Beauty and organizations: makeover or new dimension?
By Caroline van der Linden, Program Director at de Baak
Viewers experience art as "beautiful" or "ugly." "Pleasantly ugly" is currently interpreted as beautiful because it clashes and keeps us awake. Viewers have a certain relationship with art, and it gets under their skin: disgust, ecstasy, apathy, a whole spectrum of emotions. "Expensive wallpaper," she comments to her brother, who is gloating over his newly acquired abstract painting. Experiencing beauty is usually very personal. For some, art is filling an empty wall. For others, it is utterly inspiring. Sometimes an aesthetic sensation is experienced in a group, for example, when an orchestra outdoes itself. When everything is in tune, it seems that the music surpasses the ego: in unity, connection, and flow with everything (according to Mathieu Weggeman). Unforgettable, brilliant, unique.
Valuable dimension of the organization
The flow determines beauty. It is a desirable state-of-being, for the individual as well as for the organization. Were everyone to work in harmony like the brilliant orchestra, they would work better, look happier, and there would be less turnover. In short: the organization would be radiant. Good for intrinsic motivation as well as for employee loyalty and external customer satisfaction. So: how can leaders organize the flow and make their organizations more beautiful? After years of focusing on reorganization, outsourcing, efficiency, and shareholder value, the current generation of leaders and entrepreneurs have a need for a more meaningful and valuable motivation to do business. Looking for a more qualitative increase in value for individuals, the company, and society. The conscience has already led many leaders down the path of socially responsible entrepreneurship. Bankers who build houses in Africa or reading books to children in schools in de Bijlmer, one of Amsterdam's less affluent districts. Young executives who spend two weeks working on a business-like approach to organizing development projects in Africa. The effect can be brilliant: more inspired employees, who address new problems in more depth and guarantee intrinsic value increase. A step toward a "brilliant" organization.
If, by definition, art exists by the grace of creating beauty, a bridge between art and organizations would almost seem natural. How can art as a "tool" help leaders create beauty in their organizations?
From excessive decoration to essence
A lot of organizations have art committees that ensure that works of art dress the building and the executive offices. Sometimes, the art contributes to the organization's culture and strategy (it fits). Sometimes, the art is nothing more than window dressing: a makeover (it doesn't fit). There are unfortunately enough shameless examples of consumptive, excessive decoration of people and organizations that enervate rather than contribute to intrinsic beauty. A director of a health-care company had four copies of paintings by Miró hanging in his office. "They were left over. I don't even really like them; I think they're too chaotic." Touching black and white pictures of residents were hanging in the hall, hurried past, unseen. Would other, more meaningful discussions take place if the portraits were hanging in the director's office?
Copies of works of art are also used in coaching and training; a tool that is commonly used to discover a desired leadership style or a new direction for the organization. "I feel confined," says a manager who recognizes himself in an abstract painting. "I'm too restrained and too limited in what I do. I want to diversify my activities, become more creative and if need be, even learn how to be chaotic." He is inspired by a Cobra-like painting. "I may be color-blind, but I can sense the variation, the lack of linear movement, and the intuitive nature." The manager is happy about this new insight: by looking at things differently and using another "language," it is easier for him to say what he wants and where he wants to go.
Give birth to a dancing star
Yellow Fellow (YF), the largest private collection of abstract art in the Netherlands, takes things a step farther. YF's mission is to use abstract art, philosophy and mathematics to inspire leaders today and in the future, and help them "think out of the box, and just do it." Abstract art, be it geometrical or lyrical, teaches you to look at and think about reality differently. Like many abstract artists, who are inspired by nature as reality and capture the essence, core or soul of being they discover in abstract pictorial language. Putting window dressing (facade, makeover) aside and penetrating the intrinsic beauty with your intuition as adviser. Why is this important for leaders? Thinking out of the box really helps innovative companies. Back to the essence in order to advance "… and dare to give birth to a dancing star" (Nietzsche).
Sounds good, but there are a few "buts." The essence is often too vague or described too generally. Literally, we have to develop an appropriate language (in word and image). Another concern is that organizations' quest for beauty will become more of a gimmick (let's hire an artist) than an essential thought and "existential good." The way art is perceived doesn't help either. Through the centuries, art has been either perceived as superfluous or exclusive. It's the last thing you invest in when there's money left or to show what you "own," without a clear perception of what you're getting. Art seems to be getting more commercial and consumptive (superficial) .
Looking for space
What does work? Where does beauty start in organizations? There is a real chance that the essence is no longer visible because of all of the superfluous things we have collected and organized over time. Things that are preventing us from being innovative. So that the daily ballast and patterns make us think more of the same instead of differently and out of the ordinary. It's time for a major cleanup. Get rid of unnecessary ballast! Give away the things you have two or three of. Clean up, until nothing but the essence is left. Keep the things that move you. Experience the organization as a work of art that moves you. Work in a company as in a flow: go for good (beautiful) results with lightness, timelessness and endless passion. How can you set up your organization so that people have the lightness and space to work on the organization's soul? Not lean and mean (efficiency), but empty and spacious (essence). An organization where people of course work hard and efficiently, but that at the core can also be a refuge, an agora where you, temporarily "released" from your duties, can timelessly philosophize and autonomously create. Where the space has been created to intuitively dream about what matters and what it's really about. And also about what no longer is. "Deconstruction results in construction ." First, visibly take things apart and then allow space for the creation of something new and beautiful. Something essential, without superfluousness. Let's have it for the blank canvas ! Hats off to the empty calendar! Who has the courage?