What Does a Museum Spark?

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Last week, while on vacation, my husband and I went to The Art Institute of Chicago. This is an incredible museum with gorgeous stained glass panels by Chagall,one of the biggest collections of paintings by the Impressionists, ancient artifacts from all over the world, and a timeline of humanity that is utterly in-comprehensively comprehensive. The building that houses this museum contains the history of the human race! And here’s the thing: the museum was crowded…with loads of people. People were waiting at the doors every morning just to beat the crowds!
I have had the good fortune in my life to have traveled a lot and have developed a certain approach when I arrive in a new city. See the local food markets, hit the museums, do some walking tours, venture into the neighborhoods, and eat at the neighborhood restaurants. I feel like I get a good overview that way. And in every single city I have ever visited I have found the museums crowded with people, the world over! It’s really quite unbelievable. And you watch people staring at paintings, discussing the artists’ strokes, light and shading, subject matter and so on; they are taking it seriously. There is so much to learn in a matter of hours.
What does this tell me? That humans seek inspiration whenever possible. The more crowded and fast our world becomes the more we seek out the continuity of the arc of history that these works of art gift to us.
Yet, since we spend so much time at work, how are we doing in helping to inspire our work force to understand why they do what they do and who it serves? Customer service can be inspired and it can be depressing. We have a choice. People are in search of soul inspiring and creative connections; just go to a museum and you won’t believe how you’ll feel when you come out. How can leaders remember to get stuff done while helping us dig into our inspired and creative selves?
Tim Gallwey, in his inspired book called, “The Inner Game of Work” describes a simple model companies really ought to think about. He drew a triangle and labeled one base “enjoyment”, another ‘learning’ and the top of the triangle was labeled ‘performance. His contention is that in order to achieve breakthrough performances people need to be given the opportunity to learn new material to help them with their work and to tie enjoyment into their daily work lives. These 3 actions need to interplay in order to get the most out of people. I have asked people to fill in this triangle based on their different work environments and the results are startling; performance soars when learning and enjoyment are happening. So as you go forward, think about visiting a museum and notice how much you learn and enjoy in the process and what that does to your performance on the day of your visit.

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