Rick Seiffedine, Senior VP for Brand at Bell Canada said it bluntly: “When you work for a corporation, you exist to make money for the shareholder.” But it’s more than that, he added. It has to be more than that. You just don’t bring more money in by moving more bricks from one pile to the other anymore. You don’t fulfill your promise as an employee just by checking boxes along your work description, but rather by “becoming who you are”.

“You know someone said that the world is a stage, and each must play a part.” – Elvis

The beauty of the connected, dis-intermerdiated world, is that there is now a part for each and every one of us. And that part is not tailored by someone else for you to fit in. If everyone is a media, then everyone is also the author and actor of his or her own part in the tragicomedy of life.  

The first imperative in this not-so-brave new world – it has changed, says Jean-Jacques Streliski, and we’re running behind it! – is thus authenticity. This is true for individuals and, consequentially, for organizations. Businesses, associations, universities, families now have a duty to help everyone explore themselves, reach and breach their own boundaries. Horrendous concepts like culture and change management need to be turned on their heads. Organizations should strive to embrace strategies and management practices that accurately reflect and mobilize the collectivization of indivduals’ visions, ambitions and potentialities.

The notion of performance in organizations needs to be re-aligned. Just like the Cirque du Soleil, all organizations bring together athletes, acrobats, clowns, artists and engineers of sorts and offer them a stage where they can surpass themselves, day after day. That’s where magic ensues.

Yes, the world is a stage. And no-one should be lonesome tonight.
 

Ideas Renewal at Cirque du Soleil [FRENCH] – YULBCN 2013 from Mosaic HEC on Vimeo.

This text is part of a series written in the context of the Fifth edition of the Montreal-Barcelona Summer School on Management of Creativity, organized by Mosaic HEC Montréal and Universitat Barcelona, July 9 to 24, 2013.
Illustration by Studio 923a. Read all posts in the series at blog.fandco.ca/yulbcn.