AGILE 101
Image Credit: Martin Schoeller/AUGUST.
I let the actions of my life stand for what I am as a human being. Contend with that, not the words.
Meryl Streep (1949—) is an American actress and singer. Often described as the "best actress of her generation", Streep is particularly known for her versatility and accents. She has received a number of accolades, including being nominated for a record 21 Academy Awards, of which she has won three, and a record 32 Golden Globe nominations, winning nine.
Streep has stated that she grew up listening to artists such as Barbra Streisand, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan, and she learned a lot about how to use her voice, her "instrument", by listening to Barbra Streisand's albums. She studies someone's voice as if it's music, and she picks up on their breathing and the lyrical nature of their speech. She flawlessly delivers accents in Irish-American, Italian, Danish, Polish, British, Australian, and, of course, Julia Childs. Each accent is as unique (funny, quirky, intense, etc.) as the characters she creates.
She is like a chameleon in her impersonation of characters. She doesn’t personify them, she subsuming herself into them. Many consider her to be a technical actor, but she professed that it comes down to her love of reading the initial script, adding, "I come ready and I don't want to screw around and waste the first 10 takes on adjusting lighting and everybody else getting comfortable"
In 1983, 60 Minutes interviewed Meryl Streep when she was 'marvelously frank, pregnant, tired and relaxed'. 'It's crazy', Streep said once of the Academy awards. 'It's like saying is the clown act better than the elephant act, or did you like the naked women'. Her words then could have been a prophecy of this weeks upset of the Academy Awards in the best actress category, when Ms Streep's superb performance in Out of Africa was passed over in favour of the veteran actress Geraldine Page.
AGILE 101
The ability to perform consistently in any setting.
Consistency is a controversial term. Consistency in performance is not the same thing as uniformity. To be consistent means we are agile enough to perform consistently under pressure amidst changing conditions, in any setting. The strength of our performance literally reduces risk and increases our chances for success.
Agility will become an increasingly important skill. Conditions are always changing. Goals shift, desire change, trends evolve. We develop and advance. To remain static or live in the nostalgia of the past would be suicidal. The safety uniformity promises is an illusion. Success comes with our ability to meet challenge and change with consistent results.
The more connected we become as a society, the more ubiquitous our skills become. As such, we need to be able to operate in whatever environment we find ourselves, with consistency. We saw this first through globalization, and again through the virtualization of work during the 2020 pandemic. How we respond to changing circumstances and navigate new contexts impacts the quality of our results and, ultimately, our success.
How do we learn to gain consistency in our work?
PRACTICE:
Identify and communicate points of connection (shared goals, priorities, values) that transcend differences and enable us to build relationships and to work together effectively.
COMMIT
[ ] I commit myself to seek the bigger picture in any situation in order to perform consistently and achieve quality results.
FURTHER READING/ WATCHING
Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep: Her Again is an intimate look at the artistic coming-of-age of Meryl’s heady rise to stardom on the New York stage; her passionate, tragically short-lived love affair with fellow actor John Cazale; her marriage to sculptor Don Gummer; and her evolution as a young woman of the 1970s wrestling with changing ideas of feminism, marriage, love, and sacrifice.
Simply Streep: Simply Streep - The Meryl Streep Archives is a non-profit fansite and is not affiliated with Ms. Streep herself or her management in any way. The Simply Streep Archives has gathered details on all of Meryl Streep's feature films, television, theatre, and voice narration, and also features an extensive library of articles, photographs, and video clips. You can browse the collection by Ms. Streep's career or through a year-by-year summary.
In Her Words…
"The work will stand, no matter what.”
“The progression of roles you take strings together a portrait of an actor, but it’s a completely random process.”
“Service is the only thing that’s important about love." Everybody is worried about ‘losing yourself’—all this narcissism. Duty. We can’t stand that idea now either…. But duty might be a suit of armor you put on to fight for your love.”
“I was offered, within one year, three different witch roles. It was almost like the world was saying - or the studios were saying - ‘We don’t know what to do with you.’”
“I’m really interested in the collaborative thing. It’s what makes it scary because you never know what it’s going to end up like. But you hope. You put yourself in the hands of the best people you can find, and you’re completely dependent on the kindness of strangers and their commitment. It’s like this mutual delusion.”
“Integrate what you believe in every single area of your life. Take your heart to work and ask the most and best of everybody else, too."
"I think your self emerges more clearly over time."
"You just have to keep on doing what you do...Keep going. Start by starting."
"There's no road map on how to raise a family--it's always an enormous negotiation."
“I know what I do and what it means to me and where its sources lie, and that’s mine. It still is mine.”
"Don't give up or give in in the face of patronizing ridicule, amused distain, or being ignored."
"It is well that the earth is round, that we do not see too far ahead."
"I let the actions of my life stand for what I am as a human being. Contend with that, not the words."
What we don’t see on the resumes we review or the job descriptions we want is the litany of emotional entanglements we bring to our roles, uninvited, to the team and organizations we work in. Alongside technical skills, people who can master a range of subjective skills are better able to influence, deal with ambiguity, bounce back from setbacks, think creatively, and manage themselves in the presence of setbacks. In short, those who learn lead.
Observing subjective qualities in others past and present gives us a mental picture for the behaviors we want to practice. Each figure illustrates a quality researched from The Look to Craftsmen Project. When practiced as part of our day-to-day, these qualities will help us develop our mastery in our lives and work.
References:
Longworth, Karina (2013). Meryl Streep: Anatomy of an Actor. Phaidon Press.