|
Creative Management in the Arts
and Heritage: Sustaining and Renewing Professional Management
For the 21st Century
A
Proposed Action Plan for Creating Winning Conditions
A project of the Canadian Conference of the Arts
In collaboration with the Cultural Human Resources
Council
With the financial support of
The Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation
Prepared for the 2003 Chalmers Conference of
The Canadian Conference of the Arts
By Jocelyn Harvey
May 21-22, 2003
Download
a printer-friendly, PDF version of this document. (Adobe
Acrobat reader required)
See also:
Problems
and Issues
Proposed
Action Plan
Annex
A: Selected Bibliography
INTRODUCTION
In spring 2002, the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation
(SSBFF) approached the Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA)
about participating in an action-oriented research and consultation
project called Creative Management. The purpose of the project
was to identify the challenges facing professional management
personnel in Canada’s not-for-profit arts and heritage
organizations and develop practical recommendations to meet
these challenges.
In view of the importance of this topic, the CCA was pleased
to collaborate on the project and engaged arts consultant
Jocelyn Harvey as the coordinator. The project has been financially
supported by the SSBFF, with additional funding for the research
component from the Department of Canadian Heritage, and carried
out in close consultation with the Cultural Human Resources
Council (CHRC). It has focused on both the present and the
future – our experienced managers now in the workforce
and their need for professional renewal and reinvigoration,
and the development of conditions that will attract “successor”
generations eager to work as managers in Canadian cultural
organizations.
Background
The pioneer generation of Canadian cultural managers will
begin reaching retirement age within the next decade, and
some have already left the sector for less stressful and better
compensated jobs elsewhere. Coming along behind this generation
is a smaller cohort of Canadians, one which is highly educated,
technologically savvy, and culturally diverse, but burdened
by record-high student debt loads and likely to have its pick
of jobs.
As the boomers prepare to retire, there is a growing sense
of urgency across all sectors of the Canadian economy about
the impending shortage of workers and intense competition
for professionals in the decades ahead. The bibliography at
the end of this report shows that this concern is shared by
governments, corporations, and the not-for-profit sector.
In a recent analysis of 2001 Census information, Statistics
Canada noted that “an aging workforce is not unique
to Canada” but “what distinguishes Canada is the
relatively large size of the baby boom generation and, therefore,
the potential rapid exit of these aging boomers from the labour
market.” [1]
In view of this important generational shift, organizations
like the Conference Board of Canada, the Public Service Commission
of Canada, Human Resources Development Canada, the Canadian
Federation of Independent Business, the Canadian Policy Research
Networks, the Association of Universities and Colleges of
Canada, the Voluntary Sector Forum, and a host of Canadian
corporations have undertaken studies on human resource development,
leadership succession and means of attracting and retaining
a new generation of workers. Many sectors are intensifying
their efforts to recruit young employees by providing improved
compensation and other benefits and incentives. A number of
recent studies have addressed these issues as they affect
the Canadian cultural sector. [2]
Linda Duxbury, Director of Research at the Centre for Research
and Education on Women and Work and the co-author of a new
study on work-life balance, has noted a striking change in
attitude among Canadian employers:
“I would say it’s only within the last two years
that a lot of organizations have become serious about this.
They’ve only become serious because we’re moving
into a sellers market. They now see the writing on the wall
with respect to demographics. In the best-case scenario, we’re
only going to have enough workers to replace half the baby
boomers who are retiring. We’re facing a skilled labour
shortage. All of a sudden employers are recognizing that it’s
not just good enough any more to talk about being best practice,
you actually have to be best practice.” [3]
These generational changes come at a time when critical weaknesses
are already apparent in the cultural community:
* Over the last 5-10 years we have lost a number of our senior
managers, especially in the arts. Some have accepted prominent
positions in arts organizations in other countries; some have
left arts organizations to work as consultants and mentors;
some were hired away by larger, better-paying not-for-profit
organizations such as hospitals and universities or by the
private sector, and some have departed involuntarily as the
result of organizational crises and disagreements with their
boards.
