Couldn't agree more! Business has so much to learn from theatre, in particular. Now when I work with companies on the Experience Economy, I almost always show them the standard Freytag Diagram for dramatic structure, saying that's how they should design their experiences to become more compelling and engaging. The hardest part for folks to understand for some reason is that without crisis there can be no great climax. It's like the flip side to your point about plot -- if the plot's too simple they'll get bored.

Why do we always have to pigeon hole something into something that already exists? The largest complaint at Procter & Gamble about marketing research is that it too already only confirms the things people already know. How about starting a new program that does not exist at major universities such as the MFI - Masters in Fine Innovation. Having revolutionized or commercialized several major packaged goods categories, I'd love to run THAT course. You might find a sidebar link on my blog MADISON AVENUE.
Thanks!

I really like the idea.I see this in my life before.working in different areas in industry, I always see that the basis of creativity exists everywhere in every field, mostly in Art.I suggest CEO's try to conduct workshops in their Orgs reg creativity and ask art school professors to come and teach.
Finally we have to link art in our day-to-day business.
Leonardo Davin chi was a creative artist,inventor and leader .if we want to build leaders in orgs, we have to make an artist out of them.

@a

Any business can be defined by its people and any course of study that can allow someone to constructively think outside of their comfort sphere is worth loking into.

Ditto!! This article is right on. Life experience has taught me that creative right-brainedness can definitely be applied in most aspects of business. With an art education from earlier years and most recently an MBA, I have found a permanent "home" living outside that rigid box where most of my left-brain colleagues reside. The ability to creatively visualize the intangible, is truly a gift. Multiple intelligences does have a place in the business world!!

I just completed my MBA at St. Edward's University in Austin Texas. Before I entered school, I was a professional musician. I am totally onboard with this line of thought. When I played in a band, wrote a song, produce an album or toured I experienced her four lessons. I believe my MBA will make me a better musician and I know my musician days made me smarter in my MBA courses.

If we think of various subjects appealing to different muscles of our being, then this article makes perfect sense.
Many a successful families, cultures, and groups have these distinctive practices of giving their younge ones a foundation in mathematics, music, sports, and martial arts. Dan Pink just confirmed their validity once again.

Great discussion. As you might know, the original article "The MFA is the new MBA" ran in the Feb 2004 Harvard Business Review. In other words, the meme has a pretty good pedigree!

Cheers,
Dan Pink

I guess an MFA in fiction writing might also be very useful for business management thanks to the storytelling it teaches.

I may refer you to Tom Peters who often emphasizes the power of storytelling. He cites Howard Gardner "A key—perhaps the key—to leadership is the effective communication of a story." And Rolf Jensen: "Imagination, myth, ritual—the language of emotion—will affect everything from our purchasing decisions to how we work with others. Companies will thrive on the basis of their stories and myths. Companies will need to understand that their products are less important than their stories."

You can read more in this post of Tom's blog:
http://www.tompeters.com/entries.php?note=006771.php

This is exactly why we've created the first Design MBA in the USA. The fine print should point-out that not every MBA is out nor every MFA going to help you in business. However, those that focus on different forms of communication, customer-centric solution-building, and deep understandings of people, are in much better shape to help people learn how to innovate effectively. This can't be taught well in a course here or there--as an elective. It must be integrated throughout the curriculum.

MBA programs are, largely, focused on developing managers, not leaders. Too many graduates are oriented toward measures of success that have nothing to do with innovation. Many lack the courage to take chances and the ability to face a blank sheet of paper and create something entirely new, meaningful, and appropriate. These, too, are skills one learns in design school.

Well, its not the MBA, its the way its offered. Also BA.

Formal education seems to forget that people get things done. Why does it not teach students about human interaction?

MFA - not quite. The disciplines emphasized, definately.

Why is it that school emphasizes facts, not thinking? Not applying theory to reality? Not being analytical? Learning is an incredible journey but learning facts isn't worth anything. For instance, I'm not smarter than a fifth grader if smarter means doing fractions. Thats not smart, thats the abilty to master or memorize a clearly defined concept. Smarts are the ability to apply what is learned and then use it in real life.

Life is an MBA if you are open to it.

I am currently in the second year of my MBA in Durban, South Africa. When we study, for example, Micheal Porter, and ask: What is Strategy? - some of us know that we need to first understand the basic concepts and then using all of our intellectual capacity to answer the questions that business and life asks of us. When answering, we must use every single resource available, including our creative right brain.

I do this by "training my right brain" to be more "switched on". I brush my teeth with my left hand, wear my watch on my right hand, and so on.

I agree with some of the earlier comments, we need the MBA and we also need the MFA. Perhaps we should have the Master of Fine Business Arts and Adminstation as well.

I totally agree. As a military officer I argued that creativity was a key trait of all the great military leaders. In previous times great generals were also great thinkers, spoke multiple languages, collected art, etc. As a holder of an BFA, MEd, and a MBA and a senior manager now in industry I can tell you that my "right side" adds great dimension to my ability to look at a problem. I would content that for one to "think outside the box" one must first know the box's boundaries, and art and music and creative writing are great ways to come to understand where those boundaries exist.

"MFA is the new MBA." I've heard the slogan before--my advisor at the Univ. of Minnesota emailed me an article with the same sort of title around the time I completed my MFA four years ago. Guess what? I've yet to find any "forward looking" corporation advertising for my services. My experiences working with left-brainers, which I had more than 30 years of at newspapers, all showed me that businesses, even "alternative" newspapers like the major weekly I worked for here in Minneapolis for ten years, are invariably structured so as to squelch creativity, not encourage it. Even in a university setting, where I was enlisted as a research assistant for a digital technology project for my expertise in aesthetics, creativity is viewed as amusing but there is no serious effort to make use of it. The left-brainers do what they would have done anyway without your input.

One telltale sign of the futility of attempting to inject true creativity into corporate culture is the oxymoron commonly used, and used above: "artistic training." What a ridiculous contradiction in terms! TRAINING is NEVER artistic. It may be possible to cultivate artistry, but not TRAIN it. (Shudder.)

Couldn't agree with Pete Wagner more. It's hip to hire "rightys", but no one knows what to do with them once they're present. Being someone with an arts background, I enjoy coming up with creative solutions to problems - which is apparently why I was hired. However, being expected to stay in a cubicle for 8+ hours a day drains me of the very qualities they wanted in the first place.

I'm rather not qualified to say anything on the topic.I was just browsing the net for understanding the nuances of business design concept and its acceptance areas in MBA offering institutes across the globe as my daught has got an offer from Welingker Institute -MUMBAI for a business design diploma and she is quite undecided.
My cursory aquaintance tells that all domains of knoweldge will have to have an integrated approach to be able to have a positive impact.The more we learn, the more we realise the interface points with various desciplines, and about convergence of subjects.Studies in future are going to be an assorted fruit basket that will give pleasure to the owner and temptation to the bystander.