Drawing on Dr Mark Powell’s ground-breaking arts-based leadership development programmes, which formed the basis for the business novel, Perform To Win: Unlocking the secrets for the arts for personal and business success, this theme imagines how well businesses could run if they developed a ‘performance culture’, in which team members adopted a genuine ensemble approach, delivering brilliant individual performances while inspiring each other to deliver the best ‘show’ the ensemble is capable of.
Most of us have some experience of performance. Think about a time when you perhaps sang in a choir, or played in a band or orchestra; took part in a play or musical; did a stand-up routine – or when you last presented to an audience or took part in a sport. When we perform like this, we are fully engaged – our energy feeds directly into our performance, because there is no organisational ‘stuff’ that comes between us and our audience.
When we perform with other people, we also adopt an ‘ensemble’ mindset. We know that the quality of our own performance depends on the quality of the support and inspiration that we get from our fellow performers. If we try to dominate proceedings, we destroy the overall effect. We encourage our fellow performers to deliver brilliant performances of their own, so that our own performance can feed off the energy that comes from an ensemble that is truly ‘on song’.
Most performances are shaped and led by a director – or a conductor or a coach – someone who is in charge of proceedings but does not dictate every aspect of everyone’s performance; someone who sets the general direction and then looks to the performers to fill the interestingly shaped frame that he or she has created.
This is how the businesses of the future will operate: not as a collection of workers supervised by managers but as creative ensembles guided by leaders who are more like theatre directors or orchestral conductors.
This theme explores the mindsets and techniques used by performing artists to deliver winning performances, using inspiring video of great performers. In the masterclass and workshop formats, leaders work closely with real performers – conductors; singers; jazz artists; dancers – to gain an understanding of how these top performers work and interact together to deliver outstanding performances. Using the 10 Lessons from the Performing Arts developed in Perform To Win, leaders are given a practical and inspirational framework of ideas to apply these mindsets and techniques to real business issues, helping leaders to develop winning performances of their own.
All of our speaker themes can be delivered in variety of formats to suit the occasion, budget, audience, and purpose.
Themes can be delivered as a short speech, an interactive conference session, a half-day workshop or a full-day masterclass.
We also run bespoke arts-based leadership development programmes.
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