Collaborative Innovation: Exploring the Intersections among Theater, Art and Business in the Classroom
“Business, Innovation and Art” Special Series Issue #8
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By Sara Beckman, Stacy Jo Scott and Lisa Wymore *
Published in Special Issue “Business, Open Innovation and Art” for MDPI Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market and Complexity, October 2018
ABSTRACT:
There is a long history of conversations about integrating business and arts-based learning, but they are taking on more urgency today as technology-induced change and global interconnectivity are altering how humans learn, create, and construct new knowledge in unprecedented ways. However, there is much still to be learned about how the disciplines might be integrated and in what ways they can jointly serve the development not only of university students, but of how professional practice itself is defined. Over the past three years, faculty from the Theater and Dance Performance Studies, Art Practice, and Business disciplines at UC Berkeley have collaborated to create a course, Collaborative Innovation, that explores both collaboration and innovation at the intersection of these three fields. This paper presents a framework for a genuinely integrated interdisciplinary class that interweaves personal development and growth with problem framing and solving skills, and diverse-team participation and leadership. Quotes from student reflection papers bring alive the transformational experiences students went through in this course. The integration of socially engaged art, business, and theater/performance through collaborative teamwork tackling important and challenging social problems opens unexpected potential for student development as future contributors to society.
EXCERPTS:
Introduction
“‘To drop the tools of rationality is to gain access to lightness in the form of intuitions, feelings, stories, improvisation, experience, imagination, active listening, awareness in the moment, novel words, and empathy. All of these nonlogical activities enable people to solve problems and enact their potential’[…].”
“Today, driven to define entirely new experiences for and with customers and users, companies are increasingly looking to the arts and artistic processes for the “anticipatory creativity” needed to design those new futures […]. Embedding liberal arts content in business courses enables students to find informed solutions that are both technically superior as well as critically and ethically evaluated […]. In addition to designing creative new futures, leveraging liberal arts content positions students for the flexible, increasingly global, and diverse workplaces of the future […], and to be part of redesigning the future workplace and thus their own work experiences […]. Literacy in the arts can prepare students to work collaboratively within a collected intelligence, participate in social networks, negotiate cultural differences, critique existing paradigms, and navigate contradictory data […].”
“From a skills perspective, business increasingly requires intuitive and qualitative thinking, communication and presentation skills, team building and problem solving, and the ability to understand undefined outcomes while allowing for failure and risk taking. The arts can help business students develop needed imagination, critical discourse, spatial thinking and abstract reasoning, and active listening and observation skills […]. Learning from the arts prepared information technology professionals, for example, to better interpret complex, ambiguous situations, interact with experts from other fields, and constructively evaluate their own work and the work of others. These skills are seen as a complement to the more rational, scientific models that otherwise inform IT education […] and management practice more generally […].”
Collaborative Innovation Course: Background and Frameworks
Innovation Cycle
“The first framework now used in Collaborative Innovation [… ]integrates experiential learning theory […] and design […] to depict innovation as a learning process […]. In learning, as individuals or as teams, we toggle between being present in the concrete world (concrete experience) and being in our heads (abstract conceptualization). We further toggle between reflective observation, or analysis work, and active experimentation, or synthesis work […]. The four quadrants formed by this learning framework highlight the four core categories of mindsets, skillsets and toolsets associated with design or innovation (and more broadly with problem framing and solving).”
Inner, Other, Outer
“The second framework the course faculty found useful in integrating the three disciplines identifies three modes of attention employed by successful leaders: inner, other and outer focus [38 ]. Inner focus entails paying careful attention to internal physiological signals that inform understanding of the self and employing cognitive control which permits pursuing goals despite setbacks and distractions. Other focus develops cognitive and emotional empathy for others and social sensitivity to identify what others need. Outer focus drives exploration of the broader system in which one works, often facilitating discovery of unexpected connections.”
“Applying the innovation cycle to development of inner focus allowed students to observe themselves, reframe mental models they held about themselves, imagine new ways of being, and then test those new ways on others. An other-focused innovation cycle maps best to human-centered design (or what is popularly called design thinking today) in which others, such as customers or users, are observed, insights are garnered to frame an opportunity to help those others, solutions are imagined and then prototypes are built to test the ideas. Outer-focused innovation leverages an understanding of complex systems and institutions often providing context for design for inner and other.”
“As they move through the materials, they observe and notice themselves, frame and reframe where they see their fit in the world, imagine new ways of positioning themselves and experiment, often during in-class presentations, with those new positions.”
