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

By Welby Altidor

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Sep 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781119347644

Book preview

Contents

Cover

Series Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Past and Present Clash

The Uncertainty of Transformation

Making Sense of My Experience

What Is Creative Courage?

No Panacea

The Quest for a Constructive, Transformative Workplace

Creative Courage for Everyone

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

I. Raising the Curtain

Finding in North Korea the Words for an Old Problem

Circus Diplomacy

A Monster at Lunch

A Four-Headed Monster

The Two Pillars of the War on Imagination: Unconsciousness and Time

The War Closer to Us

Childhood Dreams and the Personal War

The Inner War

The Falling Wall

II. Insights

The War at Work

A Clash at the Heart of Our Brand

Manifestations of the War on Imagination at Work

III. Your Story

Disconnection with Imagination at Work

Scanning Your Team, Project, Business, and Organization

A Path of Seven Stages

Summary

Chapter 2: Care First: Respect Is Not the First Step When Disengagement Is the Status Quo

I. Raising the Curtain

Where Respect Starts

Disengagement Close to Home

The Context

A New Situation without an Instruction Manual

Caring First: The Team

Added Support for the Practice of Caring First

Building Your Narrative

Putting My Own Words on It

II. Insights

Practices

Exercises

III. Your Story

Summary

Chapter 3: Secure Safety: No Safety, No Trust

I. Raising the Curtain

In Search of Innovation with the Body

Determining How Safe Your Organization Is

How to Create or Reinforce Your Virtual Net

II. Insights

Practices

Exercises

III. Your Story

Summary

Chapter 4: Foster Trust: The Natural State of Silos

I. Raising the Curtain

Trust

II. Insights

The Path to Trust: Better Collaborations

A New Attitude

The Undiscussed Part of Innovation Work: Emotional Work

Practices

Exercises

III. Your Story

Summary

Chapter 5: Play with Danger: When the Stakes Are So High That We Just Want to Play It Safe

I. Raising the Curtain

The Sage of the Acrobatic World

Understanding the Need to Play

II. Insights

Practices

Exercises

III. Your Story

Summary

Chapter 6: Dream: Spreadsheets Don't Dream Yet

I. Raising the Curtain

Cirque's Early Dreaming

The Bottom Line, the Blade, and the Noose

II. Insights

Practices

Exercises

III. Your Story

Summary

Chapter 7: Discover Breakthroughs: The Neglected Area of Human Emotions and the Edge of the Future

I. Raising the Curtain

Breakthrough Innovation

Magic That Moves People

II. Insights

Practices

No Hard Rules but a Few Principles

Filters: Are You Trapped in Success? Moving Away from Common Addictions

The Best Context for Discoveries and Breakthroughs

Exercises

III. Your Story

Summary

Chapter 8: Grow: What If It's Not about the Logo?

I. Raising the Curtain

Beyond the Small Stuff

II. Insights

Practices

Love in Technology and Growth

Exercises

III. Your Story

Summary

Chapter 9: Start to Dance: When Is It Too Late?

I. Raising the Curtain

II. Insights

Practices

Exercises

III. Your Story

Summary

Conclusion: 50 Percent More

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Figure 7.1

Figure 8.1

Figure 8.2

A deeply powerful and resonant piece for the creative soul that lies within.

— Alexa Meade, artist

Creative Courage reveals a compelling and original path for our organizations to become more agile and to thrive. Its inspiring and inclusive message calls for our collective work to become highly creative and deeply nurturing. Creative Courage is transformative.

— Susan David, PhD, author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Emotional Agility and psychologist at Harvard Medical School

I've been a student of great innovators, business tycoons, and CEOs for twenty years. By far the most predictive leadership quality is courage, particularly when a bold new path is needed. Taking decisive action in the face of massive uncertainty can be a lonely experience. Vulnerabilities are exposed. Red flags are raised. Yet creativity demands it. Welby's book is an absolute must read for anyone aspiring to make an impact in the business world. You'll not only learn how to be a better leader, you'll be inspired to be a better human being.

— Jeffrey Cohn, author of award winning book Why Are We Bad at Picking Good Leaders (Jossey Bass), as well as numerous Harvard Business Review articles on leadership and innovation

In Creative Courage, Welby Altidor deftly expands the scope of what we traditionally call creative practice to include those from all callings and walks of life. Drawing illustrative threads from both the personal and professional, Altidor weaves a vision that is not only inspiring, but also provides the reader tools for moving towards imaginative action. Whether on the world stage or the theater of our own day-to-day lives, Creative Courage can help bring freshness and agility to how we approach our collaborations with others.

— Lucianne M. Walkowicz, Baruch S. Blumberg NASA Chair of Astrobiology, Library of Congress, astrophysicist at The Adler Planetarium, TED fellow, artist

Creative Courage makes you look at the process of creation in a whole new light! Definitely a book to live by when you want to take your creative and collaborative skills to the next level. Just a great read for inspiring minds."