* Over the last decade, one of the ways in which many cultural
organizations dealt with reductions in government funding
was by eliminating the jobs that were “stepping stones”
to senior management (the “2IC” or assistant manager
positions), leaving the sector without great depth of experience
at this level.
While concern about future workers has seized our attention,
an equally important problem is that many experienced managers
are working in extremely difficult and challenging conditions,
often with inadequate resources.
In a letter about the Creative Management project, a leading
Canadian philanthropist with long experience as a volunteer
in both large and small arts organizations, wrote to say:
“There is no question that we expect an extraordinary
amount from our Executive Directors. Thirty years ago their
job was to manage an organization. Now they have to be fundraisers
extraordinaire, out every night schmoozing with potential
sponsors and donors, government lobbyists, meeting and stroking
civic, provincial and federal government funders, labour specialists,
negotiating extraordinarily difficult contracts with well-organized
unions, capital campaign experts, operations and facilities
mavens, not to mention full-time meeting attenders for the
dozens of committees of the Board. And, they have to do this
for half or a quarter of the sum that would be paid to someone
in the private sector world, with half or a quarter of the
staff! It’s all quite depressing when you think about
it and really amazing that anyone survives.”
Thus, as one former manager now working as a consultant to
arts organizations told us, a vital concern is “keeping
the current senior managers in the arts and allowing them
to continuously upgrade their skills. Unless the retention
crisis is dealt with, we will not be much farther ahead by
training new recruits.”
Brief History of the Project
The Creative Management project began with a roundtable meeting
which brought together 25 Canadians involved in arts and museum
management to define the issues to be explored in the ensuing
research and consultations. The roundtable was followed by
a literature search on cultural management issues and a review
of current research on the Canadian labour force, the impact
of generational change, and the expectations of new entrants
to the workforce.
Extensive individual and group consultations were then undertaken
with managers (experienced and emerging), artists, board members,
service organizations, cultural management educators, arts
administration students, cultural sector councils, funding
bodies and others involved in the cultural sector. Over this
period of the project, more than 200 Canadians were consulted
in groups and focused one-on-one interviews.
Based on these investigations, a discussion paper outlining
the challenges and needs was prepared for the 2002 Chalmers
Conference, an annual meeting of arts service organizations
convened by the CCA. The conference, entitled Creative Management,
Creative Solutions, provided a national forum for exploration
of the issues. In addition to service organizations, the participants
included the boards and staff of the CHRC and the CCA, cultural
managers, cultural management educators, provincial sectoral
councils/networks, and representatives of government departments
and arts councils.
The Chalmers conference strongly endorsed the timeliness and
relevance of the project. Participants stressed the importance
of improving conditions for cultural management personnel
through an integrated approach and called for action by all
key stakeholders.
In late summer 2002, a report outlining the major findings
and potential solutions was widely circulated (the Final Report
on Phase 1) and posted on the website of the CCA, and comments
and responses were invited. [4]
This current report – the proposed action plan to address
the challenges and needs for both existing and future managers
- builds on the large number of thoughtful and informed responses
the CCA received about the Phase 1 report, as well as last
year’s Chalmers conference and consultations throughout
the project.
Based on comments from respondents to the Phase 1 report,
two additional issues are addressed in this action plan.
* The importance of positive and effective relationships between
cultural managers and their boards - and, in the current environment,
the problematic and difficult nature of too many of these
relationships.
* The recognition that, while this project is focused on not-for-profit
organizations, leadership succession is of great concern among
book publishers.
The International Dimensions
Throughout the industrialized world, cultural communities
are facing problems similar to Canada’s: an imminent
leadership crisis brought on by demographics, increasingly
difficult on-the-job challenges for cultural managers, new
competency demands, and shifting work and life expectations
among the smaller generation of young people who will be entering
the workforce.
