ARTICLES

Tampa Bay Business Journal, May 27, 2005

COO’s artistic inspiration leads to creative problem solving.

Lori Zudell thinks of her employees as “performers” but not in the sense used by corporations to describe employees who generate their highest revenue. Instead, she sees creative potential in her staff.

Getting other businesses to adopt a similar mindset is one of Zudell’s ongoing passions. “Information is cheap and commonplace now,” Zudell said. “The prized degree used to be the MBA, but it will become the MFA,” Zudell said, echoing the ideas espoused in a book called “A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age” by Daniel Pink.

In that conceptual age, “The value is on creativity and wisdom. That is where job security is,” Zudell said.

Her inspiration for bringing an artistic sensibility into her consulting business, Firm Solutions, Inc., started about four years ago, after she attended a soiree featuring live classical music. While at the event, she met a local painter from whom she later bought a work based on the evening’s performance. “The painting inspired me,” Zudell said. “That’s when I started thinking about how to give the workplace juice.”

Months later, Firm Solutions bought its first piece of art for the office. Zudell said the painting had its intended effect, as many on staff took their children to look at it during “Bring Your Kids to Work” day. “The energy generated from the response to a piece of art can then feed back into the business in a positive way,” Zudell said.

“You find your workplace is more inspiring, said Zudell, who has seen the impact on her own employees.

“I see them get jazzed about the projects,” Zudell said. To illustrate, she said that her employees will sometimes reference an artwork to make an analogy to a project they are working on.

Another company with which Zudell is associated also benefits from her unique approach to problem solving.

At the beginning of 2004, real estate firm New House Title wanted to get its staff ready to move into a paperless environment, so Zudell took 24 of its staff to Artists Unlimited Inc., a nonprofit studio complex in the Channel district. Noting that “the financial service industry attracts low creativity,” Zudell, who is also New House’s COO and a board member for the art complex, said the program was meant for the “repeaters- those who do the same tasks over and over again.”

“Some of the performers were used to doing the repetitive tasks, so we thought through the arts and getting together, we would be able to broaden their scope,” said Charlene Cordova, special projects coordinator for New House. Cordova said the company was going to expand the job duties of many employees and that the excursion was intended to provide a relaxed atmosphere that would promote communication, particularly between the title and closing staff.

Looking at different types of art and listening to storytelling as well as music also allowed the staff to appreciate the creative problems artists face, leading the group to make analogies to problem-solving.

“We discussed some of the art and general problem-solving through art,” said Cordova, who was closing manager at the time.

Although they knew it was a team-building excursion, the group members didn’t realize until the end of the day that their mission was to buy two pieces of art with $100. Cordova said that maintaining secrecy was essential to keeping their minds open, allowing them to more freely appreciate the art they saw.

“If any of them had known prior to walking through the gallery, their perspective would have been different,” said Cordova, who added that the program “absolutely” had its intended effect in opening lines of communication and getting the staff ready for change. “We got to know each other better.”

udell is currently considering helping another client’s staff deal with the fears of merging with a larger corporation by bringing them to the Renaissance Center for the Arts. “I want music and I want visuals,” she said. “It’s to get people to wake up because when they’re awake, they will listen. It’s not about giving the corporate spiel.”

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