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  3. Artists routinely mock businesspeople as money-obsessed bores. Or worse. Many business people, for their part, assume that artis

Artists routinely mock businesspeople as money-obsessed bores. Or worse. Many business people, for their part, assume that artis

admin2012-07-06  25
问题     Artists routinely mock businesspeople as money-obsessed bores. Or worse. Many business people, for their part, assume that artists are a bunch of pretentious wasters. Bosses may stick a few modernist paintings on their boardroom walls. But they seldom take the arts seriously as a source of inspiration.
    The bias starts at business school, where "hard" things such as numbers and case studies rule. It is reinforced by everyday experience. Bosses constantly remind their underlings that if you can’t count it, it doesn’t count. Managers’ reading habits often reflect this no-nonsense attitude. Few read deeply about art. "The Art of the Deal" by Donald Trump does not count; nor does Sun Tzu’s "The Art of War". Some popular business books rejoice in their vulgarism; consider Wess Robert’s "Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun".
    But lately there are welcome signs of a thaw on the business side of the great cultural divide. Business presses are publishing a series of books such as "The Fine Art of Success", by Jamie Anderson. Business schools such as the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto are trying to learn from the arts.
    Mr Anderson point out that many artists have also been superb entrepreneurs. Damien Hirst was even more enterprising. He not only realised that nouveau-riche collectors would pay extraordinary sums for dead cows and jewel-encrusted skulls. He upturned the art world by selling his work directly through Sotheby’s, an auction house. Whatever they think of his work, businesspeople cannot help admiring a man who parted art-lovers from ￡70. 5m on the day that Lehman Brothers collapsed.
    Studying the arts can help businesspeople communicate more eloquently. Most bosses spend a huge amount of time "messaging" and "reaching out", yet few are much good at it. Their prose is larded with clichés and garbled with gobbledegook. Half an hour with George Orwell’s "Why I Write" would work wonders.
    Studying the arts can also help companies learn how to manage bright people. Rob Goffee of the London Business School point out that today’s most productive companies are dominated by what they call "clevers", who are the devil to manage. They hate being told what to do by managers, whom they regard as dullards. They refuse to submit to performance reviews. In short, they are prima donnas. The arts world has centuries of experience in managing such difficult people. Publishers coax books out of authors. Directors persuade actresses to cooperate with actors they hate. Their tips might be worth hearing.
    Studying the art world might even hold out the biggest prize of all-helping business become more innovative. Companies are scouring the world for new ideas. In their quest for creativity, they surely have something to learn from the creative industries. Look at how modern artists adapted to the arrival of photography, a technology that could have made them redundant, or how J. K. Rowling (the creator of Harry Potter) kept trying even when publishers rejected her novel. [492 words]
Which book might be thought by the author as having the least value?
选项 A、The Art of War.
B、Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun.
C、The Fine Art of Success.
D、Why I Write.
答案B
解析 本题考查推理引申。
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