In recent years, there has been a remarkable growth in the use of arts programs bybusinesses to meet a wide range of their organizational learning and employee trainingneeds. In the USA alone, dozens of Fortune 500 corporations and countless smallerfirms employ arts-based learning to foster creative thinking, promote the development ofnew leadership models, and strengthen employee skills in critical areas such ascollaboration, conflict resolution, change management, presentation/public performance,and intercultural communication.We therefore believe that the time is right for a journal to dedicate a full issue to the strategicimplications and practical dimensions of arts-based learning in business.Recent surveys consistently identify imagination, inspiration, inventiveness, improvisationalability, collaborative and inter-cultural skills, spontaneity, adaptability, and presentation asamong the most sought-after attributes of business leadership. These qualities arefrequently summed up in a single word β creativity. Clearly, artists have profound insightsinto creativity, gained from years of hands-on experience, backed by specialized trainingand fostered by carefully honed skills. Their knowledge represents a formidable resource,waiting to be tapped by companies in search of creative solutions and managers striving toenable, empower and engage their employeesβ imaginative and inventive powers.The growing use of arts-based learning reflects a dramatic shift in the boundaries thatpreviously defined the limits of experience deemed relevant to the business world β a shifttriggered by profound technological and social changes that transformed the culture ofbusiness over the past decade by favoring companies inventive enough to find their ownways forward, flexible enough to respond quickly (and competently) to the unexpected, andspontaneous enough to lead change effectively.This issue features separate interviews with three corporate leaders who have concluded,from their own direct experience, that there are valuable business lessons to be learned fromthe insights and skills of artists: Harold G. (Terry) McGraw, Chairman and CEO of TheMcGraw-Hill Companies; George Stalk, Senior Vice President of The Boston ConsultingGroup, Inc.; and James Hill, Vice-President (Home and Personal Care, Western Europe) ofUnilever. We have also included an interview with two leaders who have spent yearsintegrating arts-based learning into corporations, Harvey Seifter and Tim Stockil, to give ourreaders insight into the design, implementation, and impact of a broad range of theseprograms.We then move on to a more specific exploration of arts-based learning in action. MaxwellAnderson takes the reader into the art world for an investigation of visual literacy and aQuality Instinct, explaining how both can benefit businesses. Michael Gold and SteveHirshfeld break jazz improvisation into five behaviors β passion, autonomy, listening, riskand innovation β that are also crucial to businesspeople, and explain how jazz cancontribute to their development in business. Richard Stock and John Osburn explain howthey use techniques drawn from dance, theater, and music to quantifiably improve theperformance of engineering students. Robert Steed explains how, over the past 17 years, hehas developed theatrical replicas of internal business situations to help leaders understandtheir behavior.Finally, we have a series of articles to help put learning-oriented arts-business partnershipsin a broader context. In a brief article, Lotte DarsΓΈ summarizes the profusion of worldwideopportunities for learning about arts-business relationships. Kevin Daum, a successfulentrepreneur with a theatrical background, explores the value of arts-based learning forentrepreneurs through case studies of individuals who adapted their careers in different artsto start successful businesses in seemingly unrelated fields. Michael Spencer explores whatbusiness and the arts need to understand about each other before business brings in artists. Following the articles is an annotated bibliography. We sought contributions from expertscurrently working in this area. They recommend the books and articles that have beenespecially worthwhile to them, and explain why.We deeply thank the Journal of Business Strategy and its editor, Nanci Healy, for inviting usto produce this special issue. We also thank the Arts & Business Council of Americans for theArts and its Executive Director Gary Steuer, who have provided invaluable support to ourefforts. We hope many of the readers will be sufficiently inspired and intrigued by what theyread to follow up with direct contacts with some of our authors.Harvey Seifter and Ted BuswickJune, 2005Harvey Seifter is the founder and director of Creativity Connection, a program of the Arts &Business Council of Americans for the Arts; President of Seifter Associates, an internationalconsulting firm; and Executive & Artistic Director of Flushing Town Hall, a center for the visualand performing arts. He has led major arts organizations, including Orpheus ChamberOrchestra and the Magic Theatre, and is the author of Leadership Ensemble: Lessons inCollaborative Management from the Worldβs Only Conductorless Orchestra. E-mail:[email protected] Buswick is Director of Publications for The Strategy Institute of The Boston ConsultingGroup. Academically, while teaching from high school through graduate school, heprepared to be a K-12 arts administrator before going into business. He has practicalexperience in the arts as a theatre director, actor, singer, playwright, and poet. He is theco-author of Thinking Beyond the Facts, a book about poetry and business, and Slate Art:The Essential Guide (both forthcoming). E-mail: [email protected] Previously published in: Journal of Business Strategy, Volume 26, Number 5, 2005
