Leading by Design

On the eve of a new year, lots of you (myself included) are thinking about the shape of your lives and careers in the year ahead. Taking my own Strategize Me advice, I like to reserve New Year's to reflect on my past accomplishments and map out a plan for the coming year. The year just ending was overflowing with work commitments: a full plate of employee and consultant responsibilities, a new book, co-developing a new museum studies course and trying to teach it, trying to be present with colleagues and friends, struggling to be creative and interesting and interested -- well, the list goes on and on. It's easy enough to chalk it up as a busy year. What's struck me as I attempt to catalog my 2017 accomplishments is that I get no satisfaction from being so busy.  Busy-ness does not equal quality; it doesn't begin to describe depth (or even lack) of commitment. It fails the authenticity test. I'm tired of being busy, of describing myself that way as my pat ...

FOR MORE THAN A YEAR I'VE BEEN COLLABORATING WITH FOUR COLLEAGUES, each of us an independent consultant in the cultural/NGO sector, all of us looking to hone the business end of our work.  We've SWOT'd and career planned together, mapped and graphed our work, and brainstormed solutions to each other's challenges.  We're branching out now with a workshop program encouraging others to take a similar career evaluation journey.  (Our next one is coming up in Burlington, VT next week!) We've also produced a pithy little newsletter together, called "Take 5".  It's our intent is to bring readers bite-sized ideas to get your creative professional juices flowing.  Our inaugural issue suggested readers think about planning execution before launching into planning, explore a trend called ' flawsomeness ', try an activity to think differently about your audience, and most presciently, get your organization's (or your own) disaster planning in o...

THIS WEEK, THREE COLLEAGUES AND I HAD THE CHANCE TO PRESENT a session at the NYS Museums in Conversation Conference about how we are working together to shape the next steps in our careers.  We began by explaining how the four of us came together: we and one other were actually brought together by one person because 1) she knew that all of us are at career crossroads of one sort or another; 2) when she asked, none of us admitted to having a personal/career strategic plan (yet we're all rabid proponents of organizational planning!); and 3) we all knew one another to varying degrees and she thought we'd make a good group.  We've dubbed our group The Gang of Five.   Since last summer, each member of "The Gang" has reflected on his/her career path and shared those thoughts with the others.  We spent time doing SWOTs on each other (very productive) and we've questioned each others' motives and decisions, offered advice and solutions, commiserated and s...

NOBODY CREATED A NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION FROM A SMALL IDEA, PERIOD.  Just think about it:  what museum, artists' cooperative, hospital, school or community garden didn't begin with someone saying "what if?"....and then taking action.  Founders dream dreams and work tirelessly to make them reality.  Those of us who come after founders have dreams, too.  We work tirelessly to take our organizations to the next level by continually trying to raise the impact bar. Big ideas are critical fuel for the nonprofit engine.  They ignite imaginations, attract people (both as workers and as audiences), connect otherwise free-floating dots, and when they fully advance mission impact, they open pocketbooks.  Yet, why is it that many organizations continue to focus on the narrow, the small bore, their finite piece of nonprofit real estate?  Why do so many organizations continue to silo their staff and volunteers, thus removing the spontaneous opportunities ...

Imagine spending a day thinking and talking about cultural entrepreneurship and what makes a cultural entrepreneur. I got to do that yesterday as part of a grant-funded project to design a new professional development opportunity for mid-career museum professionals. The discussion was wide-ranging and energetic as veteran cultural entrepreneurs questioned, debated and explained their own and each other's approaches to teaching and living entrepreneurship. One fundamental characteristic that all agreed upon was that entrepreneurs -- whether in the cultural, social or business sector -- are always looking for opportunities to capitalize on and to solve problems in ways that will meet and extend mission. As one participant said, "It's about opening doors and windows in the box that is our organization. It's our job to open a window, then open another window, then another." This conversation touched upon some interesting "opening windows" resources tha...