In many countries, cultural sector organizations, government
funding bodies, and foundations have launched new initiatives
to address these changes. Specific initiatives will be described
in the relevant sections of the action plan below, but three
quotations will indicate the range and depth of concern apparent
on the international scene.
In a major study called Succession: Arts Leadership for the
21st Century, the Illinois Arts Alliance Foundation remarked:
“The nonprofit arts have thrived in the past three decades
largely because a generation of arts workers accepted low
wages for the nonpecuniary rewards of working in the arts.
This discounted labor has been cited as a crucial source of
capital for the nonprofit arts sector. It may be that this
crucial source of support is now being threatened by recent
economic and cultural changes affecting all non-profit arts
workers. Often facing a high urban cost of living and heavy
student loan debt, potential nonprofit arts workers entered
a booming new economy in which for-profit corporations offered
high salaries and encouraged creativity and nonconformity
in ways that used to be more unique to the arts world.
Compounding these problems is the growing complexity of work
in nonprofit arts organizations today. These organizations
have to please a wider set of constituencies, scramble for
more competitive grants and donations, answer to more funders’
expanding sense of accountability, keep up with technological
change, and compete with commercial culture for audiences.
It seems reasonable that the more demanding and professionalized
nonprofit work environments become, the less potential employees
have to accept lower nonprofit salaries….
Besides a possibly dwindling labor pool of committed and qualified
new workers, these sorts of stresses fuel concerns about midcareer
attrition. Inside observers claim that high stress and low
salaries are leading to significant attrition, and the midcareer
burnout problem will only get bigger as the labor squeeze
progresses. Low salaries lead to an economic squeeze, as 30-
or 40-something arts professionals who want to start a family
or purchase their own home decide to seek better-paying jobs
in the private sector.
Similar pressures may also be forcing the top leadership out,
as executive directors – driven by burnout and/or the
need for preretirement financial security – leave nonprofit
arts organizations to seek out better paying jobs. Organizations
without stable leadership suffer dramatic reductions in effectiveness,
compounding the troubles of the staff. The overall view is
of a sector struggling to attract qualified new workers, ill-equipped
to retain middle managers or executive directors, and unable
to replace outgoing executive directors.” [5]
Introducing its new corporate plan, the Arts Council of Ireland
described the Irish arts community in these words:
“As a direct result of increased State support over
the past decade, the arts in Ireland have been transformed….
The critical issue now is how best to build on this progress….
The seedlings of growth nourished over the last decade need
to be planted on in more fertile ground.
Looking at the arts in Ireland today, we see low living standards,
with many artists and companies too often battling against
the odds. There is little or no investment in audience development.
Organisationally, we see skills shortages and under-resourced
managers and artistic directors. The transition from emergent
young company to stable maturity defeats too many. The contributions
of remarkable individuals are too often dissipated where no
provision has been made for succession planning at management
or board levels.” [6]
In the United Kingdom, a major inquiry has been conducted
by the Clore Duffield Foundation in partnership with the Arts
Council of England and Resource, the major organization serving
museums. [7] Entitled the Cultural Leadership Initiative,
the study has addressed three questions:
* “How can the foundation help the cultural sector to
develop a larger pool of potential leaders – a cadre
from which the leaders of tomorrow will emerge?
* How can present and future leaders best develop their potential?
* How can the chances of success of existing leaders be improved?”
Among the major findings of this inquiry were the following:
*
a widespread concern in the arts and museum fields about management
development, both current and future;
*
barriers to developing and attracting managers, including
lack of time and money for development and training, poor
pay and benefits, and the ad hoc nature of career progression;
* the need for long-term investment (“many previous
forays into arts leadership development seem to have done
good work, but then disappeared because of funding problems”);
* The need for broad-based coordinated action (“leadership
appears to be a preoccupation for many different organisations
across the cultural sector. What has emerged is a picture
of general concern, with some practical initatives being implemented
in certain places, but nothing happening across the sector
as a whole”; “the problem of leadership…needs
tackling at every level in the system, from entry onwards”);
and
* The need for a flexible suite of programs or program components
offering leadership development, mentoring, secondments, grants
to attend development and training courses, and support for
the beneficiary’s organization so that she or he can
spend a period of time away in professional development.
