Capacity to Change

Submitted by Sue Millar, University of Greenwich

Introduction
New Opportunities for Museums and Galleries
A New Sense of Purpose for Regional Museums
Capacity Building
Notes
Abbreviations
References

Introduction

The Capacity for Change Working Party has taken the view that the formulation of an effective strategy for change and capacity building to meet the 'change challenge' for Regional Museums in England is possible only when a new sense of purpose has been identified and articulated. In turn, it is important to understand what is wrong at the moment, what needs fixing. There is an undeniable malaise across the non-national museum community and a leeching of disillusioned, able people. Staff in museums and galleries in the regions, particularly in the larger local authority museums are frustrated. They recognise the need for change and have an active interest in capacity issues.

The disparity between the challenging new opportunities for museums and galleries set in the context of a wider social purpose and their inability to respond consistently and effectively, has led to the widely held belief that there is both a 'leadership crisis'. In general, with obvious exceptions, management and leadership is thought to be of an insufficient quality to deliver on expectations. For any transformation in ways of working to occur this commitment to new ways of thinking about a common purpose is essential. In fact it may be reassuring for museum professionals to know that it is recognised in other sectors that only when a perceived crisis point is reached is it possible to gain widespread support for fundamental changes.

Museums in the Regions: a Fragmented Sector

Museums are born of passion. The legacy of the creative identities of individuals, groups of enthusiasts and the civic pride of local councils is evident in the distinctiveness and diversity of collections, the buildings in which they are housed and the places where they are located across the English regions. Yet these strengths are also the cause of underlying weakness. Museums and galleries are a fragmented sector. The profile of museums and galleries as a coherent voice across the national, local authority and independent sectors remains under-developed. The fragmentation is emphasised in financial terms by the widening gap between the funding of national and local authority museums. Local museums can tailor services to meet local needs and allow individual social entrepreneurs the opportunity to try innovative approaches but a lack of cogent, long term thinking means, in reality, the organisations are not built to last. New recruits, if they can be found, repeat the cycle and leave.

The potential to celebrate the diversity of different types of collection and promote their understanding and enjoyment on a wider scale as part of the rich cultural tapestry of a region is unwittingly undermined. In many cases leadership is on hold in favour of the management of survival for individual museums. For some museum officers the shunning of the leadership role is both a pragmatic reality and a lack of familiarity with the concept of leadership or appropriate role models to follow. There is no time left to develop cross-sectoral partnerships and collaborative schemes even if these are perceived as important.

Diverse Collections: The vast range in collection type from the city centre art galleries in Leeds, Birmingham and Bristol to working farm museums such as Acton Scott, Shropshire, the Fisheries Museum in Grimsby or archaeological collections in Devizes reinforces the differences between museums. Each subject specialism spawns its own national support network  for example, the Social History Curators Group.

Organisational Structures and Professional Associations: The focus of the Museums Association on local authority museums and the Association of Independent Museums championing the cause of the independents has maintained the historic divide between museums and galleries run as charitable trusts or small businesses and those operating directly under local authority control. Despite some cross over of personnel the ethos of the two membership organisations remains very different. The importance of successful entrepreneurialism in independent museums is matched by the need for political acumen in local authority museums. This situation may change as a result of the Best Value Reviews. The outposts of national museums such as the Tate Gallery at St Ives or the National Maritime Museum at Falmouth, which are satellite operations with government sponsorship, further complicates the regional picture. National Museums have their own membership organisation, the NMDC.

'Reinventing the wheel': On the whole experience is not shared. Energies are dissipated. A great deal of good practice exists in terms of innovative educational and social inclusion projects, for example. Museum professionals are often astute and successful advocates in their own locality. But the social impact is lost because these initiatives are not part of a larger strategic vision.

Reactive Responses: Smaller museums and galleries in the regions exhibit the classic symptoms of small non-profit organisations. Curators and managers can be tempted to 'follow the money' by adding programmes to get grants even if they do not fit the museums mission (Lowell et al, 2001). They start to see their purpose as gaining 'brownie points' by bringing in funds and creating notions of relevance to justify the project.

Recognition and Reward: For staff in both large and small museums and galleries the job is often a constant and lonely struggle. The pressures of fund raising and form filling, the need for reactive responses to local government policies for short-term survival, chronically low pay, a lack of mentoring support and appropriate training opportunities and an inability to influence policy on public subsidy has led to low morale. Only two museum director posts have chief officer status.

