Management in art organizationsArts Marketing and Management

Katri Nykänen

Introduction

• Although arts and management has become its own field, it is still a young one

• It is in need of deeper and more carefully worked out theorizing that can help explain empirical findings and guide research efforts.

• The art organization (for example museum, and gallery) profession has ignored the problem of museum managers not being qualified as managers

Art organization as a bureaucratic hierarchy 1/4

• Bureaucracy model of Mintzberg (1983)• Rely on the skills and knowledge of their professionals in order to function

– The operating core is the key part of the bureaucracy – The only other part elaborated is the support staff

• The structure is highly decentralized• Professionals seek selective control of the administrative decisions, which

affect them• Parallel hierarchies: democratic bottom up for the professionals and machine

bureaucratic top down for all others• Decision making allows some professionals to ignore the needs of clients and

encourages all to ignore the needs of the organization itself and are ill-equipped to respond to the need to develop new outputs

• Complex work cannot be performed unless it comes under the control of the person who does it

• The incentive to perfect and to innovate is reduced by external controls

Art organization as a bureaucratic hierarchy 2/4

• Emphasizes rules and regulations• Work is integrated, if at all, horizontally• No task can be completed until someone ‘above’ or ‘below’ in

the multilayered organization supplies information or approval• Emphasis on written, rather than oral and face to face

communication• Whilst managers anticipate certain consequences and

outcomes, often there are unanticipated consequences and outcomes – > Reinforce tendencies to use rules and regulations as control devices

-> A lack of trust

Art organization as a bureaucratic hierarchy 3/4

1. professionals seek to limit control by others over all aspects of their work: only the professional knows what is right

2. professionals seek to determine in detail how others will act in any matter which touches them

3. the risk of being overwhelmed by the search for money, the need for lobbying stakeholders and the reach of the law

Art organization as a bureaucratic hierarchy 4/4

• Bureaucracy can be used if it is helpful but should be discarded if it isn’t• Anyone wishing to escape the bureaucratic mandela might remember,

– ‘you can do anything you like until someone finds out’! – Individuals will find that if they think they have power they do!

• Power is what you can do: memos seldom have effect• In the face of resistance and the extensive use of negative power, some

managers adopt an increasingly laissez-faire approach or become cyphers for the outside controllers. They make no decisions; their choices are ones which hold back the museum

• Whilst many believe that decision making involves logical analysis, it is more often governed by matters such as the distribution of power

• Concern for the quality of the outcome is subsumed by the struggle for control• Without trustworthy agents one must actually work in the same physical

location as, and in day-to-day contact with, those one is trying to control.

Issues of managing art organizations

1. People must be very clear about their business, their objectives and their philosophy

2. Policies must focus on the results to be achieved3. Resources need to be distributed for superior performance and

on the basis of changing needs, rather than for historical reasons4. Effective communication, including conflict resolution, needs

attention 5. The important role that politics play in art organizations, must be

recognized6. The realities of decision making must be appreciated7. The practices of recruitment, job definition and staff

development need much improvement

Five basic operations to be performedby managers

1. Setting objectives2. Organizing through

1. analyzing activities2. identifying manageable jobs3. grouping the jobs into a structure

3. Motivating and communicating4. Measurement by setting targets for performance 5. Developing people and their skills

• how to do these best and what is the right balance between them?

Managing art organizations: the role of boards

• The long-term future of the organization• this responsibility can be abrogated only at great risk• Three functions of the board

1. Review the organizations’ performance2. Removal of top management in the event of nonperformance3. Public and community relations’-communication between organization and and its various

‘publics’ and constituents’

• The major responsibility to hire the chief executive, and either support that person or fire him if he does not do the job well enough

• Whilst boards or trustees of art organizations have the same obligations, face the same risks, and are held accountable to the same extent as boards of directors in a commercial organization, they behave ina quite different way

• Whatever the composition of the board, and no matter what skills are represented there, failure on the part of museum management to involve the board in effective support of the museum and its goals results in both time wasting and lost opportunities

Managing art organizations: change

• Change and resistance to change• Resistance can be over territory and the functional and hierarchical

authority of people: the basis of and limits to authority• Resistance which is uncreative and pursued for its own sake is extremely

costly and seldom achieves the saboteurs’ actual goal• The factors contributing to resistance to change and create conflicts

