Hi Ralph,

I agree that finding people who have a reasonable mastery of arts based
practice and have some deep knowledge of organizations could be hard.  The
two things that come to mind are 1) there seem to be more and more artists
who are applying their skills to organizations (it seems to me often because
it is financially attractive) and it is probably easier to teach artists
organization theory than the other way around.  And 2) the Banff model (at
least when I took a class there) seems to get past this difficulty by having
both an artist and an organizational person - so if they can work well
together, the expertise may not need to all be in the same person.  So for
me, the harder struggle is the one you point out of getting the rest of the
world (or some portion of it) to buy into the idea.  But it would seem from
this discussion that there are people out there who are buying in.  And if
Harvard is one of those who are buying in, well maybe that's a name that
other universities could follow.

Cheers,

Steve


On 3/2/06 8:40 AM, "Ralph Kerle" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Steve,
> 
> I laugh with joy and feel a sense of déjà vu!!. One of the most pleasant and
> exciting projects I have completed in the last two years has been to take
> 350 Kraft Foods sales and marketing representatives to the National
> Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), Australia's leading Drama School (Mel
> Gibson, Russell Crowe et al) and with the assistance of 10 trained
> actor/facilitators and run 3 hours of Status Improv based on Kevin
> Johnstone's immortal script from Improv - Improvisation and The Theatre -
> Page 49 .
> 
> "Hullo.".
> "Hullo."
> "Been waiting long"
> "Ages!!!"
> 
> Purpose - to explore how representatives can improve the relationships they
> currently have with Retail Store Managers of organizations such as
> Woolworths, K-Mart etc.etc and through this ensure their distribution and
> in-store display goals are being met. If distribution and in-store display
> goals are not met, there is a substantial decrease in revenue. Outcome -
> Personal insight, corporate collegium and fun...too early to analyse overall
> achievement of business goals such as a halt in the decrease of revenue but
> that modelling is continuing.
> 
> I love your idea of a studio based MBA - it seems to me so logical. My
> concern is whether there are enough qualified and committed action based
> practitioners/teachers around with the appropriate experience to be able to
> sustain such an entity. The personnel to deliver a programme of this nature
> will be a very special breed - artists that are interested in arts practice
> OUTSIDE of art and yet are masters of their own art that have a desire to
> learn about business and organizations and all their complexities.   The
> type of capabilities and competencies and in this instance commitment
> required will take years to build in an individual - practice in the
> business environment for example would be a prime necessity .
> 
> I am currently at contract stage for stage one funding of the development of
> an action based learning centre built around arts based practices and
> processes in management and organizations with the support of an Australian
> State Government and a university in Australia. I have chosen to take the
> path of shorter residential courses at the moment based on the Banff Centre
> model with a Laboratory operation on the side so we can start small and
> develop and train a network of committed artist/facilitators who will
> participate not only in the facilitations but directly in the design of the
> programmes. One of the partners in the operation will be the university who
> will provide the research and knowledge capture components and we are now
> currently forming a Board made up of high profile business identities in
> Australia, the CEO of Deloitte for example is acting as our Advisory
> Committee Chair so that we have a direct link into industry at a very senior
> level in order for this work to gain traction at the right level. My
> experience is that industry in Australia at least are interested but fearful
> and because of this, their desire for the ROI argument to support this work
> is much stronger than it would normally be. Abseiling and ropes courses are
> much easier and far less challenging to justify!!!
> 
> What are your thoughts?
> 
> Kind regards,
> Ralph
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Aesthetics, Creativity, and Organisations Research Network
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Taylor
> Sent: Tuesday, 28 February 2006 11:17 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Artists/Creative Practitioners Writings on Arts Based Processes
> in Management and Organizations.
> 
> Hi Ralph,
> 
> What you have to say certainly resonates with me.  I've been saying for a
> while now (to anyone who will listen) that what the real insight the arts
> have to offer business comes from arts practice (rather than from arts
> criticism or metaphors of business as art).  When I used to sit in sales
> meetings, I figured out what was going on based in the Meisner status
> exercises I had done, not in any ideas that the meeting was a performance.
> The difficulty is (as you suggest) that you can't learn these practices from
> reading a book.  All of which suggest to me a studio based MBA-like program
> (that wouldn't look anything like current MBAs) that is about learning
> practice in the way that design and arts programs are about learning
> practice.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
> On 2/27/06 7:56 PM, "Ralph Kerle" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Tim,
>> 
>> Thank you kindly for such a considered response. I was sitting here
>> (late at
>> night) having read another series of fine papers that were
>> unfortunately indirectly related to my original question when your
>> email popped into my in-box and seeking to satisfy that desire which
>> is distraction, I quickly popped open your email  ...then dropped
>> everything. A simply wonderful summation that reflects my experience
>> perfectly and uncannily!!!  My only concern is that the words you have
