Have You Jumped into the Race?

Intro: Welcome to Listen For Insight. I’m your host David Ternik. We have for you Jess Trybus the CEO of SimCoach, and her insights on leadership and creativity in industry. I send you now to our interviewer Eric Dibble.

Eric: Jess how do you define creativity.

Jess: I think I define it as sort of an approach to solving problems. A proactive approach to solving problems. So people can be creative in all kinds of ways but there is typically a constraint of some sort or a challenge or a problem that they are trying to solve and that is sort of the motivation or the spark that sends them down on a road and more constraints come up and people need to weave or ebb and flow from there and be creative based on what is thrown on them.

Eric: How important do you see creativity being in a technical field – how do you really apply that creativity at Simcoach games.

Jess: Well, I think it is important in a technical field. if you are just thinking technically I mean sort of left side of the brain – you try to solve a problem with the tools you have and I think you are not always going to be able to do that technically in a way that needs to happen or in the way that you want so you sort of have to call in other resources and other ways to solve a problem and that directly how that translates in our company and our field is having different disciplines there. so we work really closely with different disciplines so that there is not one technical solution. There is one solution that has good design and good art and good code and good engineering and also that’s arrived at through the practice of working together and through iterations. I think that sort of goes back to how I defined creativity, through iteration. Seeing what works and trial and error and going from the refining from there.

Host: Jess went on to explain how she overcomes adversity with creativity and innovation.

Jess: Yeah I always focus on the vision, where we are trying to get to but when you’re when you’re in the throws of it, you’ve got to sort of follow the path of what is working and sort of you know we find a lot of that out for play testing. for as early and often as possible. and so definitely hard things come up like how are going to get past this but that is, throw some other ideas into the mix as we come upon some of those challenges and try them. I think so you know, I think we all have a positive attitude and we go into it with a sense yeah we can solve this problem but we have no idea what it is going to look like on the other side but we can do this we can do this we can do this and I think, I think that that spirit is really important. It’s odd to say that personality and attitude would be a big contributor but it’s, it’s not just what what skills you have in a room but it is really sort of this belief system. We can solve this let’s just try and iterate from there and keep trying keep trying. and that goes a long way as opposed to saying it can’t be done, or I don’t think anyone said that we shouldn’t should stop or we shouldn’t try. So attitude is really important and and everyone sort of trusting one another that’s not just within our own teams but also the client is part of the team, trusting that that we are going to get through this, whatever the challenge is. 

Eric: I really like that idea that you mentioned about kind of the positive thinking and having kind of an upbeat attitude. Did that kind of stem from something you always had or do you think that that is kind of brought into through the people you hire and culture that you’ve established at Simcoach Games. 

Jess: Yeah well, I think that personally I am a pretty optimistic person. I have a lot of positive energy it drives my husband crazy sometimes. But, but I think in the company it is important to bring people in that, that share that, or that have sort of, sort of a “yes and” attitude. And so it is not that we are saying that, you know that these aren’t hard problems that come up or that we are not going to be honest or really illogical about what is in front of us, but it is more of like sort of that collaborative spirit of okay I have an idea and okay yes. Like sort of a yes and attitude, which we we borrow from improvisational acting, the rules of improvisational acting. But sometimes I know of like okay okay and just yes and instead of yes but or no but. So just thinking having an open mind and a positive attitude and trusting that we are trying to all get to the same, the same goal and the same end. So I think that it is really important for folks that come into our company to have that sort of initiative and that positive attitude and some people, they might, they might also learn it by just being around it they might sort of catch on, onto that spirit and why that helps push things forward and creatively problem solve. 

Eric: Do you think of yourself as a creative person and and what do you think keeps your imagination from kind of conforming to mainstream society or or going with things that have already been set up before. 

Jess: No it is a good question. I have been at this for over ten years now and so sometimes I feel like I’m, I’m getting too stale but that might just be be. I don’t really think of myself as creative as in spending a lot of time sort of painting or or writing or like sort of isolated, dedicated, time to that. I spend you know, I think of myself as creative in the problems that I’m solving. You know there’s constantly problems being thrown at me, like how to raise this money, or how do I sell something, or how do I implement this, or how do I get the team to do x , y and z, and so those are sort of… ok so what’s my approach gonna be to that, what’s my plan, and how am I gonna execute that so that’s kind of I think where I spend a lot of my creativity if you will, cause the problems are all different and also through repetition through having to work on a lot of these problems throughout the year I get better and I can be even more creative because I’ve learned what works somewhere else obviously. I think I do have a pretty big imagination, maybe not calling it imagination just sort of I can think big without limits but I’m also I think a pretty rational person, so I can think big and I gotta tell you I’ve got the best team for helping me figure out how we’re actually gonna do something. So I think that that’s the hard part and you know, I can get inspired and sort of sell the vision of where we’re going and think big but I’ve always just had some amazing people around me to help me actually execute on how it’s gonna get done.

Host: On a final note, we asked what advice Jess had for someone entering into a new industry.

Jess: I said to him, right now you’re at the Indy 500 and you’re in the stands and you’re watching all these cars whip around and it’s crazy like you know, but don’t think strategically and long term like you have to figure out exactly the right car to get in, you know it like has to be perfect, it’s like just jump in the race and once you’re in the race it’s moving all relative because you guys are all moving kind of the same speed so just get in there and get started and you’ll be able to see once you’re in there like hey I’ll move over here and I’ll move over here and I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna try this and so I don’t know if that’s sort of relevant to what you’re asking me as far as advice, but I think it boils down to just try it. If you have an idea or if you want to do something, just go for it. And if you fail, that’s a good thing in some respects because you’re going to learn one or two things from that and you’re never going to regret it because you tried it and that failure might open up other doors that you wouldn’t have had if you hadn’t tried it. So I think you apply a lot of creativity to things because you’ve had enough experiences in the past you know to show you some good ideas and some paths to go down and some paths to avoid but it’s through just doing it that you pick up those experiences that can allow you to be innovative and creative. So I think I’m very much of the mind of just do it, just try it, just put it down on paper, just try to code it, just try to design it, just try to start a company. Whatever it is, it doesn’t mean that everyone right out of college just start a company, I mean just get in there and try something, don’t think about it for 20 years and then not actually do something. Ok. This is Jessica Trybus, I’m the founder and CEO of Simcoach Games. Thank you for listening for insight.