Despite popular misconceptions, visual artists are highly disciplined workers who reserve and protect dedicated time for creative thinking.

If you are searching for the holy grail of innovation, you will certainly want to read the latest business books and magazines, consult with university professors and attend business innovation seminars. You may also want to check in with a few painters, sculptors and printmakers.  

In the past three years, the McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, N.C., has  sponsored an Innovation Institute that brings together senior business executives and visual artists for intense explorations of creativity and innovation. These sessions have helped bridge the gap between business and art, and demonstrate that many of the creative practices followed by artists can be applied to business.

Unbridled Idea Generation
If you have ever visited an artist’s studio, you will remember seeing numerous drawings and sketches in various states of completion. Successful visual artists explore many different directions over an extended period of time before they settle on a single concept for completion.

On the other hand, an executive with a major national bank commented that it was common practice within his division to subject new ideas to logical analysis as soon as the ideas were suggested, and to reject them just as quickly. This practice was discouraging innovative thinking because employees did not want their ideas to be immediately subjected to negative comments and discarded out of hand. 

The bank executive instituted a new approach encouraging the free flow of creative ideas. Logical analysis of new ideas would only begin after a full slate of innovative thinking was on the table. To borrow an old cliché: “there were no bad ideas” – at least initially.  

The result of this more open approach was an outpouring of ideas and a renewed commitment to innovation. This re-energized atmosphere contributed to a continual flow of process and product improvements, including the successful development of a new financial service that garnered a patent.

Time for Creativity
Despite popular misconceptions, visual artists are highly disciplined workers who reserve and protect dedicated time for creative thinking. After all, visual artists must earn their livings from their creations and only through a concentrated focus can they develop work of a caliber that will sell.    

But, executives report that finding dedicated creative thinking time is virtually impossible. Multitasking has been elevated to a skill so highly valued that it has been incorporated into most job descriptions.

Do not expect to have an innovative thought while simultaneously responding to e-mails, answering the phone, writing a memo and preparing for a meeting. In contrast, an artist may have several canvases under way at any one time, but you won’t see an artist moving continually from one canvas to another.

By working with visual artists, an executive with a multinational food services company came to realize that multitasking was robbing him of his ability to focus on opportunities for innovation. He concluded that his group was focusing too heavily on the technical details of construction rather than listening to the wants, needs and desires of customers.  

He crafted a new organizational framework for his division. Customer service managers were placed in lead positions on each new account, charged with tuning into each customers’ vision for foodservices and working with engineers to make these visions come to life. As a result, his division has recorded higher customer satisfaction ratings, which have helped to support continued growth through referrals and repeat business.