— Jon Boogz, movement artist

When I met Welby Altidor, one of the very first things he asked me was, What are your dreams? Welby has the gift of tapping right into your loftiest imagination . . . and simultaneously giving you the sense that you just might achieve it. It's not a wonder. Welby has had backstage access to some of the most incredible creative talent on the planet. Written in a deeply personal and thoughtful voice, this book offers readers a chance to feel a part of Welby's world and find the creative courage they need to pursue their dreams.

— Deborah Yeh, senior vice president, marketing & brand, Sephora Americas

Creative Courage brings a new ideological vocabulary that can spark epiphanies. It reminds us that the experience of creation is as important as the result of the work. After all, the journey of creation is what makes our daily life.

— Asinnajaq, curator and filmmaker, Three Thousand

This book highlights the power of the collective genius of true intuition driven co-creation. It focuses on a three-way interaction—

1. A man's personal story. 2. A man's professional story. 3. How a man magnificently encapsulates his audience.

If you channel what you genuinely feel from your very essence (not from your past story), your truth will show up in the most unexpected ways. A truly brilliant read.

— Duncan D. Bruce, founding partner and executive creative director, The Brand Conspiracy & Associates ltd; author of Brand Enigma and The Dream Café

Creative Courage

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

Welby Altidor

Wiley Logo

Cover image: © Vizerskaya/Getty Images

Cover design: Paul McCarthy

Copyright © 2017 by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Altidor, Welby, 1973- author.

Title: Creative courage : leveraging imagination, collaboration, and innovation to create success beyond your wildest dreams / Welby Altidor.

Description: Hoboken : Wiley, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2017020718 (print) | LCCN 2017035043 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119347262 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119347644 (epub) | ISBN 9781119347224 (hardback)

Subjects: LCSH: Creative ability in business. | Leadership. | Success in business. | Altidor, Welby, 1973- | Cirque du Soleil. | BISAC: BUSINESS &ECONOMICS / Careers / Job Hunting. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Human Resources & Personnel Management. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Management.

Classification: LCC HD53 (ebook) | LCC HD53 .A428 2017 (print) | DDC 650.1–dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017020718

Dedication

For Ella Farber Altidor and the sixteen-year-old misfit hiding in all of us. No one will get your light until you get it.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye*

Note

*. Kindness from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye, copyright © 1995. Reprinted with the permission of Far Corner Books.

Acknowledgments

To Ella, for being the amazing dancer of life. To Kat, for being the visionary of love, space, and pace. To Yael, for being an extraordinary mother and artist. To Annie, Dorcelan, Myrta, and Wendy, for your faith and love. To the Baulu family, for your art of hosting and celebrating. To Susan Abramovitch, for practicing law so artfully. To Jeanenne Ray at Wiley, for your patience and support. To Jocelyn Kwiatkowski, also at Wiley, and your valiant team of editors, thank you for your hawk eyes and for being the guardians of the reading flow. To Adrienne Brodeur from the Aspen Institute, for reminding me to listen to my favorite podcast, On Being. To Alissa Nutting, for your sense of time and your generosity in Aspen. To Guy Laliberté, for your business savvy and your creative intelligence. To Danielle Serpica at Wiley, for your rigor and mastery of the process. To my fellow students at Aspen Words, Colorado, for your courage to share that gave me wings. To Michel Rioux, for your love of theater. To the small but mighty team of Aspen Words, for showing me the way. To Jean Creative Guide at Cirque du Soleil François Bouchard, for your intuition. To Murielle Cantin, for your supersonic ability to see the potential in others and for seeing the talent seeker in me. To John Branca and Karen Langford of the Michael Jackson Estate, for your intimate knowledge of the art and genius of the king of pop. To Bernard Petiot, for your intellectual agility. To Boris Verkhovsky, for being a precious storyteller. To Fabrice Becker, for the music. To Jamie King, for being punk rock and for sharing its spirit with me. To Carla Kama, for being real and badass. To Matthew Whelan, for the wet towels of truth. To Joel Bergeron, for having our back and helping us to see the stage. To Carole Doucet, for challenging and encouraging me to find the questions inside the questions. To Brian Drader, for connecting words and visions to life on stage. To Joanne Fillion, for encouraging me to aim for just enough perfection. To Line Giasson, for your drive to make auditions memorable. To Diane Quinn, for your fearless embrace of the spirit of the Renaissance. To Bernardine Fontaine, for your strength that inspired me, and our family, to be strong. To Jacques Méthé, for your sense of words and story. To Catherine Nadeau, for your sense of beauty in movement. To Marta Rocamora, for your sense of community. To Viviana De Loera, for your sense of space. To Seth Godin, for Linchpin live in New York City in 2010. To David and Tom Kelly from IDEO, for the creative confidence. To David Allen, for Getting Things Done. To Marche Soupson, for the almost daily stroll to get delicious soup for lunch. To Fabrik8 in Montreal, for the office space. To Stephanie Malak and Emanuel Cohen, for your keen sense of lines and objects, thanks for the graphs and icons in this book. To the MJ ONE team, for your resilience, brilliance, and bigheartedness. To everyone at Cirque du Soleil, your passion makes your audience radiant.

