Kent, this is helpful--thanks for clarifying your thoughts (and for posting
them!). So as I understand you, you're saying that we need a common way of
evaluating and critiquing mgmt-as-art, one that resonates with art discourse
and art evaluation practice? And that the 'event' might be a source of
common ground? If so, I agree--see below. Also, can you say more about what
you mean by 'the event'? And why 'event' and not something else (say
'product') seems like a good way to go?

Schrat, I agree with Kent that you can have manager-artists (or artful
managers . . . or more likely artful leaders), although I'm not sure I agree
with him in saying that their 'tool' is "art". Their practice might be
artistic, but I think of tools as something employed in the service of that
practice. For managers, the tools are things like how they speak, their
'looks' (gazes and probably dress), their measurement and calculative
devices, and their stories. And their medium/material is often the concept,
the idea. 

Here's an example of what I think is organizational/management art (told to
me by Eirik Irgens). There was a manager who was given the task of turning
around a very dirty hydroelectric plant in Norway--morale was low, everyone
was trying to leave, and there was talk of shutting the plant down. The
place was literally littered and grimy. There was also no money . . . a
creative constraint as it turns out. Faced with this, the manager didn't
give the employees a pep talk, didn't coerce, didn't try to find more
resources . . . instead, he had everyone paint the whole facility white,
including the floors and machinery. This of course made everything look
different--'new perspectives' were everywhere. Lots of 'happily ever after'
things happened, including the plant becoming some kind of model facility.
It was an extraordinarily simple act with huge consequences.

I call this art inasmuch as it feels like the managerial equivalent of
Duchamp's Fountain (where the art product is as much the museum as it is the
urinal). It's not just artful--it's art; or at least it compares well with
other things labeled art. It meets many of the criteria used to critique and
evaluate art--it's elegant (there's a large effect with almost no cost),
simple yet profound, funny and fun while still being serious, direct and
indirect, heavy and light, and conceptually rich (it echoes out in all kinds
of conceptual directions). I don't think the manager had any art training,
and I doubt he was trying to produce an artwork . . . but as an almost
'ready made' or piece of social sculpture, he did. I especially like how he
used the whole organization and its physicalities as his medium.

A question is whether the manager is an artist if he is not consciously
following art discourse? If I follow art theory as I understand it, I would
say yes--I evaluate the work and can say it stacks up to other artworks I
know and love. But if I think of art as a trainable practice and set of
knowledges, then maybe I have to say no--mayber this project's resemblence
to art is just that--a simulacrum or perhaps a kind of folk art. The problem
is that if we go down this second road, managerial art as folk art, then
we're stuck in the same old space we've always been in--that you have to go
to art school and consciously/overtly say that you're producing/selling
artworks to get the 'art label'. 

This brings me/us to the whole question of art education and Nancy's piece
in Academy of Mgmt. Learning & Education--if to be an artist means
consciously practicing using artworld theory, then we in the world of
business schools are looking at an enormous vacuum. We hardly have any
managerial art theory of our own (of course the field of mgmt and org
studies has always thieved, but in this case not much has been stolen), and
what's equally as bad, few managerial ways of teaching anyone along art
school lines; yes there are courses like Nancy's, Steve Taylor's, and Rob
Austin's but these are tiny drops in a very large and empty bucket,
especially when it comes to using managerial rather than fine art examples. 

Not so long ago I asked Schrat (who's professionally trained both as an
economist and an artist) whether we could transfer art education over to
mgmt. education. I was met with a great deal of sucking in of the breath and
explosive silences. In other words, it's a big question, and one that brings
us straight back to Kent's call for arts-based evaluative criteria and
theory. Such an education--Pierre's "Master of Business Arts"--would require
a lot of managerial art appreciation (which would mean finding numerous
instances of managerial art), different theories of art practice, and a lot
of art projects that used organizational materials and mediums (e.g.
strategic art projects, leadership art, motivational art, org design,
operations, economic modeling, and of course, creative accounting). Well,
perhaps one day . . . the Business Art Academy (BAAhhhh?). Daved


-----Original Message-----
From: Aesthetics, Creativity, and Organisations Research Network
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kent Hansen
Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2007 8:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: leader and artship

Hi Scrat,

yes! looong time no hear! And hi to Philippe, long time no hear as  
well!! :D

... Art as Management or Management as Art; I don't realy see the  
difference, if one uses the terminology "manager as artist" (and/or  
finds oneself in the discourse of 'manager as artist'); the 'manager  
as artist' sees him/her activity "as art" - hence his/her 'tool' is  
"art".

Though: I like to 'reframe' or 'explain' my former text - it's an  
unfinished text/paper after all...;-)
:

First of all I'm not trying to say anything about why, how, or if,  
'management as art'-projects/approaches "works". My statement is  
first of all and only this:

If we use the term 'art'  - when we analyses / evaluate / criticise  
the 'outcome' or 'processes' of 'management as art' / 'art as  
management' / 'organisational art'-projects, etc., or if we try to  
find the conditions / criteria / a thinking / theory (and practice)  
of 'management as art' / 'organisational art projects', etc.. -  we  
need to get contemporary 'art criticism' (and the theory of art) into  
the play too.

--
Then - IF we like to initiate 'a theory' of 'management as art' we  
need to find 'common ground' for 'art criticism/theory' and  
'management criticism/theory'.

