“Small is Beautiful”, wrote E.F. Schumacher in his seminal book on economics and corporate structure in the 1970s.
Beauty has a direct bearing on understanding the soul of the corporate organisation.
It is very rare that in workshops, talks, seminars on leadership, management, system thinking or performance improvement that beauty is part of their content. Only one book aimed at the corporate world refers to beauty, in the context of questioning. Google search reveals that beauty is a subject best kept for the make-up, salon, office massage and hairdressing industries.
”The world is first of all an aesthetic phenomenon before it is mathematical, logical or theological. So the most basic reaction to being in the world is aesthetic”. James Hillman
Hillman uses aesthetic with cognisance of root meaning: for perception by the senses, and later, pertaining to the perception of the beautiful.
If the world is first an aesthetic phenomenon, then anything that arrests your attention can be beautiful. And any thing beautiful can spontaneously move you beyond your current frame of mind open your consciousness to new states of awareness.
“Your key will be something that inspires in you feelings of reverence, the sharp intake of breath that we associate with awe. Beauty is a wonderful door to the soul.” Pat Allen
When you walk into your place of work, what makes you stop and think that is worthy of your attention? Could any of the emails you read – or write – be considered beautiful? What about a person’s character, a leader’s behaviour? And beyond the physical environment? What questions do you ask or respond to that are beautiful?
“Beauty is a summation of the parts where nothing is needed to be altered, added, or taken away.” Elio Carletti
Scientist Nancy Etcoff said“Turning a cold eye to beauty is as easy as quelling physical desire or responding with indifference to a baby’s cry. We can say that beauty is dead, but all that does is widen the chasm between the real world and our understanding of it.”
Have a read of this article too: Survival of the Prettiest Nancy Ectoff
Consider your levels of anxiety at the office. Notice how we try to control the chaos, frustration and lack of meaning they experience through medication, food, television, social media, news sites etc. Why do we have this pathologised experience of our environment? What is the state of soul?
Where is the beauty? Perhaps the first question is: what could be beautiful to you? Beautiful enough to inspire?
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