As I investigate and come to understand various administrative designs, and how they can be best applied for accomplishment of identified ends, I begin to see a bigger picture.
I spent a lot of time over the previous year studying and analyzing organizational models (designs) in the arts and culture sector. After living intensely with the topic, I had to overcome the “so what” effect, e.g. “alright, so you have identified a bunch of new and unused models, now what?” I realized that this information needs context — both at the specific organizational level and the sector level.
Just as an administrative design should (must) be crafted to best accomplish an end goal, an organizational design should be crafted to accomplish a mission. And, an arts and culture sector should be organized to best meet the artistic and cultural needs of its citizens. Goals, Mission, Needs. Interesting!
Now, of course as one moves from the administrative to the sector, complexity increases. An administrative design can be designed and formed by an individual in cooperation with a relative few colleagues and advisors. An organizational design can be crafted or chosen by a group of artists and their supporters, but a sector design cannot be assigned to any single entity.
There is dysfunction in each of these strata in the arts and culture sector. CEO’s rarely consider end goals when they design their administrations. They tend to copy what is extant in their fields. They rely on their national service organizations, their peers for ideas about how to organize, or they simply adopt the tradition of their organization. And, as I have discussed previously, artist groups choose the 501c3 organizational model for a number of reasons that range from ignorance of other models to wanting the “imprimatur” of NFP status. That the model may not best serve their artistic missions seems to be of little consequence.
Even though this paints a gloomy picture, one can imagine steps that could be taken to educate and truly affect these 2 design levels.
However, the question of who should (must) take leadership in the organization of a cultural sector remains unanswered, political and messy. Sector leaders shy away from even suggesting direction, as the power of the American free market philosophy affects their thinking and decision-making processes.
Given that there’s no set answer as to how to craft a meta-organization of an arts and culture sector. Each community has its own important-to-preserve special character that will dictate its own meta-organization. However, each community should (must) take up this question of its overall organization.
As an international organisational consultant with background in the private sector but now specialising in cultural orgqanisaions, I have helped many institutions re-align people to support their strategy with excellent results. However this often comes about only when change is thrust upon them.
Funding support tends to be provided to tangible structures with ribbon cutting photo opportunities rather than the less glamorous but more sustaining capacity building of people who can fully realise a museum’s promise.
The related area of governance and board structures add to the complexity making this work both fascinating and I hope useful.
I would be interested to learn more about how your research compares with some of my own.