Cross over to the other side -- Arts Enterprise values creativity, artistic process in business

On your way to yet another finance class? Sitting through a lecture on Toyota's manufacturing processes? Or maybe you're struggling through that statistics homework-decision trees again? In any case, I doubt I'm the only one who feels that since I've entered business school, my left brain has been overloaded. Sequential analytical thinking is the name of the game here at Ross, and often I see more right-brained creative urges and holistic concepts slipping away in the face of yet another case study or accounting problem.

The core curriculum here at Ross, while providing a strong base of analytical and decision-making tools, may be a little outdated. Many academic studies on teaching methods support a "whole-brained" approach for a student's early years. Recently, some researchers suggest a similar approach would benefit graduate students as well.

The Harvard Business Review stated in 2004, "the MFA is the new MBA" (MFA is Master of Fine Arts). Companies are looking for creative thinkers that can come up with solutions to the many problems they face in our ever more quickly changing world. Globalization of white-collar jobs has changed the corporate landscape; firms like McKinsey say they can recruit MBAs outside the US for data analysis at a much lower salary. Consequently, traditional MBA programs that focus too exclusively on data analysis and decision-making guidelines are less and less useful, while the skill sets an artist uses to create, improvise, and communicate the human experience are in high demand. The "scarce resource is innovative designers, not financial analysts," says Nancy Adler, professor at The Wall Street Journal's highest ranked MBA program for Innovation, McGill University.

Arts Enterprise, a club founded last year by MBA2s Kelly Dylla and Chris Genteel, helps business school students to think like artists, and vice versa. Originally formed to join Rossers with students in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, the club has grown quickly to include members from across the University. The club's objectives are to build a diverse community dedicated to the arts, to develop entrepreneurial and business skills of students, and to encourage creative, innovative, and strategic thinking through the arts.

Club events encourage members to take part in cultural engagement, social entrepreneurship, and creative leadership. In a recent event, Arts Enterprise brought hip hop artist Toni Blackman to the Global Urban Symposium, sponsored by Net Impact. Ms. Blackman has performed around the world with artists such as Erykah Badu, Mos Def, The Roots, and Wu Tang Clan. She educates young people in rap and spoken word in order to improve their skills in public speaking, writing and team work. In her workshop titled "Hip Hop, Creativity and Social Justice," Ms. Blackman focused on improvisation, association and collaboration in exercises in spoken word and freestyle. Ms. Dylla said that the workshop remarkably quickened participants' willingness to communicate openly with one another. "There's something about having interaction in a different context-it was impressive how quickly it broke down barriers."

Arts Enterprise is sponsoring a series of workshops that will "allow students to explore means of freer expression". Upcoming workshops include "Business with Bill Shakespeare" by Julliard educator Eric Booth, "Executive Maestro" with an orchestra conductor, and "Whose Bottom-Line is it Anyway?" a workshop exploring improvised comedy with UofM's Theatre Program faculty. The club is also sponsoring a speaker series with leaders in different fields of the arts, as well as joining the Entertainment and Media Club in the NY Forum, a networking and learning trip to various organizations in NYC. In addition, Arts Enterprise is planning Go Blue! For New Orleans. A group of students will travel over spring break to New Orleans for a planning and implementation project to support the city's volunteer public education development. Finally, Arts Enterprise sponsors students through AEIdeas, providing mentorship, support and small grants to students launching arts and business-related program ideas in the school and community.

Arts Enterprise partners with UMS, bringing members to great arts performance events here in Ann Arbor, while their upcoming Global Coffeehouse will showcase talents as well as diversity of students across the University with performances and collaborations in a laid-back setting.
When asked about the benefits of combining business and the arts, Ms. Dylla pointed to a recent strategy class case study with BCG Partner Larry Shulman. In discussion, the class got caught up discussing details of the case, and he advised them to take a step back. "Its easy to get yourself stuck with a narrow-minded view of a business problem, but when you try to think differently sometimes unique solutions come through," Ms. Dylla recalled. "Buzz-words like innovation and creativity are everywhere," she said, and with such an emphasis the creative process in the business world becomes much more prevalent. So as you head into another finance class, think about where you want to go in your career-and then think about picking up a paintbrush or a guitar and spending some quality time with the creative process. It could get you farther than those hours spent with your financial calculator.

Interested in Arts Enterprise? Visit www.artsenterprisemi.com.

For more information on hip hop artist Toni Blackman visit www.toniblackman.com.