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“To  understand  the  process  of  creative  genius,  it  is  valid  for  business  people  to  look  at  the  

model  of  the  artist.  The  business  of  the  artist  is  to  create,  navigate  opportunity,  

explore  possibility,  and  master  creative  breakthrough.  We  need  to  

restore  art,  the  creation  of  opportunity,  to  business.”  

-­‐Brandweek  (1998)    

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Inception    Beyond  Boundaries      It   is  now  10  years  since  we  got  into  Training,  the  last  five  of  which  have  gone  primarily  in  the  space  of  developing  Art-­‐based  methodologies.  This  has  been  a  fascinating  journey  for  us,   a   journey   that   has   taken   us   overseas   to   nine   countries,   and   inwards   into   deeper  introspection  and  understanding  of  the  human  species.    And   with   each   programme   has   grown   the   belief   and   the   conviction   that   Art-­‐Based  methods   have   enormous   potential   in   helping   people   learn.   As   adults,   constantly  challenged  and  pressured  by  the  world  and  its  demands,  Arts  not  only  offers  a  respite  (an  escape  even),  but  can  also  be  a  powerful  metaphoric  approach  to  decode  personalities  and  their  experiences.      Art-­‐Based   methods,   whether   Painting,   Theatre,   Music,   Modeling   or   others   have   also  shown  us  how  alike  we  are  as  a  race.  How  similar  our  fears  and  fascinations,  charms  and  challenges  are,  across  physical  barriers.    In  this  our  second  edition  of  Concurence,  we  aim  to  see  how  our  global  connections  have  shaped   us,   and   how  we   can   connect  more  with   them,   and   learn  more   from   them.   This  edition   is   dedicated   to  our   friends,   partners   and   colleagues  across   the  world,  who  work  with  us  and  help  us  grow.    Leonardo  Previ  weighs  in  from  Italy  with  his  regular  piece  that  draws  inspiration  from  Artur  Koestler’s  work  and  connects  ‘bisociation’  to  our  learning  efforts.    Our  partner  in  Australia,  Dr.Cathryn  Lloyd  writes  about  her  work  Down  Under,  in  pushing  the  envelope  across  organisations  ready  to  step  out  and  try  something  new.    We  interview  Ali  Al  Uraimi,  Deputy  Managing  Director  at  the  Middle  East  College  in  Oman  and   a   great   believer   and   patron   of   Art-­‐Based   learning,   as   he   tells   us   how   Creativity   in  campus  has  been  enhanced  through  more  Art-­‐Based  approaches.    My  colleague  Rajni  Nair  contributes  from  South  Africa  with  two  excellent  pieces  –  on  the  fantastic   work   done   by   Business   and   Arts   South   Africa,   on   how   a  most   novel   project   is  aiming  to  merge  Arts  and  Sciences  to  grow  awareness  on  the  ‘Highveld’.    Another  collegue  in  the  US,  Marta  Jascinska  delivers  a  wonderful  case  on  her  work  back  in  Poland,  an  innovative  Art  Taxi  project.    We  also  reprint  the  latest  McKinsey  Quarterly  article  on  the  The  Simple  Rules  of  Disciplined  Innovation.    And  there’s  of  course,  more.    Read  on.  Thank  you  for  your  fantastic  feedback  on  our  last  issue.  We  learnt  a  lot  and  have  tried   to   take   in   your   suggestioin   to  make   this   issue  more   vibrant   and   exciting.   Like   our  work.            Anirban  Bhattacharya  Editor  Founder,  The  Painted  Sky    

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Contents    

    Page  Inception   Beyond  Boundaries   3  Point  of  View   Leonardo  Previ,  That  is  Why  We  Need  Art   5  Tete-­‐a-­‐tete   A  Conversation  with  Ali  Al  Uraimi   10  Happenings   First  Time  from  Africe   16  Point  of  View   Dr.Cathryn  Lloyd:  Beyond  the  Creativity  Challenge   25  Case  to  Point   Bridging  Art  with  Professional  Growth   28  Happenings   Art-­‐Science  Collaboration  in  the  Highvelds  of  Africa   35  Insight   The  Simple  Rules  of  Disciplined  Innovation   39  Book  Review   Ed  Catmull’s  Creativity,  Inc.   47  And  in  the  End   Painting  in  the  Training  Room   55    

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Leonardo  Previ  in  Milan  President, Triviquadrivio, Architect. Author. Biker. Historian. Thinker. Trainer.  Leonardo   Previ   contributes   with  his   views   on   how   the   worlds   of  Arts   and   Business   can   influence  and  enrich  each  other.  

Point  of  View    

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In 2013, I was invited to deliver a talk on Creativity to the students of ABAI, (Association of Bangalore Animation Industry) Bangalore, India. The mandate for the talk was to enable the quorum to understand how Creativity comes “from scratch”. The leading metaphor is always the same whether in Asia, Europe or elsewhere in the globe: the blank page. Businessmen, Academicians, Artists and Statisticians, everyone is in love with the idea of the very beginning. Let’s then start with scratch and fill up the empty space. I opened the discussion floor with a bad

news. The kind of bad news that people are not usually happy to receive. And that is, there is no empty space! Indeed there is no blank page at all! Instead, the page is already fully populated of bridges, links, hubs, webs. They are there, right in front of us, but we can’t see them because they are invisible. When we look at a “blank page”, either metaphorically or in reality, we should visualize this forest of invisible relationships waiting for our bravery. Only the braves know how to cross the white page and access the frontier of mutual belongings. Things are already connected but they don’t know and neither do we. To be creative means to bring this prolific unknown out of existing things, through the perception of bisociations that silently crowd the white page. According to Arthur Koestler, author of The Act of Creation, bisociation means connecting elements that lay on different and some times opposite matrixes. It is the contrary of association, which means connecting similar elements. Masters of bisociation are the clowns, the scientists and the artists. When the creative connection leads to a paradox, we laugh; when it leads to the solution of a problem, we

Only the braves know how to cross the white page and access the frontier of mutual belongings.

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have discovered scientifically; and when through a bisociative gesture we access new aspects of reality, we are in front of Art. Interestingly, in his book Koestler highlights the mutual belongings of the three reigns: a) when you experiment (that is, when you lead yourself through the frightening apparent desert of the white page) don’t be afraid of failure, you can peacefully laugh it off ; b) be ready to grab the insights that you can perhaps step into; c) or chose to abandon yourself to the emotion of an unforeseen view on complexity. But is it possible to apply this vision, written by Arthur Koestler fifty one years ago to a manager, an entrepreneur, an artisan or a consultant, who is looking for Creativity and Innovation within a profit-driven organization? What is this business of “business white page” all about? Nowadays, within our offices and workshops, we spend our life surrounded by artefacts. The unparalleled Heinz von Foerster referred to these ubiquitous presences as “trivial

machines”. Both our professional and non professional activities (not to mention our sentimental affairs) are increasingly rooted in these artefacts and it is becoming almost impossible, at least within working places, to see a human being without perceiving his personal high-tech outfit. Actually, trivial machines go along with humans since the very beginning. No matter how deep you’re digging, all of our ancestral stories are different versions of our unavoidable relationship with artefacts. Many trivial machines are nowadays precise, efficient and reliable. They do what they’ve been designed for, and this eases our lives by many means. However, trivial machines are not the only machines we live surrounded by. Fortunately, we spend our time with many “non trivial machines” too. Like the trivial ones, non-trivial machines are designed in order to accomplish specific missions, but there is one vital difference. There is an area where trivial machines fail, and non-trivial machines succeed. This is the area of the unforeseen, or if you prefer, “the

There is however, only one problem: we’ve been trained

to behave like trivial machines. Over the years in schools, in business schools, in offices, and even in R&D departments, we’ve been told to be rational and straight,

and not lose our time on thin and barely noticeable links between existing things.

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white page area”. Unlike the trivial ones, non-trivial machines know how to face surprises. Even the best or biggest or fastest pc in the world will remain silent in front so many unforeseen questions - they call it the GIGO syndrome: Garbage In, Garbage Out. In other words, any trivial machine performance is entirely hooked to the inputs. Trivial machines do not know how to improvise. Moreover, any artificial intelligence instantly becomes a completely useless mass of plastic and silicon, once the electricity blacks out. Humans, the most sophisticated non-trivial machines on earth, on the other hand, do not remain silent and do not stop, no matter what the conditions are. Humans know how to reach incredible outputs without having received any specific input. Every single human being is a native improviser. There is a jazz player inside all of us, ready to help us to get out of troubles creatively. It is time to acknowledge that jazz player’s role! Non-trivial machines know how to perceive the links, how to bisociate, how to make the constraints at function work as per their needs. Moreover, non trivial machines know how take advantage from each other, how to cooperate in order to maximize existing resources, how to empower solutions through intangible assets like love, hate, discomfort, empathy - the kind of thing trivial machines are completely unable to manage. There is however, only one problem: we’ve been trained to behave like trivial machines. Over the years in schools, in business schools, in offices, and even in

R&D departments, we’ve been told to be rational and straight, and not lose our time on thin and barely noticeable links between existing things. And for centuries, our companies have been organized in order to avoid bisociation and to exploit trivial associations. This is scientific management, a black page full of trivial artefacts and humans beings forced to behave like them - this is why we need the White page of Art. Leonardo   Previ   is   quite   passionate   about  what   he   does.  And   if   one   is   Leonardo,   who   does   so   many   things,   it   is  difficult   to   find   something   he   is   not   passionate   about.  A  doctorate   in   architecture,   Leonardo   has   been   teaching  since   1989   (he   continues   to   teach   Human   Resources  Management   at   the   Catholic   University   in   Milan).  Founded   in   1996,   his   company   Trivioquadrivio   is   among  the   foremost   training   firms   in   Europe,   focusing   on  experiential  learning  initiatives  and  events.  Leonardo  is  a  Lego   Serious   Play   Certificate   Facilitator,   one   of   the  founders   of   the   Jazz   for   Business   learning   approach.   A  keen  biker,  he  travels  across  Europe  with  his  motorbike  (a  venerable   Moto   Guzzi   850   T3)   to   train   managers   in  aesthetic   intelligence.   He   has   written   five   books   and   is  working   on   the   sixth,   successfully   exploring   the  confluence  of  Art  and  Business.  

