PAUL SHRIVASTAVA, Bucknell University, paul.shrigmail.com

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Managing with PassionAn Exploration in
Organizational Aesthetics

• PAUL SHRIVASTAVA, Bucknell University,
  paul.shri_at_gmail.com
• MICHELLE COOPER, Artist, mich.coop_at_gmail.com

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Outline

• Issues Emotions, Passion, Managing with Passion
• Method Aesthetics, Organizational Aesthetics,
  Embodied Learning
• Research Setting Argentine Tango as Embodiment
  of Management Skills
• Experience Passion Demo, Dance Tango
• Discussion Role of Passion in Organizations
  in Life

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Emotions, Passion, Managing with Passion

• Emotions, emotional knowledge, is critical but a
  taboo in organizations.
• Managing is supposedly rational, analytical,
  objective. Little space is given to
  subjectivity, emotions, passion, or intuition.
• Yet, no great human feat was accomplished without
  Passion and emotional engagement.
• Passion refers to deep emotional commitment and
  engagement it is an embodied experience using
  body, mind, and spirit/emotions.
• Aesthetics is a path to understanding passion
  emotional life of organizations

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My Interest in Managing with Passion

• Origins - Founding and running eSocrates, Inc.
• Passionate entrepreneurs in the incubator, at VC
  Conferences.
• Engaging body (90 hour weeks), mind (planning,
  strategizing, designing software) and emotions
  (elation-depression cycles).
• Reading philosophy, sociology, and neurology of
  emotions passion.
• Taking up dance (Argentine Tango) as an aesthetic
  medium.

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Method Aesthetics

• Beauty is an enduring virtue, there is truth in
  beauty
• Aesthetics sensory knowledge and felt meaning
  of objects and experiences.
• Reason and logic often contrasted with emotion
  and feeling
• What they have in common is that both are sources
  of knowledge and generate meanings we rely and
  act on.
• Aesthetic inquiry seeks sensory and emotional
  knowledge, inter-subjective truth
• Mode of inquiry is Art painting, music, dance,
  drama, theater
• Art v/s Sciencegt ArtSciencegt Art as Science
• Dance your dissertation http//gonzolabs.org/d
  ance/contestants/

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Organizational Aesthetics

• Organizations/Organizing need beauty, art and
  creativity.
• Organizational aesthetics sensory knowledge and
  felt meaning of organizational objects/processes,
  use of artful methods, artistic innovations.
• Organizational Relevance of Aesthetics
• Creativity in tech, ads, communications,
  entrepreneurship
• Aesthetic Practices Architecture, Apples
  product design, Texas Death Row Narratives
• Links to larger social, ecological, life context
• Organizational Scholarship - AACORN, Aesthesis
  Journal

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Research Setting Dance, Argentine Tango as a
Vehicle for Managing with Passion

• Dance - an expressive art, social, cross
  cultural, historical
• Argentine Tango Social dance, 1880s immigrant
  to global citizens,

• Argentine Tango - an embodiment of management
  values and skills - improvisation, communication,
  teamwork, leadership, and community development. 
• These managing skills are practiced by couples in
  social Tango dancing

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Argentine Tango Music, dance, culture of Passion

• emotional music with complex intellectual themes
  (love, loyalty, relationships, beauty, loss,
  nostalgia, abandonment)
• physical sensual, aware
• Connection and communication
• Socialization and community

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Readings

• Nussbaum, M. Upheavals of Thought The
  Intelligence of Emotions, London Cambridge
  University Press, London 2001
• Hopfl, H. (Ed.), The aesthetics of organization .
  London Sage, 2000.

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Demo

• Leadership (make follower feel beautiful, secure,
  learn follower steps)
• Teamwork (self-practice, synchronicity aesthetic)
• Communication (via gaze, smile, embrace, weight
  shift, steps, torso, arms, legs)
• Community

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Experiencing Passion - Embodied Knowing

• Conceptual/Intellectual to Sensory/Emotional
• Aesthetic Experience v/s Prepositional Knowing
• Towards holistic embodied learning

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Emotional Infrastructure of Organizations

• Organizations have an emotional infrastructure,
  much like they have a physical infrastructure
  (land, plant and facilities) and a technology
  infrastructure (info systems, equipment,
  processes).
• Passion skills can provide access to emotional
  infrastructure composed of moods, climate,
  assumptions, culture, goodwill, beliefs, mutual
  trust and authenticity.