Archive for the 'Governance' Category
Lessons from the wider world of Organizational Development
Thursday, January 10th, 2008
If Nobel prize-winner Richard Feynman can learn something about a major theory of physics from watching the way plates thrown across a university refectory wobble, why wouldn’t climbing Mount Everest and the problems in the paediatric cardiac surgery program of the Bristol Royal Infirmary potentially give us useful insights into our own organizations?
Three areas of research seem to me to be of particular interest: leadership, governance and organizational development. Existing parts of this site deal with these areas.
The papers dealt with in this post and related page concern organizational development, the way organizations work, what does and what does not effect and affect change and the progress toward outcomes which advance the organization and the people in it. They include some of the more important research papers published in the last 10 years.
In the translation from a previous version of the site to the present one, certain changes occur inevitably and sometimes losses. Unless one is very vigilant, these may go unnoticed. So it is with these important references about organizational change which I have frequently quoted in published papers.
Although the list was completed in 2003, some of the articles are of long-term importance. The articles deal with issues such as lessons learned from climbing Mount Everest – and the accidents that can happen in such a high risk pursuit – and how hospitals work. These are included because of my abiding belief that useful lessons are to be found in all kinds of unusual places. After all, if Nobel prize-winner Richard Feynman can learn something about a major theory of physics from watching the way plates thrown across a university refectory wobble, why wouldn’t climbing Mount Everest and the problems in the paediatric cardiac surgery program of the Bristol Royal Infirmary potentially give us useful insights into our own organizations.
I especially commend the papers by Nitin Nohria, William Joyce & Bruce Roberson on successful change, by Karl E Weick & Kathleen M. Sutcliffe on a major problem at he Bristol Royal Infirmary, by Dan Lovallo & Daniel Kahneman on the effect optimism has on executive judgement, Robert Chapman Wood & Gary Hamel on innovative approaches to grant giving in the World Bank, by Lynda Gratton & Sumantra Ghoshal on the way conversations influence people’s attitudes and behaviours and, of all things, a critique of transaction cost analysis by the wonderful (late) Sumantra Ghoshal and Peter Moran: anything but boring, this paper actually demolishes much of the favoured basis of governance theory and practice.
Continue to Articles
What Boards and Leaders Must Do
Monday, November 19th, 2007
The literature on governance and leadership is not just exhaustive, it is exhausting. But as I have said consistently, most of it is not very helpful and the really outstanding literature based on actual studies rather than market driven (or hard left or hard right ideology) seems to be not often listened to. That can equally be said in respect specifically of boards of museums.
Increasingly boards have focussed on oversight of executive leadership and on performance indicators. The indicators used have concerned the past, attended only to activities that can be measured, are not leading indicators in the sense of suggesting actions which should be taken in the future. They lead to silly statements like the one I heard recently about what the Ford Motor Company should do: be more innovative and more efficient. Not only is this mere rhetoric, it is wrong. Japanese motor manufacturers and other manufacturers which have been successful use different methods in the design and on the assembly line. Like the people in Southwest Airlines they understand how people work best.
These performance indicators are also imposed from outside and therefore are resisted or used grudgingly. At worst of all they concern operational, not strategic issues.
Boards and executive leaders need to frame a statement of the unique value which the museum contributes and communicate that to every stakeholder, staff member, visitor and supporter. And that statement needs to be reviewed in the light of experience and adapted to changing circumstances. None of this means that every demand by every stakeholder has to be attended to: boards and executive leaders have to stand for principles which guide the way they operate and approach their responsibility. That requires an ethical stance, not a slavish following of the market.
Most importantly, boards and leaders must focus on what only they can do. That is maintain the closest possible understanding of trends in the industry and environment in which the enterprise works and constantly seek understanding of new opportunities both within the enterprise and without in the way the expectations of those who are intended to benefit might be better satisfied. For a museum that means understanding the nature of learning and the way people interact with the museum. All of these activities are strategic and all are difficult to quantify. Certainly they may lead to some outputs and outcomes which are measurable but they are not themselves easily measured.
And just as importantly it means constantly working to improve the way staff can achieve above average performance in scholarship, public programming and collection management as well as all the administrative, supporting, commercial and development programs. And it certainly means resisting every attempt by others to control the museum. In particular governments genuinely interested in the museum serving the public will ensure that best practice is pursued, not exercise control over every process and line item of expenditure. It also means, perhaps above all else, ensuring best practice in recruitment of board members and executive leaders.
There is something to be said, generally, for appointing scholars and content specialists to the senior executive position. But the alternative view that scholars are incapable of managing and that therefore managers (or administrators) are needed is insulting as well as dangerous stupid rubbish!
The best companies appoint senior executives from within the organization who know the business and the industry. Those executives are in place for a considerable time, unlike those companies which are poor performers. The same is true of museums. Like some other Government reforms, those concerning appointments of executives are wrong-headed if not dangerous.
Boards and executive leaders need a new agenda to replace their concern with oversight and financial management. They need an agenda which attends to the kinds of behaviours which other successful enterprises have adopted. Continue to essay.
Future Leaders
Saturday, August 18th, 2007
In the last couple of months, directors of at least four museums have resigned or announced their impending retirement and there is ongoing speculation about the possibility of Philippe de Montebello retiring from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (There is an interesting post on this by culturegrrl [Who Should Succeed Philippe at the Met? November 13, 2006 ) and I mentioned another article on this in a previous post.
In the USA Timothy Potts will leave the Kimbell Art Museum in September. Lisa Dennison (a 29-year veteran of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum who became its director less than two years ago), has resigned to join Sotheby’s auction house. In Australia, Kevin Fewster resigned in July from the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney to take the directorship of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich in Britain and Alan Dodge announced his intention to retire from the Art Gallery of Western Australia. In Britain Charles Saumarez Smith has resigned from the National Gallery in London to go to the Royal Academy. And all that follows of course the announcement some time ago of the resignation of Lawrence Small as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (though some would not consider that a museum position, relevant thought it is).
In The New York Times for July 29, 2007, Jori Finkel (“Impossible Job. Here’s What You Need for Itâ€) noted that 24 of the 200 or so members of the Association of Art Museum Directors were in search of leaders in July, including the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The AAMD’s executive director observed that this was as great a number as some 20 years ago!
In the normal course of events this would be regarded as not unusual. The trouble is that not only is the museum community (or profession) not doing very much about succession, except for a few places where there are courses on leadership development, the nature of the job and the expectations for it have not varied in 20 years except that the demands placed on incumbents have grown. And the attitudes of boards and governments have not developed in the light of events. It is still a matter of wanting someone who will raise money and behave like a business person as well as be an expert on the content area of the museum, such as art history. And board members are no more inclined to understand what genuine support of executive staff means or even of what being a director of a non profit board is. Of course there are exceptions, or perhaps the troubling instances are exceptions. But they are sufficient to be a great worry.
One person who has studied this tells me that boards often appoint someone completely different from the previous incumbent; some museums continue to make the same kind of mistakes, others having to open the search process several times. As I have said, many boards simply do not understand what support of the CEO means.
Continue to essay.