Work as Art

Anyone interested in organization culture will attest to the many ways this term is defined and discussed. It can be quite overwhelming. Some useful theories and frameworks certainly exist but knowing how to apply this wisdom is an art, an experiment and an alchemy – a very skillful practice.

In my own work I have come to fully embrace the idea of the art of organization culture. In fact, I firmly believe that art provides a unique opportunity to understand and influence the experience of work. Art provides a channel to connect to people’s intuition and help them express themselves in ways that often don’t emerge from surveys or direct inquiry. Art can be leveraged as a metaphor to inspire, a catalyst for deeper reflection, an intentionally crafted artifact imbued with organization meaning, and as a way to see and understand your colleagues more fully. I believe art can unlock hidden potential in your organization.

I would like to use this medium to offer some thoughts on this emergent and powerful practice. This is the first part of a blog series exploring the usefulness of art at work as well as seeing work as art. I hope you find something in them to inspire your own practice.

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An introduction

Several years ago, my friend Jack confessed to me that he doesn’t like going to art museums. This he said while we were in a contemporary art museum in Toronto. This did not come as a surprise as Jack seemed harried, while I wanted to linger in each gallery space.

Finding ourselves in front of a large abstract painting, Jack shared that he just did not get art, and particularly modern art. He continued and I listened with curiosity. Jack confessed that he felt stupid in art museums. He assumed there was something he was supposed to see or a point he supposed to “get” and, unfortunately, he felt he never got it and failed every time. Art simply made no sense to him and that left him feeling quite inadequate.

Intrigued, I decided to try an experiment. I asked Jack what he thought of the painting before us. He went blank. I asked him what he noticed about the piece? What stood out to him? How did the piece make him feel? He had intelligent responses to all of these questions. His responses even surprised him. He did “get” it after all, in his unique and own way.

Mind you, I did not love the piece we were looking at but could appreciate it. For me, that is what art is all about. It’s a story, an expression, an experiment. Sometimes the artists themselves are not entirely sure what a piece is. Art sometimes just comes through the artist and I love hearing or imagining their creative process, untied to any goal or end state.

For me, that is what art is all about. It’s a story, an expression, an experiment.

Provoked by our conversation, I shared with Jack how I take in art in a museum:

• I like to walk slowly and linger in front of pieces, with the intention to observe, be open and curious.
• I take in my first impression and then wait for second and third one to surface in me.
• I stand back from large pieces and then get close and examine its details, noting the materials used, the brush strokes, colors, layers, layout, and techniques.
• I consult my senses – What do I see? What do I notice? What stands out to me? What does the piece make me think about? What memories are conjured up? How does the piece make me feel?
• I like to read the informational placard next the piece to learn about the artist, the name of the piece, the date of its making, and materials used. If the piece is part of an exhibit, I love reading the curator’s commentary. I want to understand the story of the collection, their interpretation, and what inspired them to pull these particular pieces together.
• These same placards are often written in a cultural rhetoric that I find both amusing and annoying. Sometimes a curator’s notes are inspired and help me understand something deeper about the artist or the work. Sometimes it sounds like art-speak gobbledygook.

In this way I can spend hours in a museum, often to the dismay of my partner or friends. I find that, in the end, art is about curiosity. It is not about liking or disliking a piece or an exhibit. It is not about there being some singular point to understand. It is about what gets provoked and what I can learn. Even art that I don’t “get” usually has a lesson for me and I am always grateful.

James Pawelski , the Director of Education for the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, has developed a similar exercise for his students to experience the power of art. He takes his students to the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, home to some of the most important post-impressionist and early modern paintings and asks them to choose one that they like and spend 20 minutes in front of it. In today’s fast-moving world, twenty minutes is a long time! “But what happens, of course, is you actually begin to be able to see what you’re looking at” Pawelski says. “If you do choose to slow down — to find a piece of art that speaks to you and observe it for minutes rather than seconds — you are more likely to connect with the art, the person with whom you’re touring the galleries, maybe even yourself.” I would love to be one of Pawelski's students!

Pawelski’s experiment reminds me of organizational life, the human experience embedded in workplace culture, and how art can reveal something about the practice of being human at work.

Art can reveal something about the practice of being human at work.

My work centers around organization culture, with a particular focus on the positive practices that create a thriving employee experience. When I am invited into an organization, I find myself curious about it, as if it were a curated art exhibit. I use a line of inquiry similar to Pawelski's, and for me this creates a picture of an organization as if it were a work of art.

• I linger, observe, and attempt to be open to everything I see.
• I look for the details - the large and the small brush strokes, the visible and the subtle, the variety, and the uniqueness.
• I ask myself - What do I notice? What stands out to me? What does this place make me think about? How does the place make me feel?
• I take in artifacts to understand how this place been curated and what its story is.

Considering organizations in this way, opens up a very different way to think about organization culture and the experience of a workplace. In this kind of inquiry organizations become works of art themselves, a metaphor that embodies all the things that make up culture and community -- layered, complex, sometimes realistic/sometimes abstract/sometimes just an impressing, using different materials, etc. Like art, work is something to behold, discover and discern.

The following posts present various examples of the ways I have used art to understand and enliven an organization – leveraging art as a metaphor, a catalyst, an intentional artifact, and an opportunity to see your workplace and colleagues in new ways, through art.