Rembrandt, it turns out, is a great teaching tool for business leaders. Not as cautionary tale — the painter had notoriously bad money management skills — but rather as an expert on symbolic communication.
Executives from the Columbia Senior Executive Program (CSEP), gathered at the Frick Collection on a recent Monday morning to learn how to better use symbols as leaders by looking at how master artists, such as Rembrandt, used symbolism in their paintings.
The class was a unique collaboration between CSEP’s director, Professor Paul Ingram, and the museum’s chief curator, Colin Bailey, that was part of the month-long executive education module on organizational alignment.
“When you draw your own conclusions from a story or symbol,” Ingram said in his lecture, “you are engaged in the creation of the message, you are active in creating meaning. That affects commitment.”
Consider direct versus symbolic communication: direct missives — such as a mass email — are fast and clear, they create authority and allow little room for misunderstanding. However, they are not very powerful messages; the more people who receive the message, the less power the message contains.
“Direct communication can be cheap talk,” said Prof. Ingram. “It doesn’t have much credibility.”
Symbols, however, require an investment from both the sender and the receiver of the message. That, said Ingram, makes the message all the more meaningful. The reader — and in the case at the museum, the viewer — is an active receiver. Take Rembrandt’s 1658 Self Portrait (pictured above), which was part of the day’s lesson: what is the meaning of the staff in the artist’s hand, the vestment-style clothing, the colors used? (Listen to Frick audio guide)
“There is no one right answer,” said Mr. Bailey. “There are only ways to appreciate the sophistication of what’s being communicated.”
Image courtesy of the Frick Collection.
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