We need the arts to change our hearts

Changing minds

I know my stuff. I’ve done my research. I trained as an economist. I’m the Flexpert, don’t you know?! 

I’ve studied hard so I can turn robust academic insights into practical, memorable actions for others to take. I make it easy for leaders to change their minds, upgrade their skills and have an impact that’s positive for their people and their business.

I focus on creating mindset shifts to lead people to change their actions.

I’ve changed minds. 

I’ve changed the mind of a chief executive who was convinced that working from home was harming the performance of her organisation. It was frustrating her. She couldn’t find a way to make it work without cancelling the flexibility that people had become accustomed to.

I used the research to validate her experiences to show her why it wasn’t working yet in her organisation. I used more research and even a few anecdotes to show her how we can make some key changes so she gets the true win-win she’s been hoping for. 

When a system requires some tweaks, big or small, to take it from good enough to great, changing minds is enough.

What about when tweaks are not enough?

Art can change a heart

The other night I watched Suzie Millar’s ‘Prima Facie’ at my local theatre. Without any spoilers for those who want to watch it or read the book, it’s about a broken system. It’s about a legal system that is incapable of justice for rape victims. It’s something we all know to be true. We’ve read the news stories, we have heard the statistics, we know people in our own lives with their personal, painful experiences. Yet, the system hasn’t changed.

Then along comes a work of art. Art so powerful it moves our hearts. It moves hearts, it moves communities and it starts to move the system itself. 

Millar is now shaping the system we need, not tweaking the flawed system we’ve got. She spent years as a lawyer, but only as a playwright has she found the access she needs. She facilitates classroom conversations with teenagers about consent. She has conversations with groups of 20 judges at a time, exploring a system design that would deliver justice for rape victims. She’d have given anything for that audience in her days of legal practice.

Her art moves our hearts. 

With this visceral shift in our bodies, we are unfrozen. We feel the need for something fundamental to change. Our whole being wakes up and is prepared to do what it takes to redesign and change the whole system.

That is not a mindset shift. It is so much bigger than that. It’s a heart shift. 

Big change is heart change

There are areas in all our lives where we see the need for system-level and fundamental change.

In my work right now, I see this most acutely in the system-level flaw between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ across our workforce. The ‘haves’ can work from home at least some of the time and the ‘have nots’ are our frontline workforces in rigid, fixed work patterns and places. These are the people we all rely on every day. They build and maintain our infrastructure and homes, they teach our children, they deliver our online orders and look after our sick or elderly loved ones. 

Take the construction industry. It’s in need of system-level change if the workforce is ever going to have access to some meaningful choices, be well, not exhausted, and attract and retain the people it needs. The industry today reflects a rigid, patriarchal system that fails to serve anyone, regardless of gender. 

The workforce squeezes and contorts itself into ways of working that assumes they have no family responsibilities, no hobbies, no need for rest or recuperation, no need to learn new skills. There’s little room for innovation once a project’s running. It’s about sticking to the plan, driving hard on delivery to make the deadline. Not deviating, even if there’s a better way. There’s no time, no money for that. 

Construction, from top to bottom, is a rigid system operating in a dynamic reality.  

Will we change this system by changing minds?

I don’t think so. 

I’ve tried that, yet nothing much is changing.

So, I’m shifting my focus beyond changing minds. I need to dig into my creativity and change hearts.

Creativity is the key

When faced with a fundamentally flawed system, we need art, we need creativity. Only then can we move ourselves to the point of doing something big enough to make the difference.

What do you think?

Create art to change a heart when changing a mind is not enough.