There are many who would challenge the implicit assumption that leaders can develop creativity. They would argue that creative people are born, not made. Indeed, much of the anecdotal literature about creativity would suggest that it is some rare gift that only a chosen few possess.
I have often studied the after-the-event trends surrounding well-known examples of great leaps of creative thought including the mental processes that led to them. If you really reconstruct the chain, we can conclude that creativity arises naturally and comprehensively from the everyday abilities of perception, understanding, logic, memory and thinking styles. There is no secret magic, even though it feels as though there is. The beauty of this is it not only feels good but has the added bonus that it is perfectly attainable by any one of us who applies the described principles.
‘Scrambled eggs…all my troubles seemed so far away.’ No, this is not me lamenting over the wrong choice at breakfast. Scrambled Eggs was the working title for one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. Paul McCartney, one of the greatest songwriters and singers of our day, composed Yesterday – performed over 7 million times in the 20th century – in a dream:
I woke up with a lovely tune in my head. I thought, ‘That’s great, I wonder what that is?’ There was an upright piano next to me, to the right of the bed by the window. I got out of bed, sat at the piano, found G, found F sharp minor 7th – and that leads you through then to B to E minor and finally back to E. It all leads forward logically. I liked the melody a lot, but because I’d dreamed it, I couldn’t believe I’d written it. I thought, ‘No, I’ve never written anything like this before.’ But I had the tune, which was the most magic thing!*
* Quoted in Dream Encounters: Seeing Your Destiny from God’s Perspectives – Barbie L Breathitt.
Back to Sir George Martin CBE, the legendary Beatles man, who we met in Instincts and who worked on the score and produced Yesterday. He describes Yesterday beautifully – ‘it is the pure simplicity that is the genius of the song. This captures the very essence of the song – if it was more elaborate it would cease to exist as we know it’. This is necessary confirmation for all of us in the form of very, very simple writing, that couldn’t be anything else; if it were it would destroy what the point of the song is, which is utter simplicity. We do sometimes overcook things and I think this is one of the best examples of how less can be more.
Sir George self-deprecatingly ventured that it was possible that he hadn’t been ‘over-educated in music’ so that he had a kind of naivety as well.
There is something appealing about naivety – something of a seasoning quality to my ten leadership ingredients. It takes me back to Picasso’s quote about children and what I mean about unlearning to relearn. Most of us are fortunate enough to look fondly on our childhood. Well, indeed it is true that many of our attributes from those formative years are worth keeping and using in adulthood. Don’t always be too keen to grow up!
Naivety lets you ask the probing question, seek out the simple solution and appraise an issue with objectivity. Never let a question go unasked.
In my work I try to be conscious of how an audience will see my messages.
Sir George adapts this to the medium of sound as he says, ‘recording is not what one hears, but what one must make others hear’. I had always felt this, but had never attempted to put it into words or heard it articulated so well. Rather than creating a perfect professional presentation, I have now learnt to pause and ask myself what does the client really want to see, hear, believe or feel – a presentation? A story? A picture? Maybe, just a conversation. What exactly am I trying to show them? It always pays to start with not what I see but what I want my clients to see. The creative form then automatically starts taking form. Of course, the ‘what’ is where Walt Disney starts from.
This is also no difference from Michelangelo’s maxim, ‘Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.’
Michelangelo was given a block of damaged marble 19 feet tall and three years later he unveiled his 17-foot tall ‘The David’, which was then transported from his studio behind the cathedral to the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, a process which took 40 men five days to complete and included tearing down archways and widening streets to make way for the colossal work.
The gemstone of simplicity that George sees in Yesterday struck a similar chord with the simplicity of ingredients and dreaming in making whisky and producing Disney.
Talking about simplicity, there is one such man, from the world of Bollywood, who has been simply following the creative Disney/
Imagineering code, without even knowing so, to revolutionize Indian cinema into a creative and international commercial success. Yash Chopra.
Yash Raj Chopra – the legend of Bollywood
In December 2009, I had the privilege of stepping into the much talked about world of glamour, dreams and sensation – Bollywood, the mega billion dollar Indian film industry. I was keen not to experience it as a star-struck fan but instead pick one protagonist who has blended mainstream Indian sentiment with an evocative international appeal. Someone who combined tradition with innovation.