For all of your superpowers and your genius, thank you!

Foreword

When I met Welby for the first time, one could say that part of the setting was somewhat familiar to the world I was creating in the script of the TV show CSI. There was obscurity surrounding us, even if we were not in a dark alley. Then the shadowy, tensed atmosphere was sporadically disturbed by shots of light and music, video projections, dances, and incredible acrobatics and by a flurry of activities onstage and in the working theater, filled with computers, artists, technicians. As I sat with my team at the back of the house, I felt the whole energy of Las Vegas concentrated inside the performing space where Welby was busy creating the show Michael Jackson ONE with Jamie King and a talented team from Cirque du Soleil and beyond.

I grew up in Las Vegas, where my love for music and live stage performances started. My mother worked at the Riviera Hotel, where legends like Bill Withers and the 5th Dimension performed. Music never stopped inspiring me. So, it was extra special for me to meet with Welby at that moment. He was in the middle of creating a hit show, although he didn't know it back then. That too was familiar; I was catching him as the work was still in progress, in flux, in that fragile and vulnerable place where you are not sure if it's going to work or not, your heart full of hope and caffeine.

I should know a thing or two about being vulnerable and about dancing with the unknown. When I first imagined, dreamed, and created the TV show CSI, nobody knew about me in Hollywood. As a young guy from Las Vegas, I was representing in many ways the cliché of the misfit with not much more than a dream and a few dollars to his name.

Creating something new that resonates with many is hard. It's never an exact science although the process is always exacting. And at the core of that process lies a subtle, often overlooked question: Can we create something amazing, innovative, without crushing our soul and the spirit of our team in the process? Is it inevitable to do great work at a great cost to you and the team that surrounds you? Is leadership, creative and otherwise, only about sacrifices?

I pitched the idea of a TV script following a team of forensic experts investigating in Las Vegas (and subsequently in New York, Miami, and even the cyber world!) many times before someone said yes. I had to absorb many NOs! along the way, uttered at times in the most impersonal way, as body blows coming from left and right. I was lucky to meet through it all talented, visionary, and courageous people who decided to bet on my potential, starting with celebrated producer Jerry Bruckheimer and acclaimed TV executive Nina Tassler.

I love that Welby explores in this book two concepts that are fundamental to my vision of success. Creativity, of course, and courage. As an artist and an outsider in Hollywood back then, I aimed to break the rules by offering a different approach to storytelling on TV that changed the standards and the paradigm of that era. So much so that it inspired a generation of shows that adopted and were inspired by it. That creativity and thirst for innovation are at the heart of what drives my work, whether I dream of new TV series, Broadway shows, or a celebration of cutting-edge diversity through the medium of comic books.

As a producer, I can never take for granted courage, a quality that is critical to lasting and impactful success. It's a mind-set that I have in part acquired thanks to my childhood in Las Vegas, where I learned the value of risk-taking. The risk-taker can be reckless of course, mindless or arrogant, but I prefer the courageous ones who—like some of my mentors—never shy away from taking a chance on the misfits, the odd man or odd woman out. It takes courage to zig when the world zags, but this truism is also at the heart of creativity, innovation, and success.

Since that first day where we met in the theater of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, Welby and I continued to foster a precious friendship, peppered with dreams of collaborating together on projects and mutual support, admiration for our respective work and ethos.

Through the last few years, I've known Welby to be passionate about creating beautiful live experiences and shows with Cirque du Soleil, but I also discovered his passion for improving the way that beauty and innovation is created. Welby's obsession covers not only the output of work but also the process that leads to its creation. Said differently, he's driven to create amazing things amazingly. Fearlessly, he wants to improve not only the what but also the how of innovation.

I've had the privilege to work with incredible teams of supremely talented showrunners, producers, and actors. I know firsthand how much the quality of our process or lack thereof affects the final product, the story, the result. The way we treat people and the way we find productive ways to work together and harmonize our individual styles and beliefs all contribute to making our shows and our businesses great—or not.

And for every project and each new milestone, that quest needs reinvention through courage, creativity, and humility. In my industry, we are never completely in control of the destiny of our work. We are constantly waiting for a yes, for the green light of someone else on the project on which we are working. Although this is a reality that can't be completely erased or contoured, Creative Courage: Leveraging Imagination, Collaboration, and Innovation to Create Success Beyond Your Wildest Dreams invites us beautifully and convincingly to start by saying yes to ourselves and the potential of our dreams.

In that way, Welby's thoughts represent an expression of what I tried to convey years ago when I named my production company Dare to Pass. I invite you to join Welby's vivid explorations