If your boss wants to make a drama out of a crisis, there are lots of people around these days to help him, and from this week there's one more.
Peter Cregeen has produced The Bill, Midsomer Murders, The Gentle Touch, Colditz, Nanny and Z-Cars, and is a former head of drama series at the BBC. This gives him a clear edge in the crowded field of management training. "For years," says his press release, "the theatrical profession has been using skills which, when transferred to a business environment, can help executives to hit the mark and communicate more effectively."
Richard Olivier, son of the great Sir Laurence, runs seminars for managers and trainee managers on the lessons they can learn from plays such as Henry V and Julius Caesar. Shakespeare's Henry V, it appears, had a remarkably strong mission statement. Also, his "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more" is the best possible exposition of the most important management lesson: don't concentrate on the problem, but on the solution. There is, as we should all know by now, no such thing as a problem, only a challenge.
Olivier, a former theatre director, reckons he can train managers and executives for every eventuality of their working lives. He has learned the jargon of management, because he didn't want his audiences to see him as an artist coming in from outside. He talks of how Henry V "allows his men to share ownership of his vision." He points his audiences to the way Henry instantly pounced on dissension in the ranks. I think it is the speed with which Henry acted that impresses Olivier. He does not openly advocate Henry's solution, which was to execute the dissenters.
Henry V isn't his only vehicle. Apparently, Julius Caesar teaches "emotional intelligence, and how to avoid getting stabbed in the back at work." From Hamlet you can learn "managing at the edge of chaos, or how to avoid going mad at work." Organisational transformation is what The Tempest is all about.
The new boy on the management block, Cregeen's offering is rather more modest. If executives want to know how they are coming across in staff meetings, or on training videos, or any occasion they have to appear in public, they can spend a morning with him and his camera. "I teach them the techniques I use when making television programmes," he says. "By the end of the morning I hope to have transformed the whole of their presentation." He teaches, according to his press release, "industry-recognised techniques for achieving truthful on-screen performances" and shows them "how to deliver beats, transitions and objectives in the pressure of the moment."
Of course, drama isn't the only management teacher. Musicians also do the business training circuit, teaching that when you all work together, things are fine, but if you all work separately, you create a most unpleasant noise.
They've hit the market at the right time. The newest must-have business and management books are all about creativity. There's Harnessing Creativity for Business Growth (modestly sub-titled Inspire, Create, Connect Your Business). Or Clusters of Creativity: Enduring Lessons on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
And just in case you thought it was all a fad, the boffins have even come up with a way of measuring creativity. After Intelligence Quotient (IQ) came Emotional Quotient (EQ) and now psychologist Dr Harry Alder has come up with something called Creative Quotient, or CQ. His new book is called Boost Your Creative Intelligence (Kogan Page, £9.99.) I have bad news for Messrs Olivier and Cregeen. Dr Alder is also on the management training circuit.
