Organizations that try to build an innovation culture realize early on that peak performance and innovation are not overnight pursuits. It takes time and focus for musicians to be at the top of their game and, often, the height of their creativity. It might look effortless when the right opportunity comes along, but it is all about preparation and practice.

Louis Levitt, founder and bassist of the ground-breaking string quintet Sybarite5, shares it was a 鈥渞eal necessity鈥� for the group to disrupt the current classical paradigms before they could express themselves in new ways, which had not been available to previous generations of composers and performers. He said it took several years to build the team to its current state alongside Sami Merdinian and Sarah Whitney on violin, Angela Pickett on viola, and Laura Metcalf on cello.

To find the right teammates, musical excellence was a given. For an ensemble to exist for the long term, Levitt said each individual member needed to either be passionate about innovation or open to it.

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Before cellist Laura Metcalf first joined Sybarite5 a decade ago, Levitt asked her and his other recruits two important questions. The first was: “Are you interested in a career in performing chamber music?” This might seem like a given, but it was something Levitt really wanted to know. There are many different kinds of musical careers and small ensembles, which all need to be fueled by passion.

Levitt’s second question was: 鈥淎re you into playing Radiohead and Led Zeppelin?鈥� This was about sounding out whether potential ensemble members were open to trying new things. If they had heard of those two bands and said yes, great. If they had not heard of them but were willing to learn, that was fine too. The only red flag for Levitt was if they knew the bands and said no. That kind of attitude was not aligned with Sybarite5’s ambitions, which were ground-breaking down to the ensemble’s basic structure.

Many people are more familiar with string quartets 鈥� a chamber music ensemble of two violins, a viola, and a cello. As a quintet, Sybarite5 is unusual and constantly finds itself collaborating with composers just to get enough music to play. Innovation must be part of the plan.

Organizations that are relentless about innovation tend to look to an open ecosystem of collaborators and influencers. 麻豆原创.iO Foundries, a program with a global network of startups that feed new ideas and technology to 麻豆原创, functions the same way.

鈥淲e started playing different types of music that we just weren’t allowed to play anywhere else, and that led to a great deal of satisfaction and excitement for us because we could do new things and we didn’t have rules that we had to follow, like we did with Mozart and Beethoven,鈥� says Levitt.

That includes Sybarite’s album Outliers, which contains only new music written for the ensemble and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Chart.

But with an often-grueling tour schedule, how does the ensemble maintain the kind of peak performance that got them to No. 1 on the Billboard chart? For one, said Levitt, the ensemble stays in shape physically, mentally, and emotionally. He adds that 鈥渄iscipline is actually a liberator.鈥�

鈥淚f you’re able to be disciplined in what you’re doing, it actually will liberate you and free you up to be able to have control over more things and be more relaxed about the things that come at you in whatever situation,” Levitt explains. That means being disciplined with one鈥檚 instrument, 鈥渟o that you feel like your chops are really good,鈥� even when performing outdoors in 50-degree weather at the Aspen Music Festival, as both instruments and people are changed by the cold.

When asked what lessons businesses could learn from musicians, violist Angela Pickett says, 鈥淟istening is everything.鈥�

鈥淲hen you’re having musical discussions and talking about different interpretations of a piece, there’s not really a right and wrong answer,鈥� violinist Sarah Whitney shares. 鈥淚t’s not like, 鈥楾hat note is wrong.鈥� There’s a lot of room for interpretation, so I think it’s really important to know that we could have five ideas that are all right, in a sense.鈥�

The members of the ensemble work hard to collaborate, especially since they are 鈥渧ery different鈥� people with strong personalities, according to Metcalf. 鈥淲e understand what other people need, we understand what other people bring to the table. And just through the work of playing together, of traveling and being on the road together for 10 years, we’ve taken five really different people and we’ve figured out how to work 鈥� it’s going to sound cheesy 鈥� in harmony.鈥�

Bringing together independent, skilled collaborators to make something new is what contemporary artists struggle with every day. This is equally applicable to the business landscape where the one thing companies cannot afford to do is what they did yesterday. Collective innovation is tough, but just as it is with music, it is something you can learn with practice.

