Excerpt from M.

Ellis research paper (written in 2010 while studying in the

UK) entitled: The Strategic Plan: Leading Change in a Large Museum


Change is afoot in every facet of our world, not just our museums; we see
it everywhere from our classrooms, technologies and economies to our
relationships, beliefs, and mindsets. Our futures and our histories are in a
constant state of flux, and we should see ourselves as an integral part of it. As for
museums, even our relevance is changing. Mark Weinberg writes about public
value and strategic management, saying, the challenges facing museums and
other cultural institutions are not solely about funding. Relevance and
accessibility in the 'Web 2.0' world, driven in part by the rapid and fundamental
changes in the way citizens want to access information, have arguably impacted
the work of museums and libraries as much as any other type of organization.
The operational capacity and management expertise required to run faster to
keep up continues to increase, as technology and expectations about information
accessibility develop exponentially.
1
Therefore it is evident that we, museum
professionals, must continuously adapt and learn new truths that renew and
improve not only ourselves, but the methods by which we provide for the public
in short: we must flow.
Ronald Heifetz has written extensively on adaptive leadership, adaptive
challenges, and adaptive organisations. Heifetz says that when facing adaptive
challenges, one has to go beyond what people expected of them, risk testing
some relationships, and move themselves and their organisations into unfamiliar
territory.
2
Leadership today is a highly complex enterpriseone that does not
have a simple model or a tidy list of steps that equate positive results. Change is
messy, and therefore leading change is messy as well. Many people working in
large museums struggle to be nimble in unexpected situations and, often times,
their rigid operational procedures leave little room for flexibility when its most

1
Weinberg, M.L. and Lewis, M.S. 'The public value approach to strategic management',
in Museum Management and Curatorship, (Volume 24, Issue 3: 2009), pp. 253-269.
2
Heifetz, R., Grashow, A., and Linsky, M. The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools
and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World (Harvard Business Press:
2009), p. xii.
required. Organisational structures in larger, older institutions are typically
hierarchical, predictably categorized by discipline and, as a result, slower to
change. Heifetz assures us that people love change when they know it is a good
thing [] what people resist is not change per se, but loss. When change
involves real or potential loss, people hold on to what they have and resist
change.
3
It is this resistance to loss that leads to failed attempts at strategic
transformation. The responsibility of key leaders is to tactfully break down
resistance and help people deal with loss. In his AAM interview with Victoria
Garvin, Kegan interprets Heifetz directly in saying, everyone has fears and
things that they want to prevent and avoid. But theres no escaping the fact that
effective leadership sometimes means making hard decisions and realizing that
some people will be unhappy. Heifetz also says that leadership isnt about
meeting everybodys expectations, its about disappointing peoples expectations

3
Ibid., p. 22.
at a rate they can stand.
4
One cannot keep distance from and wait for change to
pass by; instead, one must immerse themselves into its current, accept risks, get
their hands dirty, and work through the setbacks that arise along the journey.
Strong leaders whose actions are brave must prove to those who are resistant
what good can come of strategic change.
To lead with such an attitude, wherever you are on the staff chain,
requires passion, determination, and fresh skill. Again Kegan asserts in his
interview, it looks to me like the role of the museum leader is in transformation,
just like the role of leaders in school districts and in the for-profit sector. In all
three settings, something is going on now that wasnt the case 20, even 10,
years ago. And that is that nobody is being hired to lead something and keep it
going the way it was [] people are being asked to be extraordinarily
entrepreneurial.
5
Those in charge must not only get their staff invested so that
the plan is carried out with intention, but also get funders and strategic partners

4
Kegan, R., interview with Garvin, V. Encouraging Leaders: New Models for Leadership
in Museums (AAM Museum News: November-December 2003)
5
Ibid.
invested so that there is money and hype to make it a reality. Heifetz expresses
that new environments and new dreams demand new strategies and abilities, as
well as the leadership to mobilize them.
6
To successfully see a strategic plan
through, leaders with authority have to simultaneously be connected with
everything that is happening, work inside and outside the organisation, and make
quick, difficult decisions all without diminishing interest or micromanaging the
small stuff. What skills does this require, apart from time management?
Robert Kaplan writes about the nature of utilizing complementary styles of
leadership, specifically that of forcing and enabling. Urging that effective,
versatile leadership demands both, Kaplan says that even though forceful and
enabling are opposites, they are not necessarily incompatible, contradictory, or
mutually exclusive and that it is a mistake to choose between them.
7
Human
beings, just like change, are complicated; some people need to be told exactly

6
Heifetz, R., et. al. The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing
Your Organization and the World (2009), p. 14.
7
Kaplan, R. Forceful Leadership and Enabling Leadership: You can do both (Center for
Creative Leadership: 1996), pp. 1-5.
what to do and how, while others need a degree of freedom to interpret and carry
out their duty. Adaptive leadership involves using both forceful and enabling
tactics, at varying levels, depending on ones present circumstance. Kenneth
Blanchards Situational Leadership Model (Figure 1
8
below) is a useful tool for
striking this balance between controlling and empowering employees in order to
help them reach their highest potential and thus carry out assigned tasks
successfully. According to Blanchard, good performers are hard to find [] they
dont just grow on trees. In fact, in more cases than not, you have to train people
to be good performers and that involves good diagnostic skills [] everyone has
peak performance potential you just need to know where they are coming from
and meet them there.
9



8
Blanchard, K. Situational Leadership Model.
9
Blanchard, K., Zigarmi, P., and Zigarmi, D. Leadership and The One Minute Manager
(Harper Collins Publishers: 1994), pp. 52-53.