the head, hand and heart in the arts

Whitepaper

The head, hand and heart in the arts Learning from creative disciplines for

better outcomes in business and

society

Publisher: Dirk Dobiéy

Authors: Dirk Dobiéy, Kirsten Gay, Johann

Sarmiento

Contributors: Vincent Matyi,

Thomas Koeplin, Milan Guenther

Dresden, Boston, Philadelphia, Paris

September 2014

Age of Artists / The head, hand and heart in the arts

ageofartists.org 2 / 91

This text is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0

(creativecommons.org).

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Index

Introduction 5

The Case for Change - Our Motivation 9

The Age of Artists Model 32

The Age of Artist Model revisited - Summary and Outlook 89



Introduction

Today, our community is composed of members from different

cultures, countries, professions and generations. We combine

many years of experience in business, art, design, anthropology,

sociology and various other fields of expertise--not as individuals,

but as a team and extended community. We examine, practice and

convey how the artistic mind and craft can help to provide

solutions for some of the major challenges that all of us experience

today. We believe the artistic individual--which is not to say

everyone needs to be an artist--can contribute more than realized

before to meaningful science and sustainable business outcomes.

It will soon be fifteen years since some of us started our first

conversations about the positive influence art can have on

business and society. What if–we thought--we could distill how

artists work and offer this knowledge to professional

organizations--both profit and nonprofit--and to the people within

them in order to support the idea of a more sustainable global

economy. Already then we believed in the power of art-based

processes when it comes to "doing the right things right." Too

often professional organizations put a lot of emphasis on creating

efficiencies but miss true effectiveness. Effectiveness for

organizations means making wiser decisions leading to the results



that are desperately required: sustainable innovation, corporate

social responsibility, improved customer experience, increased

employee satisfaction and more. In contrast, business literature is

full of stories about corporations that transition from being a

leader in their own industry to irrelevance in any industry. For

decades, studies and statistics have illustrated that most change

initiatives in organizations fail 1 while the majority of leaders still

think they need a cultural shift to succeed in the future.

On the other side, research and literature on the subject of art and

business available at the time was largely about conflicts between

art and business, about art for representation purposes and artists

in residence, or about including more art in education. While all

those fields were relevant then and still are today, they seemed to

focus more on keeping the two fields separate rather than merging

them when appropriate in order to benefit organizations and the

larger society. Also there were more conversations looking at the

output of the artistic process, i.e., the product (the what), and le ss

at art-based processes and the attitude of artists (the how and

why). The latter however was exactly what we were more curious

about.

As our lives full of family, work and friends progressed, we

continued to observe and experience knowledge work from within

corporations both large and small. We realized, sometimes even

jointly while working side by side, that a major transformation was

underway. Suddenly individuals with an artistic or design

background or an affinity for the arts were able to deal diff erently

and often better with the demands of our fast-paced, complex

world. They managed to successfully and sustainably address

significant challenges within and beyond their initially defined

areas of responsibility and past boundaries set by process,

structure and performance indicators.

1 For instance: Strategy & Survey reveals only 54% of change init iatives are sustained . An article in Harvard Business Review reports 70% of change init iatives fail . A web search for “change init iatives failure rate” deliver s a substantial number of sources that report fai lure rates up to 70%.

http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/global/home/what-we-think/reports-white-papers/article-display/cultures-role-organizational-change









We observed that such individuals were able to:

analyze flaws and recognize patterns in processes and structures more easily, while at the same time making constructive suggestions for improvements;

address problems with curiosity, empathy and a noticeable preference towards reducing complexity and driving simplicity;

create sustainable concepts by balancing various, sometimes conflicting, viewpoints and demands;

develop, drive and market innovation and change; better cope with change, ambiguity, uncertainty and

even frustration; and collaborate more effectively with a wide range of

individuals having different backgrounds and experiences.

As soon as we observed a potential pattern forming, we

investigated the topic further, realizing a subject of such

magnitude requires a broad range of perspectives, insights,

experiences and ideas if done right. As a first step, we created a

network of people we knew had a personal interest in researching

the subject further in a collaborative fashion. Our community is

now composed of individuals from France, Germany and the United

States. Next, we responded to a call for papers from ENCATC

(European Network on Cultural Management and Cultural Policy

Education)2 on the subject of “Rethinking education: Investing in

skills for better economic and social outcomes.” This first position

paper, which was completed in March 2014 and accepted by

ENCATC, allowed us to set the stage and be used to engage more

broadly with interested individuals, thought leaders and--which

has become our main occupation at this stage of our journey--with

artists from all genres.

We do not approach artists expecting to receive solutions to

problems we identify in the global economy and society (although 2 http://www.encatc.org/pages/index.php?id=169



they often have great suggestions). Instead, we simply like to learn

about their attitudes and actions, or--to extend on sociologist

Richard Sennett--about the head, hand and the heart in the arts.

By collecting and combining3 many viewpoints and experiences, we

hope to identify common patterns that can be explained and

passed on to others as helpful--or necessary--in other disciplines

such as science and business as well.

As said, a key aspect of our work is to collect and combine, to

explore and exploit, the work of researchers and thought leaders

who are “dancing on the cutting edge,” as violinist Miha Pogacnik

describes it, which is to say the work of individuals who attempt to

make a connection between various disciplines, such as art and

business or art and science. We at Age of Artists like to see

ourselves in the same spot in order to live our mission:

continuously learning from creative disciplines for better

outcomes in business and society.

3 We pursue a two-fold research approach where on one side we interview artists about their attitudes and approaches (yet not about their artwork itself) and by doing so aim at identifying patters across art genres that can be relevant for other disciplines as well. On the other side we read from and talk to scientists and thought leaders that have done already work that is a major contribution to the f ield we are investigating. By personally exchanging our ideas with them we receive valuable feedback, insights and most important verif ication or correction of our work.



The Case for Change - Our Motivation

“Art is the future of knowledge,”4 Chus Martinez stated when she

was a member of the core team for dOCUMENTA (13). While a bold

statement, it is a good representation of the evolution we are

witnessing. When comparing the available literature on both art

and business and art and science of fifteen years ago with what is

out there today, there has been a huge increase in people’s

thinking about the connection, resulting in the development of a

broad range of ideas, concepts and practices. 5 Why is this? We

think it is because the time has come to look differently at many

things and in particular to revisit the “idea of man,” as alluded to by

German painter Aris Kalaizis. He stated that “we need to develop

another idea of man if we want to lead change.” 6 To us, it seems a

yet unspecified avant-garde has already developed a certain

readiness for change. They see clearly not only what needs to be

changed for the better, but they also want to know how to possibly

be the change themselves--both for themselves and for everyone

4 Chus Martínez, "Unexpress the Expressible: 100 Notes, 100 Thoughts. Doc umenta Series 075, Hatje Cantz, 2012, quoted from ID Factory. 5 Such ideas, concepts and practices for instance are: artistic intervention, art research, art transfer, organizational aesthetics and many more. Frequently contributions to the f ield are not associated to a certain scientif ic domain or subdomain but covering specif ic integration points for instance between jazz and the learning organization, theatre and management, music and society, poetry and systems thinking, etc. We refrain from providing r eferences at this point as there are too many good examples and stating only a few would not do justice to all others. However, we wil l share our sources on our website as an emerging reference catalogue. 6 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, Visual Artist, Pain ter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014.



on the planet. They are realizing that it is important to first

develop the right attitude within them and in parallel learn about

what actions they might take in life and work to support the

transition.

As we looked both back and ahead, it became apparent that the

demands of our society and the globalized, digitalized information

economies require answers that go beyond the traditional notion

of work in organizations, growth in the economy, and advancement

in science.

By now, it is common sense that people--both young and

experienced--need to be equipped differently in order to succeed

in this accelerated and complex time we live in. Skills and

competences such as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity,

improvisation and cooperation become more important. Many

leading thinkers promote a new approach to leadership that

embraces authenticity, curiosity, invention and collaboration.

Organizations--and the large ones often struggle with this--need

to constantly innovate to survive and need to look for sustainable

ways to execute their missions. While all of those are noble

endeavors, they are targeted mainly at maintaining the status quo

and making sure we further advance in science and grow the

economy. But what is the price of exclusively focusing on

advancement and growth?

Clearly, something bigger is at stake. The world is full of major

challenges and problems to be solved, and while many hoped--

even predicted or promised--that most of them would be gone by

now, they are more present than ever. The evening news is full of

conflicts, catastrophes and crises. Since the Enlightenment,

science and the economy have become the two main pillars on

which societies are built around the globe and more certainly in

the Western world. Advancement and growth are the two most

important mandates for the modern world and are big business.



Yet neither has led to solutions for the most urgent problems.

Many believe some of the problems are likely to grow worse:

Technological advancements have led to great things but also to an overabundance of options, resulting in acceleration that overwhelms many, directly causing fatigue and burnout. Studies show people in developed countries have not become happier on average since the fifties, despite increased wealth for a great number of people.

Wealth is again at risk as the dominating financial system creates an unequal distribution of resources and exponential growth--not of value but of debt--by offering a few the opportunity to get rich without creating any value whatsoever. That condition is questioned by too few who actually have the power to change it.

The growth dogma has reached its limits with “peak everything,” resulting in scarcity of natural resources, destruction of nature and climate change due to human intervention.7

Many people feel a lack of meaning and purpose, leading to a collective crisis of identity. Their identity is also at risk as freedom grows precious again in a fully digitalized world wherein everything is transparent and nothing can be kept in private.

It would be shortsighted to blame abstract systems such as science

or the economy and all the people within them. Most people have

no bad intentions and also wonder where this is all going and what

they can do to support a positive future. So, not every sc ientist or

business person represents evil. The opposite is the case. Most

scientists think hard about how to solve problems in all fields of

life, and more and more managers do care about sustainability and

social responsibility on top of securing revenue. This brings us to a

key question: If most people would like to see the core problems

resolved and think now is time, why is there so little progress?

Maybe it is because we understand what is wrong--sometimes 7 Please refer for instance to the work of Niko Paech on the subject of the “post growth economy,” and Al Gore on “climate change.”



with clarity, sometimes not so much--but we don’t understand

what attitude, what perspective is required to get started and how

to act with the right means and priorities once we are in progress.

This is where an artistic mindset and approach can help. It is

certainly not a “silver bullet,” but it has the potential to make a

unique contribution--in combination with other approaches--to re-

establish a desperately needed balance. We believe such an

approach can help in three major areas and represent the

fundamental motivation basis for Age of Artists :

1. Challenges in a global society of individual people: making progress with wicked problems . Many challenges in the world are extremely complex and referred to as wicked problems. Success in addressing them as a global society is more likely when an artistic mindset and processes are applied. This is particularly relevant in the world of business and the economy. Business has always been important as a means to an end. Today, however, it seems to be the dominant force and sole purpose in life for too many. However, many leading thinkers believe for the economy to not create more crises and instability, a new approach is required. Fresh approaches and alternative concepts are more likely to become new norms when we bring beauty and meaning into business.

2. Future of organizations and leadership . The term business in its original, epistemological sense means to be in good company for mutual benefit. To survive, organizations need to evolve “back” to this original idea, as many of the key themes that define the future of organizations and their leadership are dependent on cross-disciplinary and cross-company cooperation, constant innovation and the balancing of multiple forces, needs, demands and targets. Much of what this evolution requires can be found in the arts. Organizations as a whole and leadership as a core activity in managing organizations need to support this change by creating safe environments where faith in people is more important than controlling them, where teams are built on trust so that collaboration can flourish, and where leaders coach their people as the future is emerging.



3. Artful living. People who spend more time with art and/or apply an artistic attitude establish multiple focuses, perspectives and viewpoints. The German word allgemeinwissen, or the French culture générale that already carry the idea of culture within and that both mean “broad knowledge,” are good synonyms for this. It is good to broaden one's skill set and expertise towards what is demanded today, but it also offers an alternative to the dominant idea of a linear career and restricted life that comes with it. In the future, it is more likely that people will have multiple careers or occupations; therefore personally exploring one or many art genres is good for a fulfilled life and might well lead to a more significant perception change when it comes to beliefs and attitudes towards what really matters. At the same time, engaging with individuals from various disciplines helps to create a more diverse and thus robust people network similar to what is known as the “artistic community” that supports, feeds, and nourishes but also questions, critiques, and challenges the person.

In the following three sections, we look in more detail into those

three areas: making progress with complex problems, the future of

organization and leadership, and artful living.

Il lustration 1: Motivational Basis for Age of Artists: Individuals, Organizations,

Global Society



Challenges in a global society of individual people: Making

progress with wicked problems

The world is full of problems of different nature and size, and many

human enterprises have attempted to provide concepts and

approaches to help us cope with this challenge--whether as

individuals or as teams and organizations. For instance, in

cognitive psychology, the information-processing (or “rational”)

model of how individuals solve “well-defined” problems describes

problem solving primarily as a procedural activity in which a person

takes a representation of a problem’s key elements and “navigates”

or searches through a “problem space” toward an optimal solution

by way of clear rules and heuristics. Playing chess, solving a puzzle

or a basic mathematical word problem, and even perhaps buying a

car or an airplane ticket, are situations where this model seems

quite applicable.

Interestingly, there is a close resemblance between the

information-processing model of human problem solving

developed within the field of psychology and in many of the

approaches to planning, optimization and decision-making in fields

like administration, engineering, architecture, and even economics.

This similarity is based on the assumption that the underlying

properties of most real world problems are like puzzles and basic

mathematical problems. Complex problems can be decomposed

into simpler, more manageable ones, which can then be solved

semi-independently. Partial solutions can be assembled to form a

complete solution, the starting point and the goal state can be

easily defined and represented (e.g., with numeric goals,

quantitative key process indicators, etc.), and clear rules define

what solutions are valid.

When individuals are faced with ill-defined situations that present

them with problems that are complex, confusing, or not

completely clear, we could still understand their experience using

the concepts described by the information-processing model. But

we are likely to realize that, at this level, the abillity to be fully



rational is limited--more “bounded” or “partial” than when dealing

with tame problems or situations. Because of this, we are likely to

notice that people often approach these problems not as perfect

optimization challenges with one single optimal answer, but as

situations in which they try to reach a state that might be “as good

as it gets” given the information they have at the moment

(“satisficing”). However, we might notice that the model is starting

to show limitations and certainly says very little about the

challenges of communication and interaction among multiple

people engaged in solving the problem.

In fact, many have found the rational model of problem solving

insufficient to tackle problems beyond the "tame" ones (i.e., easily

decomposable, representable and/or easily solvable) that

individuals (not teams or societies) work with. For instance, in the

context of the problems related to social policy (e.g., tackling

environmental issues like global warming, equal opportunity,

health and wellness, etc.), the purely rational approach is limited

because social problems, among other things, often lack a single

complete definition, and involve multiple differing or pluralistic

perspectives (linked to stakeholders who are unlikely to agree

about “optimal solutions” and are also influenced by factors that

unfold over time).

