Mary Ittelson is an adjunct assistant professor of strategy. In her new class at Booth about arts leadership, she encourages future leaders to try radical strategies.
In class we discuss the challenges of leading amidst VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. But we also talk about the opportunities, the silver linings. Today there are so many grave problems, and so many things we can’t do. I have found unexpected inspiration by focusing on what we can do.
I’ve been teaching arts leadership for five years now, originally at Stanford Business School. Initially, I didn’t want to teach this past fall. Art is best experienced live, and my class is designed in that spirit. But I changed my mind after talking with my colleague at Booth, George Wu [the John P. and Lillian A. Gould Professor of Behavioral Science], who had volunteered to help faculty members who had never taught online. He encouraged us to make the best possible version of our classes despite the difficult circumstances.
Taking George’s advice to heart, I turned the class into a laboratory for grappling real-time with the thorniest problems facing arts organizations today—from the financial devastation of closures to the calls for racial and social justice reckonings. Alongside arts executives, we addressed difficult questions, including how to bring arts resources to our most vulnerable communities. The urgency of the crises challenged all of us to put our best selves forward, and I was blown away by the Booth students’ ingenious problem-solving. Going way beyond the application of best practices of the past, students crafted novel strategies to help museums, theaters, and dance companies thrive postpandemic.
For the first time, and thanks to the remote format, I was able to have several artists speak with the class. Their resilience was especially inspiring. Even in the direst of times, artists have found the means to create and connect. Driven by both passion and purpose, the artists provided leadership lessons that fueled some of the most interesting discussions of the quarter.
On a personal level, engaging in artistic expression can be valuable for everyone. Most of us are taught to believe, “Oh, I can’t paint. I can’t sing. I can’t dance.” I think that’s a terrible mistake. I find stepping away from work and spending time creating art is a profoundly hopeful and generative act.
I’ve turned to writing fiction in the past five years. I’m not as good a writer as I was a professional dancer, or as I am an arts manager or teacher. But writing opens my mind and my heart. I’m a goal-oriented strategic planner by nature and nurture. Creative expression takes me on more serendipitous paths, which can be tremendously productive. I urge my students to carve out time to not just experience art, but to make it. I urge everyone to.
In class I quote the legendary choreographer Agnes de Mille, who once said, “The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.” For me this quote speaks beyond artistry to the essence of living and leading in difficult times. Today the road may not be clear before us, but with strength, courage, and creativity, we can move forward.