**4. Conclusions**

The circumstances surrounding Graphic Studio Dublin did conform to the VUCA conditions. The future was uncertain; the twin engines of revenue were in freefall and the organisation faced an existential threat. Through this creative combination of developing new markets; developing better, more targeted marketing; getting new exhibition spaces; forging new partnerships, stretching across conventional disciplinary boundaries, little by little, the sales grew by over 100%. In addition, while all this activity was going on, the chairman was renegotiating down the debt with the vulture fund to the degree that they shaved off some of the outstanding balance because they could see GSD really pulling out all the stops to ge<sup>t</sup> the organisation back on its feet.

This is a valuable and possibly revelatory case of using Art Thinking in the Arts. Using Whitaker's [2] approach, there was:


Had GSD used Design Thinking to try to resolve its problems, it would have merely amplified its marketing effort and put the customer at the heart of the strategy and finessed their needs in an attempt to find some promising route to an underserved or unmet need. The range of experiments that were tried using this approach wouldn't have been as broad. It would have concentrated on doing what we do already, only better. A Design Thinking campaign would have used observation to focus on the GSD customer-journey. It would have honed in on pinch points in that customer experience map—such as the access or opening times of the gallery or the user experience of the website and started there—'doing what we do already, only doing it better'. Thus, design thinking alone would not have produced the dramatic results made necessary by the crisis facing the organisation.

Laissez faire management, or a more facilitative style of managemen<sup>t</sup> was key to the success of this project. Whitaker [2] uses the metaphor of baking a soufflé in the oven. Of course, the chef is tempted to open the oven door and see how the soufflé is doing, but the mere act of observation causes the soufflé to collapse. Although there is a strong temptation to constantly check in on things to see how they're going, there are periods of time when managemen<sup>t</sup> is better advised to resist that impulse. In managing this process, the quest of the Board was primarily for imaginative options and not for finished solutions and in this was several ideas were prototyped, tested and either canned or implemented.

Art Thinking is also more comfortable with the ambiguity inherent in the idea that the future is unknowable [61] for if it were otherwise an innovation would, in principle be already known and would have occurred in the present and not in the future. Popper [62] also notes that science is different and, in ways, much more straightforward. A scientist engaged in a piece of research, perhaps in physics, can attack their problem directly. They can go straight to the heart of the matter: to the heart, that is, of an organized structure. For a structure of scientific doctrines is already in existence; and with it, a generally accepted problem-situation. But, real world innovation problems do not generally have this helpful clarity about them.

This is the heartland of Art Thinking: when the boundaries are fuzzy and the outcomes uncertain. Madsbjerg [63] issues a passionate cry for humanistic, liberal arts thinking, believing like many others that over-reliance on data and algorithms creates enormous risks for employees, business and society. What all the data fails to capture, he says, is the critical nuances of culture and context that ultimately drive behaviour and lead the way to enduring innovation.

In summary, Art Thinking, with its focus on options, not outcomes; on possibilities, not certainty, was the ideal way to approach the very grave problems threatening the very existence of a core pillar in the Irish visual arts ecosystem. Art Thinking allowed the organisation not simply to plot a path from Point A to a more desirable Point B, but to collaboratively imagine or invent the ideal destination and to put in field a sufficient number of imaginative initiatives to ge<sup>t</sup> there. It seems highly appropriate to pilot Art Thinking in the visual arts and according to this case-study—it really does have something worthwhile to offer.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
