The Art of Business
Last weekend, I visited the Dale Chihuly exhibit at Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids.
The art itself is remarkable—the colors, the movement, the craftsmanship. Every piece represents years of experience, creativity, problem solving, and refinement.
But after I walked through the exhibit, I found myself thinking about something else.
The artist didn’t just create the artwork.
An entire team created the experience.
Someone determined how the pieces would be displayed. Someone thought about how visitors would move through the space. Someone created an environment where the artwork could be appreciated the way it was intended.
The artwork may have been the reason people came.
But the exhibit is what allowed people to experience it.
Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time with founders, entrepreneurs, and growing businesses.
And I keep seeing a similar pattern.
They’ve built something incredible.
Not just an idea, but something real—a product, a service, a business built from experience, persistence, and more than a few lessons learned along the way.
The masterpiece exists.
Yet growth doesn’t always follow.
Not because the work isn’t good enough.
Not because the founder isn’t capable.
But because creating the masterpiece and building the exhibit are two very different skills.
Most founders spend years focused on what they’re creating.
As they should.
But eventually, the question changes.
It stops being:
“How do I make this better?”
And becomes:
“How do I help more people experience it?”
That’s where many businesses find themselves in what I call The Gap.
The space between creating value and communicating value.
The space between building something remarkable and building momentum around it.
The space between knowing what you’ve built and helping others understand why it matters.
What struck me about the Chihuly exhibit wasn’t just the artwork itself.
It was the realization that even great artists rarely do it alone.
Behind every successful exhibit are people who help create the conditions for the work to be seen.
The same is true in business.
Sometimes the next stage of growth doesn’t come from improving the masterpiece.
Sometimes it comes from stepping back long enough to build the exhibit around it.
This Month’s Question
Have you built something remarkable that too few people are experiencing?
If so, the challenge may not be the masterpiece.
It may be the exhibit.
— Kate Watts
Founder, KW Strategy & Co.
Helping businesses build the exhibit around the masterpiece.It All Begins Here