Creative Courage

Leveraging Imagination, Collaboration, and Innovation to Create Success Beyond Your Wildest Dreams

Welby Altidor

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119347644
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Subtopic: Karriere

Achieve more, do more, create more with the power of creative courage

Creative Courage challenges you to step outside of your comfort zone and truly make an impact. Set aside the same old routine and break the status quo—because you can only rise to new heights if you first smash the ceiling. Written by the former Executive Creative Director of Creations at Cirque du Soleil, this book shows you how to step up your game, flex your creativity, and make big things happen. Whether you work independently or as part of a team, whether you're self-employed or part of an organization, and even if you think creativity isn't a part of the work that you do—this book gives you the perspective, courage, and kick start you need to think differently about the things you do every day.

Creative courage is more than a strategy, it's a way of life. It opens your mind—and the minds of those around you—to new approaches, new ideas, and new schools of thought that can revolutionize the way you work. This book invites you to experience the freedom and power at the intersection of courage and creativity so you can finally:

• Foster a more collaborative culture
• Bring depth and meaning to every project
• Turn challenge into opportunity
• Create work that matters

The value of creative thinking extends far beyond the arts, but the work it allows you to produce has the power to touch like great art can. You gain the ability to make a more profound impact, and you inspire and motivate others to do the same; you become a catalyst for bigger, better things, driven by the enormous potential of the free-thinking mind. Creative Courage helps you break out of the box and start making things happen today.

Chapter 1
The Central Problem Affecting Work
The War on Imagination, and How I Lost My Creative Courage

Have cake and tea with your demons. When we shun our own darkness (our weaknesses, our anger, our sadness, our shame, our pain), we are disconnecting ourselves from the full spectrum of elements that exists within ourselves and the rest of the universe.

Yumi Sakugawa¹

I. Raising the Curtain

Finding in North Korea the Words for an Old Problem

I was on my way to lunch in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, officially the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK), on my third day there. Every day at the Koryo Hotel, one of the only lodging options in the city for foreigners, I was greeted by an ageless man as the elevator's doors opened. His responsibilities seem to be to discreetly smile when someone entered the elevator and press the buttons leading to the appropriate floors. From my limited point of view, his third task seemed the most consequential. It was to arrange, impeccably, a doormat-size carpet on the elevator's floor indicating, in English, the day of the week. The daily ritual of leaving my room and walking through an absurdly dimly lit corridor on one of the highest floors of the hotel was systematically accompanied by this visual reference to the current day of the week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…And it was on that Wednesday that I was about to feel a visceral and sudden unease and fear when I discovered a four-headed monster that was hiding in plain sight.

My temperature rose, I felt disoriented, panicked. The monster was invisible yet powerful. On one head, I could suddenly see its dysfunction and on another one how it was a result of a profound clash between the past and the present. The third head turned at various speeds, abnormally, unusually. The last head, the fourth one, appeared completely disconnected, from the other ones, unaware.

Why I Was in North Korea

Some of the world's best flying trapeze acts ever created come mostly from the former Soviet Union's countries (Russia, Ukraine), from China, and, less known, from North Korea. For close to two decades, troupes from North Korea won many major prizes and gold medals in some of the most prestigious festivals and competitions on the international circus arts event circuit: Monte Carlo, Monaco, Circus of Tomorrow in Paris, Zhuhai in China, and others. In fact, they typically won the biggest prize in their category.

The reputation of these troupes in the international talent scouting circles was not a secret, and everyone also knew that it was nearly impossible to hire artist troupes from that region other than for short stints in international festivals and performances in China. The prestige of those flying trapeze troupes was a source of pride for North Korea and its government was actively supporting their development. Circus in North Korea was an outlet to demonstrate the talent of its designers in acrobatics and the might of its people. Bringing such a troupe to the Cirque du Soleil, based in the West, and offering contracts spanning generally two years suggested major, controversial, cultural clashes. In short, it felt impossible to bring such a troupe to the West despite their recognized talents.

A New Role for Me: Cultural Diplomat

I was in North Korea by mere chance. By the beginning of 2008, I had already played several important functions at Cirque du Soleil within the talent casting team. I had traveled the world to find distinctive contortionists and trapeze artists, but also dancers, singers, physical actors, musicians, and even comic actors or clowns who formed the different troupes of the Cirque du Soleil shows. I was now in charge of leading discussions to create collaborations with sports federations, arts organizations, and circus schools around the world. In the evolution of my roles as talent scout and later as director of the casting advising team, I was acting as a sort of cultural diplomat for Cirque du Soleil with the title of strategic relationship director for arts, sports, and circus.

With the company presenting over fifteen different shows simultaneously around the world, my new objective was to facilitate the access and the long-term recruitment of artists by developing an international network of partnerships between Cirque du Soleil and many national and global federations and schools. This role offered me the opportunity to work closely with several pioneers and experts in body movement, entertainment technology, the performing arts, sports high performance, and circus arts at Cirque du Soleil and beyond.

A Beautiful-Impossible Objective

The utopian and positive spirit present in Cirque du Soleil's creation was both a source of inspiration and a reinforcement of some of my instincts. In my naive, idealistic view of the world and my excitement over this new role, I had set a few key goals for myself and the small team I was working with. One of my objectives was to establish the groundwork for an eventual connection between our team of professional acrobatic designers, arguably some of the best in the world, and their counterparts from the Pyongyang National Circus in North Korea. I was dreaming that we could rise beyond the politics of our respective regions, that we could create a cultural bridge to exchange ideas on best practices and innovation in trapeze act design and performances—if or when the situation ever improved between our countries, some time, in an unforeseen, distant future. It was a long shot, what I called a beautiful-impossible dream, and what Team X from Google calls Moonshot projects and goals, an objective that I liked to set for myself among more pragmatic milestones.

