Applying perspectives from the arts as a route to gaining insights into management problem solving

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Applying perspectives from the arts as a route to
gaining insights into management problem solving

• Clive Holtham, Joseph Lampel, David Sims Cass
  Business School, City of London Allan Owens,
  University of Chester

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The Business Mystery MBA Elective Features

• Arts as a lens or perspective on management
• Redress lack of right brain emphasis
• Learning without teaching
• Lecturers as students

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Rubric

• This elective is not suitable for all students
  of management. It is not for students who expect
  managerial menus, best practices, or check listed
  deliverables. It is for students who are
  comfortable with ambiguity, who are attracted to
  uncertainties rather than certainties. Students
  are active co-producers of original knowledge,
  rather than recipients of pre-packaged knowledge.

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2005 topics
2006 topics

• Business as art
• Business as play
• Business as story
• Business as theatre
• Business as war

• Science
• Improvisation
• Flow
• Icons
• Performance

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• Week 1 Science
• Hunterian Museum led by Poet/Writer Angela Dove
• Week 2 Improvisation
• Workshop led by Comedy Store Player Neil
  Mullarkey (late of Austin Powers)
• Week 3 Flow
• David Sims 4 readings on Flow, Synchonicity,
  Dialogue, Presence
• Go out into London to find them
• Come back and perform your conclusions
• Week 4 Icons
• Led by Joe Lampel, using the design and
  subjectivities of Movie Posters as the starting
  point
• Week 5 Performance
• At Cass, led by Theatre Academic Allan Owens,
  with a focus on managing underperformance
• Exhibition_at_Cass 30th June
• Summative of the whole course

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Business Mystery implications

• Quality system still able to cope with the highly
  innovative
• Crucible of innovation taking events into next
  years core
• Already good external publicity (Financial Times,
  Times)
• Prepare for cynical external critics

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Assessment 06

• CW1 Describe experience in one week as critic
  supporter reporter response to FT
• CW2 Keep a continuous sketchbook of your
  learnings
• CW3 Produce summative personal narrative about
  the mystery as a whole
• Oral exam questioning on the whole of the
  material covered in the course, relating to a
  theme identified by student
• NB any media accepted for CW1-CW3

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Topick1

• Management science is no more advanced today
  than medical science was in 1793.
• Work in pairs (or 3). Use index card to put
  summary in 2 sentences large font will display
  on counter. Sketch make notes as you go.
• Option 1 Examine some broad evolution of medical
  science up to and after 1793
• Option 2 Look for the very specific
• Spend 20 minutes approximately just quickly
  getting your bearings round every room but on the
  lookout for good ideas. Then spend another 20
  minutes to narrow and write up your card that
  illustrates the evolution before and after 1793.
  Put your names on the card.
• We then will reassemble for exhibition of the
  cards on the counter, then quick oral debrief

Week 1
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Week 3 B.G. Lloyd and George
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What it has led to

• Arts and Management Conference, Krakow
• EURAM Arts Management Track
• Membership, AACORN Network
• Artful Inquiry, Univ of Toronto

• Paper on theatre as a route to extra-rationality
  in knowledge OLKC
• Analogue Digital Draft Paper
• Sketchbook Draft Paper

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Could do better

• Continue to explore London as a teaching aid
• Address music, crafts, poetry etc
• Work with School of Arts
• Promote within City
• More Cass faculty
• The MBA has a brainwe need to propose it has a
  heart as well