This book explores and demonstrates the transformative learning
experiences that organizations and their leaders can derive from the
arts. It is through the arts that we have always explored our humanity:
through dance and music; art and sculpture; theatre and poetry. The arts
allow us to explore our own selves and our relationship to others and to
the world around us. This central role of the arts is commonly accepted
in everyday life, but the implications of this are not typically
extended to the world of business.The authors argue strongly that, to
the contrary, the methodologies and approaches that are fundamental to
performing artists of all kinds can provide exactly the kind of
inspirational, people-centered and performance-related techniques that
are missing from much of the typically mechanistic, systems-based and
process-driven training and development of managers and executives.
Technical proficiency and expertise are not enough to deliver an
award-winning result; what enables a truly outstanding performance is
the elusive but entirely recognizable element of artistry--the spark
that transforms a technically good performance into something
extraordinary.