After Hollywood, the second largest film industry of the world has contributed many talents. Very few of the Bollywood film makers, however, have enjoyed long term consistency in their creative endeavours and even fewer have managed to create an ‘organization’ or a corporation that has become an integral part of the entertainment business in India. This is where Yash Chopra’s leadership story lies.
I met with Yash Chopra (or Yash-ji), one of the first directors who took great creative risk to redefine films and film making. Born in 1932, in a village in Punjab, his life started with humble, middle class roots. The son of an accountant in Northern India, who worked hard to make the longest career span in the film industry and realised great national and international acclaim, winning no fewer than 22 awards and honours worldwide.
He has directed and/or produced over 70 films since 1960 and his creative instinct and risk taking lies at the heart of his success. He was hell bent on making films which were decades ahead of his time because he believed the Indian society, going through radical reforms post-Independence, needed strong unconventional messages. Albeit uncomfortable for viewers to fathom, he sparked many social, economic and cultural revolutions. He wanted to re-shape India’s DNA. He fought from the inside to make the Indian psyche – its system and its way of thinking – a better one.
He was also the first to take his camera to countries such as Switzerland, Holland, Germany and the United Kingdom. This has often led to a direct increase in visitors to those countries and governments have not been shy
in taking note. The Swiss Government has honoured him for helping rediscover Switzerland. In addition to France’s highest civilian honour, the Legion of Honour, he is the first Indian to be honored at BAFTA in 59-year history of the academy.
The only film maker who has created his own multi million USD globalised market, among the overseas Indian/NRI – Non Resident Indian-audience (diasporas). I met Yash(fame); Raj(reign) in his 20 acres sprawling studio – his name itself is a legacy, a league of its own in the Indian entertainment industry for the last five decades.
I walked into Yash-ji’s colossal glass office and saw a man behind the desk of unassuming stature, grace and rare warmth as he said, ‘Rhea, welcome in’.
Very soon we were locked into a very deep conversation, taking its own course. He emphasised time and again, ‘Our generation, we are emotional fools….. We take from life and life takes from us. I am not a logical person, not a business man. I live my life on my emotions and act on my instincts.
I don’t “do” films, I live, eat and breathe films.’
Something offset the wealth and immaculateness of the office. It was this refreshing paradox. I was struck by the simplicity and creative impulse in Yash-ji’s character. He offered to share his lunch with me; a simple stainless steel Tiffin box (resonating in my mind with the dabbawallahs in the Focus chapter) of ‘home cooked roti and paneer’, in true Indian finger aided style, I listened to his leadership story across the last five decades. The more I heard, the more I gleaned principles and values that could be just as relevant back in the corporate world.
• Don’t forget your origins. It adds resolve and humility to you character. It helps you define better where you want to go next. It struck me later how small the world is and how much more closer the human spirit is aligned across cultures than we ever think when I heard almost these exact same words from the lips of Stuart Gulliver, HSBC Group CEO, in the chapter on Expression.
• You are only as good or as bad as your last success or failure. As a leader you can never rest on your laurels.
• Your test as a leader comes not when you are struggling but after you have become very successful. Success is very hard to digest. The second test is when you face conflict. The temptation to go into alleys/diversions and act on lapses of judgement is not only high but
irresistible. Resisting that fatal temptation is what makes a good leader.
• As a leader, if you want to change the system, fight it from the inside.
Be in it to make it a different one. Don’t drive from the back seat or the outside.
• People these days are ‘scared to feel’ because of the fear of getting hurt. One should never control the urge to feel. Instead, let these feelings come and express themselves. The key is not to act or to decide on all these feelings. The small decision is more important than the big one.
• You can’t know or decide if you are a leader or not. People decide if you are. This is why you must ensure decisions and actions are in your followers’ best interest.
• Love is the only evergreen constant after rain, snow and the green grass. So allow yourself to love and be loved. Start with loving the purpose you give to your life.
Even after seven decades, his vitality and creativity remain undiminished and a new Yash Chopra or YRF film continues to remain the most anticipated event in the film calendar of India. To many Indians, a Yash Chopra movie has been their passport to a world outside the one they inhabit.
That is the leader and this is his leadership story.