>> chosen to use to describe the progression of the career of an art
>> practitioner are words that I have reservations about. In Australia at
>> least these titles have tended to pigeon hole people and their skills
>> perceptually and I am searching hard for new words to describe what I
>> see as a newly emerging profession...so far I have been playing with
>> Experience Designer and Experience Producer with some rather quizzical
> looks and responses from clients and friends..
>> 
>> Thank you for inviting me to share my experiences. In 1992, I was
>> asked to write an opening for an international HR conference in
>> Melbourne and earnt more money pro-rata in three days than I had in 12
>> years in theatre including a stint as Associate Director of the Sydney
> Theatre Company.
>> Suddenly a whole new world of income potential revealed itself - good
>> income with an audience that was not only NOT critical but thought I
>> was a creative genius. I was only used to critical reviews of my
>> creative work - not always damning but...well as you know theatre is
>> built on the critic's review. It was a bit startling at first this
>> adulation. I was simply not comfortable with it. Mostly because the
>> work I was creating seemed so simple, almost trite. However, I was
>> intrigued and excited by the potential this avenue offered for
>> expanding my theatre skills in an unconventional way in an entirely
>> new and foreign arena to me - the business world that had budgets to
>> fund my skills development whilst providing unlimited access to
> contemporary media technology .
>> 
>> In 1996, I had an epiphany when I realised that in all my business
>> dealings I was using theatrical techniques to analyse, create, present and
> produce.
>> Suddenly and cumulatively, senior executives of major Australian and
>> multi-national companies were acknowledging that I was able to
>> understand and make substantial and positive contributions to the
>> design of business plans, strategies and corporate goals and
>> objectives - this without any formal business training whatsoever. One
>> testimonial even suggested that I was responsible for devising a
>> business plan that saw a 6% increase in revenue on a $600million
>> turnover.  Whilst I was taken aback, amused, even shocked and
>> unaccepting of these compliments, I didn't conceive I was doing
>> anything out of what I considered the ordinary. I was simply following
>> the only craft I had learnt formally that of a
>> creator/actor/director/producer of theatre. I was using my
>> imagination, researching, deconstructing the moment, the environment
>> and the interaction using ingrained theatrical processes I had honed
>> over many years experience. I was searching for the subtext, the
>> hidden meaning, the through line, the want and needs of a scene
>> - first year drama school techniques - to draw out the overall
>> objective for the business proposition and then applying my directing
>> skills to critique, guide, facilitate, create and produce visions with
> outcomes.
>> 
>> My epiphany was based on a series of reflections over a period of
>> months during which time we had delivered a series of successful
>> events that had resulted in the comments that we were "oh so
>> creative.."" Again comments I found very hard to live with and
>> uncertain of. I wouldn't have called our work "creative". But my
>> reflections were sharply focused as a result of an article from the
>> Harvard Business Review written by Gilmour and Pine entitled the  "The
>> Experience Economy - Work Is Theatre and Every Business A Stage."
>> handed to me by my then Technical Director with the words "I think
>> this is worth reading.. I think this is what you are trying to do!" I
>> am forever grateful to this TD who has gone on to specialise in designing
> and developing technical software for museums and exhibitions.
>> 
>> I read the work excitedly. It seemed an original work driven by a
>> metaphor that screamed at me. Critics called it an international
>> breakthrough in contemporary business management thinking. It spoke to
>> me very directly in that it re-enforced my practices, experiences and
>> emerging views that arts based management theories could provide a new
>> way of thinking about organizations and business in this new era of
>> knowledge production. However, the only way I could see their espoused
>> theories applied was through experienced theatre practitioners - the
>> concepts in the book were highly sophisticated in their explicitness
>> and only someone with substantial writing and rehearsal room
>> experience combined with strong commercial acumen would be able to
>> firstly understand the subtly of these theories and secondly be able to
> apply them in any commercial way.
>> 
>> Strange as it may seem it was only then that it dawned on me that the
>> processes I was using were processes I had been taught and that I had
>> lived with for many years. These processes were common only to
>> properly trained theatre practitioners and yet somehow they seemed to
>> fit the world of business like a glove on a hand or at least for me in my
> practice they did.
>> 
>> 
>> I cannot see the teaching of these processes or passing on of these
>> experiences in any formal or structured way in either business
>> management schools or art schools to my knowledge. Yet they seem to
>> offer the potential to provide powerful new creative and innovative
>> ways of practicing management in organizations, even perhaps
>> developing a new breed of executives versed in the thinking of an
>> artist and the performance of a manager.  After all it was Peter
>> Drucker, the founder of management sciences who in 1994 loudly
>> proclaimed that "management as practice... is truly a liberal art."
>> 
>> Tim, have I captured anything of interest? What are your thoughts?
>> 
>> Kind regards,
>> Ralph
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> --
> Steven S. Taylor, PhD
> Assistant Professor
> Worcester Polytechnic Institute
> Department of Management
> 100 Institute Rd
> Worcester, MA 01609
> USA

-- 
Steven S. Taylor, PhD
Assistant Professor
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Department of Management
100 Institute Rd
Worcester, MA 01609
USA