Artful Work

by Dick Richards

Describes how emotional and spiritual energies can complement the physical and mental energies routinely employed on the job

127 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Scott]

Read 20 years ago and very much enjoyed its aspirational message. Although I worked in tech, I felt like the organization could benefit from having more spirit and soul.

Reread and still feel that the message applies to any kind of work.

[Rob Lanphier]

I read this book during the first Internet bubble, and found it really resonated with me. It will likely resonate the most with artistic people who find themselves trapped executing ideas that don't make sense.

As a business consultant, Richards was brought into organizations trying to infuse spirit and enthusiasm, and (to his horror) observed many examples of managers trying to make their people reflect the larger organization: cheerful on the outside, dead on the inside.

In one example, he finds (unsurprisingly) that a person selling nutritionally-empty breadsticks:

A product manager once told me, “I just can’t get excited about selling those damn pizza sticks. They are vastly overpriced and have zero nutritional value. I won’t let my kids eat them. So I am going through the motions, doing the best I can, and hoping this job doesn’t last much longer.” (p. 23-24)

In a more cheerful example, he talks about a service worker (Billy) who took pride in his craft of mounting retread tires in the early 1970s:

Billy was in his mid-twenties, small, thin, and gregarious; and could Billy ever change tires! Then he attacked the car with frenzy and grace. Billy was truly balletic around the car, removing the old wheels, changing the tires, balancing the new ones, and replacing the wheels on the car. Billy was the Nureyev of tire changers.
At the instant the car returned to the grimy shop floor, Billy tapped the timer again. He looked at the timer, then turned to me with an expression of pure joy on his face.
“A new record,” he shouted. “Damn, a new record!”
Billy’s coworkers applauded.
Billy held the first belief of artful work: all work can be artful.

I found this book really inspiring when I first read it in 1998 (to the point where I had bought several dead tree versions to give to my boss and co-workers). In looking at it again now, I find the advice it gives just as timely today.

[Matthew]

A fantastic assertion that the day in day out monday through friday fire drill we all run could actually be enjoyable, meaningful, philosophically fulfilling, and artistic.

We gotta be there anyway...right? Shouldn't we decide to be in charge of the process, mentally, and find a way to make it just that?

This book gives several strategies and ways of thinking that affirm that just such a world is possible. Good strong read I may want to read again.

[Jim Razinha]

Mostly fluff, though I'm sure the author didn't think he was writing fluff. A door closed in my attempted open mind when he started talking about spiritual energy and how we have to incorporate it in the workplace. Physical and mental, yes; even emotional energies, but spiritual?

[Angela]

How work informs art and art informs the strategy and dynamics of work. Its corollary is how music benefits scholarship and study helps understand and appreciate music.