Horst Rittel termed these “wicked problems”--problems that are

not just large, complicated or ill-defined. Instead they are a truly

unique class of problem in the sense that they seem to be

extremely hard to define even before one actually attempts to deal

with them. (Often, iterating through solution attempts seems to be

the only way to make progress in understanding these problems.

The fact that such problems have a different nature calls for a new

way of looking at them, including developing a new set of

concepts (e.g., stakeholders, world-views, frames of

understanding, etc.), new interactions (e.g., the interdependence

between how a problem is framed and its solution), and a new

repertoire of possible ways of engaging with these types of

problems. For instance, work on wicked problems has motivated



new ways of doing authoritative regulation, promoting open

competition, or supporting participatory planning in several areas

of social planning. Clearly, being sensitive to the unique features of

these types of problems has contributed enormously to our

collective ability to address significant societal problems.

What does art have to contribute to the process of addressing

wicked problems? Our working hypothesis at the moment is that

the artistic mindset can provide a unique and significant

contribution to tackling wicked problems. Its unique contribution

might reside, ironically, in its intrinsic distance from problem

solving as a central goal and to the need to engage the human

world (stakeholders and their contexts) or create systemic

solutions. As we shall explore later, our current insights into

artistic practices point to possibly unique approaches that can

clearly contribute to the meaning-making and sense-making

challenges at the core of engaging with wicked problems.

One of those wicked problems we need to address might be the

global economy itself, as many leading thinkers believe for the

economy to not to create more instability and crisis, a new

approach, such as a reform of the financial system, is required.

Approaches and alternative concepts are more likely to move from

niche to new norm when beauty and meaning are infused into

business and the global economy. Violinist and visionary Miha

Pogacnik described this with his own words: “Many people would

rather go for a job that is less paid but they feel to be part of

something that is emerging and it is addressing all the issues as

one complex whole. There are people who are beginning to look at

things as a whole and they feel very personally disturbed if you are

only […] making quick money […] but on the other side you are

destroying something.”8

8 Interview with Miha Pogacnik, violinist, Hamburg/Dresden, June 14, 2014.



The future of organization and leadership: Purpose-driven environments and studio leadership

The connection between art and business is probably as old as the

two disciplines themselves. Some connection points have been

thoroughly described. Others, like the ones presented in this

paper, are currently evolving. Art and professional organizations

have developed different forms of interaction, integration and

collaboration that can be structured into four areas that do not

necessarily build on one another or have a mandatory relationship

between them.

1. Representation, branding and social responsibility.

Organizations purchase art to exhibit within their buildings or in

their digital space. They may build a collection and run in-house

exhibitions. They sponsor events at museums or take similar

action. In this way, they may try to express their brand and culture

with architecture and design or use art to support marketing and

sales activities. While this—in contrast to the following areas—is a

rather superficial level of connecting business and art, it is the one

that causes the most friction between the two disciplines, as many

artists responded in the past with resistance or counterattacks

when they felt art was being used for what they felt were wrong

purposes.

2. Work-life-balance and community building. Many organizations

support shared activities amongst their workforce. A company

symphony orchestra, a big band, a corporate theatre company,

painting classes and other such activities can be found in both

large and small organizations. And very often their output reaches

a considerable level of quality and improves the work-life-balance,

sense of belonging, team building and networking after working

hours. Cultural activities at work vary according to the business

cycle and have a statistical association with employee mental



health, particularly in work environments producing emotional

exhaustion, and may protect employees against subsequent

emotional exhaustion. Such an effect was observable when the

business cycle in Sweden went from ”good” conditions (which

meant higher levels of cultural activity at work) to poorer

conditions with rising unemployment rates.” 9

3. Artistic intervention. Artists may be invited to work with and in

professional organizations. They might come for a visit, support

workshops or take on positions as a side job. “Intel has name d

Black Eyed Peas’ front man and hit solo artist Will.i.am (William

James Adams, Jr.)... its director of creative innovation.” 10 “And then

there’s Ashton Kutcher. After playing Steve Jobs in the biopic of

the late Apple founder, the actor was made a product engineer by

Chinese technology company Lenovo.” 11 A less spectacular but

certainly impactful example comes from Korail, the Korean railroad

company, which suffered from a negative reputation and realized it

needed to change its image. Classical musicians worked with

employees to create the Korail ensemble, which was then

expanded by inviting citizens to join and become the Korail

Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra travels with the train and

performs in railroad stations around the country. “This project has

changed the mindset of many employees and the reputation of

Korail…” Employees have grown in confidence and pride in the

orchestra, and feel they are providing a service to the community

through art. 12 Finally, FPT, the largest information and

communication company in Vietnam, has expanded globally since

1999. Working with the youth union, the company launched

numerous initiatives in diverse art forms. The company business

school has conducted surveys to find out how employees

evaluated the experiences, with astonishing results:

9 Töres Theorell et al. , “ Is cultural activity at work related to mental health in employees? ” 2006-2010. 10 Jane McEntegart, Intel names musician Will . i.am creative director , Tomshardware.com, January 26, 2011 . 11 Gulay Ozkan, Artists can do more than engineers to push innovation in tech , QZ.com, November 11, 2013. 12 Ariane Berthoin Antal, “Dancing to whose tune ,” Cultural Sources of Newness, November 24, 2013.

http://www.stressforskning.su.se/polopoly_fs/1.82325.1332770029!/menu/standard/file/Poster_cultural%20activity%20at%20work_webb.pdf

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Intel-Will.i.am-Creative-Director-Will.i.am-Music-black-eyed-peas-bep,12075.html%20http:/www.tomshardware.com/news/Intel-Will.i.am-Creative-Director-Will.i.am-Music-black-eyed-peas-bep,12075.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Intel-Will.i.am-Creative-Director-Will.i.am-Music-black-eyed-peas-bep,12075.html%20http:/www.tomshardware.com/news/Intel-Will.i.am-Creative-Director-Will.i.am-Music-black-eyed-peas-bep,12075.html

http://qz.com/146108/artists-can-do-more-than-engineers-to-push-innovation-in-tech/

http://qz.com/146108/artists-can-do-more-than-engineers-to-push-innovation-in-tech/

http://www.culturalsourcesofnewness.net/articles/dancing-to-whose-tune/#more



1. “I see that artistic events help me better understand the company and people.” 88% agree.

2. “Attending artistic events and activities releases me from stress and tension at work.” 72% agree.

3. “Joining artistic events and activities, I feel proud of being a member of FPT and want to work for FPT for a long time.” 81% agree.13

Ariane Berthoin Antal and Anke Strauß provided excellent insights

in their research report, titled "Artistic interventions in

organizations: Finding evidence of values‐added.”14 They conclude,

“There is evidence that artistic interventions can indeed contribute

to such strategic and operational factors as productivity,

efficiency, recruitment and reputation, but this is the area that is

mentioned least frequently in the research‐based publications.

Apparently, this is not necessarily what organization members

consider as the most remarkable sphere of impact. Indeed, few

companies that have worked with artistic interventions have

sought to document such direct impacts. Instead, managers and

employees seem to care more about how artistic interventions

impact the factors that underpin the potential for innovation. The

power of artistic interventions in organizations resides in the

opening of spaces of possibility, which we call ‘interspaces’ in the

formal and informal organization. In these interspaces, participants

experience new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing things that add

value for them personally.” 15 The challenge is that “[a]rtistic

interventions are by definition ephemeral phenomena in

organizations. They start and they end, so the responsibility for

deriving the benefits for the organization and sustaining the

effects lies with managers and the employees.” 16

13 Ariane Berthoin Antal, “Dancing to whose tune ,” Cultural Sources of Newness, November 24, 2013. 14 Berthoin Antal, Ariane & Strauß, Anke, Artistic interventions in organisations: Finding evidence of values ‐added. Creative Clash Report . Berl in: WZB, 2013, p. 3. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid.




4. Art-based attitude and action at work: This is the area

introduced and supported by this paper. Here individuals display

an artistic attitude and embed best practices derived from art

seamlessly into their actual work. This does not suggest everyone

is suddenly an artist, but it means that there is a broad

understanding and appreciation for art-based processes on an

individual, team and organization level. This will lead eventually to

behavioral change in individual employees and thus a cultural shift

for the entire organization, economy and society. Introducing

methodologies such as design thinking or agile software

development represent early stages of such best practices. What is

particularly worth noting about this field is that it is immune to

economic and business cycles. Once art-based processes are

accepted as standard in an organization, they are not at risk of

being budget-cut, while all the other areas mentioned will be

under critical observation in bear market conditions.

Il lustration 2: Touch points between art and business and focus of Age o f

Artists

Looking at all four areas of potential interaction and exchange

between art and business, it becomes clear that art has already



much positive influence on organizations and the people within.

For instance, Michael Gold and Dario Villa 17 suggest jazz as a

metaphor for the “learning organization,” since it is an art form

based in social learning that has innovated new products for over

100 years and was the basis for great wealth and inspiration. Such

examples illustrate the untapped potential for professional

organizations or, as Michael and Dario put it, “perhaps there’s more

to this metaphor of jazz as a model for improvising organizations

than meets the ear.” Both also quote a famous Playboy interview

with Marshall McLuhan in which McLuhan commented on the arts

as a distant early warning system.

The term business, in its original, epistemological sense, means to

be in good company for mutual benefit. To survive, organizations

need to evolve “back” to this original idea, as many of the key

themes that define the future of organizations and their leadership

are dependent on cross-disciplinary and cross-company

cooperation, constant innovation and the balancing of multiple

forces, needs, demands and targets. Much of what this evolution

requires can be found in the arts. Organizations as a whole and

leadership as a core activity in managing organizations need to

support this change by creating safe environments where faith in

people is more important than controlling them, where teams are

built on trust so that collaboration can flourish, and where lead ers

coach their people as the future is emerging.

Organizations that embrace art-based processes and provide an

environment in which an art-based attitude can develop will more

likely be able to succeed in a world that is highly complex, changes

fast, the competition is fierce and information grows constantly. In

addition to established management best practices, learning from

art--as a metaphor or literally--can help to address the main

challenges organizations face today. By using methods, principles

and processes derived from the arts, we become more flexible and

17 Michael Gold, and Dario Vil la, Trading Fours: Jazz and the Learning Organization," 2012.



adaptive to change. Dr. Cho Hyunjae, the 1st Vice Minister for

Culture, Sports, and Tourism of Korea, welcomed the participants

to a recent conference in Seoul with a strong message, “Art can

make business dance and stimulate innovation.” “Organizations

need creative kicks” because “corporations need to learn to

stimulate the emotions of employees,” so “Korea is seeking ways to

bring down barriers between art and business.” 18 But just how

would such a connection between art and business look?

Miha Pogacnik illustrates the situation in which many organizations

find themselves by comparing organizations to symphony

orchestras:

If you have a symphony orchestra, you have 80 individuals

who are quite problematic people. Musicians have big egos I

suppose, including myself too. But as soon as they start

playing Bruckner or Brahms, this ego is gone and the

masterpiece takes them onto the next platform instantly.

There is no problem with ego. That’s gone and you are

immediately serving something much greater. So I ask: what

is this code that’s missing in organizations that we don’t drop

the egos? We don’t have that score yet, so the organization or

business does not have yet Bruckner, Brahms or Mozart [… ].

But what are the elements of Bruckner or Brahms? Well, that's

music but what are the elements in business? Well, you know

music is written on five lines and business is today only

written on one line which is the bottom line. That’s the

problem. So what are the other lines? 19

In building further on Miha’s idea, we tried to answer his question

about what the five lines of business should be. What could the

score for modern organizations look like? We suggest five

18 Ariane Berthoin Antal, “Dancing to whose tune ,” Cultural Sources of Newness, November 24, 2013. 19 Interview with Miha Pogacnik, violinist, Hamburg/Dresden, June 14, 2014.




objectives for modern organizations that are the foundation for

what we call the purpose-built and value-based organization:

Il lustration 3: The five objectives for purpose-built and value-based

organizations

For businesses, it is obvious they must keep a sharp focus on their

bottom line, as simply without that, they will not continue to exist,

whereas art can exist theoretically without it. Or as Philippe Rixhon

stated: “Creation can be purely artistic ; Innovation must be artistic

and economically viable.” Yet he continues the same thought by

saying: “The introduction of multiple bottom lines in other business

sectors--at least in their research and development departments

and divisions--seems to be recommendable.”20 His suggestion to

focus on research and development is certainly a good

recommendation for large organizations for which it represents a

major shift to go from one to five lines. For the purpose-built and

value-based organization, however, the concept must be extended

to the entire organization to be truly effective.

20 P. Rixhon (2008), “ Innovation leadership: Best practices from theatre creators,” in Führung, Innovation und Wandel (L. Becker et al. , eds.), pp. 197 -215.



When looking at the five core objectives stated above, each taken

individually is already difficult to accomplish, but taken altogether,

they seem almost impossible. This is why the management

literature and business libraries are full of successful titles that

play with fear and include seemingly easy solutions to the major

threats organizations face today: complexity, market dynamics,

global competition, innovation pressures, customer and

stakeholder expectations, and technology change. Some solutions

suggested including better planning approaches, new standards,

sophisticated process models, more reports, stronger

management, lean and agile teams, etc. Looked at individually,

these might make sense, but when seen from above, they actually

reduce the ability of an organization to accomplish the holistic set

of objectives as outlined above. Each added piece further increases

complexity, thus limiting people’s abilities to be successful--either

individually or as a team.

Michael Brater suggests that organizations learn from artists and

look at how they act and make decisions under circumstances of

uncertainty and unpredictability. According to his research, artists

cope with openness and uncertainty not through objectification,

but through the following qualities: 21

Unbiased, exploratory actions instead of pondering and planning

Free playful and experimental exploration without intention Confidence in the intelligence of the unconscious Alternating between action and perception, influencing and

viewing Expanding perception ("expression," "feeling") Dialoguing with the subject: replying to "active questions" Picking up what emerges from the subject and be carried and

led (by it)

21 Michael Brater, “Wenn Arbeit Kunst wird. .. , “ Vortrag zum 2. Forum Wirtschaft meets Kunst, Freiburg, February 3, 2014.



Accepting crises; allowing the solution to emerge from the process

Finding (again) the new and individual by following an original, unrepeatable and experiential path.

