You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, there's a new book out. It's by the art advisor Maria Brito. It tells executives to emulate jazz musicians and painters to respond to constant change and uncertainty. Maria Brito joins us now she's the art an art advisor, a curator, and an author, including the new book How Creativity Rules the World, The Art and Business of Turning your Ideas into Gold.
She joins us to be a zoom from New York City. Maria, how are you hi? Thank you so much for having me. I'm well, with a beautiful day out in New York City. How can I not be happy? It is a beautiful day today. Word on the street is Katie Grafeld even went for a run outside this morning because it's so nice. I did, even though the sun rose a lot later than I'm used to. That's that's you can talk to Senator Rubio about that, Okay, I'll take ye. Well, Maria, I I was really eager and I am eager to
speak to you. I think in the business world and I think you know, we often hear about the idea of poets versus quantz and the artists versus the numbers people. Um, where do executives look to when it comes to making quick decisions and when why do you argue that artists are the right place to look. Well, in the times that we have been living and experiencing, particularly in the past years, we have had to experiment, pivot, and improvise. So I think that it is important for executives to
look at strategies around creativity. Is the way artists do it, because there is one thing about artists that we can all learn from, which is how nimble their operations are, how quickly they are to react, and how unafraid they are too post questions, look for answers in unusual places, which is something that a lot of people do not
necessarily do. And if you happen to be doing the same thing that you have been doing trying to obtain different results, you know that the the definition of insanity, right, And I think that a lot of people do not necessarily look for the right places to either find a new solution or to see their problems from different angles.
And so a lot of the things that I write in this book have to do with how to improve your creative thinking, how to really become an innovator instead of following the hurt and doing what everybody else is doing. You know, it's a very difficult thing to innovate in an industry if you are following the mainstream or what everybody is doing, and you're never going to find the answers that you're looking for if you're just reading a
trade magazine. And that's the truth. And so this book encourages people to look at their problems in business, their problems in their companies, in their markets, from a very different perspective. And I think that's the value of this is if you keep looking at everything the same way you've done before, it's it's not necessarily going to be a place of progress imory. You have data on your side here in the book, I mean you look at
several studies, right. Yes, absolutely is very heavy on data, because I went after every study that I could look at and every publication, peer reviewed, everything that I could actually get my hands around that confirmed many of my
different points here. For example, the data that has been shared on LinkedIn for the past three years shows that eight hundred and eighty million professionals are talking about creativity as the number one skill that they are looking for to have in their businesses, and actually it is the hardest to get and that this scriptancy is actually frightening if you think about it, because be creative and innovative is nothing that is out of the range of ordinary people.
It's just that requires a lot of skills that you have to hone on a daily basis. Okay, Maria, we only have a minute with you for now. Then we're gonna come back. We're gonna do some more with you. But what would you say to somebody whose immediate reaction is you know, I'm I'm not a creative person. I'm somebody who doesn't think that way. How can they be trained to be a creative person? Well, the problem is
that creativity is not just for artists. There every every new solution that you come up with that is build on the heels of what has already been done and that serves a purpose and is relevant for today, is that creative solution. Everybody is creative. In fact, there have been so many studies that prove that. But we just put this barriers and what I suggest people to begin with is to to start experimenting and asking questions that they have not asked before on the boardroom, on day
to day operations. This are the type of things that actually bring the best results. And that's what I want to get into. And we actually we can keep going with you for a few more minutes breaking down those barriers. I don't know, I just feel like, uh, you know, there would be some resistance to that, So talk to us a little more about, you know, how people can break down those barriers. Barriers and you know, recognize that
I am creative. Actually, one of the studies that I quote in my in my book is one that was conducted by professors from London School of Economics and they were hired by a variety of different tech companies and one of them was lagging behind the competitors. And what they discovered was that there was an emotional safety in that company, so nobody could really speak up about issues, problems, the ideas that they had, the things that they thought
could be blemented. And so if you're a manator and you're listening to this, just think about that for a second. How can you actually allow your people to speak up and to express the realities of what they are going through or seeing at work. And when you actually kill the original phase of creativity, which is having the sessions where people say whatever they are thinking about to figure out what are the ideas that they are going to
end up taking. If you annihilate the first part, which is the freedom of expression, you killed the whole entire process of creativity. So I really encourage managers to allow this freedom of expression, no matter the industry, no matter where you are, if you really want to see enormous benefits around the ideas that you bring to the table. When I was in graduate school about five years ago, ish UM in orientation. We did this is business school.
