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students engage with subject matter and learn in a deeper, more meaningful, and more 'DISGUISED LEARNING'—learning you do when you don't think you are learning." —Glenn Pearce, University of Western Sydney CREATIVE CAVEATS If a business school is considering adding a creativity module to its curriculum, Babson's Mary Pinard has several suggestions. First, she says, administrators should be clear about their goals. "If you're doing this as a marketing ploy, you're not a as you're beginning rather than having to build yourself out of a box later," she says. Next, she says, prepare the regular faculty and the and money for the program, Pinard says, which includes being able to compensate the working artists for their time and effort. In addition, she advises administrators to choose these artists carefully. "It's very important that they be work- ing artists and experienced teachers." It is not important that these artists have a formal business background, she notes, because "all artists are entrepreneurs in a sense, and all of the consultants understand the challenge of getting their work out into the world." She also recommends a forward-thinking attitude that anticipates a successful program designed in a way that allows it to grow. "It's much easier to imagine those spaces good candidate," she says. "There are too many unknowns and too many surprises for such a program to pay you back in that way. If your focus is the risky business of changing people's perceptions and acclimating them to a richer way of being in the world, you're probably a good candidate." A school also must be sure to allocate adequate space creativity consultants for the rigors of the program. "There must be a real clarity about what creativity or art means in a traditional setting," she says. "Sometimes these worlds don't meld. For example, it's really difficult to evaluate outcomes around creativity using traditional grading methods, because that assigns value in a way that is antithetical to the creative process. People need to think through these things so they don't become barriers to the success of the program." In fact, she recommends planning an evaluation system from the very start. "Know what kind of feedback you can request of the students at the end of the process. What did they learn, how were they changed, how do they expect the principles they've learned to apply to courses across the program? Ask them to evaluate the work they did with the consultant." Pinard notes that the evaluation system in use at Babson not only gives her student feedback—what works and what needs to be changed—but also gives her years' worth of information about the program and how successful it has been. "It helps me justify the existence of creativity in this program," she says. "Especially at the beginning of a pro- gram, especially if you think it might be threatened, an evaluation system is a really important strategy," she says. their students skeptical at first. "We get a lot of resistance and quizzical looks," Pinard says. "Some students will say, 'I came here to learn business principles. What does this have to do with anything?' Others will say, 'This doesn't mean anything because it's not graded. It's pass/fail, so how could I possibly value it?' Depending on what the resistance is, there are points along the stream that will address those resistances. Most students are transformed by the end." This is particularly evident during the Q&A sessions that to be much clearer about what we call their presence as lead- ers. They should be more vulnerable to people, know how to communicate in ways that inspire people, be more authentic, and be more transparent. Emotional intelligence is a part of great leadership as well, so we hope they will have learned how to manage their own emotions and be more sensitive to the emotions of others." In fact, researchers at Cranfield are considering a project are part of the presentations students give at the conclusion of Babson's creativity program. "The Q&A is really critical, because it gives students a chance to say, 'This is what hap- pened to me, this is why it's important.' Those are a profound ten minutes. The students become almost textbook speakers on the nature of creativity," says Pinard. All the instructors hope that their MBA students and high- that will enable them to track the increase of productivity in an organization after some of its members have been through the creativity sessions. Janni believes they'll find proof that creativity makes employees more productive and companies more profitable, either "through improved customer service or through generating new ideas about the business," he says. In a business world where competition is fierce and inno- level executives go on to incorporate principles of creativity into their daily working lives. Says Janni, "We'd also like them vation is fast, the corporate executive who can constantly gen- erate new ideas is a valuable commodity. The goal of creativ- ity classes is to loosen up closed minds and let the corporate imagination run free—and help the company's profits soar BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2003 39