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Can a qualification in drama help you in your working life?
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Pearson and Shakespeareís Globe spoke to a number of eminent practitioners from the
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business and theatre sectors, to hear their thoughts on the importance of a drama education.
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When you think about business schools, you donít necessarily think about drama. But
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when you think about business, you certainly think about drama.
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The skills you gain, and study, and understand from drama, are critical if you want to think
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about the impact you will have in the business environment, especially if you are a leader
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of a company, firm or organization. We have a lot of CEOs and managing director
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level people doing our Executive degrees. Iím interested to see how other people look
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up to them, as experts. But also, the reverse is true, that we now live in an environment
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where you might have a very young CEO. I think were drama comes in, is that if you think
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about your favourite heroes from fiction or theatre, are they always the King Lear authority
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figure, or are they a younger person who is bold and dramatic, who is able to take risks
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and do things that will make a positive impact on their society.
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Performance is key to business, and good communication is key to performance.
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Employers want the skills that are developed in drama. They want people who can think for
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themselves, who can work in a team, who can listen to others, who know how to negotiate,
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who know how to create an outcome. It doesnít matter what product you are producing;
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the skills are required.
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If a business didnít have any entrepreneurial or creative flair in it, it would probably
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be quite unsuccessful and moribund. Itís really important that when a business plan
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is put together for a new product, that creativity is brought to it.
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Things donít just happen on the bottom line; you need good ideas, you need invention, innovation.
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All those come from people having creative talent.
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My advice to a parent who is thinking of their children studying drama would be to definitely
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let them go for it. Like myself, it was very helpful in gaining confidence, and networking,
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and building a network of people, but also they may get it out of their system and go
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on and do other things. There are so many transferable skills that theatre and acting
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can give you, that can really stead you will for any career.
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Working in the creative industries helped me, because the first thing I needed to do
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was to try and develop a team; gather a team around me. I had to think strategically. I
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had to be able to think imaginatively and ëon the hoofí. And I couldnít have done
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that without the background I had in the arts. But that theatre training allowed to me take
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over that role with some degree of confidence.
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Arts and culture contribute to the national economy in an enormous number of ways and
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have a significant impact. In 2011, they contribute five billion pounds to UK GDP and, on average
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between 2008 and 2011, they funded 111,000 full time equivalent jobs.
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Give them the opportunity to explore their interests and, beyond that, be reassured that
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some of the skillset will not be wasted, even if a young person decides to pursue other
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careers, whether its a career in medicine, in law, or in business, or in other areas.
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I do think that some of these skills will be useful. And not just useful in the early
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stages of their careers, but for their career lifetime.
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I always say, in an arts organisation, every artistic decision is a business decision,
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and every business decision is an artistic decision; the two work hand in glove to assure
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success.
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As weíve heard, studying drama helps develop key business skills, such as negotiation,
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leadership and collaboration. It also boosts confidence, teaches pupils to work in a team,
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and to think creatively. Drama provides key transferable skills that will be useful in
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any industry.