Recognizing the major challenges that confront organizations,

including the high degree of uncertainty and unpredictability,

suggests another type of organization that must evolve: the purpose-built and value-based organization, which is likely to be

more an environment that supports a working approach, as

depicted by Michael Brater, than an organization in the classical,

hierarchical sense. Such an environment needs to be supported by

another type of leadership as well. Miha Pogacnik again: “It’s all

about the question of how we identify with rules and so on. When

the rules are humane, friendly and meaningful, then we love to

identify with them. It’s also the question of who composes the

rules. Are we self-composers of the rules or do we just get them

passed on and end up in a very rigid situation where we just have

to obey the rules? There are so few people in most organizations

who really burn for their rules on the wall. This is their vision, their

mission. Very few people can identify. What we need to create is

an environment in a company. We have to invest in an environment

in which connection with one’s own goals and visions and missions

can be reestab lished. That’s what’s missing in organizations.” 22 Eric

Schmidt, former CEO and now Executive Chairman at Google, once

put it this way: “Let’s be clear about what we are claiming: As

business becomes more dependent on knowledge to create value,

work becomes more like art. In the future, managers who

understand how artists work will have an advantage over those

who don’t.”23 Philippe Rixhon, a leader at the junction of arts,

business and technology, also comments that "many business

sectors would benefit from adopting some of the theatre world's

basic creation practices related to innovation leadership. By

recognizing the interdependence of leadership, management and 22 Interview with Miha Pogacnik, violinist, Hamburg/Dresden, June 14, 2014. 23 Rob Austin and Lee Devin (2003), Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know about How Artists Work. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall , p 1.



coaching in the dynamic, situational and cultural innovation

context, businesses should identify, attract and retain the leaders

they cannot train and accept that a nurturing innovation culture

depends on an ever evolving leadership.” 24 Benjamin Zander, the

director of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, during a TED

conference, vividly illustrates his love for classical music, which he

believes to be so powerful as to change people’s perception of the

world. But he also states that we are witnessing a shift in

leadership from a model where the leader has to “be ahead” and

“dominate,” to a model based on symphony. In this panorama, the

“Us” prevails on the “I”, and the leader, as the conductor, has to rely

“on his ability to make other people powerful.” 25

Leadership in the information age is a task of creating safe

collaboration experiences in which curiosity, creativity,

collaboration and open communication can flourish and where

failure is not sanctioned but encouraged as part of the overall path

to success. “Managers who develop an atmosphere of safety put

new glasses on everyone’s emotional eyes.” 26 Leadership in art-

based processes requires faith in people, yet interest in what they

do and letting go without being absent. Leaders become coaches

and masters of ceremony for processes and people. Keeping a

good balance is certainly not an easy task as u ltimately a leader is

also made accountable for a result, not just for creating a positive

atmosphere. We call this leadership style studio leadership, relating to the working environments, for instance, found in

design, architecture and engineering. The realm of design,

architecture and engineering has tackled the problem of solving

multivalent problems by the use of iteration and critique in

collaborative groups. As two of the oldest “knowledge work”

professions, practical techniques for innovation have been

developed and passed down. Elders teach young people not only

24 P. Rixhon (2008). “ Innovation leadership: Best practices from theatre creators” in Führung, Innovation und Wandel (Becker L. et al. , eds.) , pp. 197 -215, Symposion. 25 Adopted from Valeria Cantoni, “Leadership through the e yes of classical music,” Art for business group on LinkedIn , quoting Benjamin Zander at TED. 26 Richard Farson & Ralph Keyes, The Innovation Paradox, 2002, Excerpt on Ralph Keyes Website.

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3420016&trk=my_groups-b-grp-v



http://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion

http://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion

http://www.ralphkeyes.com/the-innovation-paradox/excerpt/

http://www.ralphkeyes.com/the-innovation-paradox/excerpt/



the skills of drafting (hand), but also of problem solving, using

systems devised to meet the thousands of often conflicting design

requirements that go into a mid-sized building (head). They also

(heart) feel a compassion for humans and humanity that is inherent

in the act of making shelter beyond the joy of form-making and

problem solving that most architects experience. There is a very

strong ideological paradigm within the architectural community--a

desire to Make Things Better (heart). We have noticed in our early

interviews that this trait is commonly paired with an artistic mind,

in contrast to the pure business mind of making money.

Over the centuries, architects have created a set of conventions

around the “Design Studio” that promote and support the solving

of large, complex problems where a large number of different

approaches need to be considered on the way to developing a final

solution. This requires testing multiple approaches, where most

will “fail” or be discarded—so the tendency to become attached to a

particular solution is quickly unlearned. These design environments

are the most productive when the exploration of different

possibilities is encouraged. Not only are there no negative

consequences for the failure of an idea, but it is understood that

going forward with the first idea almost always means that one

hasn’t taken the time to find the best solution. These environments

and the leadership that creates them tend be encouraging,

supportive, kind, collaborative, and responsive. In fact, such

environments are where innovation lives.

At the same time, what is produced is examined minutely through

group or manager critiques. The group critique method employed

in the design studio allows individuals to leverage the experience

and opinions of their colleagues, and to expand and deepen one

another’s proposals. To do this well, group members cannot be in

overt competition for resources, but instead they must be highly

engaged, motivated and believe that they can actualize what they

propose. This mindset leads to high innovation and productivity,

which generates revenue and visibility. Although not usually



framed in this way, the overwhelming business need of the

architectural design studio is the output of creative and innovative

design solutions, so most management styles are modeled to

encourage those behaviors by creating safe and at the same time

challenging places where people trust one another and can think,

breathe, test, explore, create, erase, ideate, critique, and

collaborate.

Artful living

Skills for the future

One art genre does not prevail over another. While some

individuals are more attached to the visual arts, others have an

affinity for music, dance, theatre, l iterature or another art

category. What all art genres have in common is they support the

emergence of a skill set that is desperately needed in the

Information Age. But what are those skills? It is European

educational policy to emphasize the development of transversal

skills. Examples of transversal skills are the ability to think

critically, take initiative, problem solve and work collaboratively--

all needed to equip individuals for today's varied and unpredictable

career paths. Transversal skills can also be called cross

competencies or generic skills. In North America, “traditional

academic disciplines still matter, but as content knowledge

evolves at lightning speed, educators are talking more and more

about process skills, strategies to reframe challenges and

extrapolate and transform information, and to accept and deal with



ambiguity.”27 Various schools and colleges have started to put more

emphasis on teaching not only creativity, innovation and change,

but also the importance of failure.

Individuals in professional organizations both profit and not-for-

profit, can learn important skills and competencies from art-based

processes and methods. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of

Google, made this comment a decade ago: “I believe that human

values ultimately win out over mechanistic values or technology

for its own sake in an increasingly technological world. Companies,

especially high-techs, are not machines. They are collections of

tremendously motivated and creative people, and it is their

intrinsic motivation and their creativity that makes all the

difference.”28 Tim Leberecht, when he was still chief marketing

officer of the global design and innovation firm Frog, also

commented, “Indeed, the ’art’ of business has become more

important as the ‘science’ grows ubiquitous. As Big Data and

sophisticated analytical tools allow us to make our processes more

efficient, intuition and creativity are fast becoming the only

differentiating factors among competitors. Like any ‘soft asset,’

these qualities cannot be exploited, only explored. And like artists,

innovators must cultivate creative habits to see the world afresh

and create something new. Like art, true innovation has the

potential to make our lives better. It connects and reconnects us

with deeply held truths and fundamental human desires; meets

complexity with simple, elegant solutions; and rewards risk-taking

and vulnerability.”29 What all those sources implicitly have in

common is they suggest an enhanced competence profile that is

necessary and that focuses more on the creative and social

aspects, as these are the areas where people will continue to be

superior to machines in the foreseeable future.

27 Laura Pappano, “Learning to think outside the box : Creativity becomes an academic discipline ,” in The New York Times Online, February 5, 2014. 28 Er ic Schmidt, Executive Chairma n, Google, in Rob Austin and Lee Devin, Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know about How Artists Work , Prentice Hall , 2003, p. xix. 29 Tim Leberecht, “What entrepreneurs can learn from artists , ” CNN Money, December 21 , 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/education/edlife/creativity-becomes-an-academic-discipline.html?_r=0






http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/21/what-entrepreneurs-can-learn-from-artists/



Balanced Life

People who spend more time with art--creating or enjoying--

establish multiple focuses, perspectives and viewpoints. The

German word allgemeinwissen, or the French culture générale that

already carry the idea of culture within and that both mean “broad

knowledge,” are good synonyms for this. It is good to broaden

one's skill set and expertise towards what is demanded today, but

it also offers an alternative to the dominant idea of a linear career

and restricted life that comes with it. In the future, it is more likely

that people will have multiple careers or occupations; therefore

personally exploring one or many art genres, as a secondary yet

equally relevant as the traditional career, is good for a fulfilled life

and might as well lead to a more significant perception change

when it comes to beliefs and attitudes towards what really

matters. At the same time, engaging with individuals from various

disciplines helps to create a more diverse and thus robust people

network similar to what is known as the “artistic community” that

supports, feeds, and nourishes but also questions, critiques, and

challenges the person.

The broader ones experiences and connections in life are, the more

open one is to new situations, change, and perceived risks. For

individuals dealing with art can help to reduce fears and thus lower

the barriers to developing an art istic attitude that is required in

many disciplines today and going forward, not just business and

science. Miha Pogacnik expands that thought and connects

individual attitude with organizational context: “You need an

environment and you need inner discipl ine with which you strive

for that kind of state of mind. The environment supports your state

of mind and your state of mind supports the environment.” 30

From individual to organization and from organization to society,

the right attitude and actions can make a difference. We are

convinced that artistic thinking and action can provide answers. 30 Interview with Miha Pogacnik, violinist, Hamburg/Dresden, June 14, 2014.



Skills, competencies, methods, ways of thinking and emotional

perceptions, as we know from how artists work, will help to deal

with and shape the far-reaching changes of our time--for people,

organizations and the global society. In all walks of life, the artistic

individual will become the counterpart and balance to artificial

intelligence.



The Age of Artists Model

What is interesting about art versus many business disciplines is

that “artists are craftspeople.” They “think by making” and unite the

“hand and the head,” as sociologist Richard Sennett describes in his

book The Craftsman. “It has both a physical dimension (exhibiting

mastery in craftsmanship) and a metaphysical dimension

(connecting a new product, service, or business model with the

broader zeitgeist and cultural climate).” 31 Based on this thought and

by conducting interviews with artists and leading thinkers in a

variety of countries as well as through secondary research, we have

been able to compile a first version of our Age of Artists Model

that contains the major patterns we were able to identify until

now. It consists of four key elements:

Head - summarizes our findings when it comes to developing an

attitude as a basis or a foundation for the artistic practice. It

includes five components: Transcendence, Awareness, Position,

Passion and Resilience.

Hand - combines a series of actions that artists do and that we

were able to identify across various art genres. They might be

31 P. Rixhon (2008). “Innovation leadership: Best practices from theatre creators” in Führung,

Innovation und Wandel (Becker L. et al. eds.), pp. 197 -215, Symposion.



relevant for other disciplines as well; in fact some of them are

already common practice in other areas. We structured this section

into three modules that contain further sub modules: Search,

Reflect and Produce. All three modules in this section contain

another set of sub sections.

Heart - represents an attempt to capture the sphere of beliefs,

feelings, and emotions. We include four areas in this section.

Motivation. Empathy, Faith and Evocation.

Time - acknowledges that every artist has to be in the “now,”

where head, hand and heart need to be in sync but also develop

over time where previous insights and experiences support the

direction of a next step. This is the sphere of iteration, learning,

evolution--in short: advancement over time.

Il lustration 4: Head, Hand and Heart of great art and the aspect of time



Altogether, Head, Hand & Heart deliberately kept in sync over time

lead to great art, meaningful science and sustainable business

outcomes. Miha Pogacnik described an episode which vividly

illustrates the triad of art: “My great master was Henryk Szeryng,

who died in ‘85. To me, he always was the most balanced violinist

and I experienced him very closely in some master classes and my

feeling was that when he played […] his way of movement of his

hands, the way he connected with his instrument, I felt as if life

would be squirting out of his hand (Hand). Life, so full of living. He

was so organic. It is the transition from technique to life.[…] So

instead of playing on the violin, which most people do, you start

playing out of the violin, so the violin becomes an extended organ

(Heart). You start speaking. The next level is the aesthetics. It is

what you play, the content. That’s where I have all these years of

research and practical experience. I quite definitely know that one

must try to break through the aesthetics because very often the

musicians stay within a certain style: New York, Russian, Israeli,

Belgian. You know they follow a certain style and they do it very

well, you know it. But you notice it immediately which school they

come from. But to overcome that, you have to go through

aesthetics. (Head) [...] I just want to say you have the physical

reality which is the violin instrument. Then you have living reality

which is the next which means playing in itself which must go from

mechanics into the life organic process which in itself gives a

special quality, which means you start to speak. And then, the third

one is going from aesthetic--through aesthetic into a general

experience. So suddenly you realize this is once and never again

and we call it “Sternstunde” or something like that.[...] and of

course those moments people will never forget.” 32

As we outlined, there are very good reasons to refer to the arts in

order to address some to the major challenges for individuals,

organizations and the global society. An artistic mindset and

practices have the potential to make a unique contribution to many

32 Interview with Miha Pogacnik, violinist. Hamburg/Dresden, June 14, 2014.



fields and disciplines. Yet before we look into the mandatory parts

of an artistic attitude which we call elements and the optional

pieces of the artistic practice that we termed modules and that

we’ve been able to identify, it is worthwhile to share some upfront

considerations. They might also be interpreted as foundational

principles.

Some upfront considerations

Creativity is not a prisoner of art

Art-based thinking and actions have always and do today exist

outside of the arts. Artist and art professor Ursula Bertram states

that “creativity is not a prisoner of art” and continues to emphasize

in her work that art based mindsets and practical approaches can

be found in science, business and other disciplines already today,

for example, in innovation departments of large corporations,

start-ups, scientific laboratories and elsewhere. The reason why

the Age of Artists movement looks particularly into the arts to find

patterns and best practices is because we expect to find a higher

percentage of individuals with important contributions to make in

the area of artistic skills, competencies, methods, ways of thinking

and emotional perceptions.

Art is seen as nice to have, but it really is a need to have

While an artistic mindset and practices can be found successfully

applied in other disciplines, there is also a broad range of examples

where art is seen as a non-mandatory attachment to business.



