Museum Director's Questions

In a recent blog post, Nina Simon answered the ten most frequently asked questions about audience participation http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/ It caused me to think about the questions often asked by museum directors struggling with their life and work. Here are a few which came to mind easily.

1. From the new director: Why didn’t the board (or the search consultant) tell me about (fill in the blank)? Usually because they didn’t know. Boards are frequently extremely far from the action and don’t understand what will be important to the new director. The hiring process doesn’t lend itself to the depth of understanding that one would hope. There are almost always surprises, sometimes good, sometimes not.

1. How can I get the board to take their responsibility to raise money? Phased this way, the answer is, you can’t. The right question is: What is the process by which we can raise money? In other words, what is the process by which we (paid staff and volunteers) can raise money together? Participatory, heh?

1. How do we align all the moving parts of this complex organization? This is the best question, the real work of the director, and starts with the gathering of constituent views, highlighting those views for everyone to know, see, understand, discuss. Again, participation. Longterm, iterative. Over time, it shows in vision, mission, organization values, leadership, choice of programs and audience, finances, hiring and staff and volunteer deployment, what not to do.

1. When do I remove a staff member who isn’t able to do the job that needs doing? Most directors consider political fallout, institutional intelligence, personal situations, structural solutions, and legal ramifications before they let someone go. They would probably say they take too long to pull the trigger. If prudent, they understand the legal situation, discuss the release with key board and staff members once they come to the decision. If they are good at their job, they make a careful plan, and they execute exactly.

1. What is the best way to be evaluated by the board? Ideally, the process is negotiated when the contract is inked. The director is evaluated against a newly created strategic plan or a mutually agreed upon set of goals. It’s also fantastic if the board will agree to evaluate their own work when they evaluate the director. Usually, we don’t live in an ideal world and I’ve witnessed the most ham-handed, unhelpful evaluations imaginable, apparently designed to annoy, obfuscate, and confuse without meaning to. Awful.

1. Should I have an employment contract? The only downside to a contract is that the board must take positive action when the time comes. When developing a contract, I review the AAMD’s Model Museum Director’s Employment Contract http://www.aamd.org/order. I recommend taking control of this process -- everything is negotiable, use it as the first example of how you and your board will work through a process and solve a problem.

1. How do I maintain a life beyond the museum? Many directors don’t. They create a life in which their museum activities infiltrate virtually every waking hour, gladly. Family and friends, intellectual pursuits, travel, and hobbies form the tapestry of life, connected to the museum, one way of another. On the other hand, I’ve helped to create several sabbaticals, strongly recommend a “do not do” list and John Durel's article on the subject http://tinyurl.com/44fx982, I do know the rare director who works to live, not the other way around.

The field of positive psychology provides a set of criteria leading to happiness: meaningful work, mastery over the work, working with others you admire and respect, and working on something larger than yourself. Since mission-related museum work aligns with these criteria, it is perfect understandable that many find happiness fully engaged as museum directors

1. How big should the board be? The flip answer: as big as necessary to get the job done. Put another way, twelve to seventeen if you are not raising money. No bigger than 17 until each person is well orientated, clear about individual goals and action plans and well supported, proud of the collective success and of their individual giving.

1. What is the work of the board now? Advocacy for the museum’s mission, fund raising based on a clear plan established in conjunction with the staff, governance including policy-making and board succession, and providing civic reach. http://tinyurl.com/47vakws

1. What is my responsibility for the board’s success? In a nonprofit, the CEO has less authority than a for profit CEO, but he or she has the same responsibility, in the end. Everything is your fault. A great board is not an accident, it is a victory. It takes work, attention, luck, skill and a participatory mindset.

Legal Issues of Museum Administration

The good folks at ALI-ABA awarded a scholarship to attend Legal Issues in Museum Administration, three days on the ethics, policy, and legal issues facing museum registrars, CEOs, boards, and legal counsels. Of course, lawyers expect the rich intellectual rigor of this presentation style and supporting material, but I am in awe.

It is old school, yeah, but when you get Lawrence Berger, PMA, and Frederick Strober, Saul Ewing, LLP engaging in legal theater over Joint Ownership Agreements of Collections, mesmerizing. Not kidding. Another long tradition are the case studies created by one brilliant lawyer and then dissected by a couple of others -- sometimes funny, sometimes surprising, always real.

There are legislation and litigation updates, presentations on the questions presented to the courts and to the practitioners over the year. One federal registrar was told this year by her overly cautious and misinformed supervisor that she would no longer be allowed to electronically record artists birth date or phone number because of new privacy laws! Now there another one for annals!

The time includes serious consideration about endowment management, healthy tensions between board and management, negotiating artists rights, conflict of interest and other governance policies, special collections, managing problem gifts, and gift acceptance policies.

While at the conference, my twitter feed delivered Historically Hardcore, the latest Smithsonian copyright infringement. The SI lawyers had already sent the cease demands but the funny ad campaign by a student had already gone viral. Check it out.

The image above is of the Kogod Courtyard at the Smithsonian Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery where a conference reception was held. Second night were were at the Phillips Collection. Both spectacular receptions.

The Dragonfly Effect: Driving Social Change

The Dragonfly Effect, said by many the best book on social media for the nonprofit sector in 2010, is that. And you should read it.

But I’m writing here about the dragonfly as a conceptual model for museum organizations that have many independent and connected facets, like the dragonfly’s wings. The wings beat at high rates of speed, in different directions, attached to the body which can fly safely in any direction, carrying the wings along effortlessly. Or is it the other way around?

Library, archive, museum collections, historic house, farm, animal husbandry, archaeology, school and life-long learning programs, all have and require staff expertise, board supporters, and loyal audiences. If any of the components get out of balance, beat too fast, the body may find itself in a tail spin, lopsided, unable to maintain flight. That beautiful, fast dragonfly is also fragile and difficult to control.

To see an astounding TED talk on the resiliance of the dragonfly by Charles Anderson, click here.