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Leadership & Change
There’s a lot of buzz in the arts world these days about making room for emerging leaders.
It is unfashionable to say so, but I’ve never considered age a qualification, either way. I’ve never believed that just because someone wants to lead that they are entitled to do so. Some discussions that I'm privileged to hear in my work reek of impatience and careerism.
Rampant careerism feels a lot like the Beltway here in Washington; a lot of people in a hurry are cutting each other off while endangering themselves and those around them.
Conversely, a lot of experience is pretty worthless today. A lot of what I learned twenty years ago is worthless today, but our society persists in placing a high premium on longevity whether obsolete or not, especially in the arts, entertainment, and leisure categories.
Anyone observing these categories– inclusive of live performance of both arts and entertainment – cannot help but see geometrical growth. There are not only more direct competitors within our category, there is much more indirect competition in the entertainment and leisure sector, some of it disruptive.
Recent events vividly illustrate that most organizations (and many sectors within categories as well) are woefully ill-prepared to deal with competitive incursion, especially disruptive incursion.
For example, the iPod has put a serious dent in the sales of pre-packaged recording sales. Imagine what your business might look like if you were printing CD inserts for a recording label. Might you have imagined the power of the iPod to transform music distribution channels a few years ago?
Bottom line: Executives have to be much better at their jobs today ever before.
As Peter Vaill wrote some years ago, “We are heading into an environment of permanent white water.�
The turbulence that organizations encounter requires that leadership become expert at preparing their organizations to imagine how they might continue to add value within the context of different futures. Leaders lead when they, themselves, become fluent imaginers and canny responders.
Most decisions are fundamentally flawed because they are premised on an assumption that tomorrow will look a lot like today. That’s just not true. In some very significant terms, “today� bears little resemblance to “yesterday.� Instability is inevitable. We have to learn to dance upon a quaking Earth.
Instability creates discomfort within organizations. Leading in an environment of discomfort introduces challenges within systems that are, themselves, disruptive. The leader finds herself required to ask those whom she leads to embrace distraction and noise because they are the new constants. Not an easy assignment.
I would hope, that as organizations choose new leaders they choose those who recognize that change is the prerogative of groups, not individuals. Nobody leads changing organizations without the permission of those being led. Authority has never meant less and imagination and flexibility have never been needed more.
One thing is for sure: we need to make sure that we prepare our future leadership by providing the opportunities for growth and learning that are so important to their development.
Those of us who are leading now must also prepare ourselves to step aside when we are no longer flexible, skilful, or imaginative enough to meet the needs of the organizations that we lead.
Posted on March 27, 2006 12:58 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Reading your blog today, Neill, I was reminded of a former employee who, six months into her tenure and on the occasion of a probationary performance evaluation, allowed as to how she should receive a raise of 10 per cent.
As might be expected, I asked her why she felt this way. I was told—in no uncertain terms—that she had an honors degree in sociology from a fine universiy. When I opined that an honors degree in sociology from ANY university was not a prerequisite for her position the last time I looked, I was given a look of "I'm entitled to this, and you're standing in the way!"
Contrast this with an electronic discussion I had with another young woman, recently graduated with a BA in Communications. She's in the middle of a trip to Australia, and emailed me to tell me that more than a few people are pressuring her to take a masters in business administration; she was seeking my opinion.
I wrote her that while an MBA might open some initial doors, it would really depend on what kind of arts administration job she was seeking. After all, there is great training available now that wasn't available when you and I were coming up through the ranks. But I told her, "You could certainly be taught the fine points of labor law, or accounting, or human resources management, but no one I know was ever taught good taste or how to assign artistic value to a piece of work. That requires time—enough time to see a lot of good—and bad—art.
I, too, have had my share of folks thinking that a piece of paper and their undeniable youth and energy entitle them to something. As far as I'm concerned, they're entitled to equal opportunity; that's it.