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 A  conversation  with  Ali  Al  Uraimi,  Deputy  Managing  Director,  Middle  East  College,  Muscat  (Oman)   I first Ali Al Uraimi in a small room in an office in central Bangalore… Sitting across from me, in track pants and a t-shirt, Ali exuded the kind of confidence and charm we associate with Hollywood heroes (not that I know any, personally). But over the next hour, our conversation soared – through philosophy and art, economics and politics, and above all else, on learning needs for the changing world. Ali left me inspired, intrigued, and most importantly, impatient, about what we can think next. We caught up again recently, and talked of the future. And how Arts and Creativity are helping the students at Middle East College (MEC) find new meaning in Muscat.

Concurrence: Ali, how has 2014-15 been for MEC, in the region? What are some of the significant achievements and milestones? Creatively, and businesswise. Ali: 2015 has been a great year for MEC in terms of program offering expansion, international student recruitment from 27 various countries and promoting a collaborative, vibrant campus life through international activities participation and conferences. Concurrence: What are some strategies and initiatives adopted at MEC to promote Creativity and Innovation among its staff and students? How have these approaches and process impacted quality of education, productivity and creativity at MEC? Ali: MEC believes in inspiring the minds of students and staff through embedding creativity and innovation, problem solving, entrepreneurship, inquiry and openness to fresh and novel ideas. Such strategies were implemented through various initiatives and approaches that include brainstorming and brain writing methods, canvas paintings that conveys individual creativity and 3D model building to visualize problem solving.

    tête-­‐à-­‐tête    

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Concurrence: How does the future look, both medium and long term? Ali: We see a prosperous future waiting for MEC talented individuals to take a step into a challenging life and obtaining opportunities. The college is

keen to work towards an institution that is a source of inspiration to others and to be recognized for highly competent students, talented staff, entrepreneurial graduates and a cultivated culture of research and inquiry.

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Concurrence: If we can broaden the discussion, in your view, how does creativity help a college like MEC evolve, both for business sustenance and growth? And what can an organization get from encouraging creativity to understand and decode the current VUCA environment? Ali: Creativity has enabled our students to break through boundaries and move towards more than what is required to become competent and inspire our surrounding community. Making things our way has given MEC a unique identity that has helped the organization to significantly grow and sustain within the surrounding community. Concurrence: What should an Educational Organization do to promote a culture of innovation/creativity among its employees?

Ali: Creativity and innovation are significantly important to the development of our current knowledge society and it contributes to the economic prosperity as well as to building a dynamic culture. Therefore, as an educational organization we shall promote and foster such skills in order to emphasize and encourage the development of our staff potential growth. Concurrence: We are keen to explore how learning from the world of the arts and the process of the artist can benefit businesses across the world. In your opinion, what are some key areas that you see businesses learn from the world of arts and the artists? And what could be the outcome of such collaborations? What does it take to align business and arts in a way that they compliment each other? Ali: Artists and business leaders have many in common: they both observe a

Artists and business leaders have many in common: they both observe a desired vision and use a persuasive perspective that formulates a model, navigates through and finally produces its own creation rendition.

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desired vision and use a persuasive perspective that formulates a model, navigates through and finally produces its own creation rendition. We believe that businesses have thoroughly learned from artists where the delivery of emotions and perspectives depend on the sender’s capability of expression and persuading. Artists are distinguished from others through creativity so are businesses distinguished by the message they intend to convey and how such desired outcomes are accomplished. Setting parameters, managing expectations and being different are artist techniques that need to be adapted to organization. Throughout our consultation sessions with students with reference to developing our campus, I have been astonished by student’s creativity. As a deputy managing director, perspectives tend to be restrained to the field of experience, whilst students, have no boundaries and limitation of which creativity is open and new ideas are open to discussions and

implementation. I have personally learnt how to take a one step back and allow for new ideas to enter. Concurrence: What are your expectations from organisations like The Painted Sky, which promote Art-Based Training Initiatives? How can they improve their offerings and training outcomes? Ali: The Painted Sky is one of the most inspiring deliverers of creative thinking and innovation. The Middle East college staff has thoroughly appreciated the efforts put in to deliver an intensive program that has diverted our staff from a traditional way of handling activities to a more creative and groundbreaking strategies. The Painted Sky may open doors of improvements to delivery techniques through embedding live institution problems and allowing participants to feel the situation, think as leaders, prepare, and present proposed business solutions in various forms of art based activities.

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Meeting with Anirban and knowing about The Painted Sky has really interested me and motivated me to explore more on the programs conducted to fulfill MEC needs of creativity. The working environment we are surrounded by is a challenging environment where creativity and problem solving are critical skills that are required for students, staff and even managers to acquire. The Painted Sky encourages people to think out of the box, be creative and search for various approaches of problem solving. One of my colleagues, Mr. Muhamed Refeque, who is a faculty in our Management Studies department, mentioned this recently: “The course of The Painted Sky has changed my perspective on module delivery and ways of teaching. I have implemented creativity to link student mind together through brain writing and linking student thoughts and emotions through canvas paintings. I believe that such practices have benefited the students through using personal creativity to portray student perception” Concurrence: Thanks Ali. That is inspiring! Finally, about Ali the man: What makes you believe that Creative Thinking and Innovation are key for success in today’s world? What have been your key learnings that inspire you to think that way? Can the Arts inspire the Business world? Who or what are some of your greatest inspirations from the creative world?

Ali: I strongly believe that every individual has various angles and perspectives of overseeing situations and acting upon it. It is our creativity and inspiration that changes who we are to the best and makes us competent and talented to challenge the outside community. Due to the ever revolving era we are moving towards, we need to be distinguished by who we are and what we do different from others in order to succeed as an organization and stand out. Personally speaking, I see that Arts are a major inspiration to the business world whereas every successful leader is an artist himself/ herself, if a painter scatters colors on a canvas to deliver a whole set of beauty, uniqueness and diversity, then a leader scatters people around to adapt to situations, integrate together, and work towards achieving a desired outcome. Artist and leader are both defined by different yet similar

“Using creativity in our classes has really been enjoyable and

benefited our attitude of understanding on how businesses

work. Our teachers have used various creative teaching

approaches such as brainstorming that has helped us

view the larger picture of situations and link other

aspects in association to respective topics”

- Layali Al Subhi (Student, Third Year)

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characteristics, where an artist is made up of the colors he uses and a leader is defined by the people he produces.

Therefore, arts in general have always been an inspiration to the way I perceive things and draw goals and objectives to fulfil achievement and satisfaction.  Ali  Al  Uraimi  is  the    Deputy  Managing  Director  of  Middle  East   College   and   member   of   its   Board  of  Directors  and    Board   of   Trustees.   After   his  degree  in  finance   from   Sultan   Qaboos   University,   Oman,   Ali  mastered   in   management   learning   and  leadership  from  University   of   Lancaster,   UK.  For   the   last   13   years,   Ali   Al  Uraimi   has   been   relentlessly   pushing   the   envelope   on  Higher   Education   in   the   Middle   East,   and   has   served   in  many   national  committees,   boards,   and   task   forces  related  to  Education  and  Higher  Education.  

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First Time from

A frica

Happenings    

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Rajni  Nair  in  Johannesburg  

“PABLO PICASSO never came to Africa. However, the virus of African art stayed with him throughout his life.”

“Pablo Picasso never came to Africa. However, the virus of African art stayed with him throughout his life. Many of Picasso's contemporaries shared his fascination with African art. André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Georges Braque and Henri Matisse who had been searching for a new artistic language to break the mould of conventional representation, were exposed to forms rich in African symbols. Africa found its way in varying degrees into their work.

More than three decades after his death, Picasso’s art travels to the continent that so deeply affected his work. “Picasso and Africa”, the most extensive exhibition of the artist's work ever assembled in the region, is due to open at the Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg on February 10th 2006.” - The Economist, February 2006. So what is it that attracts Business to Art and visa versa? Is this mutual attraction limited to Corporate Social Initiatives and Marketing strategies? What explains an 11% increase in corporate support for arts and even here majority of sponsorships come from marketing budgets as opposed to CSI. An encouraging trend indeed… Our focus as we go further into this article will be on Business Houses that collaborate with African Art and Artists who have taken the risk to experiment by partnering with other disciplines in the true spirit of Shared Values. Internationally recognized South African development agency, a nonprofit organization based in

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Johannesburg was founded in 1997 as a joint initiative of the Department of Arts and Culture, South Africa and the business sector as a public/private partnership. Michelle Constant, the multi talented, versatile, recognized as one of the powerful and influential women leaders of South Africa and also the CEO of BASA, in the Agency’s annual report

2013-14 mentions a growing demand occurring globally for a shift from the long held universal paradigm of STEM (Science, Technology Engineering and Math to STEAM (with the inclusion of Art). A progressive enabler, Art ensures porosity of engagement between Public, Private Sectors and Civil Society, according to Michelle. Based on this over arching principle, Business and Arts South Africa (BASA) conducts its initiatives and programs to ensure relevance and sustainability of business – art partnerships. Business and Arts South Africa under CEO Michelle Constant, examines the behavior of leading corporate philanthropists and uncovers three keys to the success of art based partnerships: deep involvement from the CEO, board members and Art Champions; alignment between art and business strategy; and management of Corporate Social Initiative as a business investment.