Student Reflections on Learning from Course
“The results of that analysis are captured in the following three sections highlighting the themes identified in the coding: (1) internalizing inner–other–outer; (2) teaming at the heart; and (3) transformation through iteration. They reflect an overall sense that the students learned to toggle between their personal and team explorations as they iterated through the six team-based applications of the innovation cycle. They fluidly moved among inner and other in each of the phases, developing and then pursuing a shared passion to make a difference in the outer world.”
“Innovation means the unique and creative process that occurs when converging mindsets and experiences from all different fields of study to solve the wicked problems of the world’.”
“‘Leadership relies on three very different types of courage: the courage to see reality as it actually is, and not as others would have us see it; the courage to envision previously unimagined and unimaginable possibilities; and the courage to inspire others to bring possibility back to reality’ […].”
“ ‘. . . innovation . . . means bringing purpose to my identity, as well as thinking fearlessly with others who are similarly fearless’.”
“‘Innovation: The process of puzzling together one’s personal background, true passions, excitement, and belief in a greater world while working with others to create something unique’.”
“‘The more of my inner [that] is visible the more others are willing to share about their inner’.”
“‘The dialogue between my own body and the world around me was surprisingly also very artistic. . . . Collaborative Innovation has taught me to redefine creative expression and to learn from the outside world’.”
“‘Because I am mainly a dancer, choreographer and performer, I was afraid that I wouldn’t have much to offer since the class didn’t necessarily revolve around dancing. However, I discovered that the creativity and innovation that I put into dance could also be incorporated to so many other aspects of group projects . . .’.”
“‘… It felt like . . . we were more than a class . . . we were an experience living itself’.”
“‘I learned what it means to be open and vulnerable, and how to candidly express my story, to complete strangers. I learned how to listen and absorb the stories of others. And, most importantly, I learned how crucial having trust in others is in this process of creation’.”
“‘Inviting possibilities demands a great deal of trust in the uncertainty of the creative process, even though giving oneself over to uncertainty seems like an unlikely goal’.”
“‘I realize a good business plan and model is all about a passionate story. If I want my small start-up idea to succeed I need to dig into where I come from and create a compelling story that can help develop, support and sell my idea’.”
“‘Sometimes you need to just let ideas settle in and marinate’.”
“‘Learning isn’t about optimality, but rather trying, trying and trying again’.”
“‘Innovation . . . is a continuous evolution of ideas, obstacles, and further enhanced ideas. It is the best part of the human experience, because the process is like that of reaching a fulfilling life’.”
“‘I’ve learned that innovation is a result of many iterations and discussions … [and requires] the willingness to embrace challenges and the ability to recognize existent deficiencies while transferring ideas/inspirations into perceptible forms’.”
“‘[I] learned to become more mindful of the process itself, which naturally forced me to reflect on my strengths and shortcomings to cycle myself back into upward self-growth’.”
Conclusions
“To be impactful in their fields, they will have to be sensitive and flexible in framing and solving problems. And, they will have to be able to do so while teaming with a diverse population of others. In short, future professionals will have to be adept at ‘becoming’. Dall’alba […] draws on philosopher Martin Heidegger’s notion that being human means having possibilities or possible ways to be, and thus that we are all in a perpetual process of becoming. Ultimately, she argues, education is about transformation of the self.”
Read the full article in MDPI Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market and Complexity.
*Author affiliations: Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley; School of Art + Design, College of Design, University of Oregon; Department of Theater and Dance Performance Studies, University of California Berkeley
Past issues:
(BIA) Introduction
(BIA Issue #1)
Twenty-First Century Leadership: A Return to Beauty
by Nancy J. Adler and Andre L. Delbecq
(BIA Issue #2)
(BIA Issue #3)
by Luca Simeone, Giustina Secundo and Giovanni Schiuma
(BIA Issue #4)
by Piero Formica
(BIA Issue #5)
by Fabio Maria Montagnino
(BIA Issue #6)
Creativity in Business Education: A Review of Creative Self-Belief Theories and Arts-Based Methods
by Sogol Homayoun and Danah Henriksen
(BIA Issue #7)
Classical Guitar Study as Creativity Training: Potential Benefits for Managers and Entrepreneurs
by Jonathan Gangi
Coming up next:
From Design Thinking to Art Thinking with an Open Innovation Perspective — A Case Study of How Art Thinking Rescued a Cultural Institution in Dublin
by Peter Robbins
To be followed by:
More articles in “Business, Open Innovation and Art” Special Issue in MDPI.
