Bridging the gap (part 1): when culture and business speak the same language
By Tessa Marchington FRSA
What culture and business already share
There's a persistent myth that the worlds of culture and commerce are fundamentally opposed.
That one, is driven by feeling, the other by function. That artists and business leaders occupy different planets, speaking languages so different that meaningful collaboration is, at best, a happy accident.
I'd like to challenge that. After almost twenty years bringing music into the workplace - working with everyone from law firms and investment banks to creative agencies and government departments - I've found the commonalities between these two worlds to be far richer than people expect.
What both worlds are actually built on
Successful businesses are built on relationships, and on effective communication - impactful messaging that moves people to think, act, or feel differently. This is, at its core, the essence of every artist.
A musician communicates with the audience and with their ensemble. An artist shares a concept through the medium they've chosen and hopes to create a dialogue with the eyes that see the piece. A poet and performer build an identity through the quality of connection they make. Strip away the jargon of either world and you find the same foundation: the need to reach someone and find that sense of belonging, of shared ideas, or of challenging those ideas.
The process of creative collaboration requires exactly what business leaders talk about wanting more of:
shared agreements
aligned goals
the ability to listen well
Listening and hearing are not the same thing
Beethoven went deaf: he could no longer hear. But he never lost his ability to listen.
Too often in the business world, people can hear. They are physically present in the room, technically receiving information. But they are not really listening: they are preparing their next point, and waiting for their turn (or at times, not waiting!)
True listening - the kind that allows for genuine collaboration, is something else entirely. It's active, open, and sometimes uncomfortable. It requires you to stay curious when familiarity would be easier.
This distinction matters a lot when the two worlds of culture and business come together. The single most important foundation for any collaboration between these two worlds is a shared commitment to real listening. That’s not just the appearance of it, or ticking the box of having heard someone out. Getting this right sets the dialogue in the right key and with the right tone from the start.
The question of data
There's another thread that runs through both worlds, though it often creates tension rather than connection: data.
The business world needs metrics. It needs to quantify value, manage risk, and justify investment. That's not a failing - it's a reasonable expectation of any organisation accountable to stakeholders.
The challenge is that what artists bring is often genuinely difficult to measure.
As Anders Petterson, founder of ArtTactic, puts it:
"What determines the value of art? It is incredibly important to understand the different metrics and value drivers for each collecting segment, otherwise you are just entering a marketplace without knowing the rules, and would likely be taking unnecessary risks."
Risk, of course, is a red flag in most institutions. And here lies one of the real tensions: the individual within a business may be increasingly willing to embrace creative risk - to try something new, to experiment - but collectively, and for the institution itself, the margin for risk can feel very narrow.
This is not something to dismiss - it's something both sides need to understand about each other.
The artist needs to appreciate that "prove it" isn't hostility - it's the language of institutional accountability.
And the business needs to recognise that the value artists bring isn't always captured in a spreadsheet, but that doesn't make it any less real.
Why this matters now
We are living through a period of genuine transformation in how businesses think about culture, wellbeing, and creative thinking. What was once filed under "nice to have" (arts sponsorship, employee experience, creative workshops) is now being recognised as strategically significant and economically valuable.
But for the potential of these partnerships to be fully realised, both sides need to do something that doesn't always come naturally: they need to find a shared language. Not one that asks either side to abandon their own vocabulary, but one built on genuine curiosity about the other - a willingness to listen before assuming, and to ask before defining.
That, in my experience, is where the real work begins.
In Part 2 I’ll explore the semantics of this collaboration - why the very words we choose can open doors often closed, what it really means to communicate the process, not just the outcome and why this speaks to the bottom line of any business.