Hello everyone
I've been enjoying the conversation so far and have a number of questions
which in a way are also questions about AACORN.
The first concerns art and the second concerns design.
1/ Art and leadership
Sometimes when I read posts here, I sense something akin to a reification of
the artist. It's as if artists have privileged access to creativity or a way
of looking at the world that managers and organizations want and need. I
understand the argument to go something like this: Good at working with
uncertainty and ambiguity, having a vision, and making artefacts that people
use to forge meaning, artists have something to offer to our understanding
of leadership. Managers should be like/pay attention to artists.
But it's hard to talk about what or who artists are and what they do without
examples. As soon as we offer names of artists, we present historically
situated artists and their practices. The names of Carvaggio, Beuys, Pollock
and Latham have appeared in the last few posts, for example. For each of
these artists, there is no singular or simple way of talking about their
processes and their works. Art history, art criticism and our own
opportunities to see their works create these artists for us.
So I do not find it convincing to invoke 'the artist'. I want to know which
kinds of practices, what intentions, what context, which ways of working,
what meanings, and - to avoid the instrumentalization of art by management -
with what relation to the continually contested and shifting set of
practices and artefacts which is art-making.
2/ Design and leadership
While most of its focus is on "the arts" or "artists", Nancy's article makes
references to work going on among oranization scholars concerned with design
(eg Managing as Designing, Boland and Collopy, 2004) or work/ideas presented
by designers (eg Mau et al, 2004).
Ken and some others on this list are much more familiar with the field of
Design Research than I am, but it might be useful to draw it to the
attention of AACORNERs whose research interests on aesthetics and creativity
in organizations have been focused solely on art.
It's as if there's a parallel universe where another group of people -
practitioners and academics - are having a conversation which goes like
this: Do designers have a special way of looking at the world that managers
and organizations want and need? Do designers have privileged access to
creativity? Good at working with uncertainty and ambiguity, having a vision,
and making artefacts that people use to forge meaning, designers have
something to offer to our understanding of leadership. Managers should be
like/pay attention to designers.
I think it will be helpful to draw clearer distinctions between terms such
as art, the arts and design, and be more specific about which artists and
arts practices, which designers and design practices.
However I'm not hoping for a common understanding - I don't think this is
possible. But the conflicts about those underlying ideas are what will
sustain this conversation and perhaps move it on.
(Schrat - if you are in India - why not join the Doors of Perception juicy
conversation at the end of the month http://www.doorsofperception.com/ - in
a way, an example of design having a leadership role in answer to the
question in Nancy's paper: now that we can do anything, what will we do?).
Regards
lk
Lucy Kimbell
Clark Fellow in Design Leadership
Saïd Business School
University of Oxford
Park End Street
Oxford OX1 1HP
--the best way to reach me is my mobile 07753 677650--
Design leads us where exactly? http://www.designleadership.blogspot.com/
I measure therefore I am http://www.lucykimbell.com
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