Organization of This Report
This plan has been prepared for discussion at the 2003 Chalmers
Conference, to be held May 21-22 in Ottawa. For readers unfamiliar
with the previous Phase 1 report, it begins with a summary
of the challenges and needs established in the course of the
consultations and research. It then proposes a detailed action
plan to improve conditions for management personnel, with
specific recommendations made to various stakeholders.
This report also draws on an excellent document prepared for
the Cultural Human Resources Council by Mercadex International
Inc., which CHRC has been using as the basis for regional
roundtable discussions across Canada in recent months. Entitled
Face of the Future: A Study of Human Resource Issues in Canada’s
Cultural Sector: Findings and Recommendations, the Mercadex
report has a broader focus than the Creative Management project,
dealing with conditions that affect all creators, performers
and cultural workers in the sector, but it comes to many of
the same conclusions. [8]
One of its seven major recommendations is to “Support
the continued recruitment, development, retention and succession
of cultural management”:
“This objective addresses the growing crisis within
management of cultural organizations and enterprises, particularly
non-profit, arising from the devaluation of cultural managers,
stressful working conditions, low pay, inadequate professional
development and professional renewal opportunities, challenges
with governance, and the lack of succession planning.”[9]
Annex A, a selected bibliography of materials consulted during
the Creative Management project, concludes the report.
Premises of This Report
A recent issue of The Arts Advocate contains a round-up of
“Human Resource Initiatives in the Cultural Sector”
which lists many initiatives, studies, and surveys now under
way. The article points out that “Human resources issues
and management in the cultural sector are garnering attention
like never before” and “the initiatives represent
a revolution of sorts, the industry coming together as a whole,
to build Canada’s arts infrastructure of the future.”
[10]
A similar point is made in Face of the Future:
“The defining feature of the current era is multiplicity.
In the cultural sector, in human resource terms, multiplicity
manifests itself as collaboration, participation, interdependence
and synthesis. If the cultural sector incorporates a multiplicity
of interrelated interests and activities, it follows that
no one initiative or stakeholder, by itself, will be able
to adequately address the complex of human resource challenges
currently facing the sector.” [11]
This action plan is premised on the belief that all stakeholders
share the responsibility for improving conditions and that
only by working together in a coordinated manner will we achieve
our goals. What is needed is not a “single-stakeholder-led”
plan but the coordination of multi-stakeholder endeavours
consistently and energetically pursued through “collaboration,
participation, interdependence and synthesis.”
A second premise in this action plan is a preference for integration
over segregation. Where possible, the plan encourages the
integration of human resource and management development issues
in ongoing operating grant programs, rather than proposing
another short-term project fund which will eventually disappear.
The point is to stimulate cultural organizations to internalize
responsibility for reasonable compensation, professional development,
leadership succession, and sound governance, making consideration
of human capital part of their every day ongoing operations.
In proposing to incorporate rather than separate human resource
matters from consideration of the rest of an organization’s
life, this action plan shares the same underlying philosophy
about the importance of an integrated and holistic approach
to arts organizations that has been expressed in a number
of recent works. [12]
This approach is aptly described in one of those studies (Building
Blocks: New Tools and Strategies for Funding Bricks and Mortar
in the Cultural Arena: A Policy Makers’ Forum):
“In order to maintain and develop successful cultural
facilities, we need to change the way we think about arts
organizations and their facilities. We can no longer compartmentalize
programs, operations and capital, ignore capital needs, and
expect a thriving cultural sector to be the outcome. A holistic
approach is the key. Vibrant, welcoming and safe cultural
facilities, which meet the needs of arts organizations and
their audiences, are only possible in an environment where
all the elements that comprise a healthy arts organization
are understood and addressed. Working together, the arts community
and its government and private sector funders need to evaluate
and support the necessary balance between artistic mission
and program, organizational capacity and operations, and capital
structure.” [13]
To describe the approach taken in this action plan, we might
adopt a phrase which the President of the Caledon Institute
of Social Policy used to explain how his organization garnered
support for action to reform the child benefits system in
Canada – “relentless incrementalism”.
