Art is the key to successful work. All great work contains the seeds of art. A well-structured email must be clear, concise, practiced and give meaning to a specific audience. This is not much different in concept than what a painter does on her canvas.
Art happens when we are inspired to do more than the minimum amount of work. It happens when we want to give context, meaning, and response together all while fitting into a form that may not seem conducive to these goals.
Today I created a two page PowerPoint file to more clearly describe a project we are trying to get consensus on. This project has had pages of emails sent back and forth describing it. There are more than a few detailed excel models showing how the numbers work. There have been conference calls to go through the nuance and detail. There have been face-to-face meetings to get approval and ensure we have our risks covered. Yet through it all, the team was struggling to agree on the path forward with conviction.
Often the answer in the face of detail is simplicity.
Often in the face of simplicity is to provide nuance.
Art is in understanding how to get people to shift from where they are today to a new way of thinking. My two page PowerPoint will never be in the MOMA and will likely be forgotten in two days. But for the moment it helps to move a group of people forward with a new way of seeing something.
Art isn’t just in museums.