Artful creation – How introducing artworks in business education can foster dialogue and creativity

Creativity is a widely used term in the context of strategic planning, innovation, entrepreneurship, marketing, organisational and leadership development. Creativity is, therefore, a key skill for leaders and organisations, in order not only to adapt to change, but also to proactively shape industries and markets. Art and business have many parallels. We believe that looking into the world of art holds many lessons for business people and provides ample opportunities to find new and interesting ideas for the business school setting. To this end, we discuss the commercial and/or artistic success of the artists Damien Hirst, Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik. We will be introducing three techniques – art coaching, art dialogue and the mission impossible task – that are based on using artworks and art history to create an interactive and experiential learning atmosphere and ultimately make programme participants deal with their own creative potential. We have successfully adopted these techniques in our teaching especially in an executive education context at the Antwerp Management School and the European School of Management and Technology, Berlin.