How do you celebrate 50 years of magic and create it for the future?
Houston Ballet
The Opportunity
The Houston Ballet is one of the five largest ballet companies in the U.S., staging at least 85 performances every year. As the ballet approached its 50th anniversary, they wanted to take the opportunity to reinvigorate the company and update their organizational strategy and culture as well as align their organization to propel them into the next 50 years and beyond.
The Human Approach
Between pilés and elevés, we guided the ballet through our Foundations of Clarity workshop, sparking revelations about what would shape the company in the future and aligning disconnected parts of the organization. Deutser helped redefine the ballet’s purpose, vision, and values—igniting a new energy and excitement into everyone from ballerinas to marketing staff. We created the Houston Ballet Way, a book that codifies the elements of the company’s culture, which is still distributed to every new hire.
A Grand Celebration
Deutser then wanted to capture the internal excitement about the ballet’s next 50 years and share it with the community at large. We developed a multimedia campaign that reflected the redefind Houston Ballet Way and shared a message of empowerment, highlighting the numerous roles that go into every Houston Ballet performance.
The Lasting Change
In a highly charged artistic environment with competing perspectives, we were able to uncover what the organization shared in common and create alignment across the top echelon of the organization as well as the entirety of the team. We also instilled a lost pride in not only the performers who were again able to see themselves in the work and the provocative visuals, but the whole of the staff that felt they were brought from behind to the front and center of the stage. The organization became whole–with all parts connected and in sync with a shared vision, value set and behavioral expectations. Inside and outside, people saw the Ballet as a new, more connected, more creative and more beautiful form of art.
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