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The Real Work of Innovation: New Practices for a New Era in the ArtsChorus America Leadership Development Forum – Saturday, January 12th, 2013
Active ArtsPerforming Arts Center of Los Angeles County
Active Arts
Portland Art Museum
Object Stories
Memphis Symphony Orchestra
Leading from Every Chair
A New Era for the Arts
Proposition: Excellence and Scarcity
ì Subscription sellingì Annual campaignsì Fundraising trusteesì Endowments for permanence
The Old Era: Structured for Growth
The New Era: Structured for Resilience
o Cultural professionals as enablers
o Open, nimble structures
o Engagement with community creative potential
o High levels of adaptive capacity
Proposition: Abundance and Intimacy
STABILITY
ADAPTABILITY
Organizational capacities: A New Balance
² Technical competencies² Strong staff hierarchies² Command and control cultures² Rational strategic planning² Capital Endowment² Fixed Assets
² Adaptive leadership² Cross-functional teamwork
² Flexible collaborative cultures² Continuously incubating innovations
² Liquidity & Change Capital
NEEDING MOMENTUMRelatively Stable
Challenged to Adapt
PROMISING POTENTIAL
Relatively Unstable Likely to Be Able to Adapt
THE NEWLEADERS
Relatively StableLikely to Be Able to Adapt
SHOWING LITTLE VALUE
Relatively UnstableChallenged to Adapt
STABILITY
ADAPTABILITY
Four organizational conditions
Some Terminology for the New Era
² Technical challenges can be solved via gradualimprovement in current practices – extensions ofbusiness-as-usual rather than breakthrough change.
² Adaptive challenges have no set procedures, no recognized experts, and no evident responsesavailable to meet the challenge or solve the problem.
“If you throw all the technical fixes you can at the problem and the problem persists, it’s a pretty clear signal that an underlying adaptive challenge still needs to be met.”
− Ronald Heifetz
Focus on Adaptive Challenges
Describing a Complex Challenge, with a Technical Solution
² Strengthen Marketing.“Because subscriptions are down and people are booking closer to the event, we therefore need to offer them better incentives to commit to the season in advance.”
² Do more building repairs…..“Because our campus is old, confusing and inefficiently used, we therefore need to invest in upgrading facilities and signage.”
² We need to Raise more Money!“As our expenses continue to grow faster than our income, and we experience persistent annual losses, so we must generate more income and implement stronger cost controls.”
Describing a Complex Challenge, with an Adaptive Response
² Strengthen Marketing.“Because subscriptions are down and people are booking closer to the event, we therefore need a completely different pricing system and to build loyalty through direct participation.”
² Do more building repairs…“Because our campus is old, confusing and inefficiently used, we therefore need to leverage our off-campus successes into a new kind of home.”
² We need to Raise more Money!“As our expenses continue to grow faster than our income, and we experience persistent annual losses, so we must overcome our increasing aversion to risk.”
What challenges are we facing that can likely be solved via gradual improvement in our current practices?
What challenges do we face that have persisted despite us trying many strategies to address them? And where there’s no expert we can turn to?² How can we come together in new ways to re-align
our thinking and resources?
² Who can we access to give us reliable technical advice?
Addressing Technical & Adaptive Challenges
Assumptions evolve as repeated successful solutions to problems.
What was once a questionable hypothesis about how to proceed becomes a reality that is taken for granted…..
Developing Organizational Assumptions
In order to innovate, organizations have to resurrect, examine, and then break the frame created by old assumptions.
Questioning Organizational Assumptions
Edgar Schein, Leadership and Organizational Culture
Innovations are instances of organizational change that:
1. result from a shift in underlying organizational assumptions
2. are discontinuous from previous practice
3. provide new pathways to creating public value
A Working Definition of Organizational Innovation for Not-for-Profits
1. What assumptions underlying your work are you now beginning to question?
2. What evidence contradicts your old assumptions?
3. What “adaptive challenges” would you say your organization is facing?² Challenges that have persisted despite trying
lots of strategies to address them² And where there’s no expert to turn to
Some questions to consider
Areas of innovative practiceo New ways to engage audiences and the community
o Rethinking program formats and venues
o Involving the public in co-creating arts activities
o Using the Web to create and engage with artistic experiences
o Reconsidering the organizational role of creative artists
o Restructuring the organization for new demands and new ways of doing business
o Partnering or merging with other organizations for greater reach and impact
AM
OU
NT
OF
CR
EATI
VE C
ON
TRO
LN
ON
ETO
TAL
• Inventive Arts Participation
• Interpretive Arts Participation
• Curatorial Arts Participation
• Observational Arts Participation
• Ambient Arts Participation
COURTESY OF ALAN BROWN, WOLFBROWN
Five Modes of Arts Participation
EmcArts Inc. | 127 West 122nd Street | New York, NY 10027 | www.EmcArts.orgHow many of our organizations wear this banner unknowingly on
their buildings? Or with pride?
