Mary Pinard
Acting Chair of the Arts and Humanities Division
Posted 11.2.2006
Babson seems on the cutting edge of integrating
creativity and the arts in the MBA curriculum. What was the
basis for the Creative Stream effort?
We imagined and designed our Creativity Stream based on
several assumptions, including:
That everyone is creative: a maker of the means for order,
systems, survival, and pleasure. While artists are often
thought to be the “creative ones” in our culture, the act
of creating is in fact a natural human impulse available to
all.
That creativity is a process involving a range of elements
and experiences: for example, the use of the senses,
imagination, trust, intuition, desire, risk-taking,
playfulness, courage, as well as the willingness to be
vulnerable and make mistakes and the ability to see
differently and deeply.
That the creative process must be stimulated and then
experienced firsthand rather than through just reading or
hearing about it. Because there are fewer and fewer
opportunities for individuals and groups to experience the
creative process, especially in the business world today,
engagement with the elements of creativity must be
stimulated or challenged.
But perhaps the most compelling assumption in terms of
situating our work in the MBA program and through an
integrated, collaborative program is the following: That
the links between business and art—and entrepreneurs and
artists—are compelling and rich. Artists can offer a unique
perspective to the business community about the expressive
and energizing potential of the creative process.
Thus the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson
College features creativity as one of the early and
essential components of its innovative Two-Year MBA
Program. But creativity wasn’t always part of the graduate
curriculum. It was introduced over ten years ago when the
entire program was redesigned to focus more directly on
educating entrepreneurial leaders in a complex and changing
global environment. Faculty designers of the new program
also wanted to be able to teach students to think more
holistically about management issues while practicing and
mastering the requisite business skills. As a result, they
decided to replace the standard academic semesters and all
functional courses in the first year with four
interdisciplinary modules, ranging in length from four to
ten weeks.
How is the Creativity Stream integrated into the
degree plan?
Designed to accommodate interactive, just-in-time learning,
the modules are sequenced across the year to trace the
business development cycle, from evaluating opportunity and
determining an appropriate strategy, to creating and
implementing a delivery system, and finally, to assessing
future conditions and creating innovative approaches for
leading an adaptive organization. Within each individual
module are select combinations of “streams,”or focus areas,
that define and develop a larger topic. For example, the
first four-week module, Creative Management in Dynamic
Organizations, is designed specifically to set the tone for
the entire program through the study and application of
leadership, ethics, and innovation. In addition, every
student is required to participate in the creativity
stream.
For the four-week creativity assignment, students work
together in small groups of 10-12 to develop a final
20-minute presentation that will demonstrate their
encounter with and understanding of the creative process.
The goal is for students to learn by doing. Rather than
engaging intellectually with creativity—for example by
reading scholarly articles, discussing theories, or simply
talking in a classroom setting about what creativity might
be—Babson MBA students actively "practice" creativity.
Every student is placed in one of seven creativity groups,
each facilitated by a practicing artist, or “creativity
consultant,” from a different discipline, including but not
limited to painting, music, movement, sculpture,
improvisation, puppetry, and poetry. The artists meet with
their student groups a couple times a week over the course
of the first module and use specially designed exercises,
assignments, field trips, and rehearsal practices to
demonstrate the essentials of their art. As successful
entrepreneurs in their own right and as regular
practitioners of creative process, these artists can also
model refreshingly alternative perspectives on imagination,
risk-taking, intuition, and discovery.
Are there specific student outcomes envisioned in
this effort?
The qualitative nature of the Creativity Stream suggests
that evaluating outcomes using traditional means—number
grades based on competition—will not be useful. Part of the
challenge of this stream is for students and the program
overall to experience fully how the creative process can
instruct and transform. One of the unstated goals is to
model an alternative mode of evaluation, one that is based
on respect, cooperation, and collaboration, not only on
competition.
How are students evaluated in the program?
They are evaluated on a pass/fail (or fire) basis. Students
evaluate themselves and their group experience at the end
of the stream, and their creativity consultant also
evaluates their groups. To pass, students in their groups
must be fully present (physically, emotionally,
intellectually) at all scheduled creativity meetings; use
ethical behavior and honesty in interactions with peers and
consultant; demonstrate responsibility to the task of group
work; contribute in the process of producing of final
presentation; and be fair and cooperative in-group
interactions. Each group, with the guidance of the
creativity consultant, is also encouraged to set additional
discipline-specific criteria for self, peer, and consultant
evaluations. It is possible to fail (which is established
as the equivalent of being fired) if there is a significant
lack on the part of a student in all (or a combination of
several) of the passing criteria. In the history of the
creativity stream, no group has ever failed.
Are you realizing your goals with this effort and
by what metrics do you declare a successful outcome? Is
Babson producing "more creative" MBAs than in the
past?
For over 10 years, U.S. News and World Report has ranked
Babson’s graduate program number one for entrepreneurship.
While the creativity stream is just one element of the
larger program, its continued and successful presence in
the impressionable early stages of the Two-Year MBA program
suggests that it is an integral part of how we should be
educating our future corporate leaders. For corporations
seeking creativity in new hires, MBA graduates who have
completed the creativity stream—or something like it—offer
increased confidence in their ability to express themselves
creatively; willingness to accept ambiguity and the
uncertainty of process as part of discovery; openness to
alternatives ways of seeing a problem, solution, or
scenario; and renewed trust in themselves and their
potential as creative thinkers.
How are the students responding to the
program?
Student evaluations have been remarkably positive and
steady. Most students find the experience transformative,
with long-lasting benefits. While there are those who feel
resistant at first, over the course of the stream they tend
to find merit in the exercise. By the end, as they observe
their peers presenting their own creativity experiences
distilled, these students are often the most enthusiastic
and changed by their firsthand exposure to creative
process.
In your opinion, what are the benefits of
creativity education for MBA students with differing
backgrounds?
More and more, we have MBAs enrolling with undergraduate
backgrounds in the liberal arts. This enriches our
creativity stream in wonderful ways, but in the end, we're
not so much interested in traditional approaches to
teaching art—we want to understand, distill, and model the
creative process for MBAs through the arts.
Some business schools are reaching out to theater
departments for communication skills training. Does Babson
have a similar effort?
We have an improvisational actor as one of our creativity
consultant/artists.
In your opinion, what is the future for Arts
Education/Business School collaboration?
With proper funding and resources, and the necessary
administrative and faculty support, I’d say the future is
very bright for this kind of collaboration
Is Babson involved in other interdisciplinary
collaborations?
In our Liberal Arts Division, we create foundational
courses for first-year students that feature elements from
a range of disciplines, including literary study,
philosophy, and the visual arts.
Read Mary's excellent article, (Re)Educating for
Leadership: How the Arts Can Improve Business.
