Justin Macdonnell offers up the latest salvo in the perennial push-back against ”business” thinking in arts and culture organizations. It’s a topic that lives at the center of my working life (directing, as I do, an MBA degree in arts administration). And it’s a question to which I continually try to bring clarity, nuance, and honest reflection (some here on my weblog, some to myself).
My thumbnail perspective on the intersection of artistic endeavor and ”business” thinking is in this short opinion piece from 2006. And the question lies dead-center in the call to arms that launched this blog.
To be fair, my access to Macdonnell’s perspective is filtered through the journalist’s lens, which can tend to flatten the complexity and heighten the contrast of any opinion. But his basic premise — to rebel against ”business-like” behavior and emphasis by governing boards — is a frequent battle cry by those frustrated with the current state of the arts.
If nonprofits select board members who are unqualified for the complexity and depth of governance, they suffer for it. Those board members’ day job as business person, social scientist, artist, civic leader, philanthropist, or anything else isn’t the cause of their inability to govern effectively. The process by which we find them, invite them, engage them, and frame and support their work is the cause.
Nor is the problem a shortcoming of a particular ”way of knowing” the world that a board member might bring — be it business practice, or academic research, or creative expression, or the like. All ways of seeing, choosing, moving, and evaluating can bring great value to cultural governance, as long as they are informed by humility, curiosity, commitment, and flexibility, and a willingness to adapt to the particular needs and vision of the organizational mission.
Certainly, the blind faith in business-focused leadership on governing boards has done damage to cultural organizations — as have the wealth-focused or task-focused or status-focused board selection processes that emphasize broad categories or types or roles over individual competence and fit.
At the end of the day, every day, arts organizations must be more business-like, more civic-like, more innovative-like, more creative-like, more connected-like, and more expressive-like than they were the day before. It might be time to put away the straw man in a business suit, and focus on finding, fostering, and connecting the real and complicated people who can advance our important work.
In my art practice, I work towards giving without expectation of return. For me, that is the essence of what “art” is — which is one interpretation of what your Call to Arms describes as the “energy beyond money and markets.” While I apply “business thinking” in my practice (for example, by considering the needs of my audience), cultural organizations might better serve their constituencies and communities by considering more deeply how they could give to those people without expectation of return. In my experience, the attitude and behavior of giving without expectation of return yield profound benefits to all.
I think it is important to the veracity of both worlds, arts and business, to stop arguing that clear distinctions between these spheres and their aspirations can and should be drawn. Clearly, their orbits overlap: see the Art Newspaper for serious and juicy reference. Living in mature democratic systems it is only proper for the non-profit arts profession to resist its impulse of throwing the toys out of the pram when faced with ‘Philistine’ challenges from the profit motivated outside world, which, incidentally, sustains us whether through tax or charitable giving. We need to shed this ‘them and us’ chip on our shoulder, and focus on engaging and learning rather than pooh-poohing and rejecting. Seeking a complementary balance between creative aspiration towards excellence and pragmatic profit orientated delivery will assist the arts in developing a more eloquent and inclusive language of self-advocacy.
I think the categories of “nonprofit” and “business” are over-broad; so much so, in fact, that besides having to fill out different forms for the IRS, there’s not much to compare at the 30,000 foot view.
Hi, Andrew! Isn’t this sentence really the takeaway?:
“But he did not believe that simply including more artists on boards was a solution. **What was needed was a way for artists and their boards to work more collaboratively and a rethink of the way arts companies were structured**.”
And is that really so insulting, or so radical a notion?