Proteus offers a new perspective

Seventeen top executives, including two from Investec, the investment management company, took part in LBS's first Proteus course.

Participants in a course named after a prescient Greek sea god who could change shape at will no doubt expected something extraordinary.

Caryn Solomon, global head of organisational development at Investec, was among the participants. She advises narrow thinkers to steer clear. "This isn't your standard MBA-style course: if you want the six principles of leadership, you'll be disappointed. But if you're laterally-minded and able to learn from different paradigms, you'll come away with a completely new perspective."

The residential five-day course was based on "creative encounters" as opposed to traditional classroom-based tuition. Participants "encountered" everything from globalisation (in the form of a walk around London) to a near-nude artist's model. Experts in each field facilitated the encounters, as did outings to relevant locations, such as London Zoo.

Nigel Nicholson, the LBS professor of organisational behaviour, conceived Proteus. He confesses to ambitious intentions: "This is a programme for leaders who want to take time out to reflect. It goes beyond all other executive programmes. It's about crossing boundaries, looking at life plans, thinking about the way that people contribute to the business and contemplating the future."

Nicholson says Proteus will help to create better leaders by making them more reflective, more understanding and more intelligent. Senior executives are too narrow, he says. Proteus is intended as a catalyst for broader-based creative thinking.

At 8,000 for the course, broader-based creative thinking does not come cheap. Unfortunately, a Sunday afternoon spent visiting the apehouse with friends will apparently not do the trick.

Nicholson stresses that Proteus has been carefully constructed to lead participants on an intellectual journey. This encompasses everything from what it means to be human, to where humans are going, innovation, creativity and leaders' responsibilities.

Museums, art galleries, theatre workshops and hi-tech companies provide the backdrop to participants' revelations. During the theatre workshop, Piers Ibbotson, director of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Directing Creativity Programme, introduced participants to a theatrical team-building device.

They sat with their eyes closed and took it in turns to count aloud from one to 20. As no one could tell who would talk next, the trick was not to talk over one another. Ibbotson says: "It requires you to listen with great intensity to what everyone else is doing. After a while, you develop a kind of sixth sense."

Peter Feroze from the Creative Knowledge Company taught participants life-drawing techniques. Capturing a pose requires reductive thinking, says Feroze.

Similarly, drawing someone in motion requires emergent thinking, in which meaning is only revealed over time. Both are valuable in business, he says.

Investec's Solomon says Proteus was inspiring. She now has plans to visit art galleries with a group of Investec's managers: "Investec is a very open culture and we are receptive to doing things that are out of the ordinary," she says.