Why You’re Already Doing Radical Knowledge Management

When was the last time you did anything artistic? Was it when you were 13, but the teacher criticized it, so you never tried again? That’s how it was for me.

After that you focused on getting good grades, getting into a good university or college, getting into the right programs and again, good grades. There was no place for anything artistic or creative, except for maybe as a hobby on the weekends when there was nothing else to do.

You put those artistic thoughts away for when you retired and didn't have to work anymore — when you didn’t have to be serious anymore.

Sure, maybe some of this stuff creeps in when you're playing with your kids or other children, but it’s nothing you would do at work. No, never!

But I bet that you are doing it at work.

Maybe you doodle during video calls. Maybe you get your colleagues to role play with you to prepare for an important meeting. Maybe you even play an icebreaker game during your daily stand-ups.

All these things are sneaky little ways that the arts and creativity find their way into our lives, so in fact, you're already doing unconscious acts of radical knowledge management, you just didn’t know it.

All radical knowledge management asks of you is to be more purposeful and deliberate about these activities. It asks you to make habits and rituals out of arts-based interventions (ABIs). Making ABIs an integrated part of your work activities supports diffuse thinking. All of this in turn supports curiosity, resilience, innovation, sustainability and many other facets of our work and life, as discussed in the book, "Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us" by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross.

The Benefits of Radical Knowledge Management

The hardest part of integrating ABIs into your work activities is getting over that shame we felt as adolescents, when we were criticized for what we had created in art class. However, the benefits are innumerable.

The benefits of the arts that Magsamen and Ross discuss in their book include wellbeing, mental health, healing the body, amplifying learning, flourishing and creating community. All of these benefits have been documented with neuroscience and qualitative data that the authors and others have collected.

People are often surprised that the arts have such a significant impact on so many facets of life. However, this is due to the impact it has on our brains. In fact, the authors say that the complexity and messiness of the arts is a strength, not a weakness, as many people would have us believe. They say that we need to look at the arts with a different lens that incorporates its complexity rather than excludes it.

Additional benefits that I collected in my earlier research include using the arts to facilitate the creation of traits including trust, connection, critical thinking, big picture thinking, curiosity, team building, organizational cultural transformation and sustainable leadership. As you can see, the list is long and diverse and it’s all due to the complexity of the arts and its impact on our brains.

Related Article: Why It's Time for Radical Knowledge Management

Making Arts-Based Interventions More Purposeful

So, we know there are benefits to arts-based interventions and we know that we're doing them in an ad hoc way in some of our activities. Radical KM asks us to be more purposeful and deliberate about their integration in our activities.

How do we do that?

For one, learn how to facilitate arts-based interventions. For short icebreaker-type activities you can get ideas from the internet, books with children’s art projects, and art therapy books (the books have some good ideas for activities, but Radical KM is not art therapy). Additionally, you may have artists on staff and not even realize it. Ask them to collaborate with you to bring ABIs into your organization’s ways of working.

You should also look for opportunities in meetings and workshops. Small activities can be brought into meetings very easily as they only take a few minutes and pay big dividends in engagement and results.

In workshops and larger meetings, the ABIs take more work considering the number of people, location, desired outcomes, etc. and so may require some specialized knowledge from artists and consultants either inside or outside of the organization.

Let me give you an example: when I’m leading a workshop, I start with a guided visualization. It takes 2-3 minutes and helps everyone to become centered and grounded so that they can focus on the work we are about to do. The text I use comes from the book, "Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace," by Gordon MacKenzie, but there are others available if you search the web — or you may want to write your own.

Another thing I do in my workshops is little artistic interventions like scribble drawings, or making a sculpture out of the things on our desk. These types of activities are quick and easy, but help us switch into diffuse thinking rather than focused thinking, which helps us make new connections and be more creative and innovative.

Finally, when I have two or more days for a workshop or class, I like to do layered paintings. Layered paintings break down walls, help build confidence and give insight into problems people are facing. People leave feeling excited, empowered and energized.

For some information on the use of the arts in business, you can also check out the following resources:

"Artistic Interventions in Organizations: Research, Theory and Practice," edited by Ulla Johansson Scöldberg, Jill Woodilla, and Ariane Berthoin Antal
"Artful Creation: Learning-Tales of Arts-in-Business," by Lotte Darsø
"Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know About How Artists Work," by Rob Austin and Lee Devin
"Creative Company: How Artful Creation Helps Organizations Surpass Themselves," by Dirk Dobiéy and Thomas Koeplan
"The Value of Arts for Business," by Giovanni Schiuma

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