Innovation is Making New Connections
Connecting within our Organizations
Connecting across Organizations
Connecting with Communities
² Dissolve barriers through new teams
² Use artists as problem-solvers
² Collaborate or merge
² Build critical mass
²Offer new gateways to participation
²Move from marketing to engagement
New Structures for New Times, orWhat Innovation is beginning to look like in Practice
MISSION
ARTISTIC DIRECTION
CREATIVE CAPACITY
ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES
STAFFING
FINANCIAL PROFILE
MARKETING
GOVERNANCE
From Old to Emerging Approaches
EmcArts Inc. | 127 West 122nd Street | New York, NY 10027 | www.EmcArts.org
MISSIONARTISTIC
DIRECTION
CREATIVE CAPACITY
ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES
STAFFING
FINANCIAL PROFILE
MARKETING
GOVERNANCE
organizational outputs and
achievements
community impacts and
value
From Old to Emerging Approaches
MISSIONARTISTIC
DIRECTION
CREATIVE CAPACITY
ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES
STAFFING
FINANCIAL PROFILE
MARKETING
GOVERNANCE
singular, handled by
insiders
dialogue with external
voices
From Old to Emerging Approaches
MISSION
ARTISTIC DIRECTION
CREATIVE CAPACITY
ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES
STAFFING
FINANCIAL PROFILE
MARKETING
GOVERNANCE
highly selective, formally separate,
seasonal
creative community
working together
From Old to Emerging Approaches
MISSION
ARTISTIC DIRECTION
CREATIVE CAPACITY
ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES
STAFFING
FINANCIAL PROFILE
MARKETING
GOVERNANCE
strong, differentiated from others +
community loose, porous, emphasizing
commonalities
From Old to Emerging Approaches
MISSION
ARTISTIC DIRECTION
CREATIVE CAPACITY
ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES
STAFFING
FINANCIAL PROFILE
MARKETING
GOVERNANCEhierarchical
departments, technical
specialties
post-specialists in art-centered
teams
From Old to Emerging Approaches
MISSION
ARTISTIC DIRECTION
CREATIVE CAPACITY
ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES
STAFFING
FINANCIAL PROFILE
MARKETING
GOVERNANCE
sell products to passive
consumers
engage active participants with process/product
From Old to Emerging Approaches
MISSION
ARTISTIC DIRECTION
CREATIVE CAPACITY
ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES
STAFFING
FINANCIAL PROFILE
MARKETING
GOVERNANCE
core funders and solicitors
for established work
champions of change,
enrolling others
From Old to Emerging Approaches
MISSION
ARTISTIC DIRECTION
CREATIVE CAPACITY
ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES
STAFFING
FINANCIAL PROFILE
MARKETING
GOVERNANCEfocus on building long-term
permanent assetsemphasis on
liquidity, reserves and risk capital
From Old to Emerging Approaches
MAPP International Productions
The Cultural Investor Program
Public Engagement Artists-in-Residence
Hammer Museum, UC Los Angeles
Denver Center Theatre Company
Off-Center at The Jones
Systematizing Innovation
VE #334
Kellogg Foundation report, 2008:Intentional Innovation
“Not-for-profits should embrace innovation as a permanent part of their core competencies….”
“A rational organizational
process with its own distinct set of
procedures, practices, and
tools.”
EmcArts programs
The Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts²26 organizations to date in seven Rounds
The Innovation Lab for Museums²6 museums to date in two Rounds
New Pathways for the Arts²New Haven, Denver, New York City, St Louis, San Jose, Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati (130+ participants)
www.ArtsFwd.org²“Next practices for arts and culture leaders”
Identify an adaptive challenge
Create an Innovation Team
Question existing assumptions
Develop innovative strategies Strengthen adaptive
capacities
Execute and assess prototypes
Enroll others and build commitment
Use a project “Accelerator”
A Framework for Innovation
Phase 2:Project
Accelerator
Phase 3:Prototyping
And Evaluating
Phase 1:Research and Focus
4 months 4 - 6 months1 week
Decide
Buildmomentum
Plan forre-entry
Enroll others
Try out the innovation
Evaluate and refine
Develop the Team
Gather data
Test and discard ideas
A “Lab” framework to incubate innovation projects
The Sequence of New PathwaysYear 1 Year 2
1 32 4 5 6
INCUBATING INNOVATION
ARTSFWD DOCUMENTATION AND LEARNING
WORKSHOPS
ONSITE COACHING
SYSTEMS ANALYSIS WORK
Trajectory of adaptive team dynamicsAD
APTI
VE P
OTE
NTI
AL
HEAT
ABDICATION
BREAKTHROUGH
LEVEL OF AGREEMENT
STALEMATE
COMPROMISE
Low
High
High
VE #334
A platform for sharing and learning
It may be that when we no longer know what to dowe have come to our real work
and that when we no longer know which way to gowe have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Wendell Berry: The Real Work
The Real Work of Innovation: New Practices for a New Era in the ArtsChorus America Leadership Development Forum – Saturday, January 12th, 2013
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