Jim Ewing + Executive Arts

The work of Executive Arts began in 1979 when Jim Ewing committed himself to working on his inner passion: facilitating individuals who were striving to express their talents and commitments as fully as possible.

Jim Ewing (1939-2014)

The 'Executive' in Executive Arts refers to the character within each of us who has the ability to choose a new path for our self. We might call it our will, our inner leader, guide or other appellation.

In industry where Jim spent his career, it is the executive level where the strategic decisions are formed, made and directed. Good executives are called on to break corporate habits, take the bet on new technology or markets, make the call, restructure, and inspire the population of managers and workers to abandon some or much of what they know how to do and set off on an uncertain, unfolding course, with not much certitude.

So it is in ourselves.

The Executive within must be capable of managing the inner call to a new direction, rewrite self history to include the new direction, direct the unlearning and learning and redesign from an idea or urge through possibility into achievement.

This is an Art more than a science. Hence Executive Arts. Just as there are Martial Arts, which are ultimately personal and empowering, so there are Executive Arts.

The Executive Arts embrace learning, design and transition/transformation as one life giving process, rather than three separate processes which are commonly compartmentalised in the world, especially in industry.

The Executive Arts are taught through a family of disciplines. Each is based on the core insight that creative motion on the path of learning, design and transformation begins with hints, clues, guesses, slips of the tongue, unknowing and making it up. In other words, in the shadows rather than in the known.

Each provides a process for generating such material and for capturing it in a way which is later transformed to reveal patterns which open the door to discovery and creative testing. The disciplines require both spatial and linear thinking in equal measure, calling on the whole person. The disciplines require both real life experience and making it up, putting the new as something built on the useful past.

The Executive Arts disciplines have been worked out with hundreds of individuals and organisational groups. They are succinct, unique, powerful to get to 'answers', and more powerful when taken as a learning path to a different insight about the world.