Sense-Making Under Uncertainty
Aesthetic assessment, orientation, and advisory grow out of a long-standing public research practice examining how aesthetic conditions shape judgment. This work engages organizations during moments of growth, change, or uncertainty, when aesthetic forces are already influencing decisions but remain largely implicit. Its value is intrinsic.
Philosophical Depth in Organizational Life
Aesthetic advisory applies research from aesthetics to organizational life, helping teams understand how perception, form, and experience shape collective judgment.
While this work often reshapes engagement, alignment, and customer connection, it is not grounded in metrics. It rests on the intrinsic power of aesthetics as a formative force in human judgment.
The work typically takes shape through individually tailored responses to three recurring moments:
1. Applying Aesthetic Research to Organizational Judgment
The situation: Leaders sense that culture, form, or meaning are influencing decisions, but struggle to see how. Patterns repeat, tensions persist, and certain options feel self-evident or off-limits without anyone quite knowing why.
What Michael does: Works directly with leadership to examine how aesthetic conditions–language, form, rhythm, and environment–are shaping perception before decisions are discussed. Rather than interpreting the organization for them, he sharpens leaders’ ability to recognize these forces as they operate, creating shared orientation about what is influencing judgment in real time.
What this enables: Greater discernment in moments where choices previously felt vague or constrained. Fewer recurring tensions driven by unseen aesthetic pressures.
Long-term outlook: Leaders begin to notice changes in orientation, not just in how options are perceived.
2. Clarifying Aesthetic Coherence across Culture and Experience
The situation: An organization is shaping its culture, environments, or brand, but risks remaining at the level of surface aesthetics. Decisions about form and experience are in full effect, yet the deeper aesthetic conditions guiding them remain uneven or in tension. Leaders sense a lack of coherence but lack language for what is misaligned.
What Michael does: Draws on ARL’s interdisciplinary research to assess aesthetic forces already working within the organization. He brings philosophical and aesthetic concepts into direct relation with specific cultural, spatial, and communicative conditions, helping leaders articulate how beauty functions as a formative force rather than decoration. The work results in a shared understanding of aesthetic coherence and tension that leaders can return to as they shape culture, brand, and experience over time.
What this enables: A culture and brand that feel lived-in; Greater coherence between internal experience and external expression. Environments and rituals that align with stated values because aesthetic conditions shaping them are understood, not imposed.
Long-term outlook: Coherence becomes something people recognize through experience, not something that needs to be announced.
3. Ethical and Philosophical Responsibility in Times of Change
The situation: Innovation, growth, or cultural change raises ethical and existential questions that existing tools and frameworks cannot adequately address. Decisions with long-term consequences are being made, yet the language available to describe responsibility, meaning, and orientation feels thin or inadequate.
What Michael does: Draws on the history of philosophy and contemporary aesthetic research to help leadership articulate the ethical conditions already shaping their decisions. Rather than moralizing or prescribing action, he clarifies underlying assumptions, tensions, and responsibilities–providing a philosophical orientation that leaders can return to as circumstances evolve.
What this enables: Language that can carry ethical tension without collapsing it. Greater confidence holding responsibility across time. Share orientation around limits, consequences, and obligation. Public and internal communication that reflects considered judgment rather than reactive positioning.
Long-term outlook: Stewardship without simplification.
The form this work takes–its pacing, duration, and commitment–depends on the conditions it is responding to. A fuller description of advisory structure and engagement is available here.
Create Beauty. Think Clearly. 