ACI Cultural Frameworks for Change and
Performance Pressure

Introduction

Corporations regularly face change and increasing pressure to perform. Management and their staff are well equipped to deal with the structural and even behavioural aspects of change and pressure within the workplace. However, facing change and increasing pressure to perform can be a challenging experience for individuals as they reassess their identity within the volatile socio-cultural context of the workplace. In their anxiety concerning their future in the workplace, they might feel like reaching out to others, but to whom? Whom can they trust implicitly to share their feelings and beliefs and exchange ideas without fear? Pressure, if not managed effectively with insight, subdues creativity and the intra-personal effectiveness to innovate solutions to their situation. This, over time, can lead to a debilitating lack of self-confidence and esteem.

Insight + Creativity = Innovation + Solutions

Art can provide a connection to the common experience of being human. The huge upheavals and struggles of human history are expressed in the art of those who have lived through them, or who have been affected by them. The ACI Cultural frameworks for Change and Performance Pressure Driver creates a space for those affected by workplace or personal change and pressure to perform to reflect upon their contact with those who have documented change and struggles throughout the ages in their art. It provides a mental, spiritual, and social opportunity for reflection and preparation for performance.

The ACI approach involves thinking about ideas and then talking about them in small, intimate groups of no more than four. In these discussions, links are made between art and the individual lived experience of workplace or personal change and pressure to perform.

Participants work in the Art Gallery a self-directed manner. They will be presented a DISCus personal profile to assist with exploring their behaviours and fears. They will also work on developing their personal guided tour of the Gallery to illustrate their experience and feelings. There will also be a small presentation synthesizing the ideas that they have found the most relevant. These presentations can subsequently take place within the gallery and/or in the workplace to an audience of stakeholders and peers. This is a means of linking, in a concrete manner, art, the workplace, the participants, and the corporate stakeholders. For some people this is going to be a very personal experience; an option is left open for 1:1 discussions with a key stakeholder.

Recommended Participants:

• Individuals facing the pressures of workplace or personal change;
• Individual preparing for performance pressures ;
• Individuals seeking to develop personal resourcefulness, social cohesion, and enhanced communication within the workplace;
• Teams experiencing change and/or performance pressures;
• Executives wishing to prepare themselves and their organisation for change.

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