creative – Page 12 – The Consulting Artist

Creative Leadership – Fishing for Ideas

I spent a fascinating morning with an enthusiastic management team last week, workshopping conversations and ideas around improving sharing and communicating. By way of a little context, this team don’t see each other very often. They are spread all over the globe, and although the distances between people, both physical and in time, make getting together a challenge, this point was simply observed by them, not put up as an ‘excuse’.

At one stage in our time together, someone drew a picture on the whiteboard. Now this was a fairly crappy whiteboard, a fairly crappy pen, and without wishing to cause offence, the drawing is unlikely to make it to the Royal Academy any time soon, Summer Exhibition or not. It was a simple sketch of a boat, on a lake, and some fish. The boat represented transition. The lake was huge, so big we couldn’t really see land after we’d sailed a little while, and the fish in the lake, they are the ideas.

A few weeks ago I wrote about Sketchcognition, which is in essence using sketching to figure stuff out. This sketch, hastily scribbled on a whiteboard, has begun the process of fishing for ideas, and we moved from the picture to thinking about people in the boat, about the journey, the distance and the fish, and about how we might catch some of them.

The drawing was copied onto a piece of paper so we have a record of it, and it is in the process of being sent to various points on the globe, along with a few fish, the accompanying ideas. Pencils and paper were passed around to take away before we broke for lunch, and though we didn’t eat fish at the lunch break, the team has the opportunity to sketch plenty more of them now.

This process is simple. Anyone can do it, even all those people I meet who say to me ‘I can’t draw, I’m not an artist’.

In early July I’m launching ‘I’m Not An Artist’ which is a one day exploration combining basic art and drawing techniques. The workshop is all about creating excitement and progress, accelerating and embracing failure in order to succeed, and seeing work through an artistic lens to aid problem solving. We will explore a broad range of techniques designed to help you understand and experience creativity, and importantly, apply them to your work. Watch this space.

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Eventing

Apologies in advance – despite the title, today’s post has nothing to do with horses (oh alright then – you can have a photo). It is in fact, about three events coming up in London soon that I hope will interest you, challenge you and help bring out your creative side. I’m going to all three – hope to see you out and about.

ConnectingHR

ConnectingHR is having its fifth unconference in London on Friday June 21st. This will be the fifth one I’ve attended (don’t worry – I’m not an addict, I could stop if I wanted…..honest), and based on my experiences at the previous four, I’m looking forward to it. I should declare an interest in so far as I’m part of the team helping to organise this one, but don’t panic, I’m not allowed out on my own and I’ve decided this will be the last one I take part in, at least in this capacity. So in future, it’s a delegates life for me. Psssst, do you wanna help organise number six?

Our theme for this unconference is: Brave HR. What does that mean? Beyond an acknowledgement that our approach to work needs to evolve, it’s really up to you. If you would like a little guidance, then why not take a look at this 10 point agenda for change written by Neil Morrison at the start of 2013. Beyond the outline theme the agenda will be driven by you, the attendee, on the day. Tickets and more information are available now for £125.

Development Jam

Following our successful Facilitation Jam in January of this year, here’s another chance to play. This time we’ll be spending a day pitching some new ideas and getting feedback on them. The event is at the NCVO near Kings Cross on Friday 28th June 2013, and we’d like to invite you to join in.

The day will be quite free flowing with no one person responsible for leading the day. Instead we invite you to take turns to prepare and run a session during the event and receive immediate feedback on your ideas from your colleagues. You may be looking to improve on some existing ideas you use – you may want to try something completely new. However you choose to play, it’s up to you. This is being run as a not for profit event, you only pay to cover costs. We estimate the cost will be less than £100 per person, and we require a deposit payment from you now of just £50 to secure your place, with the balance paid on the day. There are only a few spaces available and we hope you will join us for a useful day this Summer.

Property Trading Game

Trainer’s KitBag are running a Property Trading Game open day in London on July 18th. It’s free to attend, and based on the feedback from previous attendees it promises to be a great day out. There aren’t many spaces left so if you fancy a good, challenging day out – don’t hang about.

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Creative Leadership – Memorative Art

My latest trip to the USA was great fun. I met a lot of friends, saw some fantastic sights and did some really interesting work. All these things are memorable, and is there something that really anchored the trip in my mind?

Maybe it was that I happened to be in Chicago at the same time the Art Institute was showing an exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s work? I’m a huge admirer of Picasso. I find his work often moves me to tears, it’s incredibly powerful stuff. Bold, abstract, conventional, unconventional, prolific. The exhibition in Chicago is a remarkable walk through the life of Picasso. You get to see aspects of every kind of art he produced and although the exhibition contains mainly lesser known pieces, its breadth and depth is outstanding. The exhibition also referenced a piece of public art I was previously unaware of.

Picasso donated this untitled sculpture to the city of Chicago in 1967 without ever explaining what the sculpture was intended to represent. I got talking to a woman at the exhibition who told me most people think it represents a horse. She also explained where the statue is located so I headed off to take a look. Checking in at 50 feet tall and weighing over 160 tons, it is huge, quite a sight to behold. You can walk right around it and I did, stopping here to appreciate its beauty from another angle.

It is this image which now evokes memories of all the other interesting and exciting experiences I had in Chicago.

This visual, artistic experience led me to think that often when we endure a presentation – there are lots of words on the screen. This creates a disconnect between the audience, the presenter, and the material as people tend to focus on either the slide or the presenter. Using a handful of words and a few relevant images to support your talk usually creates a much more powerful, memorable encounter. Often people will recall to me a talk I’ve given in the past, and their memory of it will be drawn from one or two pictures and phrases that have stuck firmly in the mind.

I think this has somethnig to do with Memorative Art. This method, which has been around for thousands of years includes ‘the association of emotionally striking memory images within visualized locations, the chaining or association of groups of images, the association of images with schematic graphics or notae (“signs, markings, figures” in Latin), and the association of text with images.’

I already use some of this thinking in my work, and I expect plenty of you do too, even if you weren’t consciously aware of the Memorative Art method. It’s a powerful example of the connection between art and work, and is part of what we can usefully employ when exploring pathways to creativity and collaboration.