“Relentless incrementalism consists of strings of reforms,
often seemingly small and discrete when made, that accumulate
to become more than the sum of their parts. Relentless incrementalism
is purposeful and patterned, not haphazard and unintended.
The drip drip drip of individual changes over time carves
substantial and planned shifts in the structure and objectives
of public policy.” [14]
As a result, this action plan draws together a series of many
reforms, existing and proposed, local, provincial and national,
which are both purposeful and patterned. Some of the recommendations
call for strengthening existing initiatives and programs,
maximizing collaboration and partnerships among sector organizations
and between sector organizations and government departments
and agencies, and fortifying the ability of the sector to
develop and deliver the tools needed. Other recommendations
require striking out in new directions, with new initiatives
and new resources. Some are easily “do-able”,
others more difficult and long-term.
In an essay entitled “Some Thoughts About Succession”,
Theodore S. Berger, the Executive Director of the New York
Foundation for the Arts, remarked:
“I have always been proud to have grown up with this
generation of [veteran] arts administrators and to have been
part of the enormous accomplishments and extraordinary leadership
that have strengthened the arts in this country for over thirty
years. I now realize that by postponing the needs of tomorrow,
we have collectively delayed the appropriate and necessary
continuity our individual organizations and our field as a
whole require. We have not taken enough of the steps necessary
for the roots of our achievements to grow and mature…
Our ability to attract, maintain, and sustain professionals
over the long term is an overall industry need that requires
new ideas, collaborations, and certainly additional resources.
It also requires the commitment of all of us in our field
–veterans, midlevel and entering administrators, boards,
funders – to think about succession not only for ourselves
as individuals or organizations but for our field as a whole.”
[15]
It is the CCA’s hope that the plan below will be supported
by all those stakeholders who are vital to its implementation
since each needs to make an essential contribution.
These stakeholders include arts and cultural service organizations
(municipal, provincial and national) which provide professional
development and peer networking opportunities for cultural
managers; federal, provincial and municipal arts councils
and culture departments; federal and provincial ministries
responsible for labour force and human resource development;
the sectoral councils in culture; cultural management educators;
and individual cultural organizations – their managers,
boards, and artists.
Footnotes
[1] Statistics Canada, “The changing profile of Canada’s
labour force,” 2001 Census (www.statcan.ca), p. 4.
[2] Important cultural studies include Alberta Cultural Human
Resources Steering Committee, Culture Steps Forward, Banff,
2001; Mercadex International Inc., Face of the Future, A Study
of Human Resource Issues in Canada’s Cultural Sector:
Findings and Recommendations, presented to CHRC, December
2002; Arts Leadership Network: Pilot Phase Evaluation and
Next Steps, for Opera.ca, Orchestras Canada, and the Professional
Association of Canadian Theatres, Sept. 2002; Association
of Cultural Executives, “Human Resource Development
in the Cultural Sector,” ed. Graeme Page, Management
Matters, Fall 2002; Janis A. Barlow, Rebecca Cann, and Catherine
Smalley, Professional Development for Performing Arts Managers
in Canada: A Needs Assessment, for the Professional Association
of Canadian Theatres and Theatre Ontario, August 2000; CAPACOA,
Building Capacity for Performing Arts Distribution in Canada:
New Service Initiatives for the Presenting Field, Sept. 2001;
Conseil québécois des ressources humaines en
culture, Compétences de Management, 2001; Diriger une
association dans le secteur culturel: une affair de compétence
et d’engagement, Jan. 2000; L’Exercice de la profession
Dirigeante ou Dirigeant d’Association, Dec. 1999 (www.cqrhc.com);
Cultural Careers Council Ontario, Report on Consultations
about Human Resources Needs in the Cultural Sector, 2002 and
Strategic Skills Shortages in Ontario’s Cultural Sector,
1998 (www.workinculture.org); Joy Davis, Bridging Gaps between
Intention and Reality: Challenges Associated with Educational
Participation, ICOM Study Series 2002, Aug. 2001; Genesis
Consulting, Human Resource Issues in Nova Scotia’s Performing
Arts, Aug. 2001; Tom Lewis, Greg Baeker and Jane Marsland,
Leadership Development and Renewal: A Learning Strategy for
Senior Performing Arts Managers, for PACT, Orchestras Canada,
and Opera.ca, Sept. 2000; PACT, Human Resources in the Canadian
Theatre, 1997 (new issue forthcoming); SaskCulture Inc., Handbook
for Member Organizations: A resource providing human resources
information and skill development, Dec. 2001; WME Consulting,
A WME Consulting Associates Report to the Cultural Human Resources
Council, The Human Resources Management Function in the Cultural
Sector, Jan. 2001; Canadian Museums Association, National
Compensation Study, 2000-1..