Whenever I establish a direction for my work and think about its eventual impact, setting at least one truly out-of-the-ordinary objective on my list became a must and a best practice after the experience in North Korea. The founder of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberté, referred at times to the mission of the company as bringing dreams and peace to the world through shows and entertainment, something I translated and adapted as being a warrior for peace and dreams into my work. Inspired by this beautiful-impossible objective and the idea of being a warrior for peace and dreams, I imagine my work to have a potential impact on the horizon of five to seven years. I thought that if I could establish a few critical, strategic contacts in North Korea, even if I was long gone or had moved to a new role at Cirque du Soleil, the casting team would be able to take advantage of that groundwork and eventually create the knowledge and cultural exchange I was visualizing. No one truly believed that this initiative would go anywhere, and so nobody tried to stop me.

Dreams of Peace

I was also considering this project because when I was a child, I had dreamed of becoming a diplomat, helping to achieve peace in the most conflicted parts of our world. Later, at twenty years old, I got emotional when President Bill Clinton invited Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat to “shake hands for peace in the world” at the White House in 1993.

After a short and inconclusive stint in political science at the University of Montreal, Canada, I was left feeling ambivalent about the discipline, while still passionately interested in discovering the inner workings of our world and its potential for peace and harmony. I thought that opening the possibility for our designers and those in North Korea meeting and exchanging innovative ideas on how to make people fly was a way to express a form of creativity. It could move us closer to an inner aspiration for mutual understanding, meaningful insight, and the discovery that art calls for again and again: that beyond our differences, we share something elemental and universal that can unite us all.

There was this possible promise stemming from the fact that anywhere in the world, kids of any origin, background, and culture resonated with awe and wonder when seeing a human fly from one trapeze to another. In something as simple yet as extraordinarily complex as a flying trapeze act, cultures could be transcended, even if just for a moment. In some ways, my idealism and naiveté prevented me from seeing the obvious obstacles; instead they gave me a push to move forward where others might not have even started.

Circus Diplomacy

I reached out to the Canadian embassy in Ottawa in winter and spring 2008, explaining the essence of the project and my role at Cirque du Soleil. I didn't know when I called that the Canadian Foreign Affairs Services was involved, through its embassy in Seoul, South Korea, in quiet efforts to ease the tensions in the region and help engage the North Korean government in international talks toward peace. Just before my call to Ottawa, apparently a new initiative was about to be deployed for engaging with the leadership of North Korea through cultural and social exchanges and discussions. Very quickly after one of my calls with the Canadian diplomatic team in Ottawa and Seoul, a new expression was born: circus diplomacy.

Approximately four months from my first call in Ottawa, I had established a link with North Korea's permanent mission to the United Nation; hosted them in Montreal for a dinner and a tour of our facilities at Cirque du Soleil's International Headquarters; and explained the possibility of eventual cultural exchange between our respective heads of acrobatic design. Where I imagined an outcome over five to seven years, I found myself suddenly catapulted into the middle of diplomatic complexities, nuances, and potential perils of international politics in one of the world's most sensitive and volatile regions.

Even if Cirque du Soleil shows had never made it to North Korea, the designers of the National Circus of Pyongyang, the Ministry of Culture and Foreign Services Department were very aware of Cirque's work and interested in engaging with its representatives. I have no doubt that Cirque's reputation made the process to visit their country, famously difficult to access, not only possible but fast-tracked.

I was accompanied by a colleague from the casting team, an acrobatic talent scout, and the Canadian ambassador to North Korea, based in Seoul, and his retinue, on our way from Beijing to Pyongyang. Arriving at the Pyongyang International Airport was a notable experience. As soon as we crossed the gate at the border, an agent asked for our passports and our cell phones. Each of our phones was placed in an individual burgundy velvet sachet, and kept at the airport during our entire stay.

A Monster at Lunch

In the elevator that Wednesday afternoon at the hotel, three days into this trip, I looked down at the doormat-size carpet and read “WEDNESDAY” in bright yellow, surrounded by a cheerful blue background and a corresponding rectangular yellow lining.

I was making my way to the one functioning revolving restaurant of the two rotating eateries perched near the top of the hotel and offering a prized panoramic view of the city. Although the hotel's capacity was five hundred guests, I estimated that we were probably only fifteen to twenty clients for a staff of about ninety. Through the restaurant's speakers, the persistent music of the revolution echoed, both epic and mysterious, just above the sound of a whisper, as my colleague and I spoke with our guardian who was assigned to follow and lead us everywhere except in our bedroom.

Over cold no...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Central Problem Affecting Work: The War on Imagination, and How I Lost My Creative Courage
• Chapter 2: Care First: Respect Is Not the First Step When Disengagement Is the Status Quo
• Chapter 3: Secure Safety: No Safety, No Trust
• Chapter 4: Foster Trust: The Natural State of Silos
• Chapter 5: Play with Danger: When the Stakes Are So High That We Just Want to Play It Safe
• Chapter 6: Dream: Spreadsheets Don't Dream Yet
• Chapter 7: Discover Breakthroughs: The Neglected Area of Human Emotions and the Edge of the Future
• Chapter 8: Grow: What If It's Not about the Logo?
• Chapter 9: Start to Dance: When Is It Too Late?
• Conclusion: 50 Percent More
• Index
• End User License Agreement