Drawing on the experience of senior business leaders and artists, Michelle Constant and her team, look at exploring whether, to what extent and with what results Art is embedded within business strategy. One of the visionary approaches of BASA’s commitment to this niche yet growing area of Business-Art

Michelle Constant  

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collaboration is therefore observed in their Art Sponsorship Tool Kit, which is a very detailed and comprehensive manual for the benefit of Business Houses. The toolkit is designed to review, refresh and enhance art sponsorship practice, as well as highlights the shift towards a more strategic partnership approach to art sponsorship. For companies considering investing in Art, the toolkit provides a step-by-step guide and set of exercises to craft a well-considered, longer-term arts partnership strategy. Michelle Constant emphasizes that the tool kit also aims at moving beyond strategic questions to considerations of the most appropriate structural location of Art - business partnership within business and its implementation. Rather than prescribing one approach to integrating art into business, the Business – Art tool kit will provide opportunities to reflect on the advantages and disadvantages associated with a number of different approaches.

A word of caution however from Michelle Constant in today’s recession driven environment. She admits that partnerships are based on pre-determined budget and surplus affordability. An interesting information provided by Michelle points towards the fact that while most business houses locate partnerships with art within CSI departments and corporate foundations, there are examples of partnerships housed within niche business units within a company. Due to confidentiality clause the advantages of locating art-business partnerships within different business departments could not be explored further. The product basket of educational programs offered by BASA resonates and with its vision and mission of being a leading connector catalyst and to provide expertise in developing partnerships between business and arts. Needs and requirements of all relevant stakeholders have been kept in mind while developing and rolling out the pedagogy.

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Some of the important ones include, BASA Basic aimed at arts organizations and individuals wishing to start a not for profit organization or conversely a for profit organization. BASA Dynamic for registered arts organizations with a basic business model and plan and focuses on strategy and tactic. BASA Professional aimed at Organizations in operation for a couple of years, but are faced with strategic organizational challenges. Mentorship, Board bank, Pro bono assistance and advocacy, Breakfast Meetings are some of the senior level programs providing niche business skills and skilled professionals as mentors and guide. Business and Arts South Africa under Michelle Constant is strengthening its international engagement with upcoming trips to Mozambique and Zambia that are part of BASA's ongoing commitment to support the

development of extensive creative industries. Among the initiatives taking place during BASA's Zambian visit are audience development workshops in Lusaka and Kitwe. Ukhona Mlandu and Kim Sanssoucie, who are both Fellows of the Connecting Creative Markets initiative that BASA is currently running in partnership with The British Council Connect ZA, will facilitate these. BASA will be engaging with the Zambian public and private sector on ways of supporting and strengthening the creative sector through policy and institutionalized partnerships. Business and Arts South Africa’s philosophy that the well being of companies and artists is interconnected continues to gain traction through many of its members’ success stories. Standard Bank, South Africa is one of BASA’s very own successful member stories. It would be worth a mention here that as part of its campaign for 2015, National Arts Festival in Grahams Town, South Africa, Standard Bank undertook a social experiment testing the hypothesis 'the closer you are, the more you feel'. Three volunteers - a music student with "two tone-deaf parents", an aspiring singer in her twenties and an elderly sales rep who enjoys classical music - were wired to a barrage of monitors, recording EEG, heart rate and blood pressure.

Business – Art tool kit will provide opportunities to reflect on the advantages and disadvantages associated with a number of different approaches.

 

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Their physical reactions to music were recorded in three different guises: • Phase 1: being told about the

performance by a knowledgeable insider

• Phase 2: viewing a video of the performance

• Phase 3: the live performance itself. The stimulus used was Standard Bank Young Artist winner Nduduzo Makhathini performing his song Echoes of You. Not surprisingly, being merely told about the performance elicited the lowest reading, while the third phase of the experiment, watching a live performance of Nduduzo Makhathini at The Orbit Jazz Club in Johannesburg, yielded the most radical reaction - increased blood pressure, increased heart rate and unreadable EEG results - because there was too much movement from the participants. According to Head Group Brand and Sponsorships, Standard bank, Jenny Pheiffer, "This was a fun social experiment to re-examine what seems really obvious on one level - just how

much better is it to experience a performance live and it transpires it is quantifiably better… one of the reasons why Standard Bank continues to support major live events.” In yet another success story between Business and Art collaboration, First National Bank the oldest bank of South Africa and the primary sponsor of Joburg Art Fair, projects the Fair as an embodiment of the bank’s vision of creating a platform for dialogue and exchange that reaches beyond the realm of arts.

Now in its 8th year the Fair, with a pan African focus , attracts a wide audience and spearheads a diverse ‘Joburg Art Week’ with various events happening around the city from open studios, gallery openings, workshops and debates. At the recently concluded 56th Venice Biennale in May, one of the key objectives of the 2015 FNB Joburg Art Fair was to explore avenues to promote emerging, interdisciplinary practices besides create an ongoing platform for the exposure of African artists abroad.

Joburg Art Fair  

Nduduzo Makhathini

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In the wake of many corporate leaders around the world and agencies like BASA, now embracing the notion of shared value, through Business – Art collaboration, even academicians have come out in strong support. Giovanni Schiuma, the author of “Value of Art in Business “, goes a step further and talks about developing a fresh approach to Organizational Development and Goals .According to Giovanni approaches to Organizational development are stuck in old paradigms. He agrees that technical knowledge is essential to drive efficiency, however insists that value creation and innovation leading to transformation and success in business comes through if business and individuals think like artists! Giovanni is firmly of the view that the traditional view of the relationship between business and art is very much a one-way affair. Organizations may endorse, fund or publicize the arts but arts have nothing to offer from a business perspective. The Value of Arts for Business challenges this view by highlighting how arts, in the form of Arts-based Initiatives (ABIs), can be used to enhance value-creation capacity and boost business and employee performance index. He introduces three models which embodies Art based Initiatives (ABIs) and links them to Organizational success. Firstly, the Arts Value Matrix enables managers to see how organizational value-drivers are affected by ABIs. Secondly, the Arts Benefits Constellation shows how to assess the benefits of using ABIs.

The Value of Arts for

Business challenges this view by

highlighting how arts, in the form of Arts-based Initiatives

(ABIs), can be used to enhance value-creation capacity and

boost business and employee performance index.  

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Finally, the Arts Value Map shows how ABIs can be integrated and aligned with organizational strategy and operations. These models lay the foundation for a new research area exploring the links between arts and business. As Grayson Perry, the British artist’s succinctly put it, “There is a new creative economy, in which artists will increasingly have a part to play. And for Business and Science and Politics to collaborate and add Art tools in search of excellence...” Rajni   is  a  student  of  Sociology  (H)    from  Delhi  University,  followed  by  PG  in  Human  Resource  from  XLRI  Jamshedpur  India.  Learning   and   Development   ,Talent   and  Performance  Management   have   been   the   core   areas   of  specialization  while  working  at  IBM  India  and  TCS.  Rajni's  achievements   include   design   and   implementation   of  exclusive   High   Potential   Development   programmes   for  Business   Units.  Dance,   fitness   and  health   and   travel   are  other   passions   very   closely   pursued   and   practiced.   She  goes  by   the  philosophy  of   Live  and   Let   Live  after   having  experienced   different   cultures   around   the   world   and  navigating  life  through  these  various  cultural  differences.    Currently   based   in   Johannesburg,   South   Africa,   Rajni   is  working   towards  rolling   out   a   unique   project  under   The  Painted   Sky  umbrella   to   combine   Human   Resource  principles   with   visual   arts   to   create   an   Employee  Engagement   and   Top   Talent   Development   Programme  for  Business.  

 

  24  

   

Creativity  is  putting  your  imagination  to  work,  and  it's  produced  

the  most  extraordinary  

results  in  human  culture.  

 -­‐  Sir  Ken  Robinson  

 

  25  

Dr.  Cathryn  Lloyd  in  Brisbane

W e live in challenging, complex and unpredictable times. Flux provides new opportunities or can generate fear and loathing. What remain unchanged are human qualities – creativity, curiosity and imagination. These traits are fundamental for creating positive change. Our ability to individually and collectively think creatively, artfully, curiously and critically is our greatest strength. Our capacity to apply these capabilities to a multitude of issues is our greatest asset. The qualities and skills embedded in the arts, creative industries, and creative practitioners play a fundamental role in bringing creative intelligence to these issues. As a creative professional originally trained as a graphic designer and visual artist I incorporate business, design thinking, artistic/aesthetic and academic principles in my work. I use facilitation, creative development, action learning and coaching to address individual and organisational learning and development needs. I work closely with clients to understand their business and their needs in order to design and facilitate the best possible learning experiences and workshops and programmes. As a creative provocateur, I help others discover and access ideas and solutions to challenges, along with new ways of thinking and being. This can take place

Point  of  View    

  26  

in the context of relationship building, leadership, capability building, change, conflict, creative thinking and planning. There is increasing evidence that arts-based/creative interventions provide other ways for people and organisations to engage, learn, reflect, participate, connect, gain new perspectives, innovate, and impact on organisational culture. For many people exposure to artistic and experiential learning methods can be challenging. There is often indifference, resistance or skepticism. At times this can be challenging for everyone to begin with. However, in the course of our time together what I so often witness are energised and engaged people who gain a deeper awareness and appreciation of their creative capability, their colleagues creative potential and in turn confidence. I see a lot of breakthrough thinking when people participate in arts-based/creative processes and interventions. The corporate sector and arts sector have much to learn from one another. There is much to be gained by these two sectors building a closer relationship and strategic alliances.

