People need a degree of free choice for creativity and change to happen. But they must also have boundaries. At one level this is what politics and business are all about. Too much of the wrong sort of control and the system becomes bureaucratic or tyrannical, too little and it becomes arbitrary and chaotic.

What we are looking for in business or in politics, is a process for directing the creativity of complex systems with a right balance between control and freedom; between clarity and mist; between fecundity and death.

Managing these paradoxical forces is what artists do. Artists know that in making a vision manifest in the real world, it will change and adapt. Paintings, books and plays are made - they are not designed and implemented. Along the way there is room for continual adaptation and openness to the continuous possibility of a better manifestation of the vision. And in the collaborative arts, there is a wealth of skills, practices and tacit knowledge for performing this complicated balancing act between getting creative innovations and staying in control of the project.

About the Author: PIERS IBBOTSON is a respected speaker, coach and facilitator. He is a regular contributor to senior management development programmes in the UK and around the world, introducing leaders and senior managers to concepts and techniques from the creative arts. He has worked at partner level with leading management consultancies and has contributed to senior management development programmes for Ernst and Young, Adidas, WPP group, Severstal, Generali, and many others. He has contributed to courses at the London Business School; The Danish Pedagogical Institute, Copenhagen, the University of Lancaster UK, the University of Nyenrode, Netherlands; AESE, Lisbon, Portugal and The Banff Centre in Canada, where he is guest faculty member on The Art of Executive Leadership Programme. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Kingston, UK, where he teaches on the MA in Creative Industries and The Creative Economy.

He also runs Directing Creativity which was developed originally for The Royal Shakespeare Company with the support of Allied Domecq plc. Directing Creativity provides management development, training and consultancy for business, using techniques and approaches from the world of theatre; with the dual objectives of enhancing business performance and developing closer links between industry and the arts.

www.directingcreativity.co.uk

www.piersibbotson.co.uk