Paid Staff and Volunteers: Approximately two thirds of the work force in the museum and heritage sector are volunteers. This knowledge is an uncomfortable reality for some museum professionals, particularly in local authority museums. And as a result of this ambivalent attitude the volunteer contribution is not always encouraged or managed effectively. Harnessing the contribution of volunteers requires conviction, tact and time.

top

New Opportunities for Museums and Galleries

Museums and galleries have the opportunity to become a dynamic force in society in the twenty-first century. They have an exciting, and indeed a pivotal role, in fostering and supporting the social and intellectual life of the English nation and the English regions. Placing people centre stage means a reorientation of strategic goals to meet the demands of different stakeholders either as single organisations or in partnerships and strategic alliances.

Museums and galleries are not only a significant niche sector within the creative industries in their own right ¹ but they are also repositories of vast quantities of information in the form of artefacts and archives relevant to a successful knowledge-based economy ² . Access to collections held in regional museums provides the bedrock of inspiration for the aspirations of people in local communities and communities of interest as well as more specifically a new generation of artists, designers, media executives, conservators, craftspeople and others working in the creative industries.

As cultural institutions museums and galleries located in the regions are in a new arena of activity. The nature of the contract with the community has changed. Museums and galleries are in a position not only to add value to people's lives through events and exhibitions but also to become agents of social change engaging and releasing the creative energies of disadvantaged and minority communities and taking a lead in celebrating plural identities. "Social inclusion is not just another 'service'. It is about transforming traditional concepts of museum-community relationships" (GLLAM, 2000, p.45). Friends and Membership Groups and volunteers are no longer confined to the periphery of organisation. In short, museums and galleries are public spaces where the whole community can socialise and become involved in a variety of activities, and participate in determining the agenda facilitated by the museum and gallery staff.

As 'virtual? or actual places for learning museums and galleries act as buffer zones with the outside world, breaking down the boundaries between formal and informal learning, blurring and effectively entwining concepts of education and entertainment. At their best museums and galleries offer excitingly safe opportunities to empower communities and individuals to experiment and explore ideas and gain personal confidence either on site or through outreach programmes.

top

A New Sense of Purpose for Regional Museums

Museums and galleries in the regions are in a unique position to play an important role in the social and cultural life of the communities they serve. Many are centres of excellence in their own right. Peter Jenkinson, Director of Walsall Art Gallery, has called for a fairer relationship between regional and national museums in this respect. "The traffic is always seen to be going from the centre to the margins instead of a two way relationship" (Museums Journal, 1999a).

The Working Party proposes that the overarching purpose for regional museums and galleries - the single strand uniting all museums- is active citizenship. The vision is one where museums are centres of community life and central to the life of the community. In essence, this means making the museum and its collections relevant to different user groups - learners, tourists, businesses, minority groups and people of all ages in their leisure time in consultation with them. In the process of moving to a stakeholder model museums will be making a paradigm shift. Decisions will be taken on the basis of a pro-active stance in fostering civic pride and enhancing the quality of life for all members of the community. The step change envisaged by this Working Party responds to an anonymous plea in the Museums Journal. 'If MLAC is to be a successful meeting of equals, there needs to be an almighty push to raise museums profile as organisations that change lives' (Museums Journal, 1999b).

Interconnectivity involving a two-way communication process can produce surprising results. For some global businesses buying a sense of place is important. Cisco Systems were prepared to purchase a 'parochial presence' at Reading Museum. Weddings are the most popular means of income generation with couples seeking to design their own 'themed' Programme for the day. Walsall Art Gallery has provided Valentine's night and single's nights events alongside regular late-night opening. At the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham primary school children have acted as gallery guides. Reaching out to the community means going out schools day centres and hospitals and providing objects on loan as well as facilitating on-site access to collections. In order to build on these initiatives and others linked to web access and multi-media attention needs to be given to issues of capacity building.

top

Capacity Building

I Perceived Barriers to Change

The accepted need for additional resources to fund 'core' activities in regional museums can only be used to good effect if capacity issues are addressed at the same time (MLA, 2000). The perceived barriers to change can be identified as follows:

• Annuality in budgets makes achieving self-reliance difficult as it impedes strategic planning process. Good management is essential.
• Short term funding initiatives in a culture of challenge funding. Good leaders respond creatively.
• Proven track record of income generation gains larger public subsidy. Good management is required.
• LA Budget cuts balanced by inflow of Lottery cash. Project management skills needed.
• Instant results expected by elected members, governing bodies and governments. Politically astute management of expectations required.
• Collaborative working across LA boundaries is not always allowed e.g. Ipswich - care of collections and Reading -training.
  LA joint service produces rivalries e.g. Sunderland and Newcastle. Senior managers need skills in priority setting, communications strategy and transparent accountability.
• Museum directors have responsibilities but little power to effect change. Improved pay and status required.
• Attitude of curators management averse. Management is mostly a second career
• Good people leeched to NDPBs and consultancy. Power without responsibility is attractive.
• Leadership Development necessary. Power and responsibility need to be allied first.
• LAs will not fund staff development training
• Leadership and management skills gap. Lack of available training at senior level. Business school led provision at MBA type level required.
• Business skills gap. Training in business planning is needed.
• Single focused specialist staff. No longer sufficient to be purely academic.
• Recruitment and Selection. People skills are important.
• Capacity building is a long-term investment and unacceptable to many funding providers, including the government and local authorities. Yet the above list show that good leaders and managers are able to turn difficult situations around, often to the benefit of the organisation. If regional museums are to deliver on their ambitious agenda then a pre-requisite is business, management and leadership training and development.

