Listening: A Strategy and Change Blog | Hosfeld & Associates

Think about the last strategic planning process you went through. Was it energizing? Did it create breakthroughs with lasting impact on the organization? Did it tap the creativity of the planning team? If it did, it’s likely that your process went beyond traditional planning techniques to tap the potential of the artistic mind. It was likely more like a strategy design session than a strategic planning session.

What’s the difference?

Effective strategy design calls on us to engage the artistic mind – capable of pattern recognition, synthesis, story, empathy, play and meaning-making – to create compelling futures that inspire adaptive change. In our Strategy Jazz workshop, we explore an archetypal pattern of human creativity through the eyes of jazz musicians to see ways we can get greater outcomes from strategy processes.

Strategy Jazz will be presented at the OSR (Organizational Systems Renewal) alumni conference at Seattle University, June 19, 2010, but can also be adapted for on-sites, retreats and other conferences.

Through this workshop, we invite participants to shift their mental model of strategy design from a linear “planning” model to an innovation-based approach that taps the artistic, intuitive mind.

Using conversations with jazz recording artists Greta Matassa and Jovino Santos Neto, we take participants on a guided tour of the elements of jazz improvisation, laying down an archetypal pattern that repeats itself in our approach to strategic innovation for businesses and other organizations.

The OSR Conference explores the emerging field of arts in the design and leadership of change. For more information about the OSR Conference or to register, please visit the event website. To find out about options for presenting this workshop for your own organization, please contact us. Additional information is also available here.