to let go of the reigns and allow them to drive then we're never going to get them to their level.

And so I think it starts at a very early age but at the same time if you think about it our courage is such that if we don't let them figure it out, they're never going to get to that level.

And quite frankly sometimes people don't get to that level because they've been guided to that point and they're not real sure or they're afraid to make that step by themselves.

And so I think it comes down to, hey listen I was a football coach for 15 years.

And the reality of this is none of them when they came into us even if they went through a Peewee leagues and things like that none of them really had a concept of really what do I need to do?

But then once you do that and teach them how to get in a stance and teach them how to hold up their head, it's that okay I'm gonna turn the reigns loose and we have that same mentality when it comes to teaching anything and creativity is no different.

And I would contend that creativity and innovation are equally as important any discipline in school period.

- You know what Katie, I want you to build upon that, how do you help your clients exemplify creative courage?

We heard how you did it before, but how do you encourage those clients of yours to be able to show it and do it every day?

- Yeah, well and I'm loving what Paul was saying is I go back to that whiteboard in my office and we think big and I push them be like okay is that all you want?

Okay you're gonna accomplish that in two years now what do you do in year three, four or five.

Or and push it and I used to work in corporate America where the brainstorming as Paul was saying it was like very structured and guided.

And I will purposely throw out just crazy ideas.

And like I had mentioned to somebody here in the studio, I'm like I have a goal to create a music video this week...

This year.

And I came into my team and they go what?

And you think about-- - I'm guessing you've never done that before.

- I've never done it.

I don't sing, (laughing) except really loud in the car with my boys on the way to school.

But I was just like why not?

And I know where I want it to go and stuff like that, but to me I also encourage people to throw things out into the universe.

I am a person of faith, so I believe that like when you throw it out there things are gonna align to come to you.

And like I said I threw out doing a music video, I was talking here in the studio today with some guy that had done a music video.

I'm like oh my gosh we need to be friends.

And so my team knows that when I come to the office and say "I made a new friend."

They're like oh Lord here we go again, fasten your seat belts, but you have to be comfortable with change.

And so I think getting... Where Paul made the mention of football, right?

Is you're teaching them the plays, you're teaching them the positions.

But as soon as that ball is snapped, there's a bunch of audibles that can go or like okay if this guy goes right now, I gotta go left.

That's exactly how we are with business.

When the COVID pandemic hit early this spring it was really us reaching out to those businesses and saying, okay how are you gonna shift?

Not what are you gonna do?

It's like no how are we shifting?

How are we making sure your business is set up to handle this to be stabilized?

And again it's that challenging to think outside the box and then push it even further.

Because is you're talking about mastery, I mean to me teaching failure is like teaching is the way to mastery.

And so sharing even some of the stuff that we fail with as well and I always love one of my favorite graphs.

My team knows I have like three graphs I always go to is the success trajectory curve.

And so if you see about with the axis it starts off and it goes like this, goes like this and then it shoots up.

And so to me if you don't have that courage to get to that point where you're about to launch you're never gonna get through here 'cause nobody sees this spot, right?

It's oh my gosh like overnight, okay.

And ask any business person when they say, "Oh you've been a success over a night."

You're like sweetie, I've been doing this for the last five years.

- It's all right.

I got the gray hair to prove it, like in the scars but that's where people don't see that and it's having that creative courage, it's having that courage network.

It's having great teachers that help you.

And then again teaching that mastery because once you get to that level we like to collaborate.

Like I said those pollinated collisions to help people, okay you do this in your business, this does I think there's a connection here.

But sharing it, I think that's one thing that's great about our period area is we have so many business owners and teachers and that help share that.

- Kim, we're gonna go back to John for a minute.

We've talked a lot about courage but John I'm gonna talk about creativity.

How do you as a leader do your best to exemplify creativity not only in yourself, but in your team?

- You asked earlier a question I never got to, I'll start the answer to this question with the last one which is how's the museum doing with a global pandemic where the American Alliance of Museums has issued a report that as many as a third of museums nationwide will fail.

As a result of this colleagues and other CEOs and other museums around the nation have been laying off as many as 80% of their staff and so forth.

So now to answer your question-- - So you haven't had to lay anyone out?

- Right, zero layoffs.

Kept everybody not only employed but working extremely hard on new creative ideas.

So one of those is we went to our mission.

What is our mission?

To build a community of people inspiring each other and being inspired by each other.

How we do that is typically through exhibitions in the gallery, the only giant screen theater to museum in the state of Illinois a 40 foot dome planetarium, all these incredible things.

