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Art For Business 2008 in Milano has started today and I really had to struggle to understand at least a little bit of the keynote speakers at the opening (because everything was in Italian…).
As a preparation for my ex-cathedra-speech tomorrow I will put a download of my text here: Self-Leadership as an art.
My key points are:
1.    Change Agents should learn, test, and use mind-sets, methods, and instruments from the world of art to shift context and perspective.
2.    Lots of successful leaders in business already use skills, approaches, and mind-sets similar to those of artists. And SELF-LEADERSHIP is an art in itself.
3.    To find out how we can “use art” in human capital development we should scrutinize, maybe test, the life and oeuvre of artists.

Especially concerning the last point I suggest to take a look at the text on How to survive as an artist (about Duchamp as a role model) to which I refer in my speech in the Art For Business Forum session. If you are interested to know more about it you might as well want to take a look at my Squidoo-Lenses…

And finally for some of my ongoing gymnastics in the world of art see my laboratorio-pages.

My project on SELF-LEADERSHIP is entering its final state. Most of the scheduled interviews have been conducted and there are some key findings. Obviously, a predominate skill of successful people is their ability to be in the present, in the here and now. They possess inner clarity, know their state of being, and they have put aside their “ego” - they are able to be present. With this I do not mean them just showing up inside an organization but rather their inner presence, their uncoupling from old habits and patterns of thinking and perception. The interviews have delivered lots of hints towards this special ability. The importance of “presence” has been proved by numerous publications, some in the field of organizational or personal development. Peter Senge, author of the groundbreaking book “The Fifth Discipline” goes into depth on this topic in his newer publication, “Presence. Exploring Profound Change in People, Organizations And Society“, created together with his co-authors.

In addition to this, successful leaders  know or at least guess their personal mission, have a concept or sometimes a vision of what they want to create in their lifetime – their mission. Where do intuition or the knowing of one’s own mission come from? At least for some of the leaders it is the case that they see themselves deeply rooted religiously or spiritually. Others obviously have a humanistic foundation for their lives. A couple of the interviewees have had very distinct mental images of their goals and objectives which accompanied them in different steps of their career. For some leaders these images were so tangible in ways that they focused on a specific position until they actually reached it. Not only pictures of a future personal career, but plans for whole companies have been brought to life with the help of visions.

Some more interviews will follow. As the data collected so far was sufficient I already started writing the book about SELF-LEADERSHIP. Nevertheless, I will continue to inform about key findings in this blog.

I will present some key findings of my project SELF-LEADERSHIP at the ART FOR BUSINESS FORUM (Nov. 13-15, Milano). If you are interested in my CV in Italian: here.  The congress is again promoted and facilitated by trivioquadrivio of Milan. Catch a glimpse on my theses for the panel discussion:Theses Art For Business Forum 2008