The Five Principles of

Performance Thinking
The Mindsets and Techniques for Success
in the Modern World
Dr. Mark Powell and Jonathan Gifford
©2019 by Dr. Mark Powell and Jonathan Gifford
Adapted by permission of LID Publishing Limited
ISBN: 978-1-912555-13-0
Estimated reading time of book: 4–5 hours

Key Takeaways
• Business organizations require creative thinking in addition to efficient processes, so they must find
a way to balance both art and science in their practices.
• Ensemble work is at the heart of every great performance; it’s what brings a performance to life.
• A great performance has a purpose and tells a story that engages the audience on an emotional
level.
• Rehearsing allows individuals to stretch their boundaries and actively explore new ideas within a
trusting environment.
• Successful performers win over their audiences and draw them into their performances.

Overview
To ensure enduring success and maintain their relevance, cutting-edge businesses need to continu-
ally generate creative new ideas and embrace a growth mindset for radical innovation and disruption.
Unfortunately, these elements aren’t characteristic of most traditional industrial systems. In The Five
Principles of Performance Thinking, Dr. Mark Powell and Jonathan Gifford present five core principles
from the performing arts arena that can help you transform your business. By adopting the principles
of performance thinking and following the techniques of artists, you can deliver winning performances
and delight your customers.

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The Five Principles of Performance Thinking Dr. Mark Powell and Jonathan Gifford

Putting on a Performance
The most successful businesses are those that focus on putting on a brilliant performance and delight-
ing their customers with a truly wonderful experience. While emotional engagement comes naturally
to performing artists, it’s often overlooked in a business context. The mindset of performing artists is
more creative and collaborative than the industrial mindset. In business, many leaders hate risk and
don’t encourage new ideas. They value processes and efficiencies more than feelings and emotions.
However, because customers aren’t machines, engaging with them should be a creative process rather
than a mechanical one.

Despite their natural inclination to be creative, performing artists are also business-like in that they’re
accustomed to working on tight deadlines with limited budgets. They also know the importance of
being ready to perform when the curtain rises. Just like performing artists, in business, people are
judged by their performances, and more specifically, how they engage with customers. The five prin-
ciples of performance thinking are a reminder that businesspeople must behave as performers, even
though they’re in an office and not on a stage.

Principle 1: Develop a Performance Mindset

Businesses tend to approach performing differently than performing artists do. In business, there’s a
tendency to do things as they’ve always been done. In linear fashion, business leaders think scientifi-
cally, establish processes, and then stick to them. Developing a great performance requires creativity,
which is characterized by non-linear thinking and activities. Creativity requires individuals to look at
things with fresh eyes, explore new avenues, and uncover new and interesting ideas. These new ideas
can, in turn, break people out of the ruts they’ve comfortably settled into.

Creativity takes a characteristically holistic approach, one that also works well in business. Thinking
holistically can help people see and understand the big picture. The big picture must always inform
the details, and the details must always serve the big picture. Creativity is project-focused and requires
a great deal of practice and rehearsal. While practice doesn’t guarantee a great performance, the best
performers are those who practice daily until every aspect of their performance is perfect. Just as artists
can’t master their craft without practice, businesspeople can’t excel in their positions without practice.

What separates world-class performers from others is goal-setting. World-class performers set goals not
only about the outcomes they want to achieve but also about the processes of achieving the outcomes.
Meanwhile, mediocre performers set only general goals that are focused solely on outcome, and poor
performers tend not to set goals at all. The point of practice is to free the mind. With sufficient practice,
individuals can perform without thinking about what they’re doing and focus instead on delivering
great performances.

Technical brilliance isn’t enough to guarantee a great performance; artists have to personally find the
art in what they do. In business, it’s easy to become overly focused on metrics and key performance
indicators. However, audiences don’t use a checklist when judging artistic performances. Instead, they
base their judgments on aesthetics. Being successful in business requires individuals to look beyond the
metrics and measure how they’re engaging and delighting their customers. It’s critical for business per-
formances to produce emotional reactions. Ultimately, what matters most is how customers feel about
the companies they do business with, not just what they know about them.

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The Five Principles of Performance Thinking Dr. Mark Powell and Jonathan Gifford

Principle 2: Build Connected Ensembles

Performances can’t come to life without ensemble work. Good ensemble work requires skill, effort, and
a particular mindset. Collaborative ensembles benefit from the generation of group intelligence, or syn-
ergy, that couldn’t be achieved by any one member of the group alone. Regrettably, the individualistic
cultures of business organizations tend to discourage the formation of ensembles. The main goal in
business should be to form genuine ensembles that create something unique and are more than the
sum of their individual parts. In genuine ensembles, no individual can matter more than any other indi-
vidual; everyone is equal and there are no hierarchies. Ensembles require complete autonomy so they
have the freedom to develop creative solutions and address any challenges put before them. Their goal
is to collaborate as a group on any task put before them that requires the creation of a unique solution.

