“Art, it turns out, can be an important tool to change how leaders see their work. One fun exercise to encourage experienced leaders to challenge established ways of seeing took place recently in Providence, at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, in an annual event called Cops and Docs. The program, which has been running for 10 years, gathers highly accomplished medical professionals and highly trained police officers, people who in their jobs have to quickly make sense of the world around them, size up problems, and devise effective solutions to complex (often life-threatening) problems. Over the course of the evening, mixed groups of cops and docs looked at paintings, sculptures, and other works of art, and shared their answers to a pretty basic question: What do you see?

Needless to say, what participants saw was a function of the jobs they did and the experiences they’d had — which explains why different people reached such different conclusions about the same pieces. Here’s how one article summarized what participants took away: “Make careful observation a habit. Learn to describe what you see. Allow a different interpretation of the observation. Understand that one scene can have several plausible explanations. Avoid tunnel vision. Exercise creative thinking skills.” Those are great lessons for doctors and detectives — not to mention executives, entrepreneurs, and leaders in any field.”

To read about more examples, please see the original article.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Needless to say, what participants saw was a function of the jobs they did and the experiences they’d had — which explains why different people reached such different conclusions about the same pieces. Here’s how one article summarized what participants took away: “Make careful observation a habit. Learn to describe what you see. Allow a different interpretation of the observation. Understand that one scene can have several plausible explanations. Avoid tunnel vision. Exercise creative thinking skills.” Those are great lessons for doctors and detectives — not to mention executives, entrepreneurs, and leaders in any field.”

To learn about more programs such as this one, please read the original article.