Through Maverick Minds I provide offer facilitation and coaching that weave together creative processes and methodologies that help clients develop creative skills and capacity that support them to successfully work through challenges and discover opportunities. T his covers a range of individual and organisational needs such as professional development, teamwork, leadership and strategic planning. The work is eclectic as are my clients. From engineers spending time in an art gallery for discussion, reflection and teambuilding; creative development and visioning work for a community based not-for-profits; creative professional development for human resources, as well as leadership in the corrections sector. While each client is unique and requires a particular response there are some underlying issues facing many organisations. VUCA comes to mind – many businesses both large and small are increasingly aware that volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity can be challenging. The flip side is that

Creativity is so often associated with the arts, artists and

cultural activity. It also lies at the heart of all human

endeavours.  

  27  

it also offers opportunity. However, in order to create opportunity or respond effectively to change, a capacity for flexibility and creativity is necessary. These qualities are not just needed by a few key people. From an organisational perspective it needs to be understood that supporting and encouraging people to reach their full creative potential is crucial to organisational success. Using arts-based approaches is not cookie cutter training it is so much more than doing the bare minimum of training – think compliance. It is about designing and delivering relevant learning experiences that engage and inspire people. Creativity is so often associated with the arts, artists and cultural activity. It also lies at the heart of all human endeavours. From a business perspective creativity is seen as being important. One only has to look at organisational websites that mention creativity and innovation as key drivers. However there is a disjuncture between what is said and what actually happens. How do organisations develop and support creativity when failure and experimentation are not encouraged. When it is considered difficult to manage, a bit airy-fairy and not connected to core business. This creates a paradox as businesses grapple with change and innovation. And here’s the rub – it is unlikely innovation will occur without creativity. An IBM Global CEO Study (for more details, refer to ‘Concurrence’, April 2015) revealed creativity as the most crucial factor for future success. It is a key capability for the 21st Century and a concept we need to

understand and embrace. This necessitates a mindset of creative entrepreneurialism and an investment in the development of creative intelligence. Robust relationships within and across professions and industries that enable cross fertilisation of creative ways of thinking and being will serve us well. It’s time to stretch ourselves, move out from the silos and our comfort zones, walk across the divides, embrace each other and learn from one another. (This article has been adapted from Beyond the Creative Challenge originally published on 27 January 2015 by Arts Queensland. For the original l ink go to http://www.arts.qld.gov.au/blog/index.php/beyond-the-creative-challenge/)

Dr   Cathryn   Lloyd   is   Founder   and   Director   of   Maverick  Minds   working   at   the   intersection   of   arts   and   business.    She   is   Australia’s   first   certified   creativity   coach  with   the  Creativity  Coaching  Association  (CCA)    Dr   Cathryn   Lloyd   is   a   facilitator   and   Australia’s   first  certified   creativity   coach   with   the   Creativity   Coaching  Association   (CCA).   She   is   Founder   and   Director   of  Maverick  Minds  a  consultancy  that  designs  powerful  and  flexible   learning   experiences   for   a   range   of   people   and  purposes.    She  has  experience  across   the  arts,   education,  business   and   management.     She   holds   a   research  doctorate   in   Creative   Industries   and   knows   the   joys   and  challenges   of   running   a   business   and   living   a   creative  life.      

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Marta  Jasinska  in  Hawaii  

As far back as I can remember, people have always amazed me with their inherent inclination towards Art. With more than ten years of experience as a social worker and art therapist, I have noticed that art therapy begins where resistance appears. Therefore the first phase of art therapy is about facing ones’ own fears while exposing ourselves, to something new and that which we may or may not qualify as “art”. Even though the art therapist assures us that it is.

Bridging Art with Professional

Growth: A Case Study of

Creating Art in Everyday

Businesses  

Case  To  Point    

  29  

My vision is to expand art to hitherto uncharted territories, and bring into its ambit people who think they have no time or talent for applying artistic aesthetics or vision, especially in the business sector.

Let’s take a moment and think through these scenarios… the unique strength and building skills displayed by a building contractor through the creative installations, a passionate diving instructor who is a source of motivation while displaying a photo exhibition inspired by ocean. A bartender, who designs a puppet performance using bottles and glasses (that which s/he juggles around with day and night, as part of routine work) based on stories heard from pub goers. These professionals do not believe they have access to a mystic artistic world. But they do… in fact we all do! That’s what inspires and amazes me and I am in awe of them. My inspiration to weave my art therapy work into the business sector and thereby bridge the gap between the two, began with an on-site grant-based

project that started with my father’s functional taxi cab. Other sites for this project included: a local hair salon, a psychologist’s office, a homeless shelter, and a mom-and-pop restaurant owned by a couple for 15 years. Project Seniors in Action, funded by the Polish-American Freedom Foundation and organized by Association of Creative Initiatives “ę” from Warsaw Poland, aimed at engaging senior citizens aged sixty and above in their respective communities as leaders and activists. They were required to support fellow citizens in their community by sharing their knowledge, passions and unique life experiences. The grant also required each senior citizen to be paired with a younger individual and thus reach out to others’ in the community in a creative and agreed-upon fashion. I’ve always been inspired by my dad’s work as a taxi driver. I would think for stretches of time about how so many varied people passed through the space of his car, and how my dad spoke to each and every one of them. I thought about how intimate that space really is, and how the parties present really had no choice but to engage. The possibilities in such a space were immense, for connections, transformation and art installations. I decided to partner with my father for the Seniors in Action project, in collaboration with Mateusz Tymura, a performing artist / director, community developer, and lender of the vintage car that we used as our interactive stage. We decided to use the medium of sound and interactive performance art

My inspiration to weave my art therapy work into the business sector and thereby bridge the gap between the two, began with an on-site grant-based project that started with my father’s functional taxi cab.  

  30  

for our taxi-based art piece. As part of phase one of the performance, my father and I interviewed a handful of seasoned taxi drivers in our town, gathering information about their work experience over many years, hearing about the different kinds of people they’ve met, learning about what they love about the job and what they are challenged by, and how the city has changed and evolved before their eyes. Then we pieced together parts of different interviews into a single track that played continuously in Mateusz’s vintage car, now converted into our Art Taxi and driven around the town by my father. In the end, as is the norm with art therapy experiences, it was the process more than the product of this experience that enriched the artist-participants’ lives. For my father, 67, working with a sound recorder was a novel experience. He acquired skills he never thought he would care to learn. We also practiced how to ask others questions for the interview. This discovery that he is now adept at interviewing skills brought him unexpected joy in the role. Local media talked about the project. A newspaper devoted half a page to my father’s

picture with related story, and a radio station referred to him by name. His self-esteem was raised and for probably the first time in his life, he identified himself as an artist. My father was on-board from the beginning, but there were other seniors who expressed their resistance to the project at different stages. The whole concept of the project was to partner young artists with experienced seniors, and to have the team create art-based interaction in public spaces. The older participants didn’t believe in the possibility that they could transform their daily work into art. It seemed to be a very complicated idea. And then there was the issue of how to interact with the public as part of the “art.” But the biggest challenge seemed to be around the curiosity: How do I become the artist? For the young partners, who already identified themselves as artists, the challenge was to not take the lead as “artist,” and rather be a companion and equal role player to the senior business owners. Together, the two had to focus their attention on why and how the seniors’ workspace was inspiring, and use this fresh view to create an inspired art experience.

  31  

My father had spent hours daily, monthly, and yearly in his taxi, but it never crossed his mind that it may be a space for a small gallery, or sound installation, or that he could put up a one-man show for a random, captive audience. This project expanded his views to what was possible even during his long work hours. He was able to tap into an inactive, latent potential that awaited him simply by challenging himself to think differently. Now, imagine the impact of this experience, if it was brought to a company? How it would help break the monotony of everyday “business as usual” and create an inspiring, efficient and effective work force. As I continued this journey, every art partnership and experience turned out to be a unique experience. The partnership with the psychologist and the photographer were about emotions from the beginning. The psychologist

decided she would like to show emotions through photographs of non-human images. Together with her already-an-established artist partner, the two engaged in outdoor photography, looking for interesting expressions in nature and town buildings alike. The psychologist would point to how she wanted the photo framed, and the photographer took the shot. They reviewed the images, and decided if the photographs were good and expressed the emotions the psychologist “saw” in them to begin with. The photos were hung as an exhibition in the stairwell between the first and last floor of the Psychology Office where the participants used to work.

