In a world shaped by complexity and volatile dynamics, business managers note with increasing regularity that it’s not as easy as it used to be to plan and implement things. Old ways of thinking are no longer effective. What’s the solution to dealing with this growing uncertainty?
The answer is to make creativity a key competency.

Creativity is fuel for innovation and progress

Human beings have an incredible capacity for creativity. In our business enterprise, it helps us develop ideas and bring forth innovative technologies that win their place on the market as new products, solutions, or services. Yet, far from being a God-given talent, creativity is something each of us can train to develop and use.

One group of professions considered the non plus ultra of creativity is that of artists.

Two worlds – with lots in common.

Artists and business managers share more in common than appears at first glance: what for artists is the work they create, is for managers the idea or project they’re pursuing. Managers and artists can ultimately be powered by similar motivation, as both need something driving them internally. Similarly to a business manager’s work, it can take months or even years to conceive and implement art projects. Artists have to discuss matters with representatives of the worlds of art, business, and politics. Managers, too, coordinate possible options and viewpoints with people both inside and outside their company to achieve the next milestones and project processes. Besides new ideas, artists need purposeful determination, negotiating skills, and assertiveness – Leadership qualities that managers must also have. Every choreographer, film or stage director, and orchestra conductor ultimately bears responsibility for what his or her team produces.

Business leaders sensing the rhythm of creativity Foto: Kolarik Andreas

What business leaders can learn from artists.

What often distinguishes managers from artists, however, lies in the way they deal with uncertainty. Artists have the ability to respond with aplomb, confidently and masterfully, to unexpected, uncertain situations.

Something truly novel is created beyond the bounds of order and control.

This artist mindset harbors some interesting fields of learning for managers. How do artists embrace a process from which something genuinely original and innovative emerges? How do they generate an inventive flow and expand their powers of imagination? How do they free up a creative space for themselves? How do they deal with obstacles, and what techniques and strategies do they use?

Progressive organizations and modern management need people of richly diverse education and training who possess the ability to develop innovative approaches and ways of thinking.

The Siemens Arts Program unites the world of artists with that of business leaders within the company and, thanks to its partnerships with renowned creative artists and cultural institutions, such as the Salzburg Festival, offers a unique portfolio of continuing education and training for managers and other employees of high potential:
SCENE (SIEMENS EMPOWERMENT for NEW EXECUTIVES).

Plunging into the world of acting means leaving your comfort zone Foto: Kolarik Andreas

SCENE enables people to directly participate in creative processes in ways that enrich their skills. By giving managers the opportunity to experience the world through the eyes of an orchestra conductor or actor, they gain inspiration that can spur their creativity and enhance their daily work routines.
They experience the artistic fields of acting, music and conducting not just theoretically, but in real practice as well, training their own leadership qualities by trying out artistic processes. The interaction with musicians, for instance, spotlights new solution approaches to problems in the workaday world, sharpens personal reflection skills, and promotes creative thinking.

An orchestra and its conductor – a high-performance team. Foto: Kolarik Andreas

Being a leader means, first and foremost, becoming aware of one’s own character and its effects on other people. SCENE sharpens this awareness and takes managers outside their comfort zone. At the conducting workshop, for example, the focus is on working with the orchestra, because no other sort of team responds so directly to how you lead.
Stephan Frucht,
Director of the Siemens Arts Program

Siemens – Salzburg SCENE 2022 Foto: Kolarik Andreas 18.08.2022

Changes to a company begin with changing the character of each individual employee!

SCENE enhances this awareness by uniting different worlds with one another and turning leadership topics into active, sensuous, and emotional experiences. This generates effective impetus for self-awareness and development.
Participants of the workshop

The Siemens Arts Program…
… focuses mainly on music, visual arts and cultural education. It sees itself as a creative platform for the company’s arts and culture projects. One of the program’s main aims is to nurture excellent emerging talent worldwide. This is done through internally initiated competitions to find new talent (e.g. the Siemens Opera Contest) and by networking young artists with established international cultural institutions (such as the Bavarian State Opera, Carnegie Hall in New York City and the Salzburg Festival).
The program also establishes connections between art and science, business, employees and artists, creates space for creative exchange, and stimulates new approaches and ways of thinking. Thus, within our own company it also allows insights into various art forms, and initiates collaborative service proposals with renowned cultural institutions, musicians, curators and artists.