– A sense of loss of the past and present– enhanced by any unsatisfactory participation in the change process– Interpersonal conflicts, which remain unresolved by the participants and by

management. – Some of these conflicts may arise from things such as inappropriate structures

or reward systems. – Others arise from having to cope with rapid change in the outside world, the

increasing amount of ambiguity and decreasing certainty about the future. – Most of the conflict, though, arises from deeply held

professional attitudes

Managing art organizations: conflicts

• Conflict often emerge in the processes• It is generally accepted these days that artist and designers, educators (usually)

and marketing people (sometimes) are involved alongside the scholar in a team• Roles of the participants are usually poorly defined• The responsibilities are seldom written down• Little attention is paid to the impact of group dynamics on the team’s

performance• Unsatisfied participants try to change the composition of the team, to overrun

the roles of other members or to defect altogether• The focus on leadership and high quality communication is preferable to rigidly

defined functional roles• Many of the problems and conflicts stem from not just a failure to observe

sensible communication practices, but an ignorance of them and a denial of the lack of skill

Managing art organizations: Resolving and preventing conflicts

• The manager is the coach or cheerleader or facilitator, not the boss, policeman or controller

• The management must acknowledge, sustain and vigorously employ effective communication skills

• Control only over those few things that have to be controlled

• People are given a sense of ownership of their future• However in art organizations, for example museums it is

often considered that directors should first and foremost know everything about the art, the science, the history

Managing art organizations: Communication 1/2

• Increasing attention to participatory decision making, a failure to face up to the need for effective interpersonal communication results in– the export of problems from the original domain to other domains– a refusal to accept the ownership of one’s own life

• Effective interpersonal communication means– Obtaining agreement on the meaning of statements, – their consequences, – and their basis in fact or belief-in other words a common

understanding shared

• Success depends on being prepared to accept the consequences of one’s actions and on understanding those consequences in the longer term

Managing art organizations: Communication 2/2

• Effective interpersonal communication requires– self-control– clear objectives in respect of interactions– understanding of the effects that non-verbal

behavior has on the receipt of the verbal message– sensitivities to time and place– use of symbols– belief in the value of oneself and others

Managing art organizations: Recruiting and Training

• Amongst the most important tasks for the manager is the recruitment and training of people– The option is to recruit people who both fit the organization in terms of their attitudes and have

the best skills.– Alternatively the chief executive might concentrate on developing appropriate behaviors and

attitudes in staff who are in the first three to five years of their employment with the organization• Those recruiting staff in many art organizations generally fail to recognize that this is an

enormous investment (sometimes almost half a million dollars-every time someoneis hired)

• The essential requirements of the job and the person must be thought through and clearly specified

• Interviews must be of sufficient length and number, and with a sufficient variety of people, to give a broad range of assessments

• Whilst it is frequently asserted that the museum director must be knowledgeable about the fields of scholarship in which the museum specializes, the consequences of not knowing about education, design, accounting, staff development, security and the law are seldom lamented

Managing at organizations: cultural Revolution

• Can be achieved by open discussion leading to setting of agreed goals to be attained over an agreed time by a designated person who accepts responsibility for the outcomes

• The behaviors required by the manager in cultural revolutions include– management by walking around– allowing no perks– admitting all errors immediately– finding weaknesses and strengths-building on the latter and removing the former– forgiving every admitted mistake– sharing information fully so as to encourage co-operation but

discouraging competition,– building prestige outside the organization, – being the symbolic model of all the organization should become, – attention to complaints of clients, – development of sound people practices, – refusing the forces of reaction any role in appointments or promotions, and– above all caring for competent loyal staff but dealing harshly with resistance and sabotage

Managing art organizations: management reform

• In museums the roles of supervisors and managers in achieving organizational change need much greater recognition and support from both the Board and the staff

• Adding new responsibilities to the roles ofindividual managers leads to organizational development and to people retaining controlover their work

• Centralizing creates a new band of foreigners, more administrators, whose efforts will be frustrated from the start

