Those taken into Cirque du Soleil are strictly urged to embody four key practices: work outside your comfort zone, try something different and take risks, never repeat yourself, and apply creativity to everyday tasks as well as big projects.
In a plenary session at this year’s IABC World Conference in Chicago, a creative soul, Lyn Heward, took center stage and drew the delegates behind the scenes of the Cirque du Soleil to explore the nature of creativity and innovation. A consummate storyteller, Heward meted out experiential words of wisdom on a wide range of issues: risk taking, leadership, teamwork, product development, finding and developing talent, and fostering a dynamic corporate culture. With a great deal of influence, she helped her audience discover the creative spark and zeal for innovation that, in today’s business and life ethos, can spell the difference between success and failure.
Heward joined the circus in the ’90s, and started out as an acrobatic scouting coordinator, but quickly rose from the ranks, having been given charge of Cirque’s Creation Studio. In that role she prepared artists for various critically acclaimed shows like Mystere and Alegria. She served as president and COO of the group’s creative content division from 2000 to 2005. In that position, she was the guiding force behind the creation and production, as well as the artistic and technical follow-up, of all Cirque shows: Quidam, La Nouba, Varekai, Zumanity, Ka, and other creative ventures.
To invoke the imagination, provoke the senses, and evoke the emotions of people around the world is the mission of Cirque du Soleil, home to 5,000 individuals whose collective talents and skills have mesmerized people around the world with their breathtaking performances and unforgettable acts. Heward opens the following doors to make our imagination fly, our creative spirit soar and our zeal for innovation open.
Door 1: Jump on creative opportunities as they arise. Opportunities bring great expectations, and all of us have a wellspring of creativity to capture, to embrace and to nurture. We have the spark to ignite the creative fire that lives within us all. Creativity is like exercise. It needs to be practiced daily, knowing that every day is a day to discover and to create.
Door 2: Surrender to our senses: Develop our intuitive instincts. Live and experience new ideas as they occur. Don’t let them pass us by unnoticed for they may not come again in a long time. Awaken our senses, engage in idea capture, experience the world, and go with the flow.
Door 3: Get actively involved in treasure hunting and creative transformation. In other words, be in the loop of recruitment and training, and as we do these activities, look beyond the obvious. The two mandates of Cirque’s casting department were to scour the world in search of ideas and inspiration, and to identify creative individuals, who are independent thrill seekers and have a strong sense of teamwork. Athletes are brought in for their intense discipline and focus.
In the beginning, most of Cirque’s artists were self-taught. But in 1992, they had their first cohesive casting and training, which capitalized on divergent groups as they searched for the most precious of pearls. They maintained an active database and organized close auditions to seek out hidden talents, evaluate individuals’ potential, and bring out the best in each performer and audience. Heward cited the example of Cirque’s receptionist for five years who, in one employee talent show, was discovered to be a good violinist. She was immediately pulled out of the reception desk and made part of the performance ensemble.
At present, Cirque has 25,000 names in its database of talent, which is updated monthly. The group allots 16 weeks a year to train the top 100 candidates without the promise of a job. They are hired for what they might become, not for what they can do at the moment. Those who are taken in are strictly urged to embody four key practices: work outside your comfort zone, try something different and take risks, never repeat yourself, and apply creativity to everyday tasks as well as big projects.
Door 4: Adopt a nurturing environment. In Cirque du Soleil, creativity is constantly stimulated. Every member is pushed to play to the group and look at Cirque as a playground where every employee, performer and clown can see through the eyes of a child — with curiosity, eagerness, excitement, and openness. Undeniably, these attitudes are triggers for more fertile creative thought and action.
It is difficult to be creative in isolation. That’s why in Cirque the key words are teamwork, collaboration, mutual trust, and a healthy dose of humility. The group adheres to the principle of shared creative ownership, and this mindset drives everyone to become truly imaginative, responsible and committed. People within Cirque also have the highest respect for each other’s right to move, as they collectively feel a strong deference for the constant voyage to the unknown, for the value of responsibility and for the concept of success or failure.
Door 5: Be in touch with constraints, challenges, differences and consumer expectations. They are creative catalysts. And to trigger creative inspiration from all these requires resourcefulness from the members of the team. They themselves should define the playing field in which they must be creative.
Cirque is more than entertainment. It is an experience. They lead the way and incite change. Social mission becomes a creative challenge and a spark plug to them. The 9/11 disaster, for example, was the great push for the development of Varekai where Icarus, the main character, flies high up to the sun, which symbolizes the fervent hope that the people of our world can work together and resolve conflicts. Just like the phoenix, it represents the rising from the ashes of New York City as people reach out to other people to extend help.
Door 6: Engage in risk-taking. Getting burned — figuratively or otherwise — is part of an engagement. Risk-taking is the antidote to corporate stagnation. It entails trying something new and sharing our experiences. We have to learn to leverage creativity and credibility to take risks. Perhaps we will make mistakes, but in the long haul, risk-taking will take us to a higher level of creativity and credibility. Recognize that complacency is the single biggest enemy of creativity, while risk-taking represents the balance of power between continued success and fear of failure. In Cirque’s book, risk-taking is research and development. It is undertaken daily and, given its interdependent structure, permits some errors as its members go for greater risk-taking and hopefully, greater results.
Door 7. Keep our creativity fresh. This is best illustrated by a hardworking boss who constantly listens to his or her audience, and contributes to the creative work by keeping his people motivated. He keeps ideas flowing and shares success with everyone. Heward averred that we can make a creative difference in our organization and in our lives, but only if we go forth and pull out our creative potential.
There are many different ways to excellent results especially if we work better and remain connected and committed to our brand. We need to watch and listen to what our spectators say. We ought to continually question its relevance, accepting that a great product has the guts to say it’s time to move to the next.
Heward pushed for the development of a sense of ownership, the cultivation of pride in what people do, the organization of meaningful activities that can ignite the creative fire and keep it burning, the involvement in social causes and advocacies, and the discovery of the potential of every single member of Cirque du Soleil. And the results, as we all agree, deserve no less than a standing ovation.
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