Is it because young leaders are being trained to make buggy whips when nonprofit arts organizations need electric helicopter pilots?
Have you been following Joby Aviation? They’re in the business of building the first mass-produced electric helicopters, made for speedy travel between airports and downtowns. The idea of a noiseless carriage moving faster (200 mph) and with more flexibility than a traditional helicopter might change the way people do business in the not-so-distant future. No need to stay at airport hotels; no need to deal with the inevitable mess around the maze of ground transportation (limos, buses, shuttles, rent-a-car trams, cabs, ride-shares, or just friends picking up friends) at most busy airports. Instead, just transfer to a gate, hop on the Joby (which feels like riding in an SUV), and you’re at your real destination in just minutes, not hours. Service hasn’t begun yet. But here’s an idea of how the craft will work, straight from the Joby website:
I thought it was so cool I bought stock in it. The stock fell like an Acme Anvil in a Roadrunner cartoon, but I didn’t buy the stock to make a short-term bundle. Or even a long-term one. I bought it because the ramifications (if it succeeds) when introduced will include cleaner air, fewer cars at the airport, and an impulse for other companies to find new ideas to help solve our climate problems.
Ideas beget ideas.
Which brought me to this idea: in the future, should Joby (or all the other electric helicopter companies that are sure to follow) become successful, will there be a need to teach people how to fly an oil-guzzling, military-engineered, smoke-spewing, noise-wreaking helicopter? Or to teach people how to teach people how to fly one?
Or worse, will electric helicopter pilots ever be asked to manufacture buggy whips, the technology that prodded progress in transportation in the nineteenth century?
Helicopters are not my business (nor is stock-trading, clearly). Nonprofit arts leadership has been my business for 30 years. And for those 30 years, the 30 years before them, and perhaps a few decades even further back, nonprofit arts organizations have basically employed the same methods of operation. So it’s no surprise that so many are failing in the wake of social justice reform and the Pre-Post-Pandemic Era of people not wanting to gather tightly in dirty, dark rooms to watch the artistic fantasy of someone else.
So, is your nonprofit arts organization handling this reality by making buggy whips or electric helicopters? Do your staff leaders even know how to make anything but buggy whips?
There was an article in American Theatre by Seema Sueko recently that caught my eye. Sueko worked for a prominent search firm in the arts. In this article, she wrote about the search process for leaders of nonprofit theater companies in the United States and observed that organizations tended not to listen to the advice of the search firms. Uncomfortable for many reasons, these board-led search committees wanted to get the process over with quickly and with little introspection, hiring someone who has already done the job that the departing leader has done.
I get it. Going out on a limb to determine that maybe the organization was at fault in the relationship between leader and board is not something most board members would readily admit. Or if they do, it’s those other board members, not them.
And while engaging with the nonprofit arts industry’s practices might be useful, the language is foreign to most board members (who are generally not practitioners in the nonprofit world, let alone the arts). So while the search firm might be shouting “Electric helicopters!”, the board committee hears “Buggy whips!” And, as a result, the search firm might have their contract terminated—or they might terminate their contract themselves.
“…our charge was much more focused: simply to help the organization find their next leader, not to help them get better as an organization. Of course, the hope of everyone involved—the search firm, the search committee, and the applicants—is that the new leader will indeed have the opportunity to take the theatre to the next level and make them a better organization.”
In other words, the new leader would have to make them better, but not markedly different. Nice trick.
Leadership is not the same as management. Are we teaching students or training professionals in the nonprofit arts world how to be leaders? Or are we teaching them how to get a job as a manager?
Leaders, as defined in this context: “those who determine the status quo is immutably broken in too many ways to merely patch and determining that a change in practice is needed for the successful charitable impact of the organization.”
Managers, also in this context: “those who evaluate the current, unsuccessful version of best practices and mold the company into a successful version of the same best practices.”
Often, managers become terrible leaders. But board search committees tend to like their rule-following nature. They don’t tend to threaten; instead, they tend to quietly fall into place. There are lots and lots of good managers leading arts organizations. You can tell. Not much change has taken place, even in light of pandemic issues, social justice issues, and inequity issues that are not going away.
Also often, leaders become annoying managers. When one is tasked to deal with operations (like the managing director of a two-director arts organization) can’t help but see the whole, decaying picture of the company, it threatens the other director and board when they talk about it openly in order to start to fix the issues. Often, the idea that there is, in fact, a problem with the organization causes defensiveness, especially when the other director and the board feel personally identified with the company. And ultimately, a leaders is let go or leaves voluntarily, maybe even on an electric helicopter. And then the board, using company money, hires a search firm to make sure that it never happens again.
Based in Kirkland, Washington, Alan Harrison is a writer and speaker specializing in nonprofit organizations, strategy, the arts, and life politics. His columns appear regularly in major publications. Contact him directly at alan@501c3.guru.
If you’re feeling generous or inspired, just click on the coffee cup above. You don’t have to, of course, but if you can afford it and find some value here, please provide the desperate need for caffeine.
Alan is always looking for good opportunities to write and consult for nonprofits that need a hand. And, of course, that elusive Perfect Opportunity™.
Alan’s new book, “Scene Change: Why Today’s Nonprofit Arts Organizations Have to Stop Producing Art and Start Producing Impact” will be published in January. CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER IN THE UNITED STATES. If you live in the UK, CLICK HERE.
Bulk copies may be made available for those booking conferences, reading engagements, and speaking engagements. Recruit your local bookstore, conference panel, or boardroom to get a visit from Alan.
And don’t forget to let Alan know if you want bulk copies for your board!
You can lead a horse (or arts organization’s board) to water, but you can’t make it (them) drink.