Designer, computer scientist and academic John Maeda stated

repeatedly that “Art is seen as nice to have, but it really is a need

to have.” This quote illustrates the need to put art on par with

science and business to create sustainable solutions for (business)

problems. There is evidence that John’s remark is not just a nice

idea but also economically feasible:

The Design Council research looked at 1,500 organizations

throughout the UK and defined 250 of them as design-led

companies, where the use of design had made a direct impact

on such key measures as competitiveness, market share,

sales, and employment. One important component of this

effort was “a sustained track record in design and innovation

awards” by these organizations. Other indicators of design

leadership included senior-level or executive-level design

management and broad design training across the

organization. The Council’s study pointed out that these

companies outperformed their peers in the FTSE 100 over a

10-year period by a startling 231 percent. 33

While those data points cover the United Kingdom, the Design

Management Institute (DMI) has done similar research in North

America and reports similar data points on their website where

they comment: “Results show that over the last 10 years design-led

companies have maintained signif icant stock market advantage,

outperforming the S&P by an extraordinary 228%.” 34 It is worthwhile

noting that both study results speak about design-led companies,

not art-led companies. However, while art and design are not the

same design is an applied variant of art and thus in particular

relevant as an already established bridge between art and business

or science.

33 Michael Westcott, Steve Sato et al. "The DMI Design Value Scorecard: A New Design Measurement and Management Model" DMI, Winter 2013, p. 10. 34 This data point is conveyed in multiple locations on the Design Management Institute website, for instance: http://www.dmi.org/?DesignValue



Art is not for everything

While there is a common sense amongst leading thinkers from all

walks of life that art-based thinking and action is an answer to

many challenges in a globalized, technology-driven economy and

society, it is also critical to state that “art is not for everything.” We

don’t want the people who check our airplane before take-off

according to predefined standards and procedures to start getting

creative while they perform this critical task. It is critical not to

establish yet another dogma or dictate of the arts over other

disciplines. Yet, as outlined previously, there are more and more

challenges present where art-based thinking and action can help,

in particular where solutions to often undefined problems are

required that are not to be resolved in one vertical domain but in

cross-disciplinary networks.

Art is reliable

But if art is not for everything, is it just a mere ideal, or is it a real

alternative to the way we live and work going forward? Rob Austin

and Lee Devin confirmed that “art is reliable”:

There’s often a disparaging implication that art-like processes

are immature, that they have not yet evolved to incorporate

the obviously superior methods of science. The premise that

underlies this point of view equates progress with the

development of reliable, rules-based procedures to replace

flaky, unreliable, art-based processes. […] Our close

examination of art-based processes shows that they’re

understandable and reliable, capable of sophisticated

innovation at levels many “scientific” business processes can’t

achieve. A theatre company, for instance, consistently

delivers a valuable, innovative product under the pressure of

a very firm deadline (opening night, eight o’clock curtain). The



product, a play, executes again and again with great precision

incorporating significant innovations every time, but finishing

within 30 seconds of the same length every time. 35

Art is no magic, it is hard work

A key theme in art and beyond is the notion of talent, and even

genius is used frequently to illustrate a border that common

people cannot cross, hence separating them from the gifted ones.

Compared to some of the great women and men of the past, it is

hard for many to believe they are creative and innovative or that

they have talent. But everyone has talent, is curious and creative

from birth. Sir Isaac Newton famously said, “If I can see further

than anyone else, it is only because I am standing on the shoulders

of giants,” and Tim Leberecht adds, “Artists are conduits and not

’masters of the universe.’” Most artists—painters, sculptors, writers,

filmmakers, or musicians—will admit that they derive their

inspiration from a inspirational sphere that goes beyond their

individual creativity and skills. This applies to innovators, too.

Whether they are spiritual or not, humility suits them well, as the

social web and its wave of crowd-based collaborations have

rendered the myth of the lone genius obsolete.”36 Also Rob Austin

and Lee Devin confirm that “although art-based processes realize

the full capabilities of talented workers and can benefit from great

worker talent, by no means do they require exceptional or

especially creative individuals. Nor does great individual talent

ensure a valuable outcome. A (theatre) company of exceptionally

talented big stars can (and often will) create a less effective play

than one made up of ordinarily talented artists who have, through

hard work, learned how to collaborate.”37 Anthony Lowe disclosed

35 Rob Austin and Lee Devin (2003). Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know about How Artists Work. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall , p. xxii i . 36 Tim Leberecht, “What entrepreneurs can learn from artists , ” on CNN Money; December 21, 2012. 37 Rob Austin and Lee Devin (2003). Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know about How Artists Work. Upper Saddle River, Prentice Hall, pp. xxii i, xxiv.




to Age of Artists how he became a painter: “[The first thing was a

really bad A level result in art. I think I got a C or a D which is bad. I

drew around the question. I missed the question that was set by

the exam board. […] That convinced me a career in the art business

was not a bad thing.”38 Aris Kalaizis similarly told us he started to

draw relatively late when he was sixteen and before and at that

time conveyed to us “I was bad in drawing. Really bad.”39 So if we

look beyond talent and genius—which might be a special gift that

some possess, we realize that art is no magic; it is hard work.

Art is free, science and business are characterized by restrictions

Many people outside art see it as an area without boundaries and

constraints, an independent place of liberty and freedom. And

many artists likewise insist on the freedom of art. And it is their

duty to do so, as many examples display where artists have been

and are instrumentalized, threatened or worse. On the other side,

science or business are always referred to as a place of restrictions

and limitations. People, resources, budgets and even customers

are in limited supply. This is why many people in science and

business likewise are skeptical when it comes to learning from art.

Yet, is art really this limitless sphere of unlimited freedom? Of

course not. There is the “history of art or the art market that are

already restrictions.”40 There is the audience that follows the trends

and tastes of their time. There is, like in other disciplines, ever-

shrinking budgets and resources. There are areas in the world

where artists still have to be very careful or alternatively leave

their country in order to follow their desire to express themselves.

What is limitless though is the creative spirit in people and the

ability of mankind to constantly invent new things--and this

proclivity is certainly not limited to the arts.

38 Interview with Anthony Lowe, visual artist, painter, Altenburg, August 18, 2014. 39 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, visual artist, painter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014. 40 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, visual artist, painter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014.



Great art thrives under scarcity

A Russian colleague once told us about a Russian proverb which

suggests that for great art to be created, the artist must starve.

And there are plenty of examples of great artists who endured

hardship for a long time--for instance, Friedrich Schiller or the

perennial example, Vincent Van Gogh who was sustained by his

brother because his work was only acknowledged by a few people

towards the end of his life. So, is it true that great art only emerges

when artists are poor? Certainly not, as many other examples of

established artists show. But there is something more interesting

to learn about this common myth, as alluded to by Miha Pogacnik

when asked by Age of Artists about whether artists need to be

poor:

Well, one could say the other way around. When artists are

covered with money, that certainly can very quickly divert

certain inspirational flow. So if we look at it from the other

side, I am sure it's probably true, but it's not like you have to

make them hungry in order to be artist. So that would not be

right thinking. I would say when you as an artist take on a

vision and decide to go for it, then this question becomes

real. You cannot expect people coming to you and giving you

money, feeding you and so on. You have to fight. So that’s

true in that sense. If you really have a burning issue, a burning

vision as an artist, and you say “This is what has to happen,”

and this is out of the traditional circuit of the arts where there

is money--at least some money and some budgets--then you

are really in a situation where you may get hungry. You have

to fight for it.41

The lesson we learnt from investigating this question is that an

overabundance of resources might reduce an individual’s

willingness to get creative and that lesson is highly relevant to

both business and society. 41 Interview with Miha Pogacnik, violinist, Hamburg/Dresden, June 14, 2014.



Substance over semantics

Our research so far clearly shows us that meaning--true substance-

-is more important than semantics. The words we use to describe

our findings are used by many people for various purposes. In some

contexts, a word might mean something totally different or might

even have a negative connotation than what was intended.

Something as simple as a translation between languages might

drastically change the meaning. As hard as we may try to get to the

etymological bottom of a word or phrase, we will never succeed in

offering a series of words that provide final clarity or that are

accepted by everyone--nor do we want to. As with a piece of art, it

is the recipient to be perceived one way or another. Aris Kalaizis,

to whom we spoke, does not comment on his art at all, because he

would like the observers of his paintings to experience them for

themselves. This is why we suggest and encourage not judging or

criticizing words but instead try to go to the meaning, the

substance, and interpret what you hear and read with your own

words and thoughts. We are curious to hear what you come up

with!

Beyond boxes

Every conversation and all research so far has shown us that art is a

domain beyond boxes. As soon as we try to box elements of the

artistic head, hand and heart, we are already setting up limitations

on what is possible. We are setting up limitations to creativity and

putting a frame around what needs to be frameless. Until now, we

have not found a better way to talk about our insights than to

structure them into what we found were reasonable buckets.

However, it is fundamental to confirm that every bucket is open,

not closed; constantly connected, not separated; overlapping not

mutually exclusive; and, of course--very individual.



Head: Attitude matters

Il lustration 5: Five components of an artistic attitude

A lot has been written on creativity and innovation in professional

organizations, and by now some excellent methodologies, such as

Design Thinking, Strategic Visioning and Lean Startup, have

emerged as general frameworks for leading innovation processes

in business contexts.42 Many organizations have begun to train their

members to use such methods--of which there are plenty more--to

support collaborative strategy development and innovation

processes in their organizations. Some organizations have even

started to invite artists to join them in order to unlock the existing

creative potential of their members through music, theatre,

sculpture and painting. Methods like Design Thinking, Strategic

Visioning and Lean Startup can help to set certain, yet quite

flexible, boundaries. They provide a framework that helps to avoid

such pitfalls as putting personal preferences before customer

needs. Experience however shows that organizations still struggle 42 “Design Thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibil it ies of technology, and the requirements for business success,” Tim Brown, president and CEO of IDEO, states on the company web page. As a method, it is structured into three “spaces” to keep in mind: inspiration, ideation, and implementation. Inspiration is the problem or opportunity that motivates the search for solutions. Ideation is the process of generating, developing, and testing ideas. Im plementation is the path that leads from the project stage into people’s l ives. The Grove’s Strategic Visioning™ process engages an entire organization in combining its best hindsight and foresight in al igned action. It uses large, graphic templates to ste p groups through the development of traditional strategic analysis, creative visioning work, focused action planning, and organization-communications design. The model i l lustrates an optimal path through these activit ies and invites variations and improvis ation.



to achieve what they envision by training their members in using

such methods. We suspect the missing piece is what is best

described as attitude. Ursula Bertram, artist and art professor in

Dortmund, Germany, who also leads the ID Factory, a think tank

where art, science and business meet, articulates the core question

that defines the biggest challenge: “Are we able to transfer what

we envision into daily business and to instantiate it as an

attitude?”43 Suffice it to say, attitude becomes even more

important if we think beyond organizations and their challenges

into the sphere of wicked problems. Like it is for artists in their

practice, so it is for knowledge workers: their methods are means

to an end, yet the hand and the head need to be in sync. And the

head is where what we call “an attitude” is formed. So far, we’ve

been able to identify five components of an artistic attitude:

Transcendence: Ability to surpass limitations in order to accomplish inner freedom

Awareness: A general readiness to perceive, receive and to learn

Position: Holding a personal belief that is articulated with integrity

Passion: Pursuing what matters with initiative, determination, courage and persistence

Resilience: Appreciating chaos and ambiguity, flexible towards change, robust through conflict and cr isis.

43 Ursula Bertram, “The missing l ink” in Ursula Bertram, Kunst fördert Wirtschaft, 2010, p. 22.



Transcendence

Philippe Rixhon, leader at the intersection of Art, Business and

Technology, connected many years ago to the works of the late

Abraham Maslow while researching the connection between art,

technology and business. At the end of his life in 1970, Maslow

placed transcendence at the top of his famous hierarchy of needs

as a new ideal, which he described in his paper titled “Theory Z.” 44

Transcendence is the striving for something that goes beyond

oneself and the observable world. In his work, Rixhon selected

some of Maslow’s descriptors to explain the characteristics of such

individuals who reach this stage, whom he refers to as “creative

leaders.”45 They

are consciously and deliberately self-motivated

recognize each other instantly

transcend the ego

have transcendent experiences and illuminations

correlate between increasing knowledge and increasing

mystery

fuse work and play, and

express cosmic sadness

44 Abraham Maslow, “Theory Z,” 1969, http://www.maslow.org/sub/TheoryZ.php 45 Phil ippe Rixhon, “Creative Leadership,” Presentation, June 2014.



Based on Maslow’s research, Rixhon states that “innovators

transcend all types of restrictions, especially their ego, the

unknown, the complexity in order to create something new.” When

one transcends both internal and external limitations, a new level

of freedom, liberty and independence is reached that can be a

basis for great innovation.

Awareness

Being generally aware, constantly perceiving and always ready to

receive with all senses is a requirement for deliberate practice,

lifelong learning and continuous redefinition--all topics that are

often quoted as becoming increasingly more important in daily life.

An open mind (and heart) leads to superior forms of cognition, and

only then can the “contextual forces” (as Philippe Rixhon calls

them) that are required in the creative process--serendipity,

fortuity and necessity46--unfold and work in favor of the artist and

innovator. After all, an attitude of constant awareness is what

leads to sagacity or even wisdom. Individuals who are truly aware

know that they don’t know. Visual artist Maureen Drdak described

a belief system based on her observations and awareness around

her as “being a sensitive reflector of things.” 47 And Aris Kalaizis

recommends: “Sometimes it is quite good you go to this or that

sphere of life that you do not see binding for the future and to

46 Phil ippe Rixhon, Creative Leadership, Presentation, Sent to Age of Artists by the Author, June 2014 47 Interview with Maureen Drdak, Visual Artist, Philadelphia, June 5 2014



work in areas where experiences are made that otherwise would

not happen in everyday life.”48 To display general awareness

requires one not to judge every context and every encounter with

others by the immediate value it provides to the core task at hand.

Instead, finding the time to swerve, to look around for things that

intuition suggests are worth pursuing, or even to look for great

input in negative experiences is what many might suggest as useful

sources of content. Daniel Prandl, jazz composer and musician,

told us: “I can learn more from a concert I dislike than from a

concert I love.”49

Position

Not many people outside the art world know that art education is

to a very large extent about helping artists to find their own

position. As in many disciplines, the craft itself is something that

students learn by practicing and learning from teachers, masters

and fellow students. But in order to make one’s art truly unique,

truly individual, a position is required. Many young artists report

that finding their personal, unique position is the most painful part

of becoming an artist. Maureen Drdak commented accordingly: “It

is more to do with the amount of personal emphasis I put on it, the

degree to which one is privileged over another, in terms of the

process of the work, and the degree to which my particular voice

or inclination becomes apparent, that it starts to become more and

more apparent and apprehendable through these behaviors”,50

48 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, Visual Artist, Painter, Leipzig, July 24th 2014 49 Interview with Daniel Prandl, Jazz Musician and Composer, Mannheim, May 30 2014 50 Interview with Maureen Drdak, visual artist, Philadelphia, June 5, 2014.



