The What Goes Around Blog

Cut Out Creativity – Henri Matisse

Excellence doesn’t need to be complicated. Tate Modern are hosting an exhibition of Matisse’s cut outs this year. Would you like to see it with me?

Almost two and a half years ago, I ran a guest blog series on here called Heroes. In all there were a dozen contributions to the series, many of them still get searched for and read, and this one about Mrs Van Gogh is my personal favourite.

The most read post in the series is one about the inspirational artist, Henri Matisse, and it is to him I return today.

Cut Out Creativity

As he aged Matisse became ill and could no longer paint. You could forgive him for calling it a day and sitting back to admire his vast catalogue of work in his twilight years. And you wouldn’t need to.

Confined to his bed, Matisse continued to create great art using cut outs. Some of his most famous and stunning work was created in this final phase of his life.

The cut out works are often very large. The Snail, shown here, is almost three metres square. It’s part of the Tate collection and I think it’s simply beautiful. This tiny image doesn’t begin to do the picture justice. What it shows me is that excellence doesn’t need to be complicated.

Adaptability

I love Matisse’s work. And what I love most of all is his adaptability. I imagine him thinking, ‘Can’t get out of bed to paint anymore? No problem, let’s make cutouts. I can design and cut them and my team can arrange the pieces just so’. Matisse’s drive to adapt in the face of adversity is inspiring, what a creative leader.

What heroics could you and your team achieve with a little of Matisse’s adaptability?

This One’s For You

Tate Modern is running a major exhibition of Matisse’s work this year, starting in April and running through to September. I’m excited about this and intend to visit it often, and here’s where you come in. My membership at Tate is a plus three, so if you would like, we can visit this exhibition together – with you as my guests. Would you like to join me? If you would – please just add a comment to this post, and we will work on the dates later.

HR Tech Europe 2014 – London Spring Warm Up

A preview post for HR Tech Europe – London March 25th 2014

You might not have me down as an HR Tech aficionado, and to some extent you’d be right. I’m much more interested in the human, less so in the resource – and the tech is…well it’s just tech, isn’t it? What I think tech should be, is an enabler for HR people to do the human bit to the very best of their abilities. Tech should be an enabler – instant access to information about an employee so that HR and the line manager can work with and develop that person, in a way that is good for the business and the person. Is that how HR Tech works? I don’t know, and I’m keen to find out.

So, on March 27th I’ll be off to the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre to catch up with the latest news and ideas from the world of HR Tech. There are two perspectives in particular I want to hear about.

First up – I’m keen to hear from Adrian Furnham on this:

HR Technology – Quantifying The Appetite For Social & Technological Change Inside Your Organisation

During his presentation Adrian Furnham will go beyond discussing the well worn how and why of change. He will look at approaches to monitoring, quantifying and managing the appetite for change inside your organisation, and offer insights on how to effect attitudinal change in people and organisations.

I’m keen to hear from Adrian because beyond crystal clear and timely communication, and a chance to be involved on the cocreation of change, I’m not clear enough about how you manage the appetite for it. As for insight on how to affect change, I’m always keen to learn more about that.

I’m also really interested in hearing Neil Lewis from Nationwide, talk about this:

Implementing an HR Systems Transformation to Underpin a People & HRSS Strategy

An HR System Transformation Programme which will deliver an enhanced capability for HR and the business, and support the Group People Strategy. It will modernise and enhance the HR service offering for employees and line managers, whilst also enabling HR to function with greater efficiency and effectiveness. The Programme will provide Nationwide with a HR IT platform capable to meet current and future requirements.

At first I confess I thought a HRSS was something you got driven to your funeral in, but it turns out I was wrong, it is in fact Human Resource Support Services. My error notwithstanding – the reason I am interested in this talk is simply that I am a customer of Nationwide. Me and my family trust this company with some of our hard earned cash, so I am keen to learn about what they are doing to enhance the employee experience, as I believe this has a direct bearing on the customer experience.

There’s loads of other stuff going on through the day too. The full line up is here, and if you are around on the day – I hope to see you there. If you can’t make it – take a look at what’s on and if you’ve any burning questions and thoughts, drop me a comment and I will do my best to get you an answer or cover your point for you at or after the event.

Lonely House

I watched a video tutorial by Matt Forster recently. In it he talks about and demonstrates the technique of wet on wet watercolour.

I found myself in a hotel bedroom last night, having spent the afternoon at the funeral of a dear friend’s father. I’d had a few drinks at the somewhat extended wake and I had Matt’s video in my mind, but I didn’t have any water colour paint with which to practice! Instead – I put water onto a postcard and then sketched over it in pencil. I let the background dry and then added the hill and the house.

The sketch has a little more to it in real life, in places the pencil has built up in layers as I went over and over a few parts, alternating pencil and water. It’s a little something and nothing post wake drunken spurge, and I quite like it.