A new age is dawning. If nothing else, this is a new age of declarations of a new age. In the business realm, these new eras usually revolve around empowered customers, Internet-related technologies, or non-hierarchical organizations and styles of leadership. Stan Davis and David McIntosh’s vision has much in common with some of the more customer-centered visions, such as that expressed in Joseph Pine and James Gilmore’s The Experience Economy. By opening up to the power of artistic flow, businesses can learn from the arts in areas including managing creativity, identifying talent, finding meaning in work, and working toward peak performance. The authors are urging executives to “make all your work a work of art.”
Why are we on the edge of a shift toward the aesthetic in business now? In common with many others before them, Davis and McIntosh assert that after moving from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, we are stepping into yet another era. In “Revenge of the Right Brain”, Daniel Pink argued that the logical, left-brain thinking behind the Information Age was giving way to a new “Conceptual Age” that prizes artistry, empathy, and emotion.
Similarly, Davis and McIntosh believe we are being driven beyond the Information Age by three basic forces: the rise of sound and images; the emotionally richer communication these enable; and the fact that these changes are happening faster outside than inside the organization. Just as executives now accept the importance of corporate culture—an idea that was little appreciated until twenty years ago—they are now beginning to recognize the benefits of focusing on the aesthetic and emotional dimensions of work and business.
The Art of Business compares the economic flow of business—its inputs, processes, and outputs—to the equally real artistic flow. We need not choose one or the other; we can look at business through both perspectives at once. Artistic processes can also be understood in terms of inputs, processes, and outputs, even though the elements are very different. The elements of economic flow are inputs of raw materials or factors of production; all the processes of creation, production, and consumption in the value chain that transform inputs into outputs; and outputs of goods and services that aim to be better, faster, cheaper, and safer. The elements of artistic flow are imagination, emotion, intelligence, and experience; processes of creation, performance, and appreciation; and outputs that aim at beauty, excitement, enjoyment, and meaning.
After exploring the ideas of dualities and artistic flow, Davis and McIntosh organize the bulk of The Art of Business around what they see as the main elements of artistic flow, then conclude with twenty suggestions for imbuing your work with artistry. The experienced business reader will come across numerous familiar examples, from the iPod to JetBlue, and far fewer fresh examples. You will find the occasional glittering nugget, such as one that crops up in discussing rich communications and blogs: “If Andy Warhol were still alive, he would say that, in the future, everybody will be famous for fifteen people.” This is the best line in the book, and is accompanied by little to enlighten all but the most cloistered executives. In the end, most readers are likely to extract more benefit from The Experience Economy or Postrel’s The Substance of Style, or from articles such as “The New Frontier of Experience Innovation” and “Lean Consumption,” commentaries on all of which you will find related to this review.