String quintet Sybarite5 is a dynamic chamber music ensemble that has defied musical genres and styles for the last decade, performing in front of audiences around the world. Its newest release, 鈥淪ybarite5: Live From New York, It鈥檚 Sybarite 5,鈥� showcases highlights from shows at The Cell Theatre in New York City.

Watch more HR Untold stories.

Learn more about 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Human Experience Management (HXM) Suite by tapping into the .

Kirsten Allegri Williams is chief marketing officer at 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors.

After a loud and impressive video montage of his achievements 鈥� climbing Everest, crossing the arctic in an inflatable boat, or teaching President Obama survival skills in Alaska 鈥� the soft-spoken, sincere nature of the man onstage at the 2019 SuccessConnect event in London was all the more apparent.

When Bear Grylls speaks about his successes and failures, what drives him, and what he believes is everybody’s remarkable potential, you know he means it. Here are three strategies for personal survival that he imparted to the crowd.

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Grit Matters, Not the Outcome

In the world of human resources (HR), we often talk about qualities like grit and a growth mindset because of the results they give us. What Bear Grylls reminded the audience was the ways in which qualities like grit can make us stronger 鈥� no matter what happens.

When Grylls spoke about his second attempt to join the British Special Forces (he failed the first time), he described a grueling, nonstop hike in a remote corner of Britain in which he and a few colleagues were marched up and down mountains carrying heavy packs through cold and rain, in light and in darkness.

At the end, there was a promised convoy to take them home and an offer of acceptance if they could tough it out. When the convoy drove off unexpectedly, just steps from him and his fellow recruits at the end of the trail, all but Grylls and one other gave up on the spot. Something inside him, said Grylls, chose to march over one more hill, not quite because he believed the promise of the officer that it would be the final hill, but because he had resolved for himself that he would not give up this time.

In the end, Grylls and his fellow recruit only had to take a few more steps before they were offered membership. It was the willingness to keep going, the grit, that counted, not the test of yet another hill.

Strength Can Come from Unexpected Places

As a public figure, Grylls is defined by physical strength and endurance. On his many shows, viewers have seen him, scorched, starved, fatigued, and nearly frozen while subjected to just about any extreme physical situation imaginable. But it was not a purely physical challenge that transformed him into a celebrity.

While still in the military, a freak accident during a parachuting exercise left his spine broken in three places. He was told he would never walk again. During his convalescence, Grylls said he could not turn to the one quality which had, until then, given him a feeling of mastery over life: the strength of his body.

Instead, he had to look to his friends, family, and faith to guide him through what he still calls the darkest time in his life. These newfound forms of strength not only expanded his mind and fortified his spirit, they also allowed him to fully recover. Within a year of the accident, Grylls climbed Ama Dablam, a forbidding 22,000-foot Himalayan peak. It was after that achievement that he became a public figure.

Success is Never the Whole Story

We all compare ourselves to the successful people we see in the media and in our own lives. When I asked for advice on how to be more adventurous in my own life, Grylls surprisingly spoke about failure. It is the flipside of the coin for those who are willing to attempt great things; by definition, things with outcomes that are uncertain. If you make this a habit, explained Grylls, you are bound to rack up some negative outcomes: “The thing is, people forget about the failures once you have succeeded.” Behind his success is “a whole ton of disastrous expeditions and failed TV projects and books that never have worked. But those are [part of] the story.”

Hearing about the necessity of failure from the youngest person ever to summit Everest was all the encouragement I needed to look at my to-do list, pick the one task or project that I had been avoiding, and make that my next action.

It is true that Grylls鈥� challenges are in an area that is radically different from what most of us face every day. But anyone can benefit from his ingredients for success: grit, knowing where true strength lies, and never forgetting that failure is never the final word.

Watch more HR Untold stories.

Learn more about 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Human Experience Management (HXM) Suite by tapping into the .

Kirsten Allegri-Williams is as chief marketing officer for 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors.