Arts-Based Learning: A Real Solution for Business and Organizational Success in A Challenging World
Today’s world demands that we think in new ways. More than ever, we live in an environment that requires creativity and innovation. If you are to succeed, you must have the ability to use big picture thinking in your work and daily lives. And, when you’re a leader, you must have the ability to think in ways that take full advantage of the breadth and depth of the experience and knowledge held by all employees.
I believe approaching big picture thinking from an arts-based learning perspective is invaluable. Arts-based learning helps both employers and employees shift away from the unpredictability in the world and from situations where things get bogged down. It provides an opportunity for everyone to step back and look at things from a different perspective without the emotional attachment to everyday challenges. Arts-based learning comes from the experiences and processes artists use to create their art, whether music, visual art, drama, or dance. With arts-based training, you can learn to see more clearly into the depths of things. You’re more able to see the little things and the bigger picture simultaneously. It’ opens your mind to more possibilities. The benefits for organizational or business performance are numerous.
I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities . ~ Whoopi Goldberg
Even amid struggles, the artistic process helps you learn to generate momentum, and change direction and keep moving. The work of Simon Beck is a great example of this process. He creates massive snow designs by walking around in snowshoes, and sometimes he works a ten-hour day carefully creating a masterpiece. He creates detailed patterns that have different effects as the light changes throughout the day. At the end of the day, he climbs up to the highest point to take a picture before it’s destroyed by nature. His work is sometimes completely gone within an hour or two.
You can see the big picture/detail aspects of his work in this article: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31741611
When you commit yourself to using your imagination and expand your own understanding of things, you can transform your own experiences. At the same time, you influence new possibilities for everyone around you.
Every block of a stone has the statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. ~ Michelangelo
Patricia Hoy