In contemplating altogether new organizational models for the arts and culture sector, I find myself focusing on the roll of boards.  Increasingly, professional staff members are spending escalating percentages of their time managing their boards of directors, taking time away from managing activities related to their missions.  Once a good and necessary idea, perhaps the traditional NFP board needs to be completely rethought, and either remade or replaced by something more effective. Board functions include fiduciary oversight … [Read more...]

My orginal quest to identify or create new organizational models as alternatives to the traditional 501(c)3 not-for- profit (NFP) led me inevitably to leadership design.  The most perfect organizational design is worthless without a strong accompanying leadership schema.  My recent posts have identified core problems related to leadership design.  In this week's post, I want to lay out core leadership principles so that I can incorporate and compare them with organizational ideas, and see if there are alternatives (to the … [Read more...]

Now that I teach administration I have the luxury of observing and commenting on repeating occurences in organizational leadership.  In both my direct leadership background, as well as in my board volunteer service I have experienced what I will comment on today, that of board members taking on leadership roles, moving from volunteer to professional status.  I'm particularly motivated to write about this, as one of the organizations that I formerly led recently made this decision, and I'm deeply concerned about what will … [Read more...]