II Management and Leadership Development

The museum and gallery sector is not alone in seeking to address issues of management and leadership at the present time. Last year The Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership was set up by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Part of its remit is to draw up a strategy to ensure that the UK has the managers and leaders of the future to match the best in the world (Jervis, 2001). Some of the findings so far have a particular resonance for the museum and gallery sector. Future leaders will need to know how to harnessing diversity and recognise the changing attitudes, values and lifestyle of the workforce. In thinking about future needs, issues of values, motivation, expectations and rewards are increasingly important. Significantly pay is not the main driver. Lifestyle is. Therefore, museums and galleries are likely to have a greater appeal for many individuals in the future as long as work/ life balance is maintained.

The Council has explored the relative benefits of investing in developing employees across the organisation in the process of taking the lead as well as the concept of leadership itself. 'Taking the lead' is seen to require, among other things, courage, initiative, risk-taking, self-reliance, self-awareness and judgement. The Council is of the view that any leadership development initiative should be targeted towards current leaders in the top echelons of organisations, rather than seeking to impact on the whole workforce by giving everyone the ability to take the lead as and when appropriate. At the top of the organisation leaders play ?a critical role in setting the culture and tone of the business. In theory at least improved leadership then permeates down the organisation.

The evidence in support of an experiential approach to leadership and management development is overwhelming. Workplace development is combined with nurturing the ability of leaders to learn through reflection on experience and providing support through formal and informal networks. Mentoring has a key role. The 'Staff College and Instructor' model, which is sometimes the proposed solution to leadership development needs, is viewed as meeting few of the requirements envisaged. The results of a survey on Management and Leadership in UK Professions indicates that museums are amongst a broader group that see management and leadership as 'very relevant'(77.8%) yet museums are caught in the management and leadership development paradox. 'The professional associations view management and leadership as highly relevant, yet few require such development for membership or CPD' (Perrin, 2001).

It may be reassuring for the museum profession to know that most companies are poor at developing their executives (Handfield-Jones, 2000). As talent becomes scarcer it becomes more important to focus on internal schemes. Moreover, recruiting all the senior executives in an organisation externally sacrifices cultural cohesion and institutional memory (Handfield-Jones, 2000). Museum professionals alongside others in the cultural sector are rightly already concerned about leadership issues. But it would be unfortunate if scarce resources were used up in a range of ad hoc pilot initiatives before a cross-sectoral strategic framework for management and leadership development is devised. Recently a group of museum directors met under the auspices of the North East Museums, Libraries & Archive Council to discuss a scheme of peer support, including coaching, short course provision and stress counselling. This proposal places museums in the vanguard of organisational development. However, there is also a need for strategic conversations on early training in managerial skills, the role of current postgraduate programmes in Museum Studies, the potential for universities to collaborate and offer 'tailor-made' distance learning programmes linked to two or three day HEFCE funded short courses. The nature of development support for colleagues entering the profession as second or third careers is also worthy of consideration. It is important to recall Alan Howarth's speech delivered last November:

"Why bother to develop leaders within our cultural sectors when we could recruit super-leaders from elsewhere. Parachuting in super-leaders to solve a crisis may be necessary in some circumstances, but it is not sufficient to deliver the sort of systematic reinvigoration of the sector's leadership that is required. For a start super-leaders tend to command the sort of price tag which makes them unaffordable for all but the largest cultural organisations. But more importantly, these managers from outside do not have the specialist sector grounding, for example in traditional curatorial and technical skills (Howarth, 2000)."

III A Framework for the Regions

New technologies and a holistic approach to the idea of distributed national collection putting the regions in the centre and the centre in the regions have the potential to provide an overlay of coherence in a fragmented museum sector. The impact of museums, their profile and economies of scale will become increasingly evident.

The Working Party proposes a framework that offers a bi-nodal approach to establishing regional networks supported by a technological infrastructure.

