Are you Matisse or Picasso?

When designing team journeys or leadership interventions, are you Matisse or Picasso?

Henri Matisse aspired to create an art of serenity, free from depressing subject matter. With his radiant palettes, he wanted to restore rather than provoke, to soothe rather than unsettle. He was searching for harmony and peace. Designing like Matisse is to look for lightness, to create movement and respiration, to celebrate success, to embed moments of connection. It involves designing a journey that brings participants into a space of clarity, harmony and emotional restoration.

Pablo Picasso, his friendly rival, had a different vision, one that works with chaos and struggle, fragmentation and confrontation. His color palette was more dramatic, conveying sadness and isolation, or depicting tragedy. Melancholic and intense, his art challenges, deconstructs and reinvents reality. Designing like Picasso is to challenge assumptions, embrace complexity, disrupt conventions, provoke reflection. It involves designing a journey that takes participants outside their comfort zone into a space of bold questioning and creative transformation.

Depending on the context of the team and the traits of the leader, the ask will be predominantly one or the other. The art is to design with both in mind: the calming grace of the first and the daring edge of the second.


*I work as a Board Adviser, Team & Executive Coach and Leadership Consultant. I like to explore the applications of art, music, philosophy and psychology in my practice*

Illustration: Henri Matisse, La Musique, 1939 and Pablo Picasso, Three Musicians, 1921