We did orientation, We did UM actual improv training. Those are very expensive improv classes. I'm just gonna say that is a really good point, Katie. Uh, yeah, that is a good point. I didn't think of it like that, but that you know, the whole orientation process is like a conversation for a different time because it's totally wild and I think it's a little infantilizing, but I think
they do that on purpose. Anyway. I want to talk about UM the improv portion of it because I always thought about it from the perspective of kind of an icebreaker and getting to know people you know who you've never met before that you're going to be spending two
years with. But you argue that this this yes and language that you use with improv is is really one that business executives away that they should be thinking absolutely, And it is because the yes and technique, which was actually borrowed from Delle coach the Dell Clothes who was an acting coach. It's because it allows the conversation to keep going. And so when somebody asks you, can you do this incredibly difficult thing for tomorrow, you say yes, and let's review this cope of that to see if
it's possible. And so the important thing about yes and and expanding it to other areas of your business is that it puts managers in a place of possibility, in a place where you can actually think about that there is a chance that there is something you haven't considered, that you can actually continue that conversation in a different place and perspective that you didn't not that you didn't consider before. And this is something that a lot of
people are so ingrained with their ideas. A lot of people sometimes are so fixated with just one answer that they miss a lot of what's happening in the periphery, a lot of what's happening that could actually bring an innovative solution to a problem. Right, And we have had to really think so fast and react so fast in you know, all is But in the past two years
it's been accelerated. So what would it be if you throw this technique in your repertoire and instead of saying no, instead of like dismissing ideas from your employees or your clients, you actually go with yes. And and we're gonna talk to us about how you've used that in your own professional life. Because what's interesting about your book is you
have a lot of you know, personal anecdotes in there. Well, you know, I get a lot of clients who come to me with incredibly difficult requests like can I get this piece of art? And that I know is something really really hard to get or almost impossible. Right, So I when those things come to me, I always say yes, and let me see what can I get out of that? Right, Because first of all, every client likes to hear yes, no matter who the client is and what industry we're
talking about. So that allows me for a moment to actually figure out if I have an hour a day to to find if I can't actually feel the request for my clients, and at the same time I have made my clients happy. So in my book, I talk about how a very important clad of mine who lived in London at the time, asked me to get her a Banksie for her husband's birthday. And I, first of all, that's a great birthday present. If anyone needs any ideas
for me, right well? And so I you know, Banksy is anonymous, and it's it's a very is a prankister. It's a provocateur for people who do not know who he is. You know, it's like a guy who has lived on this anonymity and he has thrived in that position. So I said, oh my god, how am I going to make her happy? She's very important to me. And so I said, yes, of course, and let me get back to you soon and about that, and I just closed my eyes and went with my intuition for like
ten seconds. And I remember a street artist from Brooklyn, and I send this personal message and I said, do you happen to know Banksy and you know, because I was like, those banksy even exists, that's a that's a fair question. I have that question, right. And so this person go back to me and say, why what do you need? And so I explained the situation. I said, the client is very important and she's looking for this, and the artists in Brooklyn said give me a second.
So it was all about everybody was sort of like doing yes. And at the same time, if you think about this, it was a chain chain of events where everybody was like yes. And so in about an hour, I got an email from the artist introducing me to uh Banks's manager in London, in East London, a very fun woman in East London. And after that things sort of happened. But if I would have told my client
from the get go, are you crazy? That's impossible. Nobody can never get a banks this technique right, and so I I encourage people to do it. Maria, I'm wondering, after researching this book, you're digging through the data, you're going through historical examples, you're using your own anecdotes, your own expertise. What's one way that you've really changed your life based on this research. I think spending time alone and in silence is a very important thing that people underestimate.
And I also bring examples that are so crucial for you meantime alone, away from your phone, away from Twitter, meditating. How do you how do you mean? Well, you know, the word meditating has such many different connotations. A lot of people like it, a lot of people don't. I yes, I like the idea of meditating. But if that sounds too heavy for people, you know, I would appreciate if you can look at it as more like ten minutes to think, ten minutes to close your eyes and think,
no music, no noise. And it's not just go for a walk, because a lot of people are like bargaining that with me sometimes, like, well, what if I go out for a walk? No, because when you're walking you have to pay attention to where your stepping so you don't fall. And if you're in a city like New York City, you can't really just like walk aimlessly right because you're going to get hit back home. So um, I mean the whole thing is about allowing your brain to have a moment of calm and allow for the
ideas to marinate. And I do bring the examples of Steve Jobs, who, as you know, he was a meditator. Yeah. Yeah,
he was a huge proponent of meditation. And he told Walter Isaacson when when when Isaacson was writing jobs biography, that the monkey mind is always going to be chattering, is going to bring things that are going to distract you from your goals or from your where you're going to find the next I think I showed this before, but I have a friend who actually keeps a notepad in the shower because that's where he comes up with great ideas because he's like not distracted by his phone
or anything. Like, have a lot of logistical fuss about that. Yeah, it's like waterproof. Maria Britto art adviser, curator and author. She's the author of How Creativity Rules the World, The art and business of turning your ideas into gold. It's Bloomberg Business Week for Katie Greifeld. I'm Tim Stanevik and the entire team here at Bloomberg Radio. Have a good night.