But when you're shuttered, you reach them anyway.

So I said take your cell phone out, go to the collections vault, take a casting of Abraham Lincoln's hands that we have been given in the collection, you might've seen this.

And so our curator who had never made these videos before in her life has probably made 50 videos of different collections objects we put them out on social media.

We are actually reaching more people this year in engaging them now all be it in different ways but then we've ever done before.

One other creative response was December 21st, there was an unbelievable astronomical event.

Looking at into the sky, the alignment of Jupiter about a half billion miles away and another half billion, a billion miles out center.

There they are aligned in so close in the sky they appear to be one star they called the Christmas star.

Our planetarium director and her colleague, Renee Kerrigan and Nick Ray took a telescope out on the Plaza, pointed it up bought a $15 device to click an iPhone to it and broadcast if you will on Facebook-- - It's awesome.

- Live, by the end of a one hour period of time 75,000 people from around the world had listened to Renee and Nick talk about what the science behind this is.

We get on a good non-pandemic year 50,000 butts in the seats in our planetarium for live shows.

Now there's no comparison-- - You had 75,000-- - In one hour.

So my point is-- - Harnessing the digital ways.

- Creative... That took creative courage because they had never done anything quite like that, it costs little bit of money and a little bit of courage 'cause they said, "Well, what if nobody can give it a try?"

And so now I can tell you we are changed as an organization, as a museum and museums around the country are coming to this realization.

We will use galleries and planetarium and giant screen and programs and lectures, but we will also use the so many other tools, including partnerships which we already have underway with this phenomenal nationally renowned public media station right down the street.

- Leading the way and showing the way.

Well according to Ernest Hemingway courage is grace under fire.

And so I'm gonna get back to Paul, and I'm gonna ask you Paul to share with me an example of grace under fire.

- Well I mean...

So I'll give you a prime example my kids are constantly working on trying to make our state better through different means.

Whether it's raising a regionally extinct species of reptile, and then re-introducing it back to its native home range alligator (indistinct) turtle, or creating the world's largest pharmaceutical disposal network called the Prescription Pill and Drug Disposal Program.

Where these kids go out and granted kids and drugs are bad and we all know that but the reality is these kids are taking a stand to help get rid of the pharmaceuticals that are unwanted or unneeded.

Off their phrase, off the streets and out of the water.

And so whether something like that but the idea is that we're always going be faced with trials.

And obviously in this day and age with COVID and everything else that could not be more true, our kids are constantly right now they're writing legislation and learning how to work with people.

And there's always going to be those obstacles in front of you.

And I'll tell you like my mother always says this to me she goes, brick walls are made to keep the people who are not determined out.

And we're always gonna face brick walls.

But the thing with the Celebrating High School Innovators Awards is we're giving these kids an avenue to be able to do that and I think about some of the things that have been said on this program today is that if we don't give them the opportunity to experience those failures and experience successes to go along with it, they're never going to get to that point.

And so-- - Running out of time my friend, I'm so sorry to cut you off but this is a great conversation.

And US army general during world war one, world war two and the Korean conflict Douglas MacArthur said, " The world is in constant conspiracy against the brave."

Before we run out of time, I'm gonna call this the lightning round.

You each have 10 seconds to share your best advice with someone else and we are gonna start with you Katie.

10 seconds best advice.

- All right, 10 seconds just get started.

Just take that first step.

During the pandemic I tried to figure out how to be a mom, a business owner, and do distance learning.

And we actually started creating the Kim Group Camp for my kids.

So they have created their own businesses in summer and they're continuing to create new ones.

So just figure it out and take the first step.

- Best advice for creative courage, John.

- Be confident in your dreams and go forth.

- Love it, Patrick best advice.

- Lean on your family and faith.

I think farming is a family enterprise lean on the experience, your parents, and that's my final point.

- It's great, so Paul gets the last word.

Can you do it in 10 seconds my friend?

- I dunno where to try surround your people...

Surround yourself with people who are excellent at what they do, no matter what it is.

Also reach out to people and never be afraid to talk to somebody because everybody out there is in your shoes and has been in your shoes and just take the courage take the leap of faith to do it.

- I Love it, well I wanna thank each of our guests for being brave and sharing their take on Creative Courage tonight.

Well, you won't wanna miss next week's conversation on the difference between being a boss and a leader that does it for us this evening.

Thanks so much for joining us, goodnight my friends.

(upbeat music)