{"id":99,"date":"2011-08-16T09:48:21","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T16:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/?p=99"},"modified":"2011-08-16T09:48:21","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T16:48:21","slug":"ccis-next-gen-leaders-study-are-we-all-just-climbing-whiners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/2011\/08\/ccis-next-gen-leaders-study-are-we-all-just-climbing-whiners.html","title":{"rendered":"CCI’s Next Gen Leaders Study: Are we all just climbing whiners?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Poster<\/a>

Poster from All About Eve (1950)<\/p><\/div>\n

I was at the Americans for the Arts<\/a> conference in San Diego this year, however briefly, I was able to sit in on the wrap up session, in which a woman whose name and title I didn\u2019t catch gamely trooped around the room cajoling participants into discussing their best takeaways from the conference sessions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

People were reticent, exhausted, as they always are at the end of the conference, and it was generally speaking a thankless job for the moderator\u2014but she did draw out a couple of energizing comments amidst a bunch of tired faces waiting for Ben Cameron and a mariachi band to\u00a0(separately) close things out.<\/p>\n

At one point, a large late-twenties guy with a beard raised his hand.\u00a0 The moderator went over to him, and he took the mic from her (at which point I thought to myself, “Uh-oh.”) and said (and while I\u2019m paraphrasing here, this is close enough to what he actually said to make me uncomfortable all over again):<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a Next Gen Leader, and I have a couple things to say to the Boomers who won\u2019t retire.\u00a0 One, your emails are too long and I. Don\u2019t. Read. Them.\u00a0 Two, get out of the way\u2014it\u2019s time to retire!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The room was still after this, though I would hope the minds in the room were not.\u00a0 Mine certainly wasn\u2019t, though honestly it was mostly overwhelmed by a clenched stomach and the strong feeling that that was both totally rude and completely disrespectful.\u00a0 It\u2019s the kind of thing a person might think at the end of a frustrating day, if one were so inclined, but it\u2019s not the type of thing that you speak aloud.<\/p>\n

My inner WASP<\/a> was mortified\u2014as my husband will attest, in my family we have a very structured way of dealing with unpleasant subjects, which is to say we build a structure around the unpleasant subject until it’s less visible.\u00a0 We speak in nuance, or not at all, we sideline discomfort and prefer to nudge rather than shove.\u00a0 We bide our time\u2014which of course is not the same thing as not being ambitious; it\u2019s just not being obvious.\u00a0 My mother and father, both successful business people with long, long careers dealing with lots of difficult people, nevertheless taught me that respecting those around me, and expecting respect from them in return, was paramount and always imperative.<\/p>\n

So that guy\u2019s comment made me feel gross.\u00a0 But here\u2019s the thing: it made me feel gross for the fact he was saying it in a crowded room, full of the very Boomers he was referencing.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t make me feel gross because I necessarily thought it wasn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n

The Center for Cultural Innovation<\/a> has just released a report by Anne Markusen, funded by Hewlett and Irvine, called Nurturing California\u2019s Next Generation Arts and Cultural Leaders<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, and it makes for a fascinating read, especially for someone like me, who grapples with feeling like I have so much to learn while at the same time feeling sometimes frustrated, stymied and undervalued in my work.\u00a0 I recommend you read the full report, but if you\u2019re feeling like some CliffsNotes, what follows is a basic summary of the findings.<\/p>\n