Virtual Art Class and Other Epiphanies

"Oh c'mon not another template again!" I find myself screaming to my head when I saw the email in my inbox about another balanced scorecard template. When will this ever end? Last week I saw another one that had weights on the four aspects of the scorecard and I remember thinking, "Why on earth are we going to put weights on them? What is the purpose of calling them balanced if one aspect is more important than the other?"

All we do is tip-toe around directions such as this. And I for the life of me do not understand the fear that overcomes our employees when they feel the urge to voice out their thoughts about situations that do not make sense such as now.

But I am choosing my battles and I need a job. And there are plenty of other warriors in the field that have not put in their two scents.

So this afternoon, I have chosen to look at Adi's blog and found it quite a breather to read something very affirming. Her blogs are almost a month late because she writes them on her sketchbook as a chronicle of her own artistic progress. Journaling isn't anything new to me but sharing private journals like this is something I have never experienced before. This chronicle was written when I was watching her in class while we were both online in Skype.

For that moment I felt like an art student and it felt right. Immediately, I started think about how I can recreate the experience in an HR context. I do that because it's the only way I can be innovative about my job and at the same time feel intrinsically motivated to keep going. I look at the areas I can cover if I bring it some sort of art program. The process of journaling one's learning is also very helpful and seems to be a different form of appreciative inquiry except that you're doing it by yourself.

From these raw ideas came a more distinct idea to set up interest groups around art to teach values formation. The profiles of our workforce do not really engage pretty well in classroom settings and I thought teaching them the most important things they need to learn to survive in this organizational climate, have to be through something a little bit more hands-on and interesting.

To pull that idea off, I need to engage with artists who can teach and I need a very good training design. Now here's the hard part, getting the buy-in.

Before the comfort of Adi's affirmation declines in this moment, I shall stop here lest the post turn the opposite direction.