Steve makes an important point that, in many ways we become the methods that we use to perform our art/discipline/organization. If we drop our tools, as Weick suggests, then what have we got? Mainly room to try some new ones I suppose, though most of us find this as difficult as Weick's firefighters did with similar results, though perhaps not so deadly (unless you consider stultification of life). It may seem that artists use different methods (and take on the methodologies that these imply) than do managers trained in B-schools. But do they?
The rationality that is associated with objectivist-realist-naturalist approaches to management can be found in the work of artists such as Caravaggio. Wanting to paint from life something that is representative is as much present in art as it is in the practical ambitions of managers "painting" thier companies with valuations and cash flows. If that is how they experience reality, then that is how they will paint it. But the deeper question is how many other ways of painting can be found? And what are we to do with them once we locate their analogs in business? For me, the interesting thing is to look for ways in which different sorts of art reveal different aspects of life in organizations and in academics. How does Jackson Pollack's work speak to a different way of theorizing organizations than does Caravaggio's? If anyone is interested in this particular question, Dvora Yanow and I are now 95% done revising our paper for Organization Studies (Methodology By Metaphor: Ways of Seeing in Painting and Research) which examines methodological differences by metaphorical comparison with Caravaggio, Goya, Picasso, Duchamp and Pollock. It is mostly about using art to give visual access to the presuppositions of realist versus interpretivist research, but also speaks to the issue of different methods that artists use (in this case only a few of them who were all painters during the last half of the last millenium). anyway, It is ready to read now, if anyone wants to see it just send me an email.
Cheers,
Jo Hatch
________________________________
From: Aesthetics, Creativity, and Organisations Research Network on behalf of Steve Taylor
Sent: Mon 2/5/2007 11:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: leader and artship
Hi Daved (and others),
I've been enjoying this conversation, but I think I have a somewhat
different take on it. In the post that kicked off this recent flurry,
Garrick said, "I completely agree that the Artist is in the world in a way
that is somehow different, and adopts a vantage point, or exists in
relationship to the world in a particular way," and that is where I find
myself starting. How is this way of being in the world different from the
way of being in the world that we generally think of as management or
leadership? I tend to think that our way of being in the world comes from
the disciplines we have learned and practice. As academics, we have a
discipline of theorizing and intellectualizing. I think that we teach
managers in traditional MBA programs disciplines like quantitative analysis,
net present value calculations, market segmentation, managerial accounting,
Porter's five forces, and so on. It seems to me that the political leaders
in my country (USA) have all learned the discipline of constant
sensegiving/spinning of events to match their ideology. When I talk to
artists they seem to be working from very different disciplines, such as
actor friends who draw upon "yes and" disciplines, or the disciplines of
actually listening to what others are saying (something that is stressed in
a lot of improv exercises). When I use the term discipline, I mean a
practice that has been internalized through training and working with that
practice.
For me these disciplines or embodied/internalized practices are the tools of
management and leadership. And let me end with a quote from Karl Weick's
recent article in the Journal of Management Education ("Drop Your Tools: On
Reconfiguring Management Education", Vol. 31, no. 1).
"Consider the tools of traditional logic and rationality. Those tools
presume the world is stable, knowable, and predictable. To set aside those
tools is not to give up on finding a workable way way to keep moving. It is
only to give up one means of direction finding that is ill-suited to the
unstable, the unknowable, and the unpredictable. To drop the tools of
rationality is to gain access to lightness in the form of intuitions,
feelings, stories, improvisation, experience, imagination, active listening,
awareness in the moment, novel words, and empathy. All of these nonlogical
activities enable people to solve problems and enact their potential." (pg.
15)
- Steve
Steven S. Taylor, PhD
Assistant Professor
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Department of Management
100 Institute Rd
Worcester, MA 01609
USA
+1 508-831-5557
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