Orchestrating Collaboration at Work is an activity book for trainers, coaches, mediators and facilitators, who want to use the arts to create transformative learning experiences in organizations.

This book examines what we can learn from the arts that we can apply to business. All 70 activities are crafted using arts-based principles that offer new insights and skills development in creativity, communication, teamwork, and collaborative leadership. You do NOT have to be an artist to use this book's offerings!

Painting, poetry, storytelling, music, sculpting and improvisational theater offer innovative and transformative learning experiences. You can use them as quick icebreakers or brainjuicers at meetings or training sessions, and as a means of mediating dialogue to stimulate employee engagement. These activities act as catalysts for conversations that really matter and provide an antidote to information overload.

To provide a context and a rationale for the arts in business, we have included insights, observations, and advice derived from interviews with leading researchers, educators, change agents, artists and practitioners, including: business author Margaret Wheatley, poet David Whyte, actor Richard Olivier, and John Seely Brown, former chief scientist at Xerox PARC.

Table of Contents

Read an excerpt from Chapter 2.

Orchestrating Collaboration at Work will help you:

High-performance collaborative work teams are the new performance imperative in both private and public enterprises.
VanGundy and Naiman show how using the arts to unleash the creative potential of individuals and teams will allow this new performance mandate to be met. This book helps to push the edge of the arts in business envelope.
— Robert F. Lusch, dean and distinguished professor, The Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas

Our experiences today, obviously demonstrate the need for a holistic, integrated approach to value creation. Only by means of interdisciplinary dialogue and action we will be able to access the existing multitude of creative development opportunities in social, ecological and economic contexts. Orchestrating Collaboration at Work provides hands on examples on how to start and facilitate such a process.
— Andreas J. Harbig, partner, head of strategic HR management, Pricewaterhousecoopers, Germany

I think your book is wonderful!!
You masterfully designed a terrific array of resource materials.
— Susan M. Osborn, PhD, faculty, organizational systems, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, Folsom, California

A wealth of enablers in the form of training excercises:
I have discovered the power and the simplicity in finding/applying a wide variety of experiencial excercises that spark creativity and imagination in groups. The beauty of this valuable workbook is that it unleashes our hidden potentialities. I have successfully used these activities in private business and in non profit organizations and in every ocassion the results have been the creation of high energy and relevant discoveries among participants. Thank you Arthur and Linda for your valuable contribution.
— Carlos Mota Margain (Mexico City, Mexico)

Will VanGundy Ever Run Out of Creativity?
 Arthur VanGundy has already given us just about every conceivable aid to creative work--from "Brain Boosters" to "101 Games" and "101 Activities." Now with Linda Naiman he delivers the most comprehensive and accessible creativity and innovation resource for groups I've ever seen. And it's about time someone got business people to start thinking like artists. Anyone in business creativity, ideation, and new-product development will find the VanGundy-Naiman approach not only inspiring and fun but incredibly effective. This binderful of brilliance would be a bargain at $900.
— Peter Lloyd (USA)

Terrific Resource   
I've purchased MANY books filled with MANY activities over the years. This is one of the best I've seen. It has lots of immediately applicable activities that are practically guaranteed to succeed. As well, it triggers lots of additional ideas for additional activities, too. A tremendous resource that every trainer, facilitator and consultant should add to their library.
— David Gouthro (Canada)

Orchestrating Collaboration at Work

See also
The Intersection of Art and Business:
A context for arts-based training and development

Examples of using the arts as a strategic tool in business