Special to the Wall Street Journal
July 21, 2000
Lucy Harris needed to shift the office dynamic - and fast. Her team of recruiters at the British Ministry of Defence showed signs of hostility and stress, she says, wearied by a string of staff departures. One thing was clear, the darkening mood didn't aid them in recruiting scientists and engineers for the agency.
The serious problem got a quirky solution. She invited a band of improvisational comedians called On Your Feet into one of the ministry's secret sites in Bath. For a day, Ms. Harris and her team cavorted, playing improvisational games, including one in which groups of three people take turns imitating a bunny rabbit.
"The doors to our room were made of glass and people passing by could see inside, eleven people clapping and laughing and jumping" chuckles Ms. Harris. "Not what normally goes on in MOD conference rooms."
Perhaps not, but the stunts were effective in this case. "The mood changed afterwards" says Ms. Harris. "People were smiling and laughing rather than being fearful and grim."
It's not just the military types doing the bunny hop. In fact, if you work for Volkswagen AG's Audi, France Telecom SA's Orange, Alliance & Leicester PLC, Saatchi & Saatchi or others, you may be asked to pretend to be a chicken or a doormat or to act like Elizabeth I in front of colleagues.
Comic improvisation if one of the many methods inspired by the arts that are finding favor with European business managers. Music, painting and theater are infiltrating boardrooms and conference facilities. In the United Kingdom, the number of companies using art-based training on a regular basis has risen to about 200 companies now from just 10 two years ago, says Tim Stockil, head of the Association for Business Sponsorship of the Art. In Denmark, a theater company called Teatret da Capo, which stages dramas about strategic dilemmas and problems is extremely popular with business clients.
In one sense, there's nothing new about the phenomenon. Managers have long made use of "away days" to improve staff morale. Outward Bound courses, mountain climbing and paintball, for instance, fall into a similar category. These days, though, proponents of arts-based training have a new claim: Not only are the activities diverting they say, but they're directly relevant to management needs in the global New Economy.
"Theatrical performance has been doing forever what business are increasingly having to do now," says Mark Trezona, an ex-actor and founder of Bridge Builders, a consultancy that helps companies use theater-based techniques. "They have to use temporary teams made up of complete strangers, light leadership and few resources and still create a slick production". The arts, he adds, have adds, have always been about creating something unique, an enviable talent for businesses that need to fend off cheap "me too" rivals in today's competitive marketplace.
According to Mr. Stockil, two kinds of companies tend to use arts-based learning techniques. First there's the already adventurous organization that's well accustomed to thinking outside the box; think of say, The Body Shop PLC or advertising agencies. Then there's the opposite extreme: long-established, traditional firms like cement maker Blue Circle PLC or financial-services group Halifax PLC. "These companies have historically been among the least creative, but now they're waking up to the fact that they'll get left behind if they don't think up new products, "says Mr. Stockil.
DP Mann, a Lloyd's insurer and reinsurer owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., is a strong believer in off-the-wall experiences. In the last few years, the company has made use of drumming, storytelling, theater and painting to develop strategies and think about capital investment.
Another objective, says Angie Saunders, head of human resources at DP Mann, is to ensure that no culture gap is allowed to open between the business-winning and support departments. Everyone in the company does the course, regardless of department of rank. "Our clients and brokers ask us "Why do you go off and do all these things?" says Ms. Saunders. "But when our people come back and resume their jobs they're full of energy and enthusiasm."
Most arts based training is simply about helping people work together. The areas where On Your Feet most helps employees, according to founders Gary Hirsch and Robert Poynton, are communication, relationships and creativity. Improvisation works, Mr. Hirsch says only when people accept and build on each other's ideas rather then blocking them for reasons of competitiveness, insecurity or egotism.
If you choose a course run by John Holden, an ex-banker with Daiwa Europe Bank, what you create literally comes back to work in the form of a large watercolor painting. Mr. Holden charges 2,000 pounds ($2,994) a day for his solo work with up to 20 people on a single painting. Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group's Winterthur Life U.K. are among his clients. For Deutsche Bank, Mr. Holden presided over the artistic efforts of some of the company's global information-technology team,united for the first time from all over the world. "The visual is a common language,"he says. "It's particularly good for cross-cultural and geographically dispersed teams."
So much for the theory: Does it work? One of the criticisms of art-based courses is that while they're great fun on the day,the lessons learned can be easily forgotten when everyone returns to their work routine. In addition, concedes Mr. Hirsch, sometime its difficult to see obvious results. On Your Feet costs between $8,000 and $12,000 for up to 25 people for a day. "A company could say about us "its all a load of fun and hoopla but it doesn't make us any money," "he says.
"At first I thought it was airy fairy, actory lovey stuff" says Nick Smith, a communications and brand manager at Alliance & Leicester who organized three On Your Feet courses for the company's employees. " We had to pretend in groups to be machines, a happiness machine and a chicken machine. I was the cockerel." In the end, according to Mr. Smith, the machines worked: one individual in particular underwent a transformation. "He used to be one of those people who always does stuff they shouldn't and don't tell you about it. Now he's a paragon of shared effort."
At Saatchi & Saatchi in London, Stefano Tiratelli brought in On Your Feet when he became the head of a new 400-strong account-handling team. "I wanted us to share and experience that we'd never had before so that everyone would feel equally vulnerable" says Mr. Tiratelli. Since then, many of the lessons have endured and some of Mr. Hirsch's techniques have been adopted in Saatchi & Saatchi's in-house training, Mr. Tiratelli says.
But even stalwart supporters off arts-based techniques know that some of them are a waste of time. Marijke Broekhuijsen, an executive management-program director at the private Universiteit Nyenrode in the Netherlands has worked in the past with Royal/Dutch Shell Group on a theater project exploring leadership dilemmas; she cautions managers not to be fooled by artists, many of whom don't really know anything about business. "Making music in a big hall, saying 'this is being in harmony, this is how we should work together, "says Ms. Broekhuijsen "that's too easy"