2. Take risks. Try something different.

3. Use inventiveness & creativity to everyday tasks and problems, as well as to the big exciting projects.

4. Build a nurturing environment which is conducive to productivity, creativity and personal growth.

5. Practice teamwork. True creativity requires stimulation and collaboration. It’s difficult to be creative in isolation. 

6. Keep creativity fresh with hard-working bosses who constantly encourage and receive employees’ ideas and feedback and accept that there are often different ways of getting to the same end result.

7. Commit to looking critically at your work or your product from an outside perspective, from the point of view of the consumer. In Cirque’s case, we sit in the house, watch and listen to comments the spectators make during and after the show. We are constantly asking ourselves what we can do better and most often we try it!

8. Stay connected with your end product to see if it still fits the demands of the market.

9 Expose your employees to your product: see the show, wear the clothes, drive the car! Encourage their sense of ‘ownership’, cultivate their pride and share your success with them.

Lyn reinforces that creativity takes enduring work, energy and commitment. She says “Our most natural resource is the people we work with who are the people we build our product with. Unless there’s a strong commitment to teambuilding and passionate leadership, creativity, even at the Cirque, it would not happen.”

“Guy Laliberte”, the founder, is still connected with the company, but brings a lot of “parrinage”, a French word for “godfathering” of the creative and intuitive spirit - soul stewarding. But it’s work that we take seriously. Guy meets monthly with his key players to talk about the product, the processes and the people, and how to keep people involved in the creative spirit and the intuitive spirit.”

“For us training is “creative transformation” and recruiting is “treasure-hunting”. Even at Cirque, we have to work hard at it. We too could lose our soul, if we didn’t have the commitment. We have a “Creative Synergy” department, whose preoccupation is in doing this.”

“Creative Transformation is the most important doorway for us. We’re trying to find the “pearl” the hidden talent in that individual. What is the unique thing that person brings? I think you need to dig deeper as we call it ‘treasure-hunting’ What makes that person tick and how does it contribute to the work that you’re doing?”

Cirque scours the world for ideas and inspirations which become the driving force for their creative process. Like a lot of companies they look for specific skill-sets and attributes and experience for each position. But beyond that and importantly they look for the unique potential of each person, to bring out something extraordinary which pushes his or her limits and makes that individual to true contributor to the Cirque’s creative process.

Team-work is also major. Not one individual makes the Cirque. “Creativity is fostered in work groups where people first get to know each other and then learn to trust one another. And, in this playground we recognize that a good idea can emerge from anywhere in the organization or from within a team. We make our shows from this collective creativity.”

The Human Resources and Performance Review Processes at Cirque are self-created. Five main things are evaluated. “I am creative, committed, responsible, team player, passionate.”

Once a year they bring in new talent; 60 or 70 candidates are gathered from around the world and pushed to their extended limits for up to 16 weeks. “We have them try and do things which they may never have done before and we evaluate their core human values applicable to the job at hand, their ability to work in a team in order to solve problems, the courage to take risks, both physical and artistic, their generosity both to the public and in sharing their ideas with other team members, their willingness to manage their own artistic growth and to learn quickly. Then we hire them, not for who they are now but for what they might become.”

In a similar way, Cirque’s longtime Stage Director, Franco Dragone demands of new artists “Who are you?”. “This way he removes the stereotypical behaviours that often plague young artists, gymnasts and other athletes in general. By sticking his hand down their throats, he pulled them out of themselves and brought forth real, raw beings from whom he would sculpt his characters. It is interesting to note that when asked who they are most people will define themselves through their families, jobs, their likes and dislikes, but very rarely through their inner most thoughts and emotions. It’s very much like peeling an onion to get to the sweet, intense core.”

“In our shows, we don’t tell a story, we use an ‘open architecture’. Our directors write the shows and there are always a series of images and inspirations that weave their way through the show which are interpreted by the individuals in the audience. People will give you entirely different readings of the acts. This leaves room for the imagination of the spectator to read or interpret it in light of the experience of their own life. People are looking to see themselves.”

At Cirque the ideal ‘working space’ is a fantastical playground, which although it may have many rules, is a place where a designer, an artisan or an employee can see the world through the eyes of a child: with curiosity, eagerness, excitement and playfulness.
It has an open and inviting atmosphere which stimulates creative thought and action and which takes into consideration that:

· All team members have the product as their ultimate goal and feel responsible for its success or failure;
· Creative synergy is encouraged, recognized and rewarded. It’s also understood that, “We are each but a quarter note in a grand symphony” and, as a consequence, it’s also a place where a sense of humility and sharing of ‘creative ownership’ is instilled;
· In this fantastical playground, employees are offered the protection and support that they need to take risks on the company’s behalf;
· An interdependent structure allows for greater risk-taking and potentially greater results. And, of course, where risk-taking is encouraged, some errors are permitted!
· Finally, the physical structure and decoration of this playground are both stimulating and inspirational, something the employees can be proud of.

“Creativity is, first and foremost, all about courage, a willingness to take risks, to try new things and share the experience with others. In fact, as an individual or as a company, complacency is the biggest risk you will ever take, and most often the least productive. Risk-taking can be defined as the balance of power between success and fear of failure.