[3] Linda Duxbury, in an interview on work-life balance in
Canadian workplaces, on the website of Human Resources Development
Canada (http://labour.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca).
[4] Canadian Conference of the Arts, Creative Management in
the Arts and Heritage: Sustaining and Renewing Professional
Management for the 21st Century: the Final Report of Phase
1, July 2002 (www.ccarts.ca).
[5] Illinois Arts Alliance Foundation, Succession: Arts Leadership
for the 21st Century: Research and recommendations on leadership
succession in nonprofit arts organizations, with the support
of The Chicago Community Trust, 2003, p. A10 (our emphasis)
(www.artsalliance.org).
[6] Arts Council of Ireland, Arts Plan for 2002-2006 (www.artscouncil.ie).
[7] Clore Duffield Foundation, Cultural Leadership: The Clore
Leadership Porgramme Task Force Final Report, December 2002
(www.cloreduffield.org).
[8] Face of the Future, p. 2.The report also deals with issues
related to employment status, recruitment and retention, access
to training, and demand for new competencies, within the environmental
context of new technologies, globalization, government policies
and demographics.
[9] Face of the Future, p. 35.
[10] The Arts Advocate, Vol. IX, Issue 3, Feb. 19, 2003, pp.
5-6.
[11] Face of the Future, p. 21 (our emphasis).
[12] Besides Building Blocks (see the next footnote), some
examples include Managing Our Performance Spaces, under the
direction of Louise Poulin for the Canada Council in collaboration
with the Department of Canadian Heritage, 2003; the Arts4Change
project and the Creative Trust project in Ontario; Peter Brown,
Arts Working Capital Study, 2001; the Arts in Transition project
of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, The Samuel and Saidye
Bronfman Family Foundation, and the Department of Canadian
Heritage, 1996-7; the Ontario Arts Council’s Forum for
Arts Specialists and Mentors, Feb. 2003; and John Talbot &
Associates, Not-for-Profit Sustainability Project, 2002, undertaken
for a consortium of British Columbia funders.
[13] Building Blocks: New Tools and Strategies for Funding
Bricks and Mortar in the Cultural Arena: A Policy Makers’
Forum, report prepared by Janis A. Barlow & Associates,
for the Association of Artist-Run Centres & Collectives
of Ontario; Dance Umbrella of Ontario; Orchestras Canada;
Professional Association of Canadian Theatres; Theatre Ontario;
Toronto Artscape Inc., and Toronto Theatre Alliance, 2001,
p. 4.
[14] Ken Battle, “The Role of a Think-Tank in Public
Policy Development: Caledon and the National Child Benefit,”
Horizons, Vol. 6, No. 1, p.12, published by the Policy Research
Initiative.
[15] Theodore S. Berger in Illinois Arts Alliance Foundation,
Succession, p. C80 (our emphasis).
|
|
