It has become an erroneous but commonly held belief that the values and practices of ‘arts’ and ‘business’ are incompatible. An entrepreneur such as Sir Richard Branson surely knows there is a correlation between his commercial success and his willingness to embrace creativity and risk-taking, and who would have known about The Beatles’ creative expression were it not for Brian Epstein’s business acumen? A new breed of management consultant has emerged to liaise between arts and business, to facilitate a ‘new’ era of co-operation and appreciation between arts and business and undoubtedly to profit from their inability to figure this relationship out for themselves.
It was announced recently that Jodi Myers, Director of Performing Arts at London’s South Bank Centre for the past 9 years, is to join Cardiff based management and development consultants TMPL as an Associate. TMPL’s consultancy services have been employed in the fire service, government and local authorities but it is their rapidly increasing commitment to organisational development programmes for UK Arts companies that Ms Myers will be bringing her skills to bear upon. Jodi Myers has achieved worldwide recognition and plaudits for her work at SBC and has seen the highest attendance figures for ten years during her tenure there.
TMPL’s credentials in the field of consultancy for public and not for profit arts organisations are excellent. In 2003, they were appointed to deliver the programme for Action and Learning in the Arts 2, (ALITA2), a 2-year programme funded by Arts Council England, West Midlands to develop arts organisations in the region.
‘The programme offers group members an opportunity to review the way in which their organisation works, compare experiences with others, share expertise, develop plans for organisational development and change and help create a mutually supportive community of interest in the arts sector.’ (A+M T news archive)
The efficacy of such programmes is recognised and welcomed by arts organisations that have been fortunate enough to receive similar training:
‘Arts organisations and events don’t exist in isolation. Advanced business management practises are needed to provide the artists with the environment within which they can realise their artistic potential. It is this partnership between artistic excellence and business excellence which is fundamental to the running of an arts organisation,’ – Jerome Hynes. Chief Exec. Wexford Festival Opera.
TMPL’s success is indicative of a growing trend for the intervention of management consultants in fostering partnerships between business and the arts. The ‘advanced business management practises’ are increasingly being learnt by arts organisations through programmes like ALITA2 and others. The kinds of skills and professional development being delivered are: marketing, programme selection, how to get sponsorship as well as financial and business planning.
Training is delivered by online learning, group workshops, conferences and in some cases one to one mentoring by a senior level, non-arts business person. One example of how this worked in practice was Barnsley Council’s ‘Corridor Arts’. They were offered the opportunity to become an independent organisation, subject to them demonstrating a satisfactory financial plan and management structure. Through A&B Network, Corridor Arts was introduced to Richard Wakefield, Managing Director of Kusala, an IT and software development company. Richard brought practical and pragmatic advice to help address the various complex issues and developed new financial systems appropriate to a new limited company. He also provided guidance on costing and charging systems and assisted Corridor’s director, Nick Howdle in formulating a new budgetary structure and cash forecasting system.
It is not only business that has something worthwhile to teach to the arts. A&B Network is a keen and vociferous advocate of the ‘mutual’ benefits to be gained from arts and business partnerships. It is one of the largest and most successful creative networks in the UK and internationally; funded by central government its aim is to cultivate long-term partnerships between business and the arts.
In October 2004, following extensive research they produced a paper titled: Art Works. Why Business needs the Arts, which examines the ways in which arts-based training is used to generate culture change, promote creativity and increase a workforce’s much prized and so called ‘discretionary commitment’, (a willingness to perform over and above contractual requirements). Much evidence exists supporting the value of arts practitioners in developing the ‘soft’ skills within an organisation; personnel-based training programmes, personal and team development, presentation skills and use of role-play. These methods are used increasingly but they are still regarded as being a bit risky and are used mainly on a one-off basis.
The A&B research paper identifies an important ‘X-factor’ in the success of an arts-business partnership as being the differences in value systems between the arts and business. Arts practitioners are readily accustomed to working in an honest, transparent manner, their willingness to embrace experimentation and improvisation is vital to drive forward their creativity. Businesses may claim to support these values but often, (amazingly) function adequately without actually using them, whereas, ‘artists believe that they form an irreducible part of their lives as artists’ (Art Works). In addition, the methods used by a good arts-based practitioner allow for a meaningful exchange of ideas, (perhaps through ‘forum theatre’ or ‘role play’) and a safe but necessary exploration of emotions that business usually ignores.
’…arts-based interventions demand responses and real engagement from individuals and teams – neutrality is rarely an option, which makes them more memorable and penetrating than more traditional learning and development techniques…[they] are good at triggering deeper reflections that drive behavioural change for the individual and cultural change for the organisation.’ (Art Works)
One company, Lever Fabergé, was brave enough to identify, ‘the need to provoke a change in culture to encourage creativity and risk taking inside the business’ (Art Works) and 4 years ago implemented, Catalyst, a long-term ongoing arts project. Catalyst is the largest corporate arts project in the UK, and its success is due in no small part to having a fixed budget and to the presence of a full time creative director, Alistair Creamer. The project is a multi-stranded programme of activities dedicated to addressing pertinent business issues as they arise as well as sticking to the initial brief of motivating employees to take business risks and generating creativity and business success. Very briefly, they have used poets to teach employees how to write more effectively, Map Theatre Company to teach how to give and receive feedback to effect positive change and a professional photographer to develop visual awareness.
Catalyst is unique in its scale and longevity; they report clear business benefits from the programme and it receives full support from the senior management team. Unfortunately UK businesses are likely to be slow to embrace arts-based training interventions to the extent of Lever Fabergé because of the perceived risk and the lack of understanding about what can be achieved.
’…a business has to be prepared to be genuinely enquiring to the point of being open about its vulnerability. It needs to be open-minded about admitting that it is not getting things right. This necessitates senior leaders taking a public risk.’ (Art Works)
The benefits of arts-business partnerships may be obvious once you look closely enough. Employees in all spheres of work should be able to enjoy their work through motivation and engagement in ways that are familiar to artists. Artists and arts organisations should be conversant with hard business skills to enable their creativity to be fully realised. t seems that, for now, the two worlds require further assistance in finding each other and in learning from each other and so the likes of management consultants TMPL and A&B Network will continue their work in advocating and lobbying for more funding and a better understanding of the value of arts-business partnerships. The enlightened will go on striving for collaboration and sharing between the arts and business for mutually beneficial ends and a vibrant, creative economy all round.
For sources and further information please see:
www.aandb.org.uk (Arts & Business Network)
www.tmpl-online.co.uk (TMPL)
www.amtcc.org.uk (Arts + Media Training)
www.business2arts.ie (Business2Arts)
www.artsbusinessconsultancy.co.uk (Arts Business Consultancy)
www.tim-rawlins.co.uk (Tim Rawlins Associates)
