Copenhagen Business School (CBS) is full of gems — people that is who glitter with energy and enthusiasm for their work. I have met a few over the past few weeks here, but today I want to highlight Daved Barry, Professor of Creative Organization Studies and Stefan Meisiek, Associate Professor of Leadership at CBS.
Stefan and Daved (pictured above — note that Daved is pitching in doing studio clean-up!) are the key master-minds behind Creative Enterprise Design (CED). Copenhagen Business School has been developing this idea of Business in Society engagement –which is strategically an important idea for business schools these days. The concept of CED is to engage society through research and ideas as to how to better arrange and organize work and innovation.
CED encompasses design of organizations, institutions, products, processes, work flows, and work settings – in short everything that makes business and public administration work. (from web site) http://www.cbs.dk/en/content/view/full/150407
An important distinction for both Daved and Stefan is that CED is about design in a broad sense — encompassing the design of organizations and institutions, not just processes and products.
I had the chance to spend a few relaxed hours talking with Daved about his work and my work. He has a different but complementary perspective to mine around where design fits in business. To quote from his CBS web page: “My work focuses on how art, design, narrative thinking, and the humanities in general can inform and improve organizing, problem solving, managing, and leadership.” He talks about the Workarts — arts as they occur within management and organizations. This broader focus is so appealing to me.
It jibes with a recent article in the Globe & Mail about the importance of the liberal arts in business education. Penned by David Bach, Dean of Programs at IE Business School, the title of the piece is: B-Schools shouldn’t dismiss ‘artsy-fartsy’ approach (April 28, 2011)
Liberal arts colleges of trained leaders for centuries…because their curricula focus on the timeless skills of critical inquiry, independent thinking, intellectual flexibility, connection making, problem solving, judgment and communication. Through this, they prepare students for challenges that may not even be on on the horizon yet.
Back to Stefan and Daved. They are prolific academics co-authoring recent articles such as “Seeing More and Seeing Differently: Sensemaking, Mindfulness and the Workarts” in Organizational Studies, 31(11): 1505-1530, 2010. And “The art of leadership and its fine art shadow” in Leadership, 6 (3) 331-349, 2010.
The background to the photo above is their studio space for Creative Enterprise — the home of the Creative Enterprise Studio Series. The studio series is in five parts: methods, organizational process design, new venture design, and workplace & structural organization design.
You can imagine how exciting it is for me to find like minds around the idea of a business studio. This sentence is embedded in their course description:
It is distinguished by its use of a studio pedagogy which stresses creative imagination exercises, hands-on making, experimentation, prototyping, and demonstration—all done during class time and partly outside of class. Imagine an art studio devoted to creatively solving business problems—this is the core idea.
So stay tuned — hoping for some exciting collaborations with these colleagues.
Find out more about Daved here: http://www.cbs.dk/Forskning/Institutter-centre/Institutter/LPF/Menu/Medarbejdere/Menu/Videnskabelige-medarbejdere/Videnskabelige-medarbejdere/Professorer/barry and Stefan here: http://www.cbs.dk/en/Research/Departments-Centres/Institutter/node_6784/Menu/Staff/Menu/Academic-staff/Videnskabelige-medarbejdere/Associate-Professors/meisiek