FEATURES | Mental Health
How can the arts and
humanities help us
navigate disruption?
Marc Ventresca, an economic sociologist and
associate professor of strategic management at
Saïd, pointed out that “disruption is all about pulling
things apart and breaking things up. Conversation
means ‘to turn over with others’.
“The claim I want to put to you is that we need
to think more about the humanities, the arts; we
need to understand old, old questions that get
reframed in new ways,” he said.
“At Saïd, we look at very contemporary problems
and challenges through the lens of the humanities,
the arts, theatre, to ask different kinds of questions.
And to do that we’re having conversation, to turn
over ideas with others and give us more fruitful,
actionable and potentially complex answers.
“This is towards complexity,” he admitted. “The
mark of a good leader is someone who is able to
“there needs to be joy as well”
hold fully contradictory certitudes at the same
time and still act.”
Proposing “this house believes that the work
of leaders engages the passions and not the
interests”, Ventresca highlighted both the work of
social scientist and economist Albert O. Hirschman
whose book The Passions and the Interests takes
a different perspective on the rise of the modern
market economy, and Miguel de Cervantes’
Don Quixote, which formed the basis of a leadership
lesson by former Stanford professor James March.
“Don Quixote said: ‘I know who I am,’ explained
Ventresca. “This is the basis for a line of work saying
that leading must be grounded in passion and
discipline – and there needs to be joy as well. You
have to find something that renews and sustains
you over the long term.
“In this age of disruption, we have to believe, we
have to find joy, we have to look for discipline to
harness the passions that define us,” he concluded.
F
What constitutes resilience and
how can we achieve it?
To s u r v i v e t h e
uncertainty, ambiguity
and complexity of disruption,
organisations and individuals
must cultivate resilience – but
what does this mean?
F o r S a ï d f e l l ow i n
management practice, Dr
Eleanor Murray, resilience is “a
dynamic concept” involving
an organisation’s capacities,
capabilities and cultures
being able to anticipate
disruption proactively and
react immediately.
“There’s a tendency for
businesses to work with a
narrow suite of indicators or
intelligence around current
performance,” she warned.
“Part of resilience is broadening
these to consider what’s
coming towards us.”
With interpreting signals, it’s
all about “having the mindset,
that openness to take on new
ideas: listening to trends that
might contradict existing ways
of working” – and, of course,
taking action as a result.
“Resilience is a dynamic concept”
“One interesting factor is
that, as volatility increases,
we’re seeing things we once
viewed as major crises, as
minor disruptions,” she said.
Another is a current change
of focus around resilience.
“Businesses have been helping
their people to become more
resilient, so there’s been a
massive increase in personal
resilience training,” she noted.
“There’s beginning to be
a push-back, with people
asking ‘why aren’t you, as an
organisation, finding ways to
become more resilient?’”
To achieve this, leaders
must become adept at
managing contradictions; for
example, businesses must be
both reliable (efficient, cost-
effective, waste-free) and agile:
able to anticipate trends, react
to disruption and to innovate
and flex at short notice.
Effective businesses are
using their whole workforce
to spot potential trends and
signals – and are receptive to
these, said Murray.
Undertaking scenario
planning is one practical way
in which leaders minimise
risk, stress-test strategies
or open up conversations
with stakeholders.
Senior
fellow
in
management practice, Trudi
Lang, explained that unlike
models, which are based on
a set of assumptions and
parameters, or forecasts, that
tend to extrapolate from the
past, “scenarios simply use the
future as a perspective on the
present” to help leaders make
more robust decisions. They
can be used at the start of the
innovation process through
to reframing an organisation’s
identity or taking key decisions.
The willingness to undertake
such planning is “dependent
on all leaders,” stressed
Murray. “It’s not just C-suite,
but about using all leaders to
gather intelligence, and being
receptive to different ideas
of change and willing to take
robust action, even in the face
of uncertainty.”
March – May 2019
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