  32  

  33  

As a result of these tactically displayed photo frames, individuals walking past the space would view them and identify the kind of emotions they represented. At the top floor there was a key, revealing the emotions that had been attributed to each image by the psychologist. The primary objective of the project was to observe the pictures and consider them from an emotional point of view. The hairdresser salon was a strong inspiration for a musician Adam Frankiewicz (https://soundcloud.com/ adamfrankiewicz). Adam engaged with his senior partner by recording music tracks based on different sounds they identified at the hair salon. They recorded sounds of scissors, dryers, water, radio and more unique ones like sound of the falling hair. Our endeavor was to focus on the strongest skills and abilities the participants possessed. Every single art project designed and created by the young artists along with their senior-partners were preceded by series of workshops and discussions during which we tried to identify their skills and experiences, that could be transformed into art and shared with an audience. One of senior participant spent years working at a telecommunication company but decided to change career and become a counselor. Her passion was to support and encourage people. In the project she was working with Sebastian Łuykaszuk, a 3d Projection Mapping artist. He created an installation and invited her to add pictures, which they could project on the huge cube. They performed the

show at a shelter for homeless people. She had decided to use her private pictures showing beautiful landscape views while she would narrate positive and encouraging sentences about the beauty of life, nature, and the importance of being alive. One of the project outcomes was a performance towards the end, based on the stories of the three participants: taxi driver, psychologist and counselor. For about six months we were working on the script and setting up the play which contained stories and facts based on professional experiences of these participants. The lead roles were performed by the participants themselves in the play, giving the performance a distinct touch of reality.

The energy of creativity let loose via this non-profit project was immense. Besides the young “established artists” who became further inspired, the senior professionals now experienced the freedom to take risks and look beyond their rationale day-to-day work thoughts and behaviors, and think and feel as artists. It was a freedom that was offered to them and which they ultimately accepted… even though with

I believe my work as an Art Therapist and as a Trainer is to

show people that it is not about art, but about them.  

  34  

resistance in the beginning, but with success in the end. It was a wonderful learning experience for all participants, who connected with each other in deep and subtle ways, and who hopefully kept their new artistic eyes open as they moved forward in their lives. I believe my work as an Art Therapist and as a Trainer is to show people that it is not about art, but about them. It is their experiences and unique skills that can be transformed into a work of art. I further remind them that art is a much broader concept and goes beyond drawing and painting. I do this work because I don’t want people to go through life, squandering their innate creative propensities and talents, and leave their varied life experiences to memories. I want them to become aware that there is an opportunity to commemorate these life experiences through art. Through the “Art Taxi” project and my other experiences within the business sector there are many benefits to be leveraged. Overall, art stimulates your creativity and imagination, makes you more observant, enhances problem-solving skills, encourages out-of-the-box thinking, boosts self-esteem and provides a sense of accomplishment. Each of these benefits greatly enhances organizational culture, team development and provides a competitive advantage for entrepreneurs to stay in the zone. This work is profoundly imperative as it adds a unique dimension to a person’s personality. I have embarked on a path to facilitate others in their professional

arenas, address burnout issues and bring the power of art not only into personal and professional lives of participants, but also further draw them out into public spaces without inhibitions and fear, whereby they can share their story and inspire the greater community. Art brings creative minds together and develops an interest in seeing each other at a deeper level. My mission ultimately is for planetary betterment. To encourage people to use their creativity and transform their personal and professional lives and experience a sense of wellbeing. Marta   Jasinska   is   the   Founder   of   ‘Your   Company   Arts.’  Combining   her   10   +   years   of   experience   as   an   art  therapist,   theater   instructor,   trainer,   and   project  coordinator,   she   supports   local   communities,   nonprofit  organizations,   clients   from   business   sector   to   transform  through   the   use   of   everyday   art.   Her   adventure   with  bringing   art   into   the   business   sector   initiated   in   Poland  inspiring   her   to   continue   to   develop   a   curriculum   that  would  meet  the  needs  of  businesses  across  the  globe.  She  now   lives   in   Hawaii   where   she   offers   professional   art  based   trainings   for   companies   in   the   United   States.  Website:  www.YourCompanyArts.com  Editor:  Devora  Kalma,  MA    

I do this work because I don’t want people to go through life,

squandering their innate creative propensities and talents, and leave

their varied life experiences to memories. I want them to become aware that there is an opportunity

to commemorate these life experiences through art.

 

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Art - Science Collaboration in the

Highvelds of Africa

Rajni  Iyer  in  Johannesburg  

The belief that Africa is the cradle of mankind is virtually unshakable. Within this belief lies another unshakable truth that emerges since pre historic era... African rock carvings and paintings, the masks and wooden sculptures, used to communicate with the divine by the Sans (Bushmen) and the continents’ eco system are intertwined and have played a significant role in shaping her culture and economy across space and time.

This highly sophisticated and intimate bond between man, animal and nature binds South Africa and indeed the African continent’s past to her presentand will further shape her future from the point of view of the economy and art. This intimate bond gets further cemented when Visual Artist Hannelie Coetzee and Scientist Sally Archibald initiated a fascinating collaboration between Art and Science, which benefits society at large whilst simultaneously connecting disciplines that have been working independently. This business model referred by Hannelie as Functional Art encourages social entrepreneurial collaboration as seen in natural eco systems. The first phase of the experiment was conducted on 5-hectare hillside in the Khatlhampi Private Reserve, which borders on the

Hannelie  Coetzee  

Happenings    

  36  

Nirox Sculpture Park and Artists Residency in the Cradle of Humankind. The experiment continues till April 2016. The outlines of a boy Benko reaching for the eland (a type of antelope, very popular and highly revered in African Bush art paintings) were burnt by starting a controlled fire within the outlines that eventually filled in and burnt the entire patch of grass which formed Benko and Eland 2015. The controlled burn was lit and monitored by highly trained and experienced fire fighters from Working on Fire. As the smoke cleared, and the image was revealed, the landscape was undeniably powerful. This experiment is expected to last two seasons as the herbivores animals that graze there, the eland, wildebeest, zebra, rhino, zebra, hartebeest, and warthog will come and crop at the new grass, keeping the artwork intact unless there are heavy rains or a drought. Along with Sally’s M.sc student Felix Skhosana, they installed cameras in the bush, which will record the animal movements that come to graze here.

The experiment will further study the soil fertility and balance in the area, which can provide valuable information to the South African farmers and the game reserve owners. While the grazers are able to thrive, in doing so, the raptors and the carnivores thrive whilst keeping the ecological cycle turning. This will simultaneously enhance and promote South Africa’s and the continents’ eco and adventure tourism while transforming the agriculture sector. Sally Archibald, an associate professor at the Wits School of Animal Plant and Environmental Sciences, has been carrying out experiments in various landscapes dealing with the relationship between fire and grazing animal.

Hannelie Coetzee recognized the potential for a large-scale ecological artwork in Archibald's scientific practice. She thought that the spectacle of the burning, and the scale of the markings of the landscape presented "a rich medium" in which to communicate the meaning behind the scientific project, bringing a dimension of human experience to the science, and scientific exploration to art. She also saw the opportunity to convey a broader ecological message, exploring the relationship between humans and the landscape.

Hannelie’s approach using the medium of art to improve the

environmental systems is twofold. She makes artworks in public spaces to explore the site

and listen to the community.

  37  

The initial information-gathering phase creates a neutral platform where keen and interested community members can engage. This facilitates greater participation and involvement from them when the second phase commences. The second phase focuses on identifying “congestion or contamination” Hannelie’s own expression while referring to challenges and problem areas. This collaborative artwork will be incomplete without mentioning Bob Connolly Commercial Operations and Research Development Coordinator from Working on Fire (WoF), whose team supported Hannelie and Sally’s art-science collaboration providing manpower for the fire operation, which was conducted through perfection, precision and expertise.

In the midst of controlling and monitoring the fire spread, wind direction, temperature and humidity percentage and simultaneously engaging with his team over wireless, and drone imageries Bob provides very valuable information about his organization. Working on Fire (WoF) aligns with the overall vision of South Africa in promoting its eco tourism and transforming the agriculture sector as well as providing employment to its citizens from rural areas. Men and women from marginalized communities are trained in fire awareness and education and prevention and suppression. They then form forest fire fighting ground crews, stationed at bases around the country to help stop the scourge of wildfire that costs the South African economy billions of rands annually. The multi-million rand job creation programme is primarily

  38  

geared towards assisting government to fulfill its job creation and social upliftment promise to the people of South Africa. There are currently 5000 beneficiaries in the programme, 85% of whom are youth, 29% are women, the highest in any comparable fire service in the world. Working on Fire, officially launched in September 2003, can be practically applied in South Africa’s unique landscape. Embedded in the Expanded Public Works Programme, the project combines sound land management principles and best practice model for poverty relief and skills development. The organization also works side by side with farmers and game reserve management on a national basis reducing fuel loads using specific, controlled burns to control bush encroachment and general veld management. This threefold collaboration between Art, Science and Government by investing in local communities and ecology brings to a full circle the interconnectedness in the African society which started during the San era ...and will hopefully see many more future successes…

Working on Fire, officially launched in September 2003,

can be practically applied in South Africa’s unique landscape.

Embedded in the Expanded Public Works Programme, the

project combines sound land management principles and best practice model for poverty relief

and skills development.  

  39  

Source: McKinsey Quarterly, May 2015

The Simple Rules of Disciplined Innovation

Donald  Sull  

When it comes to innovation, the single most common piece of advice may be to “think outside the box.” Constraints, according to this view, are the enemy of creativity because they sap intrinsic motivation and limit possibilities.

Sophisticated innovators, however, have long recognized that constraints spur and guide innovation. Attempting to innovate without boundaries overwhelms people with options and ignores established practices, such as agile programming, that have been shown to enhance innovation. Without guidelines to structure the interactions, members of a complex organization or ecosystem struggle to coordinate their innovative activities.

