Yesterday's Times covered a new program in New York I heard about a few months ago--the Center for Curatorial Leadership. The web site links the origin of the program to two converging trends in the museum world-- one is a well-publicized shortage of museum directors, the other is the increasing business and fundraising responsibilities given to curators. There is also the increasing awareness of a struggle between two different kinds of museum directorship--the curator/director and the administrator/director. A quotation from Phillipe de Montebello on the Center's web site tells you most of what you need to know about this. I suspect that any analysis of successful museum directorship would show good and disastrous examples of both kinds... the trick may be in not investing too heavily in the dichotomy. I feel our mission is very similar to the Center's -- helping the people who run arts organizations learn more of the languages and practices of business management...
... though I still don't understand why they were visiting a hospital president!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Keeping Your Reports Happy
The NPQ article I referenced a few days ago--the one about the relative strengths of for-profit and nonprofit managers--would seem to suggest that nonprofit leaders are more empathetic managers than their counterparts, but this piece from Marshall Goldsmith from the Harvard Business Journal website is still worth reading.
Of course, this morning I was also reading Jim Collins' Good to Great -- part of my unsentimental education in the world of business literature -- where I came across his argument that motiviating employees is of much less importance than hiring the right "pre-motiviated" employees and getting them in the right jobs. Collins' second step to becoming a "Good To Great" organization is all about getting the wrong people "off the bus," getting the right people on the bus, and then getting those people in the right places before you decide where you want an organization to go. This is one of the steps that seems especially hard to translate into the nonprofit realm.
Most non-profits I know have issues with, well, not being able to fire people--to put it plainly. There's a kind of tacit agreement for many underperforming employees that as long as you show up and accept low pay and (sometimes) bad working conditions, you will never be fired. Perhaps the shortage of working capital or cash reserves (to cover the threat of a legal battle), the reliance on volunteer legal representation, the lack of training in HR issues contributes, maybe event the emphasis on mission as the top priority of the organization, contributes to this. I don't know if it's a non-profit thing, an arts thing, or just the nature of any organization... but I'd be interested to know if anyone's done research on the subject.
Of course, this morning I was also reading Jim Collins' Good to Great -- part of my unsentimental education in the world of business literature -- where I came across his argument that motiviating employees is of much less importance than hiring the right "pre-motiviated" employees and getting them in the right jobs. Collins' second step to becoming a "Good To Great" organization is all about getting the wrong people "off the bus," getting the right people on the bus, and then getting those people in the right places before you decide where you want an organization to go. This is one of the steps that seems especially hard to translate into the nonprofit realm.
Most non-profits I know have issues with, well, not being able to fire people--to put it plainly. There's a kind of tacit agreement for many underperforming employees that as long as you show up and accept low pay and (sometimes) bad working conditions, you will never be fired. Perhaps the shortage of working capital or cash reserves (to cover the threat of a legal battle), the reliance on volunteer legal representation, the lack of training in HR issues contributes, maybe event the emphasis on mission as the top priority of the organization, contributes to this. I don't know if it's a non-profit thing, an arts thing, or just the nature of any organization... but I'd be interested to know if anyone's done research on the subject.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
Nonprofit vs. For Profit Leadership
The most recent Nonprofit Quarterly has published an article about a recent study comparing evaluations of nonprofit & for profit leaders that found nonprofit leaders led their for profit counterparts in nearly all categories of leadership. It's not terribly surprising that the TNQ would want to bring this news to its readers, but I think the interpretation of the results by Jim Collins sounds about right. Nonprofit leaders generally don't have the resources or authority to make unilateral, "executive" decisions, but instead rely on networks of influence and persuasion... Comparisons aside, it might be nice to make this sort of leadership analysis availalable to arts leaders here in Philadelphia.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Fear of Taxes
This article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy talks about the small amount of taxes paid by non-profits for their unrelated (taxable) revenue operations. Short version: there are lots of ways to make profits unprofitable in the tax code.
It reminds me of a presentation I went to a few years ago about earned revenue opportunities for nonprofits, where a predictable debate over museum shops broke out--what merchandise was related to the organization's mission & what wasn't, etc. The IRS used to use museum shops as an example in their publications on the subject. When faced with a brace of questions about whether one kind of shop could sell a certain kind of product vs. another kind of shop & another kind of product, the presenter just threw up her hands and said, "Hey, worst case scenario, you pay tax. It's not a big deal. Businesses do it all the time." It reminded me that we often needlessly twist ourselves into all different kinds of shapes trying to avoid lines of business that might be subject to tax, when we can just build it into the model...
It reminds me of a presentation I went to a few years ago about earned revenue opportunities for nonprofits, where a predictable debate over museum shops broke out--what merchandise was related to the organization's mission & what wasn't, etc. The IRS used to use museum shops as an example in their publications on the subject. When faced with a brace of questions about whether one kind of shop could sell a certain kind of product vs. another kind of shop & another kind of product, the presenter just threw up her hands and said, "Hey, worst case scenario, you pay tax. It's not a big deal. Businesses do it all the time." It reminded me that we often needlessly twist ourselves into all different kinds of shapes trying to avoid lines of business that might be subject to tax, when we can just build it into the model...
Thursday, January 17, 2008
In the Impact Business
Were this a high school yearbook, I would say that one of my "pet peeves" is the abuse of the word "curate" and "curator." Perhaps it's because I once proudly had the title of curator, perhaps not... but it drives me a little crazy to hear the word used as a cooler synonym for "arranging," to hear about people "curating" their Ipod playlists, their buffet dinners, their sock drawers. It will not surprise you to hear that I dislike "impact" used as a verb, and that am brought to the brink of madness by its degenerate offspring "impactful."
Now that's out of my system. Here's something important.
Andrew Taylor, the Director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration at in UW Madison's business school, writes a great blog for artsjournal.com called the "Artful Manager." The title's not so great, but it's well written and insightful and stays in front of the big questions and trends. [As long as I'm at it, consider this a plug for www.artsjournal.com and its daily email update of arts in the news. It's a shared habit here at PCMI--just started reading it a month ago and don't know what I'd do without it now.]
His most recent post, titled (wait for it!) "Curating impact through artists" talks about the new report by Alan Brown on new ways of measuring the impact of artistic performances on audiences. Taylor's blog post does a good job of spelling out some of the implications of the report. For those of us who think about ways of measuring the effectiveness and the impact of arts organizations, it's important work.
Now that's out of my system. Here's something important.
Andrew Taylor, the Director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration at in UW Madison's business school, writes a great blog for artsjournal.com called the "Artful Manager." The title's not so great, but it's well written and insightful and stays in front of the big questions and trends. [As long as I'm at it, consider this a plug for www.artsjournal.com and its daily email update of arts in the news. It's a shared habit here at PCMI--just started reading it a month ago and don't know what I'd do without it now.]
His most recent post, titled (wait for it!) "Curating impact through artists" talks about the new report by Alan Brown on new ways of measuring the impact of artistic performances on audiences. Taylor's blog post does a good job of spelling out some of the implications of the report. For those of us who think about ways of measuring the effectiveness and the impact of arts organizations, it's important work.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
More Leadership Development advice
Brief, but to the point, a piece by Marshall Goldsmith on the Harvard Business Review website on the essential components of leadership programs.
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