A mini manifesto

The start of a new school year in the MBA program I direct brings fresh students, blank notebooks, new boxes of pens, and a lingering, persistent question: How do we make best use of the two years to come? We spend a lot of time in our program discussing strategy and tactics for cultural leadership, always emphasizing the need for a clear and specific outcome goal. But what is the outcome goal of our degree program for arts and cultural managers, and how do we know when we’ve achieved it?

It’s certainly not a question unique to our program, but common among any educational or professional development initiatives for arts managers.

This summer, one part of an answer emerged in my conversations and readings. I’ve scrawled it on the whiteboard in my office in three short phrases:

see with clarity
choose with purpose
act with intent

The longhand version is this: I believe that our degree program is in the business of finding and fostering cultural leaders who see with clarity, choose with purpose, and act with intent. Further, we want to provide these individuals with the tools and insights to foster arts organizations with the same three characteristics. What do I mean?

See with Clarity
Arts consultants George Thorn and Nello McDaniel wrote almost three decades ago that ”the first responsibility of professional leadership is to define and describe reality.” The ability to see and describe ”how the world works” is an essential quality of any leadership, particularly cultural leadership. How do audiences connect with your work? How does money flow through your organization? What draws volunteers and thoughtful board members to spend their time with you? What environment and organizational structures focus your staff, and what elements diffuse that attention? And more broadly, what lenses can you use to perceive these often-invisible ecosystems — financial, social, political, cognitive, research?

Choose with Purpose
The field of economics is often broadly described as studying ”the allocation of scarce resources among competing ends.” In the arts organization (and in life for that matter) all individuals face that same challenge with every moment of their waking day. Given the vast array of things you might do in this minute, this hour, this day, this month, this year, how do you choose to allocate your time, resources, and energy? How does your organization choose? The answers to these questions have often been labeled ”strategy,” but that word comes nowhere near the power and potential of this ever-evolving choice.

Act with Intent
The clearest vision and the most compelling purpose mean little or nothing without action. Yet it is the meeting of vision and reality where many leaders stumble, and many organizations fall. To ”act with intent” is to apply your vision and advance your purpose in tangible and meaningful ways. It means excelling at the job at hand while watching for the job ahead. Further, it means constantly questioning the traditional ways of doing things.

There’s surely something missing in this short and cryptic list, but it’s my place to begin this semester and this year. I’d value any feedback and additions.