Performers in an ensemble need to have a good connection. A good connection demands that every
member be attuned to their fellow ensemble members’ performances rather than being focused solely
on their own. A good connection requires complete trust; trust is at the core of all effective ensemble
work. Trust within the ensemble communicates to the members that they can try things and fail with-
out fear. When trust exists in business organizations, employees can open up to one another and form
their own ensembles. While it takes time and focused effort to build an effective ensemble, once an
ensemble is fully functioning, a deluge of new ideas can emerge.

Good connections demand that all members be equal before the task, with no one member in control of
the others. Management of an ensemble would compromise the creative freedom of the group; there-
fore, leadership must be shared. A creative director may be appointed to guide an ensemble toward
creative solutions, but he or she must never control the ensemble. It’s the ensemble, not the creative
director, that’s in control of cultivating solutions to challenges.

Principle 3: Have a Purpose, Tell a Story

The point of any performance is to take the audience on an emotional journey. To accomplish this, the
performance must tell a story in a way that grips the audience. If there is no story, the performance will
fail to engage the audience’s emotions. If performers are able to tell a compelling story, the audience
will not only be engaged but, more importantly, will remember the story that’s been told.

To be successful, storytellers must understand their purpose and stay true to it. They’re more apt to
acquire loyal customers if they build engaging stories around their purpose and focus on delivering
good performances rather than on simply delivering the goods. A purpose and story should run through
an entire performance and inform everything the storyteller does. For example, many companies have
an interesting founding myth that defines the essence of their organizations. Such founding myths can
be woven into an engaging and memorable story about an organization’s origins and purpose. These
types of stories go into greater depth than a simple purpose statement, which can usually be expressed
in very few words. The key is to develop the best story possible—one that will create an emotional link
between organizations and their customers.

Even the greatest story needs to be refreshed and retold from time to time in order to keep customers
engaged. The narrative may lose its relevance over time. As people revisit their stories, they should stick
to the core of their original tales and bring the details up to date.

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The Five Principles of Performance Thinking Dr. Mark Powell and Jonathan Gifford

Principle 4: Rehearse Creatively

The point of rehearsal is to uncover and try out new, daring ideas. Hence, the key ingredient of rehearsal
is the generation of new ideas. It involves selecting which ideas to move forward and which ones to
drop. Creative rehearsal often pushes people out of their comfort zones. Dangerous and scary new
ideas need to be allowed and encouraged if innovation is to be promoted. Successful rehearsal always
involves the creative collaboration of a trusting ensemble.

Rehearsal can be painful because it involves making mistakes as people experiment with the best ways
to deliver their performances, but it’s impossible to deliver good performances without rehearsing
extensively. Successful rehearsal requires people to accept and embrace failure as a positive force. With-
out risk, nothing new or exciting can emerge. Unfortunately, human beings are risk-averse and tend to
prefer “tried and trusted” over “risky and interesting.”

In business, individuals tend to block new ideas and find fault with them rather than accept them. This is
because mistakes can be costly. For this reason, people often behave as if it’s their duty to point out the
flaws in everyone else’s suggestions. Business rehearsals offer an experimental, safe space where people
can improvise and new ideas can be debated. Its purpose is to break through blocking mindsets. Taking
risks keeps organizations relevant and provides the added benefit of uncovering potential business
opportunities. On the contrary, a lack of experimentation and risk-taking stifles business opportunities.
Creative rehearsal involves the constant search for new and better ways to deliver stories and stay ahead
of the curve. It has the ability to future-proof businesses.

Principle 5: Delight the Audience

The first four principles of performance thinking culminate in a performance—the moment an individ-
ual faces his or her audience. In rehearsal there are no mistakes, but in performance, things can actually
go wrong. To prepare and prevent mishaps:

• Practice and rehearse.

• Ensure the performance space is one that enables and supports the performance; a poor setting has
the ability to kill a performance.
• Harness a special energy and an intense focus. It’s beneficial for performers to have a certain amount
of nervousness; if they’re too relaxed and casual, they’ll likely deliver a weak performance.
There are four levels of performance—individual, ensemble, company, and audience—and the best per-
formances deliver at all four levels. An individual performance should contribute to and even enhance
the ensemble’s performance. The company performance relates to the wider company or organization
and requires that every aspect of the performance be true to who the company is and reflect its unique,
individual culture. The final and most important level of the performance is the audience. Every per-
formance depends on the existence of an audience, and it’s the task of each performer to draw the
audience in so that its members can add their own contributions to the experience.

Conclusion
In the world of business, performance thinking has transformative powers. By adopting a performance
mindset, you can build connected ensembles, review your purpose, remind yourself of your story, and
rehearse creatively. Your performance is the time to give it your all, use your skills, and leave your audi-
ence wanting more.
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The Five Principles of Performance Thinking Dr. Mark Powell and Jonathan Gifford

About the Authors

Dr. Mark Powell is a business writer, consultant, and entrepreneur. A business and strategy consultant
for over 30 years, Dr. Powell also had a successful career as a competitive Latin American dancer, win-
ning over 50 titles including two British and two World Championships. His increasing focus has been on
using a deep understanding of the performing arts to solve modern day business challenges.

Jonathan Gifford is a business author whose books include History Lessons, Blindsided, 100 Great Lead-
ership Ideas, and 100 Great Business Leaders. Gifford worked as a Fleet Street advertising man before
moving to BBC Magazines.

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