(nb.: I mention 'criticism' and 'theory' in the same context here  
because I think we need to address/criticise specific cases if we  
like to get hold of a 'theory' in all of this;  both the art practise  
and the management practice isn't overly 'theoretical'. Additionally:  
'theory of art' is closely linked to 'art critique').


The suggestion of my text is then to look at 'how to handle the  
event' - because to look at 'the event' is presumably giving if to  
address both contemporary 'art' and contemporary 'management',  
according to both Kirkeby and Latham (and perhaps others too...? Let  
me know!)).

'The event' is - I grant - a core concept of the human being/ 
thinking; Through: We can perhaps theorise / evaluate / criticise  
'art' and 'management' and 'management as art' in a much more  
coherent manner if we investigate the ways the artists, the managers  
handle 'the event' (e.g. in 'decision making' and 'organising' in  
specific contexts).

'How to handle the event' in 'art situations' and in 'management  
situations' can maybe give us a clue of what differs and what is 'the  
same' in 'art' and 'management' (if one can frame it in such  
exclusive terms as 'same'/'not-same'... ), and  we can maybe get a  
clearer picture of to were a terminology and/or a discourse such as  
'manager as artist' might lead us. Or if a terminology of, or  
discourse of, 'manager as artist'  makes sense at all...

And then - when/if we may get more (theoretical) hold of 'art' in  
relation to 'management'  - we are more able of making stands toward  
specific procedures and prospects of 'manager as artist' or 'artist  
as manager' in organisational/communal contexts  ...

I myself think / guess - IF and WHEN "Leadership" = "Artist- 
ship" (the terms relating to 'the event' as in my text), then one is  
bound to become very 'practical' - and 'political' - indeed.

To 'handle the event' is much about who can, and how to, sanction  
e.g. 'the (hi)story' (sanction the interpretation of '(hi)story')).
And in the example of 'a story' we see that 'event' and 'art' - and  
'event' and 'management' - is linked, and that the 'handling of the  
event' is essential in an everyday practice in relation to  
'spectator', 'participant', 'employee', 'citizen', 'customer',  
'user', etc.

My guess and experience is - if I'm forced to make a stand: The  
manager or the artist who in her/his "art" 'opens up' for 'more'  
possibilities of interpretations and therefore of 'more' perspectives  
of plausible (social) 'innovations', and of 'more' perspectives of  
plausible lives to be lived is the 'better' "artist" / "manager"...   
Latham would, I think, call such person an "incidental person".

all best wises,

Scratt - hope you have nice spirits in India!
;-))

kent


Den 04/02/2007 kl. 15.57 skrev Henrik schrat:

> Hi!
> This discussion is too beautiful, too good and too sublime for an  
> alien, which is different from the others, to be silent.  So I am  
> bound to be full of goodness, beauty and tragic, and sometimes, in  
> the late evenings, also of sublime spirits.
> Kent, long time no hear! nice text heavy stuff (-; Thoouuuuuhg -  
> good thing to look at it from the level of event, I like the  
> argumentation (is there a relation to Nicolas Bauriaud though ? )   
> But as always a there is a but, a big butt, you cant put ART AS  
> MANAGNEMENT and MANAGEMENT AS ART in the same pot -? That’s THE  
> fundamental difference I would say... Or did I get you wrong -? To  
> establish a third perspective - that of the (philosophical) event  
> to get at least some comparability makes a lot of sense, but  
> does'nt it work like an event horizon, making essential parts  
> dissapear?
>
> I would tend to see a lot of what has been discussed in a rather  
> sociological and political way, agreements in the society who gets  
> granted which status and attributes. As the artist and creativity  
> for example, which is to nice to be true.
> So I welcome Nancy Adlers text which is quite down to earth, and  
> would look even more into a political and moral understanding of  
> it. The Aesthetic categories which triggered the whole discussion  
> are helpful in establishing an strategic anti determinism-hub, but  
> I regard them as not helpful to go into the future with them. Ugly,  
> Good, sublime, beautiful, the comic, the gracious, the sacred etc.  
> - Mister Kants (and others) system is has been updated for instance  
> nicely by Hannah Arendt, in her Lectures on Kant's Political  
> Philosophy, she suggests the possibility that the sensus communis -  
> which is embedded in the categories - might be the basis of a  
> political theory that is markedly different from the one that Kant  
> lays out in the Metaphysic of Morals.
>
> Mary Jo, (and Stefan --) I really like the idea of the mediated  
> guidance, including systems with various degreess of freedom into  
> the leadership. I have to get the book you are quoting.
>
> Anyone in Delhi, India the next 3 months? I am bound to fly there  
> in 5 days to be an alien there....come and rescue me...and lets  
> have some sublime spirits.
>
> (((-:
> Schrat
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----------------------
>
> Henrik Schrat
> Bauhofstrasse 2
> 10117 Berlin
>
> 030 20452740
> 0171 8337498
>
> www.henrikschrat.de
> www.produktundvision.com
>
>
> Übernachtung in Berlin / Place to stay in Berlin
>
>
> Wir vermieten in unserem Studio im Nachbarhaus ein grosses  
> Gästezimmer an nette Leute & Kollegen. 20 Euro / 2 Personsn 25.
>
> Zeitweise auf Absprache auch die gesamte Wohnung 50 Euro / Nacht.
>
>
> We sublet a large guest room in our studio flat next door for nice  
> people.
> 20 Euro/night, 2 persons 25 Euro / Night.
>
> From time to time also the whole flat 50 Euro/ night
>
>