How, then, can organizations embrace a more disciplined approach to innovation? One productive approach is

to apply a few simple rules to key steps in the innovation process. Simple rules add just enough structure to help organizations avoid the stifling bureaucracy of too many rules and the chaos of none at all. By imposing constraints on themselves, individuals, teams, and organizations can spark creativity and channel it along the desired trajectory. Instead of trying to think outside the wrong box, you can use simple rules to draw the right box and innovate within it. Simple rules cannot, of course, guarantee successful innovation— no tool can. Innovation creates novel products, processes, or business models that generate economic value. Trying anything new inevitably entails experimentation and failure. Simple rules, however, add discipline to the process to boost efficiency and increase the odds that the resulting innovations will create value. Simple rules are most commonly applied to the sustaining kind of innovation, often viewed as less important than major breakthroughs. The current fascination with disruption obscures an important reality. For many established companies, incremental product improvements, advances in existing business models, and moves into adjacent markets remain critical sources of valuecreating innovation. The turnaround of Danish toymaker LEGO over the past decade, for example, has depended at least as much on rejuvenating the core business through the injection of discipline into

  40  

the company’s new-product development engine as it has on radical innovation. Simple rules can also be used to guide a company’s major innovations. In the early 2000s, for example, Corning set out to double the number of major new businesses it launched each decade. A team evaluated the company’s historical breakthrough products, including the television tube, optical fiber, and substrates for catalytic converters. By identifying the commonalities across these past advances, the team articulated a set of simple rules to evaluate major innovations: they should address new markets with more than $500 million in potential revenue, leverage the company’s expertise in materials science, represent a critical component in a complex system, and be protected from competition by patents and proprietary process expertise. What simple rules are (and aren’t) Simple rules embody a handful of guidelines tailored to the user and task at hand, balancing concrete guidance with the freedom to exercise creativity. To illustrate how simple rules can foster innovation, consider the case of Zumba That company’s fitness routine was developed when Alberto Perez, a Colombian aerobics instructor, forgot to take his exercise tape to class and used what he had at hand—a tape of salsa music. Today, Zumba is a global business that offers classes at 200,000 locations in 180 countries to over 15 million customers drawn by the ethos “Ditch the workout. Join the party.”

Zumba’s executives actively seek out suggestions for new products and services from its army of over 100,000 licensed instructors. Other companies routinely approach Zumba with possible partnership and licensing agreements. In fact, it is deluged by ideas for new classes (Zumba Gold for baby boomers), music (the first Zumba Fitness Dance Party CD went platinum in France), clothing, fitness concerts, and video games, such as Zumba Fitness for Nintendo Wii. Zumba’s founders rely on two simple rules that help them quickly identify the most promising innovations from the flood of proposals they receive. First, any new product or service must help the instructors—who not only lead the classes but carry Zumba’s brand, and drive sales of products—to attract clients and keep them engaged. Second, the proposal must deliver FEJ (pronounced “fedge”), which stands for “freeing, electrifying joy” and distinguishes Zumba from the “no pain, no gain” philosophy of many fitness classes. These two principles for screening innovation proposals illustrate the four characteristics of effective simple rules. First, Zumba’s rules are few in number, which makes them straightforward to remember, communicate, and use. They also make it easy for the founders to describe the kinds of innovations most likely to be chosen and to explain why specific ones weren’t. Capping the number of rules forces a relentless focus on what matters most, as well.

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Zumba’s success depends on the passion of its instructors and the differentiation of its offering from less playful exercise options. The rules encapsulate the essence of the company’s strategy. Second, effective simple rules apply to a well-defined activity or decision (in Zumba’s case, selecting new products and services). To promote innovation, many executives embrace broad

principles—like “encourage flexibility and innovation” or “be collaborative”—meant to cover every process. To cover multiple activities, rules must be extremely general, and often end up bordering on platitudes. These aspirational statements, while well intentioned, provide little concrete guidance for specific activities. As a result, they are often ignored.

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Third, simple rules should be tailored to the unique culture and strategy of the organization using them. Many managers want to transplant rules from successful companies without modification— a big mistake (see sidebar, “Pitfalls to avoid when making rules”). Finally, simple rules supply guidance while leaving ample scope for discretion and creativity. Zumba’s simple rules provide a framework for discussing and identifying which innovations are attractive but are not mathematical formulas where you enter the inputs and the answer pops out. The best simple rules are guidelines, not algorithms. Simple rules to select innovations Zumba’s rules illustrate a common way that simple rules facilitate innovation—by helping companies select and prioritize the most promising new ideas. McKinsey research shows that the choice of which innovations to pursue is a critical factor influencing a company’s ability to innovate successfully (see “The eight essentials of innovation,” McKinsey Quarterly, April 2015, on mckinsey.com). Although Zumba may seem like a quirky example, even the most serious research labs can use simple rules to select innovations. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), for example, is one of the world’s most innovative organizations, routinely producing breakthroughs such as brain-controlled prosthetics and climbing gear that allows soldiers with full combat loads to scale vertical walls without using ropes or ladders.

DARPA’s achievements are even more impressive when you consider that the agency has a technical staff of only 120—about half the size of the Pentagon cafeteria staff. The agency uses two simple rules to evaluate which innovations to back: a project must further the quest for fundamental scientific understanding and have a practical use. Simple rules can also help ensure that creativity is aligned with strategy, for an innovation process unmoored from strategy often produces intriguing ideas that fail to leverage corporate resources and capabilities. These innovations, viewed as risky distractions, rarely secure the support and resources required for execution. The strategy of the sportswear business Under Armour is to compete on technical innovation,

DARPA’s achievements are even more impressive

when you consider that the agency has a technical staff of only 120—about half the

size of the Pentagon cafeteria staff. The agency

uses two simple rules to evaluate which innovations

to back: a project must further the quest for

fundamental scientific understanding and have a

practical use.  

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and its simple rules reflect this. Every year, it hosts its Future Show, where thousands of entrepreneurs vie for a chance to pitch their ideas to management. The most recent Future Show, the Connected Fitness Innovation Challenge, was aimed at building “the next generation of game-changing digital experiences through apps and wearable technology.” The rules for the competition, reflecting this strategy, require that an innovation should integrate with MapMyFitness (an exercise-tracking company 6 Under Armour acquired in 2013), emphasize inspiration and insight over information, and address a customer need within select areas, such as wellness or team sports. In addition, simple rules can help ensure that innovations create value, by balancing novelty with the need to keep a lid on costs. The Zátiší Catering Group runs three of the highest rated restaurants in Prague, as well as a high-end cafeteria business serving the Czech operations of multinational clients. In the past, the chef at each cafeteria enjoyed complete autonomy to introduce new dishes, which proliferated so much that the company produced almost 1,000 distinct ones a year. This culinary creativity came at a cost. The chefs often used exotic, out-of-season ingredients. They rarely coordinated meal planning across cafeterias, which prevented the company from capturing economies of scale in purchasing. The relentless drive for novelty meant that the chefs rarely repeated popular meals, even when customers requested them.

The CEO wanted to make sure the chefs weren’t generating novelty for its own sake but rather innovating in a way that created value. He assembled a team of chefs and cafeteria managers, who developed simple rules to guide menu selection. One rule was that three of the five dishes offered every day must be proven bestsellers, which built demand for meals. (This was important because customers could always go out for lunch if they didn’t like the cafeteria food on offer.) Others were that no fewer than two dishes a day had to be available at all of the company’s cafeterias and that 90 percent of the produce must be fresh and sourced locally. Chefs could still experiment with new dishes, but their creativity fell within parameters ensuring that the overall menu was profitable. Within a few months, revenues were up by one-third and profits doubled. Rules requiring the reuse of existing materials or components are a particularly helpful way to balance efficiency with novelty. LEGO, for example, insists that designers reuse a certain number of existing pieces when developing a new play kit. That rule balances the need for novelty with control over the number of unique pieces (and the associated manufacturing and logistics costs). Simple rules for how to innovate Zumba and DARPA use simple rules to select innovations. Other organizations use them to decide how to pursue innovations. Individuals, teams, and organizations can codify their experience and data into simple rules to guide the innovation process in the future.

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Consider the case of Tina Fey, who, with eight Emmy Awards, is one of the most successful comedians of her (or any) generation. In an insightful (and very funny) New Yorker article, she distilled the lessons she learned from working on Saturday Night Live into simple rules she used to produce her next show, 30 Rock. (from Tina Fey, “Lessons from late night,” New Yorker, March 14, 2011, newyorker.com.) The rules, largely focusing on managing

creative people, include “never tell a crazy person he’s crazy,” which acknowledges the link between eccentricity and creativity and the need to handle such people carefully. Another rule is “when hiring, mix Harvard nerds with Chicago improvisers and stir.” The former experiment with clever ideas; the latter, such as members of Chicago’s famed Second City improvisational-comedy group, have a keen sense of what will work in front of an audience. While CEO of Burberry, Angela Ahrendts followed a similar rule to ensure that key teams balanced analytical employees with creative types. Companies can also codify innovation-process rules based on the experience of others. ONSET Ventures was a pioneer among accelerators designed to help early-stage start-ups. (Michael J. Roberts and Nicole Tempest, “ONSET Ventures,” Harvard Business School Case 898-154, March 1998.) When the founders established the firm (in 1984) they tried to identify which criteria were important to success by gathering information on 300 early-stage investments, both successful and failed, that had been funded by existing Silicon Valley venture capitalists. They found that a handful of variables accounted for over three-quarters of these outcomes and codified the key insights into five simple rules to incubate start-ups. The best predictor of failure, according to this research, was sticking doggedly to the original business plan. The business models of successful start-ups, in contrast, nearly always underwent at least one major revision (and countless minor tweaks) before they stabilized.

