The Illusion of Leadership: Directing Creativity in Business and the Arts

167 Pages·2008·0.816 MB·English

by  Piers Ibbotson (auth.)

The Illusion of Leadership
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The Illusion of
Leadership
Directing Creativity in Business
and the Arts
Piers Ibbotson
© Piers Ibbotson 2008
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-20199-6
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identifi ed as the author of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2008 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-30015-0 ISBN 978-0-230-20200-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230202009
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08
C
ONTENTS
List of Figures viii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Creativity – Myths and Legends 5
Chapter 2 The Illusion of Leadership 9
Directing creativity 9
Poets, fakes and sleeping lions 10
The gaze 11
Creative constraints and how to use them 12
The leadership illusion 15
Directing vs. managing – the Russian
experiment 16
Why setting targets is a waste of time 19
The uncarved block 21
Chapter 3 Project-Managing a Work of Art 22
The (misty) vision thing 25
The perfect audience of one 26
Summary 28
Chapter 4 Great Directing: A Case Study 30
Rehearsing King Lear 31
Chapter 5 Hierarchy and Status Games 35
Visiting India 35
Playing status 37
The giant’s robe on the dwarfi sh thief 39
Hierarchy and status: the tree-house game 43
Briefi ng the general 44
Sex and status games: invisible women 47
Is dissembling a sin? 49
Chapter 6 Masks and the Sense of Self 51
The immutable self 51
Clowns and ringmasters: training the masked actor 54
Being Badger 58
v
Contents
vi
Chapter 7 Creativity in Groups 63
Weird produces wonderful: casting for creativity 63
Hair-washing and the puppy game 64
My grandmother’s hat 67
The Three Fears 69
Suspending status games: the creative ensemble 70
Chapter 8 Creativity, Innovation and Leadership 74
Men in tights and old music: the paradox of
innovation in the arts 74
The solitary plagiarist 75
Casting and diversity: the concentric organization 77
What play are we in? 79
Stars and bit-players 81
Too many Hamlets 82
Fake creativity 83
Chapter 9 Live Communication: The Business
of Theater 85
Being self-conscious 86
Words and actions 87
The usefulness of Chinese whispers 90
Communication styles 92
Chapter 10 Giving Presentations: The Theater
of Business 94
Bridging the gap 95
Acting on – acting out: live communication as action 96
Summary 97
Pity the poor punters: the passive audience 97
Chapter 11 The Script 101
Euro-blather, business-speak and other languages 101
The telling detail: rediscovering the power of words 105
Truth, lies and presentations 108
Chapter 12 Rehearsing for Business and for Life 110
Image theater as a tool for organizations 111
The trap of ambiguity 113
Case study: the shooting party 116
Chapter 13 Training for Creative Leadership 119
Apprenticeship, mastery and transcendence 119
Chapter 14 Art in the World 125
Audacity and risk-taking 125
Being bold 126
Contents
vii
Chapter 15 Why Artists Should Rule the World 129
The problem of giraffeness 130
Leading with a misty vision 131
Keeping God out of the picture 133
The selfi shness myth 135
The infl uence of sleeping lions 136
“Author, Author!!” 137
Donald Rumsfeld – a cautionary tale 139
Ruskin’s question 143
Bibliography 147
Index 149
L F
IST OF IGURES
3.1 How to get a play from the page to the stage 23
8.1 Concentric and hierarchical organizational diagrams 81
9.1 Communication styles and their uses 93
viii
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Nothing comes from nothing. As I hope this book clearly states, all the
things we make are made from other things. Nothing in this book is origi-
nal except the way I have written it and the conjunctions I have made. I
have, as all artists do, threaded together fragments of other people’s ideas
and perceptions and woven them into my own narrative. Where I can be
reasonably sure of the source of an idea or argument I have referred to
a book or books that I know laid out those ideas. In many places I have
stated as my own, ideas which others may recognize. This may be forget-
fulness or it may be coincidence. If it feels like plagiarism it may well be;
but unconscious plagiarism. I have not made an exhaustive search of the
literature; so much of what I say may be out there already, even if I may
feel I have discovered it myself. I hope that anyone who feels their ideas
have been appropriated will feel free to correct me and, I hope, forgive me.
I know I stand on the shoulders of others – it’s just that sometimes I can’t
quite remember their names.
Among those whose names I can recall are: Tom Lloyd, Lotte Darsø,
Michael Davids, Iain Mangham, Mary Midgley, Colin Funk, David
Honigmann, Diana Winstanley, Tim Stockil and Arts and Business, Kate
Sinclair, Dan Milne, Iain Oag, Barbara Houseman, Cis Berry, Adrian
Jackson, Max Stafford Clark, Captain Joe Kay, Toby Wilshire and Trestle
Theater Company, Jane Hilberry. Without their direct or indirect contribu-
tions I would never have got this far. Most of the core ideas are from the
work of Keith Johnstone and of Augusto Boal whose work I have admired
and appropriated for many years.
Piers Ibbotson
ix