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Event Review

The overlap between art and business has never been greater, according to Richard Olivier. It's a view you'd expect to hear from the son of one of the world's most famous actors. Yet most of the world's "business gurus" have voiced it too, in recent years. Why? Because innovation is becoming vital to competitive advantage, especially among the knowledge-based companies of the West. And innovation requires imaginative thinking.

Today, the best leaders are the best story-tellers, able to paint a picture of the future that inspires staff, customers and stakeholders alike.

It follows that Shakespeare - whose stories have proven more durable, engaging and insightful than anyone else's over the past 400 years - should be able to teach us a thing or two about management. This was the basis for Olivier's last visit to the London Business Forum (LBF), when he read thunderously from Henry V to demonstrate cutting-edge leadership. Now he was back on stage at the New Players Theatre, beneath the railway arches at Charing Cross, to explain why The Tempest is an ideal model for successful change management.

"There is nothing more difficult to carry out, no more doubtful of success, no more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things," he said, opening with a quote from a shadier Renaissance figure, Niccolò Machiavelli. "The reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order and only luke-warm defenders in all those who could profit from the new order. This luke-warmness arises from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it."

In other words, change managers must find a way to make their visions of the future seem vivid and achievable, while simultaneously fending off nay-sayers and saboteurs. This is exactly what Prospero, the usurped Duke of Milan, achieves in The Tempest. In this play, Olivier argued, an archetypal change management process is clearly visible.

For example, Prospero creates a climate for change, literally, in Act I. He does so with magic, conjuring up a storm to shipwreck the men who conspired to usurp him - King Alonso of Naples and his brother, Antonio - along with some of their relatives and retainers. We learn Prospero was exiled 12 years previously with his daughter Miranda, and has since mastered the inhabitants of a remote island. He instructs one of his servants, a spirit called Ariel, to disperse the shipwrecked men. He also arranges a meeting between Miranda and Ferdinand, Alonso's son, as a first step towards his positive vision for the future.

At this point in the play, we are in the realm of "air", Olivier said. He explained much of Renaissance thinking revolved around the idea of elemental harmony. That is to say, people believed balancing the four elements of air, earth, water and fire - or things that represented them - was beneficial, whether in theatre, medicine or any other area of life. Each of the elements had specific analogues: for example, air equated to thought and strategy; earth equated to the body and power; water equated to emotion and relationships; and fire equated to spirit and meaning.

In a change process, balancing such things is equally important, Olivier argued. For example, leaders who are strong in the air element "can get completely obsessed with structure and details and become a petty tyrant, micro-managing everyone's roles..." he said. "At a certain point they need to kind of get out of the way." Ideally, they should present their vision to staff in such a way that each individual buys into the idea for his- or herself and therefore plays an active, enthusiastic part in making it happen.

To emphasise the point he recited a poem called "The Idea," written by his friend and business partner William Ayot, which compares the coalescence of a group around an idea to "demolition footage run in reverse".

Prospero's first job after the storm is to reassure Miranda, who is unsettled after witnessing the shipwreck. He tells her: "Be connected. There is no harm done. There is nothing done but in care of thee." Then he tells her the story of how they came to be on the island, and why he is justified in seeking retribution. "This is a compelling story, not a list of facts and figures," Olivier pointed out. "This is a narrative of 'where we've been, where are now and where we need to go'." Prospero's description of the characters involved is vivid. His aim is to engage Miranda, just as a business leader must engage his or her people in order to persuade them of the need for change. "You're going into a place of 'conscious incompetence' in the change and that's frightening for people," he said.

Act II describes the consequences of such fear, as various characters lash out at the process of change going on around them. For example, Antonio tries to persuade his other brother, Sebastian, to murder Alonso in his sleep and claim the throne of Naples. The murder is prevented by Ariel, via a warning to Gonzalo, the king's counsellor, and we learn Gonzalo is a good man who previously helped Prospero and Miranda to escape Milan. Meanwhile Prospero's murder is plotted by his native servant, Caliban, in collaboration with two of Alonso's servants, Stephano and Trinculo.

This is the realm of "earth," Olivier said. Here a leader must be a power-broker, a courageous risk-taker, able to build coalitions and negotiate persuasively. To stop the "men of sin" in your change process you may need to sully yourself in the filth of politics. A few years ago, he said, he was acting as consultant to a senior team at the Department of Trade & Industry when one manager stood up and said: "I would never deal or negotiate with my team." By this he meant that he would expect his team to be obedient. "But why?" a colleague asked. "You'd do it for a trade deal with Germany... It's just a deal. It's just another negotiation." The key point here, Olivier stressed, is that feelings of insecurity among your staff are to be expected in a change process, and you should be prepared to soothe them through negotiation, perhaps even ensuring they feel suitably "empowered" under the new regime.

Equally, he said, you have to be brave enough and canny enough to vanquish the men of sin when necessary, because saboteurs are toxic to a change process. In Act III of The Tempest, Prospero does this by having Ariel lure the trouble-makers to a clearing in the forest with the illusion of a banquet, and then publicly admonish each of them in turn for their crimes. It's significant, Olivier said, that it is not the change manager, Prospero, who delivers this "truth thunderbolt", but one of his minions. Often, the voice of someone independent carries the most weight in such situations.

The element of water manifests itself most clearly in the union of Ferdinand and Miranda, which is also cemented in Act III. It is here that we see Ferdinand willingly assuming the chores of Caliban, in the hope that by doing so he can win Prospero's approval and Miranda's hand in marriage. The old wizard has brought the young suitor into alignment with his master-plan by giving him an attractive and achievable goal. As a result, Ferdinand feels he can withstand any upheaval. "This, my hard work, would be as mean to me as odious but the mistress which I serve quickens what's dead and makes my labours pleasure," he says.

Olivier encouraged the audience to consider what they could to "make labours pleasure" for their own staff during a change process. He also suggested that as the change begins to take effect, they should find a way to reinforce the positive aspects of the vision, as Prospero does by holding an engagement ceremony for the young lovers in Act IV, in which the various spirits on the island are corralled into a masque theatrical performance.

Finally, the element of fire dominates Acts IV and V, Olivier said. This is when Prospero ties up the loose ends of his plan and achieves the "big picture" he has been aiming for. In the context of the play, this big picture is one of justice for the wronged protagonist and, presumably, a positive new order for Milan and Naples. In the context of the organisation, such a picture would probably be one of improved performance, as well as improved prospects for those staff who have bought into the change.

However, Olivier warned, leaders must be prepared to transform themselves too. In The Tempest, when Prospero finally has all his enemies under complete control, Ariel appeals to him on behalf of Gonzalo, who has been unfairly mixed up in their punishment. Prospero is so moved that an ethereal spirit should express such human emotions that he says: "The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance and, my project nearing its head, I will not take any more revenge." His transformation is marked famously by the breaking of his wand. Thus, Olivier said, "he moves in his heart from revenge to forgiveness and then... seems to willingly give up some of this control."

It is significant that Prospero's last act with his wand is to draw a circle on the floor outside his cave into which all the individuals on the island are drawn one by one. "Part of his job as the change leader is to kind of create meaning out of the whole story and to enable people to make [their own] narrative out of the process," Olivier concluded. In doing so, he forces everyone to consider what the change was about, what it means for them as individuals, and how they will benefit from it as they continue to adapt.