Certainly, a position can develop over time, but finding it initially is

essential. One’s position is where head, hand and heart merge and

become one. And without a position, there is no true passion.

Passion

Certainly, one can be passionate about something, but without a

position, passion is arbitrary. It is misguided, while at the same

time an essential element of an artistic mind set. Passion,

according to our definition, includes components such as initiative,

self-direction, accountability, dedication, determination,

persistence and tenacity. Good companions of passion are

audaciousness, risk-taking and courage. As such, passion is a

source of confidence. Artists are not gamblers, but their passion

leads them to new heights. When talking to artists, it becomes

clear they have fears (not to be confused with anxiety or angst) like

many people have, but it is not that much of an issue because their

passion is directing them to go beyond their fears.

Taking initiative requires an entrepreneurial spirit. Starting instead

of waiting, acting and not hesitating, questioning instead of

accepting the status quo—everything that relates to the idea of

entrepreneurialism is about taking risk—real or perceived. Being

proactive and acting independently (but not selfishly) comes, of

course, with the risk of being exposed, but it is the first movers

who innovate, and rarely the laggards. So, taking the initiative and

building on creative ideas in order to make a tangible and useful



contribution to the field in which the innovation will occur is

crucial. And it is not a lonely task necessarily; sometimes for magic

to happen, it might be a team effort. Taking risk and making

unorthodox decisions can lead to irritation and even isolation—but

it is a necessary if true innovation is the target. In their book

Trading Fours, Gold and Villa write about a concert Miles Davis and

his band gave in the late 1960s. Davis, already known by then for

his techn ique known as “creative destruction,” turned his back to

the audience while playing jazz music—a move never seen before.

After thirty minutes, the band left the stage, leaving the audience

totally confused and in despair. Only one critic understood the

historical significance51 of what Miles had done. He ran to a phone

in the lobby and called a jazz publication to describe what had

happened. People standing close by listened to what he said and

passed on his positive comments, which spread like wildfire. When

Davis and his band came back to play more, the audience

appreciated the innovation, and when the set was finished, „they

went crazy.”52 This is what Friedrich Goethe once described: “The

artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to

him, everybody sees them.” In order to reach success as an artist,

taking initiative and risk is required. This is true for individuals and

ambition in other disciplines, too.

On top of everything, passion is ultimately where work and life

become one. For artists, there is no such thing as work-life

balance, even though there is everyday life. As painter Aris Kalaizis

told us: “I am also doing mundane things. I do not sit in a library

and wait [for inspiration to come]. That would be foolish. But

ultimately, it's a kind of waiting. Just like with ordinary, mundane

things I do. Within me, there is not only this aspiration to paint a

51 “Miles was once again changing the organizational structure of Jazz; evolving the concept of the traditional soloist and the traditional rhythm section; merging the roles of leading and support; democratizing responsibil ity and the subsequent gratif ication of each of the artists within the ensemble.” From: Michael Gold and David Vil la, Trading Fours: Jazz and the Learning Organization, Milan, Art for Business Edizioni, (2012). p. 61. 52 Michael Gold and David Vil la (2012), Trading Fours - Jazz and the Learning Organization, Milan, Art for Business Edizioni, pp. 58 -62.



picture that survives in me; there is also a tendency to knock a nail

into a wall or something similar.”53

Resilience

Resilience has become a core theme in education and business. It

is also worth discussing ego strength and self-efficacy when it

comes to the arts. Miha Pogacnik told us that “when you are an

innovator and you are sort of dancing on the cutting edge, you

don’t really have the possibility of [receiving] feedback very often.

You are right there and things are just happening and they are just

emerging. Something is emerging that has never been there

before, so you have no way to check it and you don’t get much

guidance.” Obviously, if an artist is really creating something new,

the process it is about accepting ambiguity and even chaos. It is

about being flexible and willing to adapt while things emerge. It is

about managing at once outer conflict and inner crisis. Dealing

with ambiguity and uncertainty is a constant theme for artists as

they question themselves and their work. Experiencing inner

conflict, managing through crisis, and accepting and appreciating

failure are necessary steps towards accomplishment and cannot,

and should not, be avoided. Adaptability to change and dealing

with ambiguity are core themes in art-based processes, and many

artists are masters of agility and flexibility: “Artists are comfortable

with ambiguity. By design, they often deal with things that are not

53 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, vi sual artist, painter, Leipzig, July 24. 2014.



measurable and can't be easily quantified. Innovators, too, should

value what may not be easily captured in quantitative terms. In

stark contrast to more mechanistic models of management, they

must be able to tolerate uncertainty and open-ended questions.”54

Gold and Villa also comment on maintaining agility in the process

of creating jazz. The same fundamental constructs are at work that

underlie the creation of all of classical music. But because jazz

musicians are challenged with creating the music in real time, with

each other, rather than interpreting what has already been created

and transcribed, these processes and structures are simplified to

allow for experimentation, ambiguity and, most significantly, the

latitude to make and learn from mistakes. Appreciating the

“unexpected nature of change” is central to the evolution of jazz.

There would have been no learning without a fundamentally

different view of the nature of mistakes. To eliminate the risk of

uncertainty from the process of jazz would eliminate the entire

horizon of potential possibilities out of which jazz continues to

evolve. [...] This is precisely one of the conditions of business

cultures today.”55 This is why resilience is in high demand in

organizations today.

Psychologists describe a person with a well-developed ego-

strength as resilient. Such a person with such a strong sense of self

is capable of handling challenges. They more often: 56

Take a learning approach to life that increasingly grows their strength and confidence in handling triggering situations

Have an ability to tolerate discomfort, enough to regulate their emotions as opposed to feeling overwhelmed by them

Approach life overall with a curiosity and readiness to explore and to master what strengthens them, thus increasing their

54 Tim Leberecht, “What entrepreneurs can learn from artist s” , on Money; December 21, 2012. 55 Michael Gold and David Vil la (2012), Trading Fours: Jazz and the Learning Organization , Milan, Art for Business Edizioni, p .35 -37. 56 Athena Staik„ Ego versus Ego-Strength: The Characteristics of a Healthy Ego and Why It’s Essential to Your Happiness ,” no date.



http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships/2012/01/ego-versus-ego-strength-the-characteristics-of-healthy-ego/




chances of finding new ways of coping with challenges (see also awareness)

Treat self and others as having inner resources to deal with challenges

Do not personalize what others say or do, and regard self and other as human beings, thus, fallible” 57 (see also transcendence)

With such a definition, it becomes apparent that resilience is

somewhat a required foundation for an artistic attitude that

combines aspects that we discussed in all five areas. Today, it is

not entirely clear what makes some people more resilient than

others, but it is important to know about it as an important

element in developing an artistic attitude and to research further

how it can be acquired and improved over time.

From attitude to action

We put attitude (“head”) at the beginning of the suggested model,

realizing it is a very difficult thing to accomplish. Richard Branson,

for instance, states “the first thing that has to be recognized is that

one cannot train someone to be passionate--it's either in their DNA

or it's not. Believe me, I have tried and failed on more than one

occasion, and it cannot be done, so don't waste your time and

energy trying to light a fire under flame-resistant people. If that

basic, smoldering fire is not innate, then no amount of stoking is

ever going to ignite it. The exact same principle applies to positive

attitudes in people--you don't train attitudes, you have to hire

them.”58

During our initial conversations with thought leaders and artists,

however, we came to believe that an artistic attitude can be and is

57Athena Staik„ Ego versus Ego-Strength: The Characteristics of a Healthy Ego and Why It’s Essential to Your Happiness ,” no date. 58 Sir Richard Branson, “Richard Branson on Passionate Leadership ,” 2014.



http://www.inc.com/richard-branson/passion-is-innate.html?cid=em01014week37a



developed over time. No artist was born with it. It is not a question

of genetics but breeding ground and practice. Author Daniel H.

Pink once said, “Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to

engagement.” To produce great art, the autonomy of the artist and

freedom of art is mandatory. Autonomy and freedom are words

with a very positive connotation, yet what sounds great at first

actually includes a series of things that are very difficult to

accomplish in the first place--not yet actions but purely related to

what we described as an artistic attitude. As Age of Artists, we

believe--as a next step--we need to find out how an attitude that

contains all five components--transcendence, awareness, position,

passion and resilience--can be developed individually. One person

at a time in order to support the emergence of a new idea of man.



Hand: Attitude in action

Il lustration 6: Three action modules

With action (Hand), we relate to a series of processes or tasks that

artists do and that we were able to identify across various art

genres. This section is structured in three modules that contain

further sub modules:

Searching Reflecting Producing

All three modules contain another set of sub sections. When

looking at the three words Searching, Reflecting and Producing,



one might notice a possible sort order or flow where search comes

before reflection which comes before the production of art. While

this is somewhat intended, it is more important to acknowledge

that for most artists, such actions are applied whenever required

as they do not follow a rigid plan or structure when it comes to

those actions. There are choices, decisions, loops, iterations,

oscillations, etc. that make it impossible to identify a clear path or

method that one can simply apply correctly, like a recipe, to

achieve great things. The actions presented here should be

interpreted more like a toolbox59 that artists flexibly apply than a

rigid prescription of steps. And flexible application means that

some artists chose not to apply some tools from the toolbox. And if

they do apply them, they do not apply them all the time the same

way. They mix, match, blend and shift as they feel it is required.

This is not to say artists are undisciplined. In fact, the ones we

talked to were driven and followed a clear inner plan that is rooted

in their personal attitude. Attitude is mandatory; actions are

optional.

Searching

“Only the curious have something to find.” Unknown

Curiosity, in children as well as adults, is the appetite for

knowledge or “the lust of the mind,” as the British philosopher

Thomas Hobbes once said. This urge to know is a necessary

ingredient and perhaps the secret ingredient for any artist.

Curiosity fuels imagination and is a foundation for any creative act,

any piece of art. “Artists are neophiles. They are in love with

59 The German word “Instrumentarium” that translates into “equipment” was suggested to us as an alternative instead of toolbox which sounds too mechanistic for many people we spoke to.



novelty and have an insatiable appetite for finding and creating

new connections.”60 To understand customer or user needs, to be

enabled for breakthrough innovation (and not just piecemeal

improvement), to position a challenge in the right context—for all

of these critical activities, curiosity is elementary. The challenge

however is to sidestep obstacles. “It is a miracle that curiosity

survives formal education,” Albert Einstein once said.

Life, for artists, is a constant quest for purpose and meaning, and

artists as analysts of the human condition have developed some

core skills and sensors where awareness--as we described in the

previous chapter--is a prerequisite that is enhanced by the good

practice of searching as an act to satisfy curiosity. The search

module in this paper and its sub modules represent those practices

as seen in art and with artists. Search can take place in various

forms, for example by

Researching Engaging with other people through listening and

conversation Exploiting what other people did Asking significant and challenging questions (which some

might perceive as impoliteness or provocation--both key concepts in art as well)

Researching

Reading, Watching, Observing, Researching--beyond our main

profession and main occupations. John Coleman writes in his

Harvard Business Review blog with the wonderful title “For Those

Who Want to Lead, Read”:

Deep, broad reading habits are often a defining characteristic

of our greatest leaders and can catalyze insight, innovation,

60 Tim Leberecht, “What entrepreneurs can learn from artists ” , CNN Money; December 21 , 2012.




empathy, and personal effectiveness. The leadership benefits

of reading are wide-ranging. Evidence suggests reading can

improve intelligence and lead to innovation and insight. Some

studies have shown, for example, that reading makes you

smarter through a larger vocabulary and more world

knowledge in addition to the abstract reasoning sk ills.61

And artist Maureen Drdak confirms,

The most important thing is for me is the quality of priming the pump in the first stage, of accessing and ingesting as

much information as possible. Priming the pump. There has to

be a quality priming. Because if it's only a cursory, it seems

like the quality of the output is almost proportionate to the

quality of the input.62

Painter Aris Kalaizis takes the idea of search even a step further

where every new beginning, which for him is the preparation for a

new painting, needs to start from a place of emptiness. Once he

has completed a painting

…everything is still so present. And I'd be lying if I were to

continue seamlessly towards a new image and would negate

the impressions I had. […] I don’t want to see the previous

painting any more. Not because I don’t like it but because the

goal of emptiness is to receive as much as possible without

influence from what was before in order to not get into a flow

of replication.

This phase he considers not productive but necessary or even

essential.63

61 John Coleman, “For Those Who Want to Lead Read,” HBR Blog Network, August 15, 2012. 62 Interview with Maureen Drdak, Visual Artist, Philadelphia, June 5, 2014. 63 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, Painter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/08/for-those-who-want-to-lead-rea/



Observation, Conversation and Dialogue

Observing and having meaningful conversations by asking,

listening and, most importantly, by expressing empathy and

respect toward our counterparts and dialogue partners, is a theme

that we will find again in the chapter on Heart:

Those who see what's obvious aren't necessarily brighter than

others. They're just more likely to observe that the emperor is

naked. Like children, they see what's actually there. Their

perceptions are less clouded by belief systems, taboos, habits

of thought.64

When Salvador Dalí, the famous painter of the surrealist era, was

six years old, his family spent the summer in their house in

Cadaques near Barcelona. According to reports, he watched Juan

Salleras, a local member of the community who painted for fun, for

hours and hours. At this age, the young Dalí realized his first

painting. Observation made him try out something new.

For Jazz composer and musician Daniel Prandl , researching,

observation and conversation can be become one combined

attempt to find new things:

Transcribing or just studying music of others and then

understanding the rules in it and trying to make songs with

those rules can spark new ideas. There is this famous

Stravinsky quote that says: Lesser artists borrow, great artists

steal. It's all about checking out what other people did, see

what you like, see what you don't like, abstract from it,

understand the rules. Don't steal a melody, that's stupid , but

you can deduct rules off formal aspects, from how a song is

constructed.65

64 Richard Farson & Ralph Keyes, The Innovation Paradox, 2002, p. 76. 65 Interview with Daniel Prandl, Jazz Musician and Composer, Mannheim, May 30, 2014.



Dialogue can happen in various ways, of course not just before the

actual artwork is produced but also later--if we think about a

concert, for example, where the musicians are in dialogue with the

audience or in rehearsal when members of a dance or theatre

company are on a joint quest.

Exploiting

When Daniel Prandl spoke to Age of Artists and referred us to the

Igor Stravinsky quote on stealing, we remembered Pablo Picasso

who famously said something similar. And so did Steve Jobs. It

seems the origin of such quotes is much earlier in history, and in

fact many great artists have related to the idea. 66 Poet T.S. Eliot

once commented: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.“

And subsequently, Igor Stravinsky turned it into “A good composer

does not imitate; he steals.” Pablo Picasso turned it into “Bad

artists copy. Good artists steal.” And Steve Jobs chose to use a

more politically correct version and was quoted multiple times to

have said: “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” While all of them

relate to stealing, we find the term “exploiting” more appropriate.

