Collaboration as Aesthetic Experience: A Silent Abstract Painting Exercise

Understanding collaboration is central to management education, yet it is often approached through verbal, cognitive, and performance-oriented pedagogies. We propose an art-based initiative designed to foster a more subtle understanding of collaboration by encouraging reflection on participants’ engagement in a dynamic relationship and by cultivating an understanding of listening beyond silence, including attentiveness to others’ aesthetic expressions. In this article, we present an experiential exercise based on abstract painting and silent co-creation that invites participants to explore nonverbal communication, embodied awareness, and relational attunement. Drawing on embodied collaboration and aesthetic theories, the exercise is particularly effective for highlighting tacit dynamics such as esthetic expressions of oneself, boundaries, power dynamics and embodied synchronization. We detail the pedagogical foundations, learning objectives, step-by-step implementation, and debriefing questions. This exercise can be used at the graduate level, in courses on leadership, organizational behavior, or communication, as well as in executive training.