Performance Thinking in Action

The first four Principles of Performance Thinking lead up to the moment of performance: the point at which we engage with the audience. This is the goal, the focus, of all of our activities.

We need to develop a performance mindset. We need to think creatively about how we can deliver our performance in new and challenging ways. We need to think holistically, keeping the big picture in mind at all times so that it informs the detail of what we do. We have to accept that we can’t plan out a straight line to our winning performance – because this is a creative process, there will be digressions and setbacks.

We need to build connected ensembles. Ensemble members allow their individual performance to be subsumed by the ensemble as a whole. I want to be brilliant, but I can’t perform at my best unless you are brilliant too; your wonderful performance brings out the best in me. This seems obvious to any ensemble performer. Sadly, it doesn’t seem so obvious in most business contexts.

Our performance needs to have a shape and purpose and it needs to tell a story. It has to convey something meaningful, at an intellectual and an emotional level. It must have a compelling narrative and take us on a satisfying journey.

We need to rehearse creatively, to explore how best to tell our story. The ensemble generates new ideas and ways of doing things, accepting each other’s ideas and taking them on, playing and experimenting with them in search of audience-pleasing ways of delivering our performance. With the guidance of our creative director, we select the ideas that are most likely to deliver a winning performance and delight the audience.

Now we have to perform before our audience.

A great performance needs a special energy, an intense focus.

We need, above all, to be prepared – to have done the practice and the rehearsal that prepares us for this moment.

We need to control our performing space. A well-designed stage setting enhances and enables the performance; a poor setting can kill a performance before it begins.

Performers need to be nervous. Anyone who approaches a performance casually will deliver a weak performance. There are techniques and mindsets we can use to direct this energy into our performance.

There are four levels of performance: individual, ensemble, company and audience.

We are all responsible for the quality and preparedness of our own individual performance. There will also be a core group of people with whom we interact most intensively in delivering our performance. Our individual performances must contribute and relate to the ensemble performance.

Beyond these various ensembles is the wider company: the entire organization.

Our performance must deliver at all these levels. An individual performance that doesn’t fit with that of the ensemble and the wider company will strike a wrong note – it will ‘jar’. Companies and organizations all have their own cultures, personalities and styles: the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is different from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; the Royal Shakespeare Company is different from the New York Shakespeare Exchange; Microsoft is different from Apple. Individual and ensemble performances need to make sense in their wider context.

Every aspect of our performance has to be true to who we are; it has to reflect our distinctive, individual culture.

The final part of the performance is the most important: the audience.

Without an audience, there is no performance. The audience collaborates with the performance and contributes to it. The performers’ task is to win over the audience; to draw them into our performance.