Skills Knowledge Network (SKN)

Collections Knowledge Network (CKN)

The guiding principles of these collaborative partnerships based in the regions are

• skills sharing, knowledge transfer, and cross referencing
• the identification of reservoirs of expertise
• exchange of expertise,
• network, rather than a hub and spoke structure
  

Funding would be required for formal arrangements to be established and for the administration and maintenance of the network. However, it is considered that the capacity add-on is not that great. A decentralised nodal structure would offer a designed website into which every small museum can plug in.

Collections Knowledge Network

The regions have custodianship of fantastic collections. There is massive potential for mutual collaboration. A distributed collection framework would lay out the landscape from the point of view of what the user wants not the curators. Museums in the regions can then load their contributions into the framework. Such a scheme would need to be based on well-mapped collections making use of university research skills. The benefits would go beyond answering enquiries important as these are. Users will be able to carry out their own searches and make their own connections from the material available from a library, museum or home.

Skills Knowledge Network

The skills knowledge network would be about 'how I did that' and an exchange of market research information. The key person providing the service in this distributive structure is the practitioner. Sharing skills such as business planning using technological links/ video conferencing.

What type of collaborative model would be appropriate to put these two distinct but parallel networks into action. Or should they be combined and make links with the collaborative networks that already exist such as the Maritime Museums network and Visual Arts Curator Group providing funding for them as the Arts Council does. Standards are generally low where networking groups have not yet been established. There is a possible role for the British Museum in setting up networks for local history collections. However, since one of the aims of creating the networks is finding new synergies, it might be more appropriate to bring the current networks into a new regional framework.

A Regional Agency  possibly a cross-sectoral successor to the AMCs such as the North East Museums, Libraries and Archives Council could best support the delivery of the Skills Knowledge Network. These agencies would have the roles of co-ordinating mentoring, training and finding avenues to appropriate funding, particularly in the area of leadership skills working alongside training providers. Their remit for advocacy, lifelong learning and funding provision would support not only the skills development in practice but also improving the morale of the profession. However, it is extremely important that the new Agencies are not based physically 'out on a limb' but close to the Collections Knowledge Network in a key regional location. Consolidation is not only an important aspect of capacity building in that it releases resources for new purposes, but it is also important for networking face to face. Ensuring a new split does not emerge between collections and content on the one hand and skills development and lifelong learning on the other. Core regional bases linked to MLA for purposes of strategic planning and delivery the two network services can only strengthen rather than diminish the perceived importance of museums in the English regions. Moreover, moving towards such a federal structure would enable easy collaborative working with the 'new' Arts Council, the National Trust, RCCs and RDAs.

top

Notes

Please note: Use the 'Back' button on your browser to return to the text.

^{1 (i) In the South West the museum sector GDP rises to 23 million pounds if the voluntary sector is included (Brand et al, 2000).
(ii) The creative industries in London including museums generate 16-20 billion pounds in revenue. (London Development Partnership, March 2000).}

^{2 Collections of artefacts and archives provide research materials for TV productions, films, publications etc.}

Abbreviations

AMCs Area Museum Councils

CHNTO Cultural Heritage National Training Organisation

CPD Continuing Professional Development

GLLAM Group for Large Local Authority Museums

LA Local authority

MBA Master of Business Administration

MLAC Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (now MLA)

NDPBs Non-Departmental Public Bodies

NMDC National Museum Directors Conference

RCC Regional Cultural Consortium

RDA Regional Development Agency

top

References

Brand, S., Gripaios, P. and McVittae, E (2000), The economic contribution of museums in the South West, Taunton: South West Museums Council.

GLLAM (Group of Larger Local Authority Museums) (2000), Museums and social inclusion: The GLLAM report, Leicester: Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester.

Handfield-Jones, H. (2000), ?How Executives Grow?, McKinsey Quarterly, No.1, 2000.

Howarth, A (2000), developing world class leaders in the cultural heritage sector, CHNTO Conference, 28th November, 2000.

Jervis, P. (2001), Future organisations: future managers and leaders, London: Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership.

London Development Partnership (2000), Creative energy. the creative industries in London?s economy, London: London Development Partnership.

Lowell, S., Silverman, L. and Taliento, L. (2001), ?Not-for-profit management: The gift that keeps on giving?, McKinsey Quarterly, Number 1, 2001.

Museums Journal (1999a), ?In brief?, Museums Journal 99(11) p.17 (November).

Museums Journal (1999b), ?Batting for museums?, Museums Journal 99(1) p.14 (January)

Perrin, L. (2001), Management and leadership in the UK professions: analysis of survey results, London: Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership, 2001.

MLA (2000), Regional collections. Towards a sustainable Future, London: MLA.

top