This culinary creativity came at a cost. The chefs often used exotic, out-of-season ingredients. They rarely coordinated meal planning across cafeterias, which prevented the company from capturing economies of scale in purchasing. The relentless drive for novelty meant that the chefs rarely repeated popular meals, even when customers requested them.  

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This insight led to the first rule: all start-ups must fundamentally change their business model at least once before receiving their next round of funding. Research also taught ONSET’s founders that start-ups were more likely to succeed if they waited until after the business model had stabilized before bringing a new CEO on board. That way, the founders and investors could specify the precise skills and expertise the CEO would need to scale the business. Techstars, a top-ranked accelerator with 18 programs around the world, also uses simple rules to help start-ups get off the ground. The program in Chicago, for example, insists that portfolio companies can have only five key performance metrics at any point. These measures shift over time as companies develop, but the hard cap on five forces a ruthless prioritization at every step in the process. Help members of a community innovate together Innovation is rarely the product of lone inventors. More frequently, it emerges from the interactions of members of a community or ecosystem, who extend and build on one another’s ideas. Communal innovation entails a deep conflict, however. By freely sharing ideas, members of an ecosystem can collectively create more value through innovation. Yet the open exchange of ideas can make it harder to protect intellectual property and potentially dampens incentives to innovate. Legal intellectual-property protection, such as patents or copyrights, mitigates this tension in many industries but doesn’t work in all settings. Simple rules can

protect intellectual property in situations where legal remedies don’t apply.

Consider the case of magicians, for whom secrecy is everything. (This wonderful example of simple rules among magicians comes from Jacob Loshin, “Secrets revealed: How magicians protect intellectual property without law,” Yale Law School working paper, July 2007.) If another magician steals your tricks, he steals your unique selling point, especially if he doesn’t credit you. Even more worryingly, if the public learns how tricks are performed, the illusion is ruined for the audience. So it’s essential for magicians to ensure that others can’t use their proprietary magic and that the public doesn’t know how they perform tricks widely shared within the professional community. Magicians cannot rely on the law to protect their intellectual property—they would have to reveal the details of a trick to patent or copyright it. Instead, magicians rely on simple rules. The rule prohibiting the use of a trick that has not been widely shared, published, or sold to you protects magicians who want to keep their magic proprietary. Another rule—an old trick that hasn’t been used for a long time belongs to the person who rediscovers it—revives classic magic for new generations. Finally, and most important, the golden rule of magic is

Too much constraint can stifle innovation, but too little is just as bad.  

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“never expose a secret to a nonmagician.” Those who violate these rules are ostracized by the magic community, including the owners of clubs, who book acts. Simple rules are common in communities (including those of chefs, stand-up comedians, and crowdsourcing) that rely on innovation but do not or cannot use the law to protect their intellectual property. Sometimes innovation requires working with partners, and simple rules can help here too. Consider the case of Primekss (pronounced “preem-ex”), a European construction-supply company that is trying to disrupt one of the world’s most traditional industries— concrete—with a product that not only allows for thinner layers and less cracking but also cuts the carbon footprint by up to 50 percent. (The production of cement, the critical ingredient in concrete, is the third-largest source of greenhouse carbon dioxide.)5 After Primekss won a construction-industry innovation award, the founder was approached by over 100 contractors, but he estimated that the company could evaluate, train, and support only a few new relationships every year. To select partners, the company developed a set of simple rules. Instead of putting new partners into head-to-head competition with existing ones, Primekss decided to select them in geographic markets with no current operations. A second rule was that a potential partner should have a Laser Screed machine, a stateof-the-art concrete-spreading system that signaled technical sophistication and commitment to quality. Another rule—

partners must sell the concrete within three months of signing a contract with Primekss—ensured that the relationship would be a high priority for partners. In the first year after implementing these principles, Primekss doubled its rate of new partnerships that succeeded and quadrupled its licensing exports.

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Too much constraint can stifle innovation, but too little is just as bad. A blank sheet of paper sounds nice in theory. In practice, pursuing novelty without guidelines can overwhelm people with options, engender waste, and prevent the coordination required for collective innovation. Simple rules can inject discipline into the process by providing a threshold level of guidance, while leaving ample room for creativity and initiative.  Don  Sull,  an  alumnus  of  McKinsey’s  Cleveland  office,  is  a  senior  lecturer  at  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology’s  Sloan  School  of  Management.  This  article  builds  on  ideas  in  his  recently  published  book,  Simple  Rules:  How  to  Thrive  in  a  Complex  World  (Houghton  Mifflin  Harcourt,  April  2015),  which  he  coauthored  with  Kathleen  Eisenhardt.  

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Book  Review:      

Ed  Catmull’s  Fantastic  Personal  Guide  to  Creative  Leadership.  The  Risks  and  the  Rewards.  

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Andon Management, a little know concept outside Japan, is a manufacturing term referring to a system to notify management, maintenance, and other workers of a quality or process problem. Japanese companies in the 1940s improved their productivity with this simple idea: rather than giving only senior managers the power to halt the factory assembly line, all workers could stop production by simply pulling a cord if they saw a problem. Workers thus felt pride when they fixed problems on their own rather than waiting on management’s solution. The simple implementation of the cord also boosted efficiency because it led to fast problem solving. This, and many such gems adorn Ed Catmull’s brilliant book, Creativity, Inc. The book tells the story of Pixar and its merge with Disney Studios through the experiences of Ed Catmull, Pixar’s co-founder and current president. Catmull shares his journey

toward becoming a successful manager, illustrating through examples the creative power of change and how a company culture can only be truly creative when focus is placed on the people who make it great – together. These important ideas fromCreativity, Inc. will get you up to speed on the ways in which creativity, change, and business can create beautiful chemistry. (The concept of Andon spurred Catmull and Pixar to instate “Notes Day,” a time for the company to halt all operations and spend the day working with each other in teams and giving their feedback about the company. Staff engaged in an open dialogue about the issues they faced. While at the end of the day, Pixar employees didn’t get a cord to pull, they got to share and solve their problems proactively, which left them with a feeling of greater ownership over their work.)

Ed  Catmull  (Photograph  by  Deborah  Coleman/Pixar)    

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I heard of Creativity, Inc. from Biren Ghose, the creative whiz heading Technicolor Studios in India, who we interviewd last month (for more on that, read our last edition of Concurrence ). In this book which garnered rave reviews worldwide when it came out in 2014, Catmull makes a compelling case for why, if they really want to succeed, managers should be bold enough to burn the business plan, stop the assembly lines, and prize a great team over even the greatest idea. Catmull was a 1970s computer animation pioneer (university classmates included Netscape co-founder Jim Clark), but his book is not a technical history of how the hand-drawn artistry perfected by Disney was rendered obsolete by the processing power of machines. Catmull never became an animator, instead he designed the technology that made Pixar’s films possible; this is the account of a man who has devoted his

career to nurturing creativity in others. There’s a fair bit of management speak, and creatives seeking guidance will find far more on how to interact with their colleagues than, say, the process of creating a plot. It must be said, too, that Catmull’s isn’t always the most compelling of voices. But he is adept at quoting others, and what friends he has to quote; Steve Jobs makes numerous appearances, as do John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton. The writer of Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Wall-E, Stanton is, apparently, fond of saying “be wrong as fast as you can”, and by way of illustration, we learn that one of the first drafts of Toy Story contained a Woody so unpleasant that Disney shut down the production. And, indeed, Toy Story 2’s initial screening was deemed by Pixar’s creative supremo Lasseter to be a disaster, yet was judged as entirely acceptable by Disney executives, who pointed out that there were just nine months left before the film’s delivery date, and anyway, it was only a sequel. That everyone at Pixar so believed their

Color  script  for  Monster,  Inc.  from  The  Art  of  Pixar    

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mantra “Story is king” and pushed on to create such sublime pieces of film-making will be of interest not just to struggling writers, but anyone who has ever been tempted by the notion that “fine” is good enough. Rather, he uses Pixar's triumphs and near-disasters to outline a system for managing people in creative businesses — one in which candid criticism is delivered sensitively, while individuality and autonomy are not strangled by a robotic corporate culture. As John Siracusa commented in Hypercritical, “Think of it: the man who invented texture mapping, made computer-animated films possible, and led his studio to release a string of amazing, Oscar-winning examples of the form decides to write a book…and then builds it around an examination of his own mistakes. Ed Catmull may not be your kind of hero, but he sure is mine.” Caitlin Schiller, who edits Page19 and handles copywriting and content marketing at the wonderful blog

Blinkist writes on the 3 Things You Should Know from Creativity, Inc. It is a great little list, and wondertfully captures some of the learnings of the book. 1. Rigidity is the sworn enemy of

progress Caitlin point out that we humans “fear unfamiliar things because they might cause us to look like failures. What do we do instead? We try to control for calamities via planning. The business manifestation of this is a company choosing to follow a “safe route,” creating rigid structures in order to cope with an uncertain future. For example, after Pixar and Disney Animation Studios merged, Disney’s HR head came to Catmull with a detailed prescription of activities, hoping to eliminate instability by sticking to the plan. But Catmull refused to sign off on the proposal. He holds that while businesses do need a goal to work towards, they should never be constrained by these goals. Often, the best hires and most important inventions happen in the moments that