This brings us to Goethe, who, in a conversation with Eckermann in

1827, clarifies what this is all about:

There is through all art a filiation. If you see a great master,

you will always find that he used what was good in his

predecessors, and that it was this which made him great. Men

like Raphael do not spring out of the ground. They took root

in the antique, and the best which had been done before

them. Had they not used the advantages of their time, there

would be little to say about them.67

Likewise Aris Kalaizis again confirms when asked by Age of Artists:

“Of course it would be foolish to argue against better knowledge 66 Please refer to http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists -steal/ 67 Conversations of Goethe, 1827.

http://www.hxa.name/books/ecog/Eckermann-ConversationsOfGoethe-1827.html



that one is not influenced. People need comparisons and this is

very important especially when you are at the beginning…” 68

Realizing that everything is derivative in some way is a key

principle in art. Using what others did, exploiting ideas of other

disciplines, exploiting the past and emerging future are

instrumental for artists. And the famous quotes mentioned

illustrate that they do not suffer from the “not invented here

syndrome,” though at the same time realizing that they have to

add to what was done in unique and new ways.

Asking significant questions

“There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.”

Leonard Cohen

Identifying and asking significant questions that clarify various

points of view and lead to better solutions are a core element of

search:

Artists are contrarians. Artists can see the ‘cracks through

which the light gets in,’ as the old adage goes. Likewise, great

innovators come up with solutions to problems because they

see what is missing. They are eccentric, which means they

literally view things from the fringes. Both artists and

innovators see the world as it could be. They look upon our

world, as Proust would say, with ‘fresh eyes.’ You might also

call that vision.69

68 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, Visual Artist, Painter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014. 69 Tim Leberecht, “What entrepreneurs can learn from artists , ” on CNN Money, December 21, 2012.




From Search to Reflection

Out of curiosity, artists embark on a search that helps to generate

necessity. This is the basis for any artistic effort. It provides the

motivation to address a certain problem or to make a certain

statement through a piece of art. When addressing wicked

problems, when addressing challenges in professional

organizations, or even for many of us when dealing with daily life,

curiosity is not adequately responded to due to lack of time. Even

if searching takes place, it is often reduced to a minimum in favor

of more visible action (i.e., producing), yet it is equally important

as the breeding ground for innovation in response to threats and

opportunities. It is the basis for everything that follows. Yet

searching is not the only thing that falls short in many discip lines.

Also reflecting as a means to find a solution to a question or

problem is often cut down to a minimum. However, we learned

that Artists do also thoroughly reflect and, as such, the next

section explores aspects of reflection.

Reflecting

“Artwork is really just 'sublimated problem-solving,’” Eleanor Blair,

Painter

Problem solving is already a creative process because it relates to

coming up with new and worthwhile ideas (both incremental and

radical concepts) that will be used in later stages of an artistic

process. Problem solving addresses different kinds of non-familiar

problems in both conventional and innovative ways. As we

realized, problem solving is a result of conscious and subconscious

reflection.



With all the information gathered, whether it is by observing, by

exploiting what others did, by engaging with other people through

conversation or by asking significant questions, the journey

through the creative process begins (and ends) with reflection.

Reflecting is a constant theme in art while it contrasts with phases

of clear focus. Sometimes reflection phases are merely more than

an instant but can as well last for days or weeks. We included these

phases in the reflecting module:

Reasoning Abstracting Generating ideas Imagining Committing

Reasoning

Reasoning is about thinking critically about the outside world, but

also it is to introspect, to look inside. In order to look inside, it is

important to appreciate any feedback about our argument, and

even critiques. Maureen Drdak nicely explained her approach to

reasoning: “I am much more deliberate than perhaps many artists

may be in that my work is usually thematically directed with

philosophical or mythic content. I thoroughly research whatever

realm of those categories I am thinking about pursuing. And then

later lay material to rest [...] intellectually to fallow for a while

before I then revisit it and commence my actual work.” 70 She also

comments: “There's an implication of acquisition of information

and internal integration. This internal integration is very important

[so] the material can be accessed later on.” 71

70 Interview with Maureen Drdak, Visual Artist, Philadelphia, June 5, 2014. 71 Ibid.



On the subject of feedback, Aris Kalaizis states: “Painting is a

lonely craft and thus really needs a corrective. […] I always like the

dialogue. There are not a huge amount of people here but I profit a

lot from conversations with one or two people. […] And it is not

important whether they are a professor or a carpenter. I have also

got proposals or reviews of quite ordinary people that were not

only worthwhile to think about but also led to an action on my

part. […] If I happen to have an electrician at home because he has

to do something on the electrics and it then happens that he looks

at my work and says something, then one or the other amazing

thing can happen.”72

Abstracting

Abstracting is about thinking holistically, connecting the dots,

finding clarity and conciseness, yet without losing the overall

meaning: “Artists are holistic, interdisciplinary thinkers. Artists can

connect dots and take things out of their original context.

Likewise, innovators contextualize and re-contextualize, mashup

and remix, and embrace new insights and ideas that lead to

unexpected, unlikely, and often serendipitous conclusions...” 73 A

core aspect of art is the ability to abstract: the act of taking away

and separating as a prerequisite for simplification by targeting the

bigger picture and being able to derive its essence while not losing

its overall meaning.

Abstraction supports the idea of “seeing the bigger picture” by

means of reducing complexity. The painter Roger Hilton comments

that “abstract art is the result of an attempt to make pictures more

real, an attempt to come nearer to the essence [of painting].”

Abstraction is found not only in visual art. “For one, poetry teaches

72 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, Visual Artist, Painter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014. 73 Tim Leberecht, “What entrepreneurs can learn from artists , ” on CNN Money, December 21, 2012.




us to wrestle with and simplify complexity.” Harman Industries

founder Sidney Harman once told The New York Times , “I used to

tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers. Poets are our

original systems thinkers. They look at our most complex

environments and they reduce the complexity to something they

begin to understand.” “Business leaders live in multifaceted,

dynamic environments. Their challenge is to take that chaos and

make it meaningful and understandable. Reading and writing

poetry both exercise that capacity, improving one’s ability to

better conceptualize the world and communicate it--perhaps

through presentations or writing--to others.”74

Generating and developing ideas

“You can never force inspiration. You can only prepare yourself for

inspiration. You can strive to create an environment but inspiration

will hit or it will not hit; you cannot force it. [...] but you can create

conditions so that this kind of flow happens. [...] We artists have

been doing this for hundreds of years.” 75 Miha Pogacnik told us this,

and truly every artist has developed different ways to manage the

transition from composition to creation. Maureen Drdak told us:

“Whenever I engage in a creative process, I always start out, I

guess the best way, I could describe it as free flowing amorphous

biological forms in my particular internal space.” 76 Daniel Prandl

puts himself into a certain state of mind where he just sits at the

piano and plays for one hour and sees where his fingers keep

going: “You just improvise and you come over a line and say, yeah,

that might be something, let's develop that.” 77 For him, “

Epiphanies mostly happen when I am at the piano, because then

my mind is attracted to what I have to do and is focused on it .”78 As

such, more ideas come when he is fol lowing this approach and 74 John Coleman, “The Benefits of Poetry for Professionals,” HBR Blog Network, November 27, 2012. 75 Interview with Miha Pogacnik, violinist, Hamburg/Dresden, June xx, 2014 . 76 Interview with Maureen Drdak, Visual Artist, Philadelphia, June 5, 2014. 77 Interview with Daniel Prandl, Jazz Musician and Composer, Mannheim, May 30, 2014. 78 Ibid.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/11/the-benefits-of-poetry-for-pro/

http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/11/the-benefits-of-poetry-for-pro/



Maureen hers. We all have heard about or even had great ideas

while in the shower. And we know the stories about great

innovations developed by accident. What is apparently critical to

having any good ideas is to stage one’s environment such that

ideas can come--either to one individually or to a group. Flow

instead of force seems to be a good design practice.

Imagining

If we can--perhaps deficiently--associate reasoning and

abstracting with the logical, rational aspects of acting, then we can

connect imagining to the subconscious and sublime. It is about

fantasizing and following one’s intuition . According to Tim

Leberecht, “Artists rely on their intuition. It may seem counter-

intuitive, but intuition is ever more important in the age of big data, because it is the only feature that is faster and deeper than

the massive flow of real-time information. Nothing comes close to

intuition as innovators seek to anticipate trends and make

decisions swiftly.”79

Maureen Drdak explains how she moves from reasoning

(“ruminating”) into imagination and then into composing (which we

will return to later): “I generally do not do a lot of preparatory

studies, other than, perhaps a series of very casual thumbnails that

I will do because as I intellectually ruminate over the material that

I have read or gathered together intellectually, forms usually start

to appear, internally, and as I roll those forms over in my mind

when they manifest themselves in a strong form one way or

another, then I will do a quick sketch, gather those little sketches

together, but never anything involved in terms of very involved

preparatory work. I usually directly move them to what I think will

be the major final work.”80

79 Tim Leberecht, “What entrepreneurs can learn from artists, ” on CNN Money, December 21, 2012. 80 Interview with Maureen Drdak, Visual Artist, Philadelphia, June 5, 2014.





Aris Kalaizis talked to us about a part of his work in a similar

fashion: “I make a photo, print it out, then hang it over my bed. […]

Occasionally I stare almost apathetically at this image, usually in

the evening before I go to sleep and then … I do not know how to

call it. I hesitate to say, I think. It is a very difficult process which is

very hard to put into words. In any case, it is a relationship

between what I am searching for and what is there which I try to

influence and to give it another shape. [...] Yes, and then I have this

photo and fall asleep. And I wake up the next day, and if I then--

and that's the difference--in the past, I have made notes. Today,

I'm not doing this anymore because I assume I do not to forget the

important things. If I have to look the next morning very long for a

solution that was there the night before, then it was not good. But

when I wake up and it is the very first thing I think about, then I

know it is binding and has something compelling. Then I have to

investigate that further.”81

In addition, imagining is about swerving or allowing for digressions. As Rob Austin and Lee Devin noted in their book, 82

“Investing in an ability to swerve, to devise new responses to

unanticipated situations, clearly encourages creativity.” This is also

confirmed in a wonderful quote from well-known journalist and

radio man of the last century, Franklin P. Adams: “I find that a great

part of the information I have was acquired by looking up

something and finding something else on the way.” Maureen Drdak

also confirms: “Digressions are simply the brain recognizing

relativity in whatever it's discussing, and it becomes intrigued with

following these threads of relativity. And it goes off to investigate

them because it thinks that path over there might be an interesting

piece of missing information that might be informing this primary

conversation or discussion or problem.”83

81 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, Visual Artist, Painter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014. 82 Rob Austin and Lee Devin (2003), Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know about How Artists Work, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hal l , p. 10. 83 Interview with Maureen Drdak, Visual Artist, Philadelphia, June 5, 2014.



Committing

Committing is a term used a lot in business today, yet too often a

commitment and the individual making are kept separate. People

who fear they have only partial influence over whether they can be

successful in an endeavor tend to keep a back door open, ra ther

than committing to an action or plan wholeheartedly. But artists

don’t have such a back door at their disposal. They are on their

own. And to commit in art involves both judging (a situation or

topic) and deciding (on whether and how to proceed). While

committing can hardly be called a phase or task, as it is more likely

a result or a milestone as part of an overall process, it is essential

to the identity of an artist. The ability to choose among different

alternatives with thoughtfulness, clarity, and timeliness under

conditions of uncertainty, scarcity, complexity and all the other

things that tend to hold us back from making a decision is crucial

to one’s success. The painter Norbert Bisky is not a fan of

indecisiveness and people who “don’t want to make a decision.”

This explains why he uses color unconditionally and in a way that is

valid for him. Very often in a creative process, such determination

is required. But this is not be confused with an “it’s my way or the

highway” approach, but is simply a point where attitude and action

meet in a very profound way to become one before the production

can begin. Clearly, to commit is not easy and many struggle with it

for a long time. But clearly, without committing, a good product

will unlikely be the result of one’s actions.

From Reflection to Production

As we discuss various tools from our action toolset, it is critical to

remind ourselves how intertwined, connected, and parallel

everything really is as artists--and other creative people--move

from searching through internal reflections until they finally make

a commitment to action. Maureen Drdak provides a nice summary



that wraps up this analysis and illustrates the path from reasoning

to committing:

There is a phenomenon that I experience that I know for a

fact in reading is common [and] cross disciplinary to all

creative people and divergent professions, and that is the

idea of ruminating over an idea for a long period of time. [...]

This is a fundamental element in the creative process. A lot of

energy has to be put in [at] this stage. It can't just be a

cursory kind of thing that flips through their mind and then,

having exhausted themselves with their inability to attain or

extract an answer or ‘the goods’ as they envisioned, they will

lay the problem aside, and then they will go and busy

themselves with other tasks, only to experience at some point

and usually in a not-too-distant future, a sudden moment of

epiphany where the solution to the problem, whether it's in

the visual arts, whether it's in medicine, whether it's in

mathematics, whether it's in science, etc, will spring [forth]

fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus. In their mind,

it's the Eureka, and there have been many accounts [of this

occurring]. [...] So there is--there is clearly something

underlying--this mother matrix so to speak of creativity, that

resides within everyone--that especially creative individuals

seem more likely to access perhaps through their inclinations

in terms of the amount of intensity that they give to it.84

Producing

“I do not seek. I find.” - Pablo Picasso

84 Interview with Maureen Drdak, Visual Artist, Philadelphia, June 5, 2014.



Two things presented at the beginning of this module might

confuse. First, it might be confusing that we use the word

producing to summarize the three important action submodules:

Composing Creating Performing

In the public domain, those actions might be perceived as the very

core of what art is all about. Second, it might be irritating that we

use Picasso’s seek/find quote here. Shouldn’t it appear under

searching? Yet as we have talked to artists about these

distinctions, they have been very comfortable using the term

producing when speaking about their “productive phase,” as

painter Aris Kalaizis called it. In some very old sources, producing

is defined as “bringing into being,” which is exactly what we mean

in contrast to the notion of production coming to us through

industrialization. And Picasso? Well, what he actually meant was

that for him, creating is a process of finding, of getting to the

masterpiece while in the process of creation--or producing.

Likewise Michael Brater quotes painter Gerhard Richter who

commented: “At the end, I would like to get to a painting that I

have not planned upfront. I would like to receive something that is

more interesting than what I can think of.” 85 One submodule of

producing is to draft, to conceptualize or to compose. Composing

takes place when a vision, an idea--based on a previously made

decision--takes on a more concrete form or shape. It is not

necessarily a part of the final result, but it is a clearer

manifestation of what is “becoming into being.”

