Bringing ‘Art at Work’ to the Academy of Management annual meeting.
Art at Work in the Evolution of Trans-disciplinary practice in the Tavistock Tradition: an experiential learning workshop located in the AOM organisational system.
Following on from our success at the 78th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, when TIHR stormed Chicago with a five paper symposium exploring how its archive has supported customisation and innovation of the Tavistock Institute’s contemporary practice, in August Dr Sadie King and Juliet Scott will set off for the 79th in Boston with the aim of bringing a flavour of that customisation with their Professional Development Workshop ‘Art at Work’.
In response to this year’s theme Understanding the Inclusive Organisation, Juliet and Sadie will draw on their own recent customisation and adaption of TIHR organisational consultancy traditions as an artist and an anthropologist.
Our response speaks to the need for the development of organisational and change practitioners who are able to understand and work with changing organisational forms as they emerge and we posit that the arts can provide a bridge from inter- into trans-disciplinary organisational consultancy practice to further this. We are following the question left to us in summarising the papers presented last year at the Chicago symposium:
“In what sense can this ‘shamanism’ be institutionalized?
How can these practices be spread and diffused?
How can social scientist-consultants’ ability to work in this way be developed?”
(Holti, 2018)
Our workshop will be a participatory exploration of the evolution of the TIHR tradition into the work we are doing at the Institute today – Deepening Creative Practice, the Organisational Exploratory Programme – where we will work with an arts-based improvisation and our deep understanding of group processes and culture to construct/ create a representation of the AOM organisation system and the Management Consultancy Division within it.
Through this ‘here and now’ activity we will draw wider learning and applications for change and consultancy practice.
So please look out for us in Boston during August 9-13; join us at the workshop and more. We’ll be there for the whole period with our colleague, Rachel Kelly, learning from others, sharing the work of the Institute and our journal Human Relations and exploring new avenues for dialogues. We’re looking forward to meeting you!