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AT VE M tation that they'll be writing Japanese haiku their first semester. Those who do, however, are usually part of a new wave of business education that seeks to educate the whole person by unlocking the creative potential within. "I believe there's a disconnect between the work people ost executives don't sign up for education courses planning to chase red helium balloons through a conference room. Few MBA stu- dents enroll in business school with the expec- do in the business world and the lives they lead when they're not in the business world. Creativity courses help these two separate spheres get reconnected," says Mary Pinard, an associate professor of English at Babson College in Babson Park, Massachusetts. She also is a poet and a cre- ativity consultant in the school's MBA program. "People are starting to understand that one of the new calls in the workplace is to bring more of yourself," says Nicholas Janni, a visiting fellow at the Praxis Centre, Cranfield School of Management, in Bedford, England. There he teaches leadership courses and creativity classes to both MBA students and working executives. "Until recent- ly, some of the softer issues like emotional intelligence were seen as interesting but not central to business. I think that now people realize that these issues are crucial to the bot- tom line. Research projects have shown that when employ- ees feel their creativity is valued, their satisfaction increases and their whole level of commitment goes up. Companies no longer can focus only on profit or only on emotional intelligence. What's rapidly becoming clear is that the two are interdependent." A business course that emphasizes creativity teaches participants an entirely different way of looking at the world. It's not organizational behavior or basic account- ing—but it could be just as relevant to the way a manag- er does his job. BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2003 Many industry observers maintain that the corporate world is a cold, mechanized environment. Courses in creativity are designed to counter this trend, helping executives regain their humanity—and in the process, become more inspirational leaders. Rhyme and Reason For the past ten years at Babson, a creativity "stream" has been part of the module that first-year students must take during their first five weeks on campus. They're randomly assigned to one of seven classes where they learn poetry, painting, fiction-writing, theatrical improvisation, pup- peteering, movement, or music; each module is taught by a "creativity consultant" who is a working artist proficient in that field. From their very first session with their cre- ativity consultant, students are immersed in the principles of the creative process. "The idea is to expose them, in a very hands-on way, to the notion of creative process," says Pinard. "Students should come away from these classes with a more attuned sense of self, and this will speak powerfully to whatever tasks or decisions they have to make in the business setting." Harry Vardis, a trainer at Creative Focus Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia, offers a "creativity boot camp" to executives in companies ranging from Yahoo! to the U.S. Army. For the past three years, he has taught creativity programs to MBA students at Emory University in Atlanta and Anahuac University in Mexico City, and he's beginning to work with other schools such as Kennesaw State University in Georgia. "We teach people how to notice things—how to hear things, how to deal with the senses," Vardis says. He has constructed a creativity curriculum that revolves around the basic requirements of a businessperson's life—dealing with customers, managing employees, creating new prod- ucts, making presentations, staying ahead of competi- tion—and lays out ways managers can do these jobs more creatively and effectively. Vardis' classes also focus on the best ways to arrange space to induce creativity. If two employees interact well and seem to spark ideas from each other, should their offices be moved closer together so they can be in constant 35