Another submodule of producing is to actually create or make. It

includes fields such as

Getting started

85 Michael Brater, “Wenn Arbeit Kunst wird. .. “ Vortrag zum 2. Forum Wirtschaft meets Kunst, Freiburg, February 3, 2014.



Playing and experimenting Reaching a state of flow Making errors and mistakes Cooperating and collaborating Managing doubt and crisis, and Improvising

Of course, there are different core tasks in each art genre that are

elementary to the genre itself: rehearsing, painting,

photographing, sculpturing, dancing, writing, drafting and planning

and so forth. Those core tasks come closest to the specifics of the

actual art practice (for example, poet, dancer, painter, musician)

and thus the end product, but are not transferable into other fields

such a science and business beyond acting as a metaphor. They

can be seen as the “specialist knowledge and/or skill” of artists

that find their counterpart in the specialist knowledge and skills of

other disciplines. During artistic interventions or when artists meet

with people from other disciplines, those practices can be used as

synonyms or metaphors, but an actual direct transfer of meaning

seems to be unlikely.

The last submodule within producing is performing, which is the

core purpose of many art genres and the point where artists meet

their audience. Even for artists who do not perform on stage, the

day when the exhibition begins, the result is presented, or the

book is released is core to the--albeit temporary--completion of

the artistic process.

Composing

To draft, to conceptualize or to compose are words that are used in

other disciplines as well. What is particularly interesting is the fact

that many artists already relate such actions to the productive part

of their work, while at the same time there still is no apparent

outcome. Jazz composer Daniel Prandl illustrates the path from



search to concept as such: “When I work on a new project I first

read a couple of books on the topic and don't write a single note

but rather lots of descriptive comments such as, that's mysterious,

that's odd, that's happy, that's pathetic, that's whatever, just like

that. Naturally, I can only work like that, because I am using a

highly programmatic approach for my own compositions. ” and

continues further.’ ‘I also define by how the development of songs

is: the highs and lows of the album, how much energy at what

point, who is soloing on which tune...”86

Painter Aris Kalaizis often builds a model for his paintings. He told

us: “The more accurately I could work out the model, the more

corrective I had to bring about possibilities to change. The model is

ultimately the basis for the painting. Not more. It is a kind of

background scenery which is the basis for each image. It is a kind

of power of the forms that can appear so and so in an image and I

must try so that it generates the highest tension in my view. [...] At

the end, the model never suffices to paint a decent painting. It is

simply a means to an end in order to be closer and to make things

with this model that ultimately need to be decided before the

easel. Otherwise, painting would not be required. I can build great

houses, but if I do not transpose convincingly, the entire vermillion

is not worth anything.“87

A key theme that is part of a composition is the idea of layers. “ I

love the idea of layers, so I imagine the saxophone as a layer, the

baseline is a layer, drums are a layer and they could be more

intense or less, and those layers come together and form a

structure. And I'd like to state: One layer is nothing - the

combination of layers gives the music strength and keeps it

together,”88 composer Daniel Prandl told us. Aris Kalaizis, when

unable to build a model, told us: “I am building an image from

various levels so that it becomes my ideal version of an image.” 89

86 Interview with Daniel Prandl, Jazz Musician and Composer, Mannheim, May 30, 2014. 87 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, Visual Artist, Painter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014. 88 Interview with Daniel Prandl, Jazz Musician and Composer, Mannheim , May 30, 2014. 89 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, Visual Artist, Painter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014.



He spends more or less the same amount of time on the

preparation as on the actual painting. This is not to say that the

painting is executed as planned or that it is formed intentionally

based on an idea of the future product. It develops from “back to

front,” “towards the future,” as Michael Brater described. It follows

the law of open development from what pre-exists. Something is

being developed, guided and directed by the perceptive and

intervening artist. As proof, Brater quotes painter Andreas Reichel,

who commented: “In plain text, this means that no work is just

thought of and then easily implemented. As a layman, one could

think that one can show the artist something beautiful, who [then]

manages to capture this beauty onto the canvas. [...] Nobody does

that. Certainly not me.”90

Creating

Another core area in producing is to actually create or make. It

includes such actions as:

Getting started Playing and experimenting Reaching a state of flow Making errors and mistakes Cooperating and collaborating Managing doubt and crisis Improvising

Getting started Artists respond to uncertainty and unpredictability not with a plan

or lengthy theoretical thoughts but just by getting started. 91 They

work with their material similarly to what we described in the

previous section on composing. Education professor and expert at

90 Michael Brater, “Wenn Arbeit Kunst wird. .. “ Vortrag zum 2. Forum Wirtschaft meets Kunst, Freiburg, February 3, 2014. 91 Ibid.



the intersection of education, art and business Michael Brater says,

“cognitive action comes before thinking,” He calls this process

“active situation discovery,” while he--and this is important to

remember--also states that before action begins, there is often a

very long phase of observation and reflection. 92

Playing and experimenting Artists play with their material. As we know from children playing--

at least when they are little and do not yet understand the idea of

winning and losing--has no direction or purpose. Playing is not

binding. The act of playing satisfies without having a clear

direction or suggested outcome. While playing, unforeseen things

can happen; unexpected inventions can be made. Playing is

exploration and investigation.93 Likewise, but usually associated

with a more formal set up (objective), experimenting is very

common in the arts. “The true method of knowledge is

experiment,” English poet and painter of the Enlightenment era

William Blake wrote in one of his books. Playing and experimenting

while seeking the most appropriate and effective answers to

difficult situations and complex themes trying different ways is a

key theme in Art. We certainly all know from observing children

how important experiments are, but as we grow older, many of us

lose this desire. Artists instead manage to preserve this talent and

to use it in their work for their own benefit. Daniel Prandl

commented in support of this idea: “ If you stick to an idea, pretty

much anything can happen to it. I mean, you can change the meter,

you can do anything. Manipulation of the material is one of the

most important things, you know. It might be you write something

down that is beautiful, and that's it. But I really love to manipulate

my material, maybe add something, maybe delete something.

Whatever. You find another part, you cut a part, you think of a new

introduction and interlude section. I just like to play with forms .“94

92 Michael Brater, “Wenn Arbeit K unst wird. .. “ Vortrag zum 2. Forum Wirtschaft meets Kunst, Freiburg, February 3, 2014. 93 Ibid. 94 Interview with Daniel Prandl, Jazz Musician and Composer, Mannheim, May 30, 2014.



Reaching a state of flow Artists reaching a state of flow appears frequently across art

genres as a theme that explains phases of more output (quantity)

and/or superior value (quality). Artists usually know quite a lot

about this phenomenon--at least they can tell when it is there.

Conductor Omer Meir Welber wrote on his website about flow as

follows:

Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, the Hungarian Psychologist, offers an

interesting term for us to use when talking about music

making: “Flow is a subjective state that people report when

they are completely involved in something to the point of

forgetting time, fatigue, and everything else but the activity

itself. It is what we feel when we read a well-crafted novel or

play a good game of squash, or take part in a stimulating

conversation.” I can say, that conducting could bring me to a

state where I feel these sensations. You lose track of time,

fatigue, you don’t feel your body: it’s as if something took

over you. Csikszentmihaly describes: “The flow experience is

typically described as involving a sense of control--or more

precisely, as lacking the sense of worry about losing control.”

I believe that Flow is the ultimate description of the state of

mind we musicians find ourselves in occasionally. Not in every

concert we manage to get into it, not in every concert we

experience this feeling as above. There are three main

preconditions to experiencing flow: a clear set of goals, a

balance between perceived challenges and perceived skills,

flow is dependent on the presence of clear and immediate

feedback. All these preconditions are correct for a general

definition of Flow, whether we talk about extreme sports,

music making or studying.95

Jazz Composer and Musician Daniel Prandl offered another, yet

similar perspective on the subject: “You can't force creativity but

95 Omer Meir Wellber, Flow in the concert hall , Part 2, Tuesday, April 2, 2013.

http://www.omermeirwellber.com/



you have to force creativity. If you want to write, you will say, ‘I am

now writing for new album,’ so I have a deadline. Everyday, when I

have time I write couple of hours and on some days, I won't write

one single note. But that whole process, even when you don't ge t

to write something down, your brain starts working and the day is

always coming where you write a lot in really a short time and then

it's just flowing,”

Daniel continued about composing: “You can't expect me to act

like car production works. I can't produce so and so many

compositions a week. But there will be definitely months where

you have a big output and you will have months with a lower

output. [...] The word flow is an important thing.” 96

Painter Aris Kalaizis suggested, when asked what business can

learn from art: “If we observe people that try to create something,

you see they are sort of absorbed, which in itself can lead them to

a variety of things and perhaps this making is something that could

be more elaborated. […] In making--I would say--people tend to

see their life in a different light.97

Making errors and mistakes “One fails forward toward success.”

Charles Kettering, Inventor and Engineer

In governments, professional organizations and even families,

there is usually an appreciation for “doing things right the first

time.” A second time is rarely granted and failure is not something

one wants to be easily associated with. One of the reasons for this

is the core assumption that failure represents a cost that ideally

needs to be avoided. The other core reason is that failure is

associated with shame, even to a higher degree in some regions of

the world than in others. Generations of management students

96 Interview with Daniel Prandl, Jazz Musician and Composer, Mannheim, May 30, 2014. 97 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, Visual Artist, Painter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014.



have been trained in quality and lean management; they have been

educated to optimize wherever they can and to avoid unnecessary

cost under all circumstances. But who says failure is unnecessary?

Failure isn’t the right idea. In rehearsal, the iterations all

interact with each other […] Touch a hot stove and burn your

hand—that’s a failure; touch it again and burn your hand

again—that’s a mistake—same injury, no new information. […]

This resonates with many Master of Business students and

even executives, but makes no sense to artists. The

distinction between failure and mistake imposes an

unreasonable limit on exploration. Though artful making is, as

we have said, reliable and efficient, it has little use for the

efficiency rules like Avoid touching a hot stove twice (or ten

times) may be what’s needed to break up a creative log jam.98

Bill Clinton, former U.S. president, once stated on the topic of

innovation, “We need to embrace our errors and not be ashamed of

them because that will enable us to learn from our mistakes and be

more creative. And the whole culture of either thinking you’re

always right or being paralyzed by the fear of being wrong is

totally inconsistent with solving the problems of the modern

world.”99

Trying and trying again—even if things go wrong once—is not a bad

thing. The history of innovation is full of huge contributions to

mankind where people did not stop trying and trying again.

“Actions become experience, and experience becomes the material

that future choices are made of. […] Inclusion of past actions into

the materials of creation is the force that drives emergence. […]

Nurture and trust emerge. Don’t try to ‘get it right the first time.’

Instead, create a team and a process that can ‘make it good before

the deadline.’ […] Build iteration into your processes. Iteration

98 Rob Austin and Lee Devin (2003), Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know about How Artists Work, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall , p. xxvii . 99 Former U.S. President Bil l Clinton, speaking at a Rockefeller Foundation meeting on innovation and philanthropy, July 27, 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9E8pyq2npnQ





creates and defines the problem as a way of searching for valuable

outcomes. Think of iteration as making rather than discovering.” 100

In the past, avoiding failure had to do with the immense cost

associated with it in many industries. For artists, persevering

seems to be easier. “Collaborating artists, using the human brain as

their principal technology and ideas as their principal material,

work with very low cost of iteration. They try something and then

try it again a different way, constantly reconceiving ambiguous

circumstances and variable materials into coherent and valuable

outputs.” 101

Consider the history of art and examples where iteration of the

actual end product was not really an option. Today, about 50% of a

painter’s cost is materials. In earlier times, “that proportion was

probably even higher […] when canvas had to be cut and mounted,

and pigments ground and dissolved in painting media. […] Since

antiquity, one pigment of choice was ultramarine because of its

intensity of color. Ultramarine was processed from lapis lazuli , a

semiprecious stone found in Afghanistan and taken ‘across the

waters,’ usually to Venice. The value of the raw material equaled its

weight in gold.” 102 Over time, the use of new technologies and

production processes have led to new ways in painting—because it

was affordable. Today, the situation is quite similar: 3d printing can

be used for verifying constructions and simulations supported by

huge computer power to help to test assumptions. Those

innovations bring the cost of iterations down to a minimum also in

areas that are not just about human brains like a theatre company —

not to forget there is an economic side to theatres too. With those

new technologies, iteration is economically feasible and this art-

based principle can be fully embraced in organizations of all

100 Rob Austin and Lee Devin (2003), Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know abo ut How Artists Work, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall , p. 21ff. 101 Rob Austin and Lee Devin (2003), Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know about How Artists Work, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall , pp. xxv-xxvi. 102 Michael Hutter and David Throsby; Beyond Price; Value in Culture, Economics and the Arts .

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, June 2011, p. 62.



disciplines so that innovation can emerge from repeating the same

mistakes again and again. “Cheap and rapid iteration allows us to

substitute experience for planning. Rather than ‘get it right the

first time,’ our battle cry becomes ‘make it great before the

deadline’ and ‘cheap and rapid experimentation lets you try new

forms; cheap and rapid artful iteration helps you create new forms

to try.” 103

Managing doubt and crisis “Of course, there should always be doubt. Particularly when

success comes one is required to revisit. Success is slightly

alluring. It lets people avoid reviewing and test things but mainly

when having success it is important to set the stage for the future.

For a painter this means to not repeat what was accomplished.

Instead one must try to paint better pictures than one has

previously believed that it is possible. I like the path of a

permanent searcher more than the certainty to have found

something that I can reproduce.” 104 Aris Kalaizis told us and

continued: “Crises have brought me forward. Actually, I paint to

put me in crises because these crises have always brought me

forward. I found those laborious phases nice but they did not put

me ahead very much. (Crisis) is as if the body is infected by a virus.

It is unpleasant, the temperature is increased and the invading

virus then shaken off. Then the body is slightly stronger against

those viruses. If you make a break and allow the crises to come it is

similar. For me it is important to gain distance from what was

accomplished so that a crisis can develop. The crisis does not just

happen. The longer you stay away from work the more you can feel

that you are at odds with yourself and the universe.[…] This form of

revisiting does not happen between each painting. Otherwise I

shouldn’t probably paint anymore. These are greater intervals, I'd

say, perhaps once a year."

103 Rob Austin and Lee Devin (2003). Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know about How Artists Work, Upper Saddle River, NJ,: Prentice Hall , p. XXV . 104 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, Visual Artist, Painter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014.



Cooperating and collaborating From art, we know that the creative act is not necessarily a lonely

task. This is obvious in a theatre company or a symphony

orchestra. But many people believe that writing and painting are

creative acts of individuals locked in an atelier or study room.