Color  script  for  Up  from  The  Art  of  Pixar    

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no one planned for or scheduled.”Now, that is incredible idea! 2. Trust is the most fertile soil for

creative roots Schiller points out that a suspicious, insecure, second-guessing culture and management style are disastrous for companies that are trying to become more creative. “This approach to management isn’t just abusive and annoying: limiting employees’ independence can seriously hamper their creativity and morale, too.”, she says. And that is true, and anyone who has worked in more conventional organisations have faced the same. Ed Catmull’s theory is that people are hired because their skills surpass those of their managers. As such, leaders should treat them like the experts they

are by freeing them to make the decisions their professional expertise dictates. To foster this kind of creative expression, Pixar created the “Braintrust:” a group of long-term Pixar employees and film-production experts in various fields who regularly review each film during production. Though The Braintrust can make whatever comments or suggestions they please, taking their advice isn’t mandatory. Instead, the film’s director is always in charge, thus leaving the real expert in control of his project and allowing his creative expression to flourish. (Catmul explains the highly effective concept of the "Braintrust," here http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3327)

Space  Age!  Early  on  at  Pixar,  meetings  were  held  at  a  long,  rectangular  table  with  place  cards  at  each  seat.  This  setup  created  an  unwanted  sense  of  formality  and  hierarchy.  People  in  the  middle  were  involved  in  conversation  while  those  at  the  edges  felt  marginalized.  By  simply  replacing  the  old  table  with  a  square  one  and  losing  the  place  cards,  everyone  felt  much  freer  to  participate  and  voice  their  ideas,  leading  to  better  communication,  tighter-­‐knit  teams,  and  more  creative  problem  solving.      

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3. People are more important than ideas or processes

I quote Schiller here: “Many people think that success in business depends upon groundbreaking ideas. While this certainly doesn’t hurt, Catmull contends that a far more critical component of success is hiring the right people. Consider this: almost everything you buy—from your iPhone to a five-star meal—is not the result of a single idea, but the sum of many people’s cooperative efforts. They are products of the work of many creative minds, be they designers of food or hardware, coming together to share their insights and create a successful product. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how phenomenal your idea is, how clear your goals are, or how airtight your plan—forging a team that works easily and freely together is the road to success like Pixar’s.” Catmull divides his book into four parts: “Getting Started,” “Protecting the New,” “Building and Sustaining,” and “Testing What We Know.” Of these, the third section begins with a thoughtful summary of several “models” employed by people at Pixar as their basis for successful creative work. The section then concludes with his recollection of the first days after the 2005 merger with Disney and how Pixar’s creative culture evolved. Drawing together the personal and organizational aspects of creative work in this way is itself instructive; describing how he led this evolution over years yields even more valuable insights.

Professor David Slocum, Faculty Director of Executive MBA Program at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership, praised the last chapter in Forbes: “The last chapter titled “Thoughts for Managing a Creative Culture,” offers a master class in creative leadership. From managing fear and failure in an organization to protecting new ideas and imposing productive limits, these are 33 gems. Yet with characteristic sagacity, Catmull makes clear how these principles should be viewed as starting points rather than ends to be achieved. Indeed, the book’s last words are to avoid confusing the process with the goal and always to remember that that goal is “making the product great.” Particularly impressive here is an insistence on linking ideas about creative work to behaviors (even ones that ultimately fail). Many of the ideas here, from fearless ideation and collaboration to tireless communication, are not surprising. However, Catmull and Wallace make them compelling through tales of their implementation. The tenet of intensive, democratic collaboration appears here as the belief in anyone being able to talk to anyone else at Pixar about their work, for example, and Catmull conveys it in his memorable recounting of how Toy Story taught him the value of bringing together product managers with artists and technicians.” Toy Story 2 Story Of course, ome of the advice flirts with cliche: Staff must be allowed to fail, and so on. But the tips are anchored persuasively in strong examples. The

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key question of how much failure should be tolerated is not ignored, for instance. For Pixar, the limit is reached when a director has lost the confidence of his or her crew. The accidental deletion of two years' work on "Toy Story 2" is a wonderful case study. Catmull insists there was never a witch hunt to identify who typed the simple but catastrophic command into the system. Happily, a woman working from home unexpectedly had a backup. For Catmull, this is further proof that staff should be allowed to do jobs their own way. The troubled gestation of "Toy Story 2" almost had fatal consequences. A late overhaul of the film put tremendous pressure on staff, to the extent that one exhausted artist accidentally left his baby in a vehicle in

the company parking lot in broiling heat. The child had to be revived from unconsciousness when the mistake was realized. Catmull feels guilty about the strain: "Asking this much of our people, even when they wanted to give it, was not acceptable.... By the time the film was complete, a full third of the staff would have some kind of repetitive stress injury." By contrast, "Toy Story 3" was a wrinkle-free production. But when Catmull lauded the crew for this, hackles rose. They took it as a sign they had played it safe, illustrating how the "Failure is good" mantra can have perverse side effects. Jobs the Dolphin In one of the sharper pieces of writing, Steve Jobs, who bought Pixar from

Color  script  for  Toy  Story  3  from  The  Art  of  Pixar    

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Lucasfilm and groomed it for stardom, is likened to a dolphin. Shouting out harsh criticism was his way of taking the measure of a room, Catmull says: "Steve used aggressive interplay as a kind of biological sonar. It was how he sized up the world." The Pixar man — whose gentle authorial voice could not be more different — stresses that his late friend and protector's style softened. David Slocum concludes with a wonderful summary that rings true: “Reading Creativity, Inc., one can easily appreciate Catmull’s gifts as a leader whose style – deft, open, humble, caring, trusting, purposeful – has built, shaped and sustained an exceptional creative culture. At the same time, his account of Pixar’s ongoing success demonstrates the importance of having brought creative analysis and implementation to the dynamic complexity, of shifting markets and changing technologies, facing all organizations today.

That combination of effectively bringing creativity to his leadership challenges and leadership to his firm’s creative work is rare. So is Catmull and Wallace’s exceptional new book.” Sources: 1. Blinklist, Page19, ‘Zuckerberg’s Year of

Books in 5 Minutes: What You Really Need to Know About Creativity,Inc. ’

2. Forbes, ‘Why Pixar President Ed Catmull's New Book Is One Of The Best Reads On Creative Leadership’

3. The Independent, ‘Book review: Creativity, Inc By Ed Catmull, with Amy Wallace’

The  entrance  to  the  real  ‘Magic  Kingdom’...  Pixar’s  studio  lot  in  Emeryville,  California.    

 

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Anirban  Bhattacharya  in  Bangalore In almost all my programmes where we use Painting, be it for Influencing or Conflict Management, Collaboration or Managing Change, one factor is common - the participants' worry about the Output. Most of my participants aren't experts in Painting, most haven't painted in years, maybe decades. Some have never painted in their life (at least the way we do it - all formal and proper, stretched canvases framed to perfection, easels and paints and palettes et al). So, most feel intimidated by the whole build up, and anxiety about their performance creeps in. And that is a good thing. One of things we drive through Painting is to explore how comfortably people can explore the new. How they

feel about getting out of their comfort zones, trying different things with new tools, to express themselves. Anxiety is a catalyst for change (the same way comfort is the enemy of progress). So, getting the folks a bit worried is a good thing. The worry, essentially, is about the output. The product they will, individually and in groups, produce after two hours of toil. And in view of the lack of expertise, this is expected - engineers, programmers, lawyers and accountants all feel equally vulnerable and exposed when confronted with a stark white canvas. They are used to being judged for what they produce, so obviously there is discomfort. And that is where Painting as a method scores. Because we make it completely non-competitive and non-judgemental. Non-threatening, as much as possible. By telling participants that whether she is a Vice President or a Management Trainee, she is at par with the person next to her (who could be, yes, a Vice President or a Management Trainee). As most of our Painting based modules are done in groups, there is a sense of

Painting  in  the  Training  Room:  

Where  Process  Trumps  Product    

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comfort in numbers. Beyond that, it is all about the process. How people respond to the stimulus of making art, working together, overcoming barriers and creating something new. Who they are while they are at it. Since we see these processes as simulations, and our debrief brings this out powerfully and effectively, the process is much more significant to observe, that the end product. And the process, as we have developed, follows five simple steps:

1. Ideate: Facing the challenge, how do you dive deep and come up with ideas and solutions that can be expressed on canvas? How do you reference your memory and experiences, create the stories

that you can sell to your group?

2. Communicate: How do you express your idea to your group? Are you passionate and bright-eyed about the beautiful image you can visualise, or do you just sit back and let others take the initiative?

3. Negotiate: How do you convince your group members to go with your idea over others? How do you sell your dream, your vision to a group of others many of whom are bringing equally beautiful dreams and visions?

4. Execute: After you have build consensus, what was the process you

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followed when you painted? Since you are Painting in groups, either as groups or as individuals as parts of groups, how did you go about giving shape to your idea? Especially with possible skill barriers?

5. Introspect: Once the canvas(es) are ready, what do you see? How has your idea evolved and come to life in 2D? What did you learn from the process - what went right and what didn't?

When we sit back and decode at the end, look at how the experience has impacted participants, what they learnt about each other and themselves, the power of the process becomes evident. And the output, the product, becomes of secondary importance. Of course, participants feel a sense of pride about their creation, there is a great sense of ownership and joy. But what they have created matters less to them that the experience of creating. This is how art making works in a training room. By removing the fear of the goal, focusing on the lessons of the path. Process over Product. Every time. (First appeared on LinkedIn)

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