I voted in the recent AVISO survey ‘In hiring a new CEO, which of the following is most desirable to you?’, the choices were: Museum studies degree, Discipline-specific degree (art, history, etc.) or Management degree. I thought the results were very interesting. Two thirds voted for the desirability of a Museum studies or a Discipline-specific degree, only 20% think that a management degree is most desirable.
Showbusiness is apparently 50% ‘Show’ and 50% ‘Business’. I have no direct knowledge of this apart from living near Hollywood, although I did bump into Arnold Schwarzenegger once when I was out running one morning, and my wife stood behind Tom Selleck in the checkout line at our local Home Depot. So I think my showbusiness ties are close enough to corroborate that statistic.
It seems as though our view of the Museum as a business is not similarly viewed. We tend to hire in our own image, preferring people who have worked in museums before or people who have been educated in line with our mission statements. In the software world there’s the concept of ‘Best of Breed’. It means you choose the best or most appropriate software package for a particular task and look to integrate with other software packages that are the best or most appropriate at their particular task, rather than going to a single vendor. For example, our CMS and DAM are from different vendors, even though our CMS vendor has a DAM – we picked the most appropriate for the particular tasks at hand.
I try to apply the same reasoning to hiring – sorry to harp on about hiring again and not that I’m trying to hire a CEO. If you’re trying to hire a financial officer for example, you need someone with solid financial skills and experience and fit, their past experience in museums should be icing on the cake. Obviously there are unique financial issues to non profits, but these are quickly learned by someone fiscally astute. I think we are quick to immediately disregard people based on ‘lack of museum experience’ and not look for the best fit for the job, which may or may not be the person with previous museum experience.
A CEO is a Chief Executive Officer, that’s primarily a business function, its about running a business – in this case, a museum. I guess I’d hoped to see a more even split in the survey. We have a new senior who is from the for-profit world. He has a refreshing hard-nosed approach to his discipline honed in the bottom-line driven corporate world. It turns out however that he is a private collector – he collects, donates and loans. Marvellous.
Now that I look at AAM’s survey to see whether the management option has gained some ground, (it hasn’t), maybe the survey has biased the result: Two questions for museum and discipline related and only one for management. Okay, so now I need to blog on surveys…
December 14th, 2006 01:30
Nik, I saw that survey as well, and was as surprised by votes as you were. I think there may be a healthy dose of wishful thinking in how folks voted – indeed they’d like to see “one of their own” steer the ship, but my hunch based solely on anecdotal evidence is that actual hiring practice may shift towards MBAs. Here’s an interesting article from about 1 year ago which discusses this very questionl: http://www.careerjournal.com/hrcenter/articles/20050819-russell.html
December 20th, 2006 07:16
I’m afraid I am going to disagree with you (at least from a collection perspective). In the collection trenches (may be similar for curators and educators), there’s great distrust of directors without a non-profit or museum background. Great cheers arise from the RCAAM listserv whenever a registrar or collection manager is promoted to a coveted director position.
Why? Frankly, collections staff often have a frustrating uphill battle for financial and staff support. Many directors and board members don’t understand how objects need to be properly cared for and the time it takes to evaluate individual objects. Collection staff are constantly advocating for preventative conservation supplies, but often don’t receive them because the immediate need isn’t apparent. It’s only when an object disintegrates and needs expensive conservation is the money provided. Stories come through RCAAM every so often about directors and boards asking to use a collection object for inappropriate purposes (such as the case of a director taking a silver punch bowl and ladle from the vault, against the registrar’s express wishes, and using it for serving punch at a board meeting)
Also, because of the profit-minded nature of for-profit sector directors, sometimes the bottom line undermines the museum’s educational purpose (most recently illustrated by the Smithsonian’s deal with Showtime).
I’m not suggesting that an MBA is not useful a useful degree for a director to have, but there are definately a variety of reasons why there is distrust of those who do not understand “museum culture.”
December 9th, 2007 09:33
You touched on a key phrase, “bottom line.” There is no traditional bottom line in the non-profit sector, thus they have a difficult time evaluating their position relative to the real world. In other words they find it difficult to innovate; the key to success. The museum as a non-profit, appears content to respond to the needs of the elite or conservative base. That base keeps the doors open, but the most important difference between the two business sectors is purpose. Non-profits exist to bring about change, and conservative runs counter to change. Museums need to be able to respond the the trends or challenges of the current social context while attempting to predict future physical, social and technological scenarios. It’s a risky endeavor, but that is the only way we can move forward in a viable and useful manner. Inovation equals change, something that is constant. I would guess what the museum world really needs is a leader, somebody that understands the educational role that museum have embraced. Maybe they need a Philosopher King.