Nov. 19, 2004 -- Horst Kinzinger wasn't happy with the way things were going at work. In 2002, his company, Darmstadt, Germany-based Software AG, was undergoing a major restructuring, and relationships among some departments were strained.

Today, Mr. Kinzinger, a vice president for research and development at the company, is feeling much more positive.

What helped him gain a new perspective? Spending time at the beach -- painting. "I have new strength and élan to go about my tasks at work," he says.

For two consecutive summers, the executive took part in a weeklong seminar, financed with his own money, under the direction of German artist and consultant Horst Benz. The session was designed to help people use art to deal with changes in their work or personal lives.

Mr. Benz's courses, which are open to all, drew businesspeople looking to improve their work performance by boosting their creativity. Other corporate consultants offer a checklist including singing, playing musical instruments, acting and taking part in outdoor adventures to promote creative thinking.

But at best, such approaches make up only a tiny percentage of the overall corporate-consulting market, according to Josef Weiss, a partner with Munich-based consultancy APU (Akademie für Personal und Unternehmensentwicklung). They occupy a small niche known as social competence or employee motivation. While most companies looking for consulting services tend to focus first on cost savings rather than employee self-fulfillment, some recognize the benefits from courses that improve employees' so-called soft skills.

At Mr. Benz's course in France, the 10 participants gather daily at the beach in Concarneu, 540 kilometers west of Paris, to develop an artwork related to the theme of change, which they then exhibit at week's end. Past works have included oil paintings, a collection of boats made of pine needles and a series of patterns etched into the sand, the latter of which were both washed out to sea.

"We learn in some cases how to say goodbye to some things that we are attached to," says Mr. Benz, co-founder of Atelier Freifarbe, an artists' studio near Darmstadt. "If you can't let go, you often cannot learn something new."

For his part, Mr. Kinzinger created a series of paintings showing how he felt about his work relationships. "I got some distance from my daily work and I could better view the relationships there," he says. "I could also envision where I wanted my work to be in five years." Today, the pictures, some of which are displayed in his office, also remind him of the goals he wants to reach.

Certitude GmbH, a Düsseldorf-based information-technology management consultancy with 40 employees, also has tapped into creativity workshops at a Munich-based acting studio to give employees a motivational boost. At the Artemis Schauspielstudio, workshop participants are offered a mix of relaxation techniques and voice exercises, as well as role-playing and improvisations.

"In everyday life, we often neglect the playful, creative side of ourselves and move only on the logical, mental level," says studio co-founder Marlene Beck, a trained actress. "Many people have lost the feeling for their own bodies. They learn here what it is like to rediscover and redevelop their five senses."

However, not everyone is eager to throw himself into what Ms. Beck and co-founder Christine Steinhart have to offer. Ms. Steinhart concedes that the voice exercises she conducts "seem rather strange" at first, requiring people to make funny faces or strange noises.

The exercises are designed to help people become more effective speakers and give them a fuller range of expression. One common problem, Ms. Steinhart says, is that people who are stressed or fearful simply forget to breathe properly. Breathing and movement exercises also help remind them to do that. Once the fear of embarrassment is overcome, most participants "quickly notice a change," says Ms. Steinhart.

Sabine Mariss also uses unconventional methods to bring out the untapped potential in her corporate clients, which have included Deutsche Post and Sparkasse Hannover.

Ms. Mariss, who plays clarinet and sings, visits customers on-site, arriving with a suitcase full of mainly percussive musical instruments. She builds up a marketplace of wares and invites participants to come up to try the ones that interest them, making a mental note of which ones they choose and which they avoid. Later, they are asked to divide up into small groups and compose a piece using the instruments. At one seminar, the groups composed a song to the theme, "No risk, no life."

An important element is that people take part in something they may even feel they aren't good at. "I am fascinated by the energy that is released when people no longer worry about whether they are doing something right or wrong," says Ms. Mariss. "They begin to open themselves up to new possibilities."

She also has used her courses to support corporate team-building efforts. In 2003, Sparkasse Hannover, which is Germany's fifth-largest savings bank, asked Ms. Mariss to conduct a series of workshops. The new bank had just become an entity from a merger of Hannover's regional and city savings banks. An internal personnel trainer at Sparkasse Hannover noticed Ms. Mariss leading a large singing group at an industry event, and was convinced that her methods would help people in newly merged departments connect with one another.

Of course, selling this sort of thing to a company can be rough going unless there is someone at the company to push it. Rupert Hierzer, a managing partner with Certitude, the consultancy that took part in the Artemis acting workshops, concedes that point vis-à-vis his own corporate clients. "If you tell a customer they can save money by cutting resources in an area, they see that directly in their financial results," he says. "But if I say, it's a good idea for your team to change themselves -- that's a lot harder to grasp."

Still, Mr. Hierzer, who also is involved in acting as a hobby, is a firm believer in the value of approaches that look at the individual as a whole. He points to the good results his company saw when one of his trainers took part in individual coaching for a year with the Artemis theater studio. The consultant had some deficiencies in dealing with customers that were threatening to derail a project. But after taking part in the theater-focused coaching, "he is sensationally different and it has really made a good impression on customers," Mr. Hierzer says. "The results are actually measurable."

Mr. Benz, the painter, also believes the skills developed in his classes are needed to help companies in poor economic times: "Creativity is the ability to go into an uncertain, intransparent situation, and to then look for solutions, even though you are not sure what the end result will be."