While this is often true for the actual execution (“hand”), it is not

true for the creative act of inventing (“head”). Famous writers l ike

Goethe and Schiller were in constant exchange and dialogue with

others about their work, and painters like Picasso and Braque, who

jointly invented cubism, did this by visiting and inspecting each

other’s work. There are very famous groups of artists that existed

over a substantial period of time, such as Die Brücke and Der Blaue

Reiter, both in Germany at the beginning of the last century. Die

Brücke (The Bridge) for instance was a group of German

expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905 who had a major

impact on the evolution of modern art in the 20th century. Even

artists who were not active collaborators would not deny that they

built upon what others did before them, and in fact art history is

full of such references and quotes. The dialogue with our

precursors is special form of collaboration.

Collaboration starts with a joint purpose around which the idea of

community, of belonging together for a cause, emerges.

Collaboration requires the willingness to cooperate, to compromise

in order to reach consensus. It is also about learning from and

working collaboratively with individuals representing diverse

cultures, religions and lifestyles in a spirit of mutual respect and

open dialogue in personal, work and community contexts. In a

global context, this requires cross-cultural understanding across

diverse ethnic groups, nations and cultures. When interacting with

others, it is not about judging a person or group, but building on

other people’s ideas. “Politeness is the poison of collaboration,”

Edwin Land, the co-founder of Polaroid and inventor of the instant

camera, once said. Author John Jay Chapman similarly commented

half a century earlier that “too much agreement kills the chat.”

Giving and accepting feedback and even criticism by focusing on



the task, not the person, is essential and a skill that can and needs

to be trained. Challenging others--but even more being

challenged--is a key concept of art. People who perform on stage

are vulnerable and they have to accept this as part of their work—

probably a topic that dancers know even more about than their

fellow artists in other genres.

For Rob Austin and Lee Devin, three out of four qualities of “artful

making” deal with aspects of collaboration:

Collaboration – The quality exhibited by conversation, in language and behavior, during which each party, released from vanity, inhibition, and preconceptions, treats the contributions of other parties as materials to make with, not as positions to argue with, so that new and unpredictable ideas emerge.

Ensemble – The quality exhibited by the work of a group dedicated to collaboration in which individual members relinquish sovereignty over their work and thus create something none could have made alone: a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Play – The quality exhibited by a production while it is playing for an audience; or the quality exhibited by interaction among members of a business group, and ultimately between the group and the customer.” 105

Michael Gold and Dario Villas recently provided us with a great

book titled Trading Fours: Jazz and the Learning Organization, in

which they give numerous examples of how aspects derived from

jazz can act as a catalyst for change in professional organizations.

For Gold and Villas, we can also learn about collaboration from

jazz: “The roles of composer, performer and conductor, strictly

siloed from one another in classical music, were, in jazz, fused

together into a new role: the role of the improviser. Underlying

structures and strategies that guide the collaborative creation and

105 Rob Austin and Lee Devin (2003), Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know about How Artists Work, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall , , pp. 15/16.



spontaneous performance in jazz are drawn from both Western and

African musical traditions. This fusion also reflects one of the first

instances of cultural globalization a century before the digital

transformation.” 106 Effective collaboration will beas important for

the global workforce as for musicians in a jazz band or actors on a

stage.

Improvising An important notion in art is improvisation as a constant

interchange between artists. One instance is jazz, where Daniel

Prandl told us “we always say classical music is music for the eye

and jazz music is music for the ear. Because it's not written out,

even when I compose stuff, it's not all written out and the fellow

musicians can add so much to that. [...] it is always about changing

things and working them over. But there is a master plan.” 107

Improvising does not just happen when many artists work together

like in a band but it also occurs in collaborations between an artist

and his material. Maureen Drdak told us: “Materiality itself, of my

process, is very informed, because the materiality, will – it's

guarantee that it will start to latch onto the internal form and start

to drive the process in terms of how that internal form will express

itself--manifests itself through the work. Obviously, certain

materials have properties that are more expressive than other

materials and seemingly, the voices, so to speak “the material

voices,” will be exploited by myself in the process of doing my

work.” 108

Performing

As a last submodule under the category producing, we decided to

add performing, because for many art genres, all the hard work of

106 Michael Gold and David V il la (2012), Trading Fours: Jazz and the Learning Organization . Milan: Art for Business Edizioni, p 35. 107 Interview with Daniel Prandl, Jazz Musician and Composer, Mannheim, May 30, 2014. 108 Interview with Maureen Drdak, Visual Artist, Philadelphia, June 5, 2014.



the individuals involved culminates on the day they step on stage

to perform in front of an audience. Daniel Prandl plans for this, as

he would like “to give the listener images that appear in her mind

when she hears the music.” 109 Even for visual artists, one could say

an exhibition represents a stage--of course weakened because it is

the artwork that plays the main role in an art exhibition, not th e

artist, at least in most cases. Performing also represents a

conversation with the audience and thus can be seen as the

emergence of something new that commences again with--

searching.

109 Interview with Daniel Prandl, Jazz Musician and Composer, Mannheim, May 30, 2014.



Heart

Including the concept of heart represents our attempt to ca pture

the sphere of beliefs, feelings, and emotional perceptions. At this

stage, we have identified four conditions relevant to this section:

Il lustration 7: Four areas of Heart

Motivation

An important aspect beyond attitude, skills and competences is a n

underlying key theme: motivation. Artists tend to be thought of as

extremely motivated in what they do--which is true--but why

would individuals in other disciplines be less motivated? We doubt

this and argue there is no difference between artists and

individuals in other disciplines. Same roots, different fruits.

Another question, however, is whether the environment and



leadership practices in other disciplines respond adequately to

cover for:

1. all sources of motivation, as no person is motivated by just one thing, and yet there is a different weight every one of us gives to each of the various sources of motivation;

2. a possibility to connect the individual value system with the organizational value system, where for both it is true they cannot and will not change every quarter but only gradually and slowly over time;

3. consistency between the motivation sources. An often quoted mismatch illustrating this is the stated objective of a call center to create customer satisfaction where at the same time employees are paid according to the number of calls they perform in an hour. Suffice it to say, many will attempt to close calls as quickly as possible in order to get to the next customer.

While many sources of motivation can be orchestrated in order to

drive a certain behavior, artists raised some concerns during our

research. Musician Miha Pogacnik, for instance, noted: “It is [the]

entrepreneurial attitude that should be examined today because, in

my experience, entrepreneurs and artists are growing from the

same source. They branch into other spheres, but at the end, they

meet because any future business will have to be holistic in a sense

of being able to relate to everything else--and that’s already

happening. […] The source is called the meaning of life. […] Let's

just say we have a crisis of meaning. Most people today live from

yesterday into tomorrow without knowledge or experience of

where we came from or where we want to go. [...] So how do we

create an environment in business such that everything that

happens is penetrated by meaning like it is in a masterpiece. If you

take a Brahms sonata, every note is meaningful there. Just take

one [note] out and put it somewhere else and you have a disaster.

So everything is meaningful. […] Meaning becomes an inner



muscle. 110 Aris Kalaizis commented in a similar way when he told us

about Aristotle who stated in the first book of his nicomachean

ethics that every individual strives for insight. yet “today we really

need to say this statement is definitely under revision. If people

have the freedom, they actually tend to avoid such insight or the

experience that comes with it.” 111

So when talking about motivation, we also need to look more

specifically for what influences people look to for insight and

meaning versus when they don’t do this. According to Aris Kalaizis,

the difficulty is to take the fear away. Fear that vanishes when

individuals realize that trying, while sometimes failing, is still a

good idea, or as Richard Branson put it: "In the end, you have to

say, ‘Screw it. Just do it.’" 112 Potentially, fears are more dominant

when an individual’s identity is tied to a very linear education

history that subsequently connects to a narrow expert career, for

instance. This does not indicate there is anything wrong with being

or becoming an expert, but to extend the idea of a rounded

personality, “which prizes individuals known as T-shaped People.

These are a variation on Renaissance Man, equally comfortable

with information systems, modern management techniques and

the 12-tone scale.” 113 While exaggerated and thus funny, it again

supports our point that art (but also sport, nature, family, friends

and other elements) is elementary for a satisfying life and acts also

as a source of general motivation.

Empathy

Empathy means an interest in the human condition--in personal

interaction or interaction on a more general, societal level, often

110 Interview with Miha Pogacnik, violinist, Hamburg/Dresden, June 14, 2014. 111 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, visual artist, painter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014. 112 http://www.inc.com/branson-upclose/on-taking-risk.html 113 David Guest, "The hunt is on for the Renaissance Man of computing," The Independent

(London), September 17, 1991. Quoted from http://www.wordspy.com/words/t -shaped.asp



widely practiced by artists. “Artists are humanists. They are experts

of the ‘human condition’ and observe human desires, needs,

emotions, and behavior with a sharp, discerning eye and a high

degree of empathy. They can feel with and for others.” 114 This

human quality is what allows them to analyze well and to

subsequently create great art. So far, all artists we interviewed

expressed high levels of empathy for human beings in specific and

mankind overall, and those expressions were often understood by

the artist as relating to or directly impacting the artistic work, the

artistic product or outcome. Combined with a tendency for dee p

observation and reflection, we noticed in the artists a common

desire to make the world better. Carolyn Schafer, a jewelry maker

and painter, told us about selling a piece from her gallery to a

visitor while at the same time expressing empathy for the

departing customer: “I think most artists do express that

(empathy). The joy is having someone else appreciate that and

taking it home and, as I would say to people no matter what they

take out, my parting note is ‘wear it in good health.’” 115

Faith

Faith, in our definition, is a spiritual belief that the work is

influenced from some source that is deeply rooted in the

subconscious or even outside one’s self. At this stage of our

research, it is very hard and rather dangerous to define it like the

other areas discussed in this paper. Nevertheless, we would like to

report what we have observed in the interview process. Many of

the artists we spoke with say that their work must come from a

divine power, because it doesn’t come from them, or completely

from them. Carolyn Schafer, for instance, commented: “There is an

energetic sense that arises from what is being created, and the

artist’s stepping into the flow with that piece is what allows it to

be created, as it should be. […] It is releasing [oneself] to the 114 Tim Leberecht, “What entrepreneurs can learn from artists , ” CNN Money, December 21 , 2012. 115 Interview with Carolyn Schafer, Jewelry Maker and Painter, July 2014.




process and being an observer, a witness to the process, as well as

the participant, and realizing you are not totally alone in the

driver’s seat. There is some creative force that is happening.” 116 It is

worthwhile noting that artists most often mention this aspect

when talking about creating or performing their work.

Evocation

Evocation for us means an intentional movement of the audience

into a specific emotional state. Traditionally in business or science,

there are people that do communication, public relations or

marketing, but this is not yet at the level of evocation that we find

in art. Benjamin Zander, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic

Orchestra, stated in his 2012 Ted Talk: "We have a B (note), and

next to the B is the C. The job of the B is to make the C sad. And

composers know that. If they want sad music, they just play those

two notes.“ He continues, "...of course if the piece is long and you

have had a long day, you might actually drift off. Then your

companion will dig you in the ribs and say, ‘Wake up! it's culture!’

and then you feel even worse! Has it ever occurred to you that the

reason you feel sleepy in classical music is not because of you but

because of us?" The practice of evocation is also very much

developed in theatre and poetry where writers and actors know

exactly how to make an audience laugh--or cry.

116 Interview with Carolyn Schafer, Jewelry Maker and Painter, July 2014.



The aspect of time

When we look at the head, hand and heart of artists, it always

seems as if we are trying to freeze a complex, floating, evolving,

strange matter so that we can get to the bottom of it. Well, first it

will hardly be possible to achieve this. Rather, we can try to find

indicators that we trust well enough to see and try them out in

another context. And secondly, in reality it cannot be frozen. Time

is moving on. Clearly, the idea of emergence, of iteration, of

evolution is another dimension we need to acknowledge, not just

in the process of creating one piece of art, but also when looking

at the development of an artist or an entire art genre over time.

Painter Aris Kalaizis is working only one painting at a time, fully

and exclusively immersing himself into the task. Once done, he

tries to distance himself immediately from what was accomplished,

even to the point where he tries to let the painting leave his

workshop immediately. Then he tries to empty himself to make

room for his next production. While this sounds as if there is no

connection between the two paintings, he realizes at the same

time that he is building on what was done previously, reaching

higher ground. Hence it is a constant attempt to define more

challenging projects: “If it is to be good, you grow with the

pictures. Each painting is finally building on another. This is a chain

from the beginning that ultimately represents all paintings I have

made. I cannot select one painting and say how I did it. This is

actually a senseless act because you ultimately have to consider

the totality to be able to evaluate the individual picture.” 117

He leaves us with an important lesson to consider when looking at

the aspect of time, which is that “the developments are only of a

nuanced nature. That's quite a lot.” 118 This remark is to remind us

that we all tend to overestimate what can be done in the short

117 Interview with Aris Kalaizis, Visual Artist, Painter, Leipzig, July 24, 2014. 118 Ibid.



term but underestimate what can be accomplished in the long

haul. Time is in our favor if used wisely.



The Age of Artist Model revisited - Summary and Outlook

We have already developed a great appreciation for artists of all

genres and the way they approach their individual missions. This is

a mission where work and life cannot be separated from each other

and yet there is room for family, friends, hobbies and even the

most mundane things. At this stage of our journey--approximately

one year into the investigation process and a couple of months in

personal dialogue with artists and thought leaders, we do not feel

our model is nearly complete or ready to be exhibited. Yet we

know it must be brought on stage in order to continue its journey.

We learned that great art is produced when the head, hand, and

heart are in sync and when there is an appreciation for allowing an

evolution over time. We also identified some potential elements that make an artistic attitude (head) which is mandatory, and

identified a variety of action modules (hand) that we interpret as a

toolbox for optional use throughout the artistic process. We

believe there is some emotional component to great art (heart) and

have seen many proof points that there are larger iteration circles

in the life of an artist and art overall that help to develop an

individual art practice or entire art genre over time.



But how does this all fit together with the idea of creating better

outcomes in business and society? We propose implementation of

the Head, Hand and Heart model, supported by an environment

consisting of a different leadership approach and an adjusted way

to work in professional organizations. In essence, two things need

to be connected: the value-based, purpose-built organization and

the individual with an artistic attitude and skill set looking for

meaning in supporting an organization’s purpose. A connection

between the two is an adjusted form of leadership that we call

“studio leadership.” In a society that includes those components as

a standard and not the exception, we can begin to successful ly

address the wicked problems we face.

Il lustration 8: The Age of Artists Model revised



This paper represents our latest findings and current thinking. We

are still at the beginning of our journey and look for more

interested and interesting people to engage with in a fruitful

dialogue to evolve our hypothesis.

Come play with us!