Orchestrating Collaboration at Work: Using Music, Improv, Storytelling, and Other Arts to Improve Teamwork - Softcover

Arthur VanGundy; Linda Naiman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1419651749 ISBN 13: 9781419651748

Publisher: BookSurge Publishing, 2007

Synopsis

Orchestrating Collaboration at Work is an activity book for trainers, coaches, mediators and facilitators, who want to use the arts to create transformative learning experiences in organizations. All 70 activities are crafted using arts-based principles that offer new insights and skills development in creativity, communication, teamwork, and collaborative leadership. Painting, poetry, storytelling, music, and improvisational theater offer innovative and transformative learning experiences. You can use them as quick icebreakers or brainjuicers at meetings or training sessions, and as a means of mediating dialogue to stimulate employee engagement. You do NOT have to be an artist to use this book's offerings.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Orchestrating Collaboration at Work is chock full of creative exercises and activities inspired by the arts that will help you and your team? your entire organization--achieve and maintain optimum team performance. This unique resource presents artistic forms of expression? dance, drawing, graphic design, improvisational theater, music, painting, photography, poetry, sculpture, singing, and storytelling? as a basis for improving collaboration at work.
You don't have to be a professional artist or world-class musician to facilitate the activities outlined in this book. Everything you need to know is here. You'll be confident as you apply these concepts from the arts that you are creating business-training experiences that will help to develop new perspectives and insights into what makes a team effective. Orchestrating Collaboration at Work will help you

• Inspire trainees to express themselves openly and creatively
• Create new perspectives for resolving business problems
• Understand how to use the arts to enhance training results
• Incorporate the content, form, and structure of the arts to resolve business problems
• Learn to unlock the hidden potential of employees
• Provide stimulating and effective training exercises
• Offer new insights to employees regarding how their behavior affects others
• Teach specific skills for individual, group, and organizational effectiveness

The book also includes interviews with such arts-in-business luminaries such as business author Margaret Wheatley, poet David Whyte, actor Richard Olivier, and former chief scientist at Xerox PARC, John Seely Brown.

Praise for Orchestrating Collaboration at Work

"VanGundy and Naiman bring a unique blend of creativity and art to provide practical techniques for increasing and improving teamwork. With this book, I am no longer afraid to explore the exciting world of the arts in buisness. My only regret is that they didn't write it ten years ago."
? Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan, director of research, QB International

"High-performance collaborative work teams are the new performance imperative in both private and public enterprises. VanGundy and Naiman show how using the arts to unleash the creative potential of individuals and teams will allow this new performance mandate to be met. This book helps to push the edge of the arts in business envelope."
? Robert F. Lusch, dean and distinguished professor, The Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas

"Our experiences today, obviously demonstrate the need for a holistic, integrated approach to value creation. Only by means of interdisciplinary dialogue and action we will be able to access the existing multitude of creative development opportunities in social, ecological and economic contexts. Orchestrating Collaboration at Work provides hands on examples on how to start and facilitate such a process."
? Andreas J. Harbig, partner, head of strategic HR management, Pricewaterhousecoopers, Germany

About the Author

Arthur B. VanGundy was Professor of Communication at the University of Oklahoma from 1976 – 2008, a pioneer in idea-generation techniques, and the author of 15 books on business creativity and innovation. Linda Naiman, founder of Creativity at Work, is recognised internationally for pioneering arts-based learning as a catalyst for developing creativity, innovation, and collaborative leadership in organizations. As an innovation consultant, Linda advises senior leaders and managers on developing creativity and innovation skills in employees, and fostering an organizational culture that supports innovation.

Edition details

• Publisher: BookSurge Publishing
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1419651749
• ISBN 13: 9781419651748
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 278