Managing art organizations: Summary1. The business, mission and objectives must be clearly defined and effectively communicated

inside and outside the organization; this is a primary role of the Board and the Manager2. Jobs must reflect properly the tasks which can be undertaken3. Opportunities must be provided for people in accordance with their preferences and

motives, not just their abilities4. People who meet desirable criteria with distinction should be recruited , not just the best

of those who apply5. The goals must be clarified, not just the rules and regulations and procedures which might

achieve the results6. Managers should retain control over only those things that must be closely controlled7. Innovation should be encouraged in other situations8. Interpersonal communication skills must be developed and the importance of resolving

conflicts emphasized, the realities of decision making acknowledged9. People should be given a sense of ownership over their future, through opportunities to

plan and assess performance10. The achievement of results should be rewarded, and both the qualitative and the

quantitative aspects of those results should be recognized11. Ways of measuring and assessing success must be developed and agreed

Managing art organizations: networks

• Flexible network organizations, which enhance the likelihood of the occurrence of innovation, allow people to cope with ambiguity and encourage them to take risks

• Teams of people from different backgrounds seem to produce more innovative solutions

• Negotiation can be a way of developing an environment in which multiple wants can be satisfied over time

• Power as a capacity for influence which extends far beyond the original bases that created it

• Power derives from activities rather than individuals; ultimately it depends on the situation. Thus power distribution changes with the nature of the environment

• The more institutionalized the power is within the organization, the more likely it is that the organization will be out of phase with the realities it faces

Discussion

• We have talked a lot about networks, and you have read a couple of network-related articles

• If we think about conflicts in organizations, how would network and network management respond to the conflicts or even prevent them

• Managing in the museum organization: I. Leadership and communication

• International Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship, Volume 6, Issue 4, December 1987, Pages 387-398

• D.J.G. Griffin

Managing art organizations; networks

Almost all collaboration is named networking Networking is long term, systematic action between

two or more independent actors and is based on trust and commitment

Networks are often build in a hierarchical environment, which create conflicts especially in the early phases of networking The use of power Structures Knowing

Network management research

1. Business networks – Networks can not be managed, they are systems that direct themselves

2. Social networks– Networks between companies are build by the commections between the companies and these networks can be managed

3. Network management as a process– Creating the network, maintaining and disseminating the network

4. Network management functions– Framing, activating, mobilizing, synthesizing

5. Public sector network management – Managing networks inside the hierarchical organizations

The differences between hierarchies and networks

1. How the strategy implemented 2. What is the role of personnel in creating the strategy3. Where does the legitimacy come from (Official rules, documented

decisions) 4. How are the tasks given and how are the responsibilities named (the role

of education)5. How is the knowledge transferred and what kind of tools are used 6. What is the basis of learning 7. How and on what grounds is responsibility shared 8. How dynamic is the action

The double challenge of the public manager

a) The manager of public sector is the manager of hierarchically organized organization This role is the actions are steered by effectiveness and short-term planning and evaluation of the effectiveness

Quartile planning The benefit of own organization Cutting cost Productive development in a short-term

b) The public manager is increasingly acting in networks, where she can’t use the authority, but instead has to play according to the social rules of networks

Time must be allocated to the creation of trust and commitment Network relationships are long-term and then the results are visible in long term In the beginning the creation of social relationships are prioritized over the results

The capabilities of network manager

The ability to affect the actors and and commit them to the network activities

The network manager has to be able to guarantee that the network actors are committed to the shared activities

The ability to create an atmosphere that encourages networking

(Mandell 2001)

The organizational manager as the enabler of networking

1. Enabling networking can mean Restructuring the own organization to support

networking in personnel level Creating such network structures that support

networking

2. As a network actor Network manager Professional in certain field

3. Outside the network Supported and enabler

Nykänen 2014

The issues of managing networks

How to create a shared goal How to create a shared trust and commitment to

other actors How to solve conflicts of interests How to share resources and who’s resources are

used in each of the networking phases How to ensure the knowledge transfer and

communication to all actors and to the stakeholders How can we ensure we can work together?

The premises of networking

1. Structures Supporting collaboration between organizations Shared premices Shared resources Shared processes

2. Culture Creating a shared goal in customer level Taking responcibility Sharing knowledge

3. Practices Shared meetings Social happenings over organizational borders Tiedotteet

4. Tools Discussion methods Shared measures Computer systems and programs that support collaboration

Grandori and Soda 1995