{"id":912,"date":"2010-07-24T14:49:50","date_gmt":"2010-07-24T18:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/?p=912"},"modified":"2013-09-18T15:49:29","modified_gmt":"2013-09-18T19:49:29","slug":"the-rockwell-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.darden.virginia.edu\/brunerblog\/2010\/07\/the-rockwell-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rockwell Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

R<\/span>ecently I saw the special exhibition on Norman Rockwell<\/a> at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art<\/a> in Washington D.C.\u00a0 You must see it.\u00a0 There, until January 2, 2011, you will find 57 of Rockwell\u2019s paintings and drawings as collected by the Hollywood moguls, George Lucas<\/a> and Steven Spielberg<\/a>.\u00a0 The exhibition gives an object lesson in telling a story in one picture\u2014this is a useful reminder to just about anyone, including business professionals.<\/p>\n

Rockwell was a leading American magazine illustrator in the 20th<\/sup> Century.\u00a0 Not impressionistic or abstract, Rockwell\u2019s style is realistic and precise.\u00a0 He captured small dramatic moments among people in everyday life, such as a scared kid on the high-diving board; an obstinate woman in a jury room; and a soldier and his family just at the moment of returning home from war.\u00a0 \u00a0Rockwell\u2019s special gift was to portray a wide range of emotions in his subjects\u2014and to evoke them in his viewers.\u00a0 Rockwell makes it easy to see a story.\u00a0 Each of his paintings is a snapshot of some tableau in motion.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s why the critics haven\u2019t liked him: it\u2019s too <\/em>easy to envision a story\u2014in contrast with abstract painters and the frozen people in formal portraits. \u00a0Critics said that Rockwell\u2019s art was bourgeois kitsch and that it reflected a nostalgic America that never really existed.\u00a0 Certainly, Rockwell was leaning against the tide of cultural change: modernism, post-modernism, social and political upheavals of all kinds.<\/p>\n

Now, the pendulum of critical assessment seems to have turned.\u00a0 The U.S. is experiencing something of a mini-boom in Rockwell\u2019s art\u2014in addition to this one, two other Rockwell retrospectives<\/a> have traveled the country recently.\u00a0 And Rockwell has been the focus of a new biography.\u00a0 In her catalogue for the Smithsonian\u2019s exhibition, Virginia Mecklenberg wrote,<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cRockwell was a keen observer of the world who captured the realities of individual lives as well as the mores that society held dear\u2026Rockwell was a master humorist with an infallible sense of the dramatic moment.\u00a0 Like a movie director, he determined the pose and facial expression of each character, positioned each prop, and lighted his sets for maximum scenic effect. \u2026A magazine cover\u2026had only a spit second to reach its audience. \u2026The most successful covers grabbed the reader through sheer visual impact\u2026.Rockwell told stories that Americans wanted, and sometimes needed, to hear.\u201d ((Virginia M. Mecklenburg, Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell<\/em>, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. 2010, pages 25-27 and 190.))<\/p>\n

Business life is filled with story-telling: selling, persuasion, and influencing.\u00a0 Leadership, the capacity to enlist others in a cause, asks people to embrace a story.\u00a0 Teaching of almost any kind involves students in constructing the meaning in a story.\u00a0 Most entry-level jobs for MBA graduates are to be assistant story-tellers, or just people who gather and assemble the raw material.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Rockwell sets an extremely high standard for story-telling: do it with just one <\/em>image.\u00a0 The way he achieves this is to invite the viewer to co-create the story <\/em>with around the dramatic moment.\u00a0 You imagine what happened leading up to this very moment and what is likely to happen next.\u00a0 To do more would be to dilute or destroy the enormous impression he creates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rockwell\u2019s achievement is consistent with great management communication: keep it simple; stay focused on the headline message; help your audience come to the conclusion on their own rather than bash them with the obvious.\u00a0 Great business practitioners get this.\u00a0 Bill Gray, (Darden MBA, 1978) was President of the leading advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather; he told me recently, \u201cEvery brand entails one big ideal<\/em>.\u00a0 If you want to advance the brand, you must convey that single ideal clearly and consistently.\u201d (For more on Bill\u2019s views, see this<\/a>.) \u00a0Robert Greenleaf, Director of Management Research for AT&T said, \u201cMany attempts to communicate are nullified by saying too much.\u201d ((Robert Greenleaf, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness.\u00a0 <\/em>1977.))\u00a0 John Johnson, the founder of Ebony <\/em>magazine, said that he could \u201csell anybody anything in five minutes or less\u201d by focusing on just three things: grabbing \u201cthe client\u2019s attention with a fact or an emotional statement that hits him\u2026find[ing]the vulnerable spot, and emphasiz[ing] the common ground\u2026the values, hopes, and aspirations that bind you together.\u201d ((John J. Johnson, \u201cHow to Sell Anybody Anything in Five Minutes or Less,\u201d in Peter Krass, ed., The Book of Business Wisdom <\/em>, John Wiley & Sons, 1997, pages 233-34.))\u00a0 And Edward Tufte<\/a>, the expert in the graphic presentation of quantitative data, offers masterpieces of succinct, but rich, displays.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Can business schools promote this kind of communication?\u00a0 Thanks to advances in information technology, we are awash in data and messages.\u00a0 Each year, I absorb numerous presentations and articles, in the middle of which I yearn for the \u201cRockwell moment\u201d\u2014that point of significance at which I can begin to make my own meaning of the ideas at hand.\u00a0 Given the vast size of the field of management education (some 12,000 schools in the world), it is hard to know how well we are doing. \u00a0But speaking for one school, I can say that Darden is focused on preparing who are ready and able to get to the point.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The case method of instruction promotes the ability to make your point succinctly.\u00a0 Our courses in Management Communication are some of the most transformational for our students and beloved among our alumni.\u00a0 Recruiters tell me that our graduates are excellent communicators.\u00a0 If our experience is any indication, B-schools can <\/em>promote the kind of powerful communication that Rockwell perfected.<\/p>\n

In a video commentary on the exhibition, George Lucas called Norman Rockwell, \u201cthe leading story-teller of the 20th<\/sup> Century.\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps reality imitates art: our task as educators and business practitioners is to focus on developing communications and messages that reach audiences as effectively as did Rockwell.\u00a0 We need our Rockwell moments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I saw the special exhibition on Norman Rockwell at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington D.C.\u00a0 You must see it.\u00a0 There, until January 2, 2011, you will find 57 of Rockwell\u2019s paintings and drawings as collected by the Hollywood moguls, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.\u00a0 The exhibition gives an object lesson in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59636,59912],"tags":[464,770,346],"class_list":["post-912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership-2","category-management-communcation","tag-darden-school-of-business","tag-norman-rockwell","tag-uva"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Rockwell Moment - Robert F. 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