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Creativity works
Marketingweb
30 October 2007
Art and creativity should be used as a role model for business.
Creativity is no longer a word reserved exclusively for artists. The arts discipline is emerging as a role model for business. According to marketing and branding publication Brandweek, "to understand the process of creative genius it is valid for business people to look at the model of the artist. The business of the artist is to create, to navigate opportunity, explore possibility and master creative breakthrough. We need to restore art and the creation of opportunity to business. World-renowned South African sculptor, Dylan Lewis says, “Art and business are similar in that they both involve assumptions-breaking processes to identify and solve problems, and implement fresh solutions that do not follow the status quo. “In a rapidly changing world where tried and tested solutions can no longer be applied to a myriad of new and unforeseen challenges, those at the cutting edge increasingly need to explore and embrace creativity. They need to make it as much their second nature as it is the artist's, if they are to survive,” he says. “Work rises from the soul; and using creative imagination, sculpts our future. Corporations that understand the human spirit’s creative impulse will be tomorrow’s leaders,” says Linda Naiman, co-author of Orchestrating Collaboration at Work. As organisations become increasingly complex, chaotic, and confusing; leaders struggle to find solutions in the rational, logical, and scientific world. In searching for solutions outside the traditional business spheres, vital competencies, which were (up to now), largely ignored by modern organisations are now part of the equation: creative, artistic, imaginative, symphonic and mythic. Naiman says, “Skills that utilise intuition, inspiration and active imagination haven’t found a home within the corporate world. Many employees have equally separated their love of creativity and the arts, and a chasm exists between their right and left brains.” Creating art has an alchemical effect on the imagination. It teaches us to think in symbols, metaphors, and to de-code complexity. It gives us the opportunity to enter a place where everything is possible. She believes with an increased focus on the arts, corporations can overcome many major obstacles, including diversity, cross-group collaboration, and work/life balance. “We need the transformative experiences the arts give us to thrive in a world of change,” says Naiman. “A shared art experience in an environment of trust and freedom enhances our sense of belonging and creates a crucible for deep conversation from which caring, camaraderie and genius-level thinking emerge,” she notes. Naiman calls this process ‘mining group gold’ – rather apt in the South African context. *This is an extract from an article from The GIBS Review, the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science’s newsletter, www.gibsreview.co.za
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 Dylan Lewis,Brandweek,Linda Naiman, Orchestrating Collaboratio, Work.
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