Understanding Arts-Based Methods in Managerial Development

Localism, Narrative and Myth

“…This seemed to us to support Taylor & Ladkin"s (2009) argument that arts-based methods can enable those involved to apprehend the "essence" of a concept, situation, or tacit knowledge in a particular way, revealing depths and connections that more propositional and linear developmental orientations cannot.…”

Leadership Formation: Interpreting Experience

“…For example, Ciulla (2008) has argued that these disciplines complement the social sciences by providing richer articulations of the situated, cultural, human condition that leadership addresses. Similarly, Taylor & Ladkin (2009) found that interpretive engagement with (great) art was useful in leadership development. They describe how developing an interpretive capability also gave leaders an expressive capability; both capabilities being based on a depth of understanding that is built up through engagement with powerful representations of experience.…”

“…It takes time to develop the capacity for reflective engagement with experience, as well as a breadth of engagement beyond narrow confines (Reichard & Johnson, 2011;Sutherland, 2013;Taylor & Ladkin, 2009). When processes of formation are extended over time and incorporate the arts and humanities, leaders are able to engage with each new experience more reflectively and thoughtfully (Cunliffe, 2009) because of their reflexive capacity for self-expression and character development (Irving & Klenke, 2004).…”

Artistic interventions in organizations: beyond the fad

“…A third distinguishing feature of artists is that they work with art-based practices and media that engage emotional and aesthetic ways of knowing (Taylor and Ladkin 2009;Strati 2010;Johansson 2012). For their part, consultants frequently bring new models and tools to organizations, but the format tends to be similar to those that managers have seen before in their training or in previous consulting projects.…”

“…Given the diversity of forms that artistic interventions take, I define them broadly as 'when people, products or practices from the world of the arts enter the world of organizations' with a more or less clearly defined learning orientation (Berthoin Antal 2009, p. 4). The body of literature about learning with and from the arts has grown rapidly over the past decade (for example, Boyle and Ottensmeyer 2005;Brellochs and Schrat 2005;Seifter and Buswick 2005;Taylor and Ladkin 2009;Anderson et al 2011;Biehl-Missal 2011;Schiuma 2011;. When even the business weekly, the Economist, announced in 2011 that 'business has much to learn from the arts,' I began to wonder whether it meant that another short-loved, short-lived management fad would soon be replaced by a different exotic idea.…”