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Professional Insights

Strategic thinking and lessons from the sculptor Henry Moore

Nov 14, 2020 · 2 min read

This summer, I was lucky enough to visit the home, gardens and studios of Henry Moore, a 20th century British sculptor. The visit provided fascinating insights into the mind and creativity of Moore, and it got me thinking about how we as strategists could learn from his ways of working. After all, strategy is an art form that involves creating vivid scenarios of possible futures.

Focus on what appears odd, contradictory and paradoxical

‘Hoglands’, his home in the village of Perry Green, Hertfordshire, is full of colours, shapes and textures that confront all the senses and emotions. The guidebook describes, ‘What may at first seem an indiscriminate hoard of objects was in fact a carefully selected and displayed collection that moved between tables and shelves in the playful investigation of aesthetic relationships’.i

This embodies what strategic thinking should be all about: ‘prolonged looking, chance and uncanny juxtapositions’ to simulate exploration and investigation of different scenarios. Far too often, we finance professionals stick to the familiar, relying on numbers and spreadsheets that only offer a one-dimensional view. Strategic thinking needs to encompass so much more.

Go outside the finance function

On the grounds of the Henry Moore Foundation are scattered a network of different studios that the sculptor would retreat to, depending on what he was working on. These included an etching studio, a maquette studio and summer house in which he loved to draw. The summer house had originally been mounted on a turntable, so it could be rotated to different perspectives and to catch the best light at various points in the day.

When working one British winter on a large outdoor sculpture of reclining figures for New York’s Lincoln Center, Moore asked a builder to design a studio that could simulate the effects of working outdoors in the natural light.

‘I realised that a big sculpture intended to live outdoors permanently is better if it is actually made out-of-doors. Light out-of-doors comes of course from the sky, it is an all-round light, it is not the directional light which you get in a room with windows’.ii

That really got me thinking. When we build strategic scenarios, we need to experience the environments in which they are designed to sit. We also need to be able to describe them in such a way that they engage with all our senses.

Build your scenarios in three dimensions

Yet most fascinating of all to me was Moore’s maquette studio.

Moore was one of the first artists to replace drawing with maquettes as the main vehicle for sculptural ideas. Traditionally, artists had worked out ideas for sculptures on paper, producing hundreds of drawings exploring the subject from multiple viewpoints. His new method enabled him to develop his ideas much faster and on a larger scale.

How do we build tactile experiences into our strategic thinking and decision-making? How can we create experiences that explore contours, cavities and external and internal forms in three dimensions to better engage our organisations in strategy? Could a strategic scenario maquette studio for the finance function make us think differently? Maybe art can help us find our strategic creativity.

In our Re-inventing finance for a digital world supplement, we explore the research underpinning our views of how strategic thinking and decision-making are changing in a digital world. We want organisations and finance functions to do two things: rediscover creative strategic thinking and empower us all to construct safe environments in which we have the time to think. Let’s play to our strategic strengths.

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