I was watching the illustrated lecture seen below on the Drucker Exchange website. William Hopper gives the lecture on domain knowledge which is what a young college graduate would get 50 years ago when he went to work for a large company. Over time, the person would work their way up the ladder of promotion learning the craft of management under the supervision of a more experienced person and you would learn the business of your company.
Hopper says that business schools undermined this system starting in the 70s when they began to spread the idea that getting an MBA would allow you to manage anything. Instead of starting at the bottom, you could go right to the top and need not worry that you didn’t know much about the business of the company because everything operated more or less the same.
It got me wondering if the arts might be heading in the same direction or not with more people getting management degrees and the general itinerant nature of the profession. A good number of the executive leadership of arts organizations are getting ready to retire. Many of them started as artists before moving on to management and then they stayed at their organizations for many years.
There has been discussion about how emerging leaders are having a hard time getting experience because the existing leaders aren’t ready to move on yet. Many of the younger leaders move around a lot trying to find better opportunities. This may be beneficial in giving leaders a wide variety of experiences to draw upon, but doesn’t provide a depth of knowledge about any one organization. Then there is the dearth of good mentors who have the time to act as such for a younger generation.
I was also wondering if aspiring leaders were bringing extensive knowledge of an arts discipline with them these days. Now that there are expanded opportunities to enter cultural management degree programs, these leaders may not have a lot of experience in the means of production for that art. Before I entered my graduate program, I had some acting experience in school and took classes outside of school as well; I worked as an electrician and carpenter in school and for three different summer theatres (plus one where the box office staff was on the electrics crew during strike).
These experiences have ensured that I talk to my tech staff before signing any contract for a performance or rental event.
I am not sure if these sort of activities are part of an arts manager’s career path any more. Be pleased if anyone wants to relate their story.
I do take consolation in the fact that people have to wear so many hats in the arts there is a pretty good chance that even if someone isn’t really familiar with the other aspects of their discipline before they get their degree, they will be fairly well acquainted with the means of production during their first job. Though the lack of resources that create this situation is not really something to celebrate.
I am not entirely sure how to portray this education vs. experience situation. We are in a place where the first generation of people with arts management degrees will be assuming control soon and I think they can probably do so with more confidence than some of their predecessors because they will possess technical knowledge about laws and regulations their predecessors had to learn about as the subject came up.
What they will lack is the experience of working with boards, government entities, unions, foundations and donors over the course of many years in situations where relationships and institutional memory are important. But this is going to be true for any new leader unless they have been promoted to leadership from within, a situation which is becoming ever rarer.
Hello Joe,
I am new to reading your blog and wanted to respond to this post. I am an unusual case – I have degrees in viola performance from Rice and Juilliard and an MBA from Michigan. I went to b-school after 5+ years of being a teaching artist and freelancer in NYC because I was interested in starting a non-profit, but knew I did not have the business acumen to pull it off and did not want to be another musician learning as they go. Also, I was honestly tired of living month to month in a very expensive city and needed to make a significant change.
What I learned at b-school was how to communicate with others, how to work on a team, how and how to think systemically and use frameworks to address a problem. I loved the rigor with which we tackled marketing or strategy issues. Strategy is like writing a piece of music – you need to be able to look at the bigger picture and how the nuanced details flow within it. Granted, I did not learn about the politics within arts organizations and the real “people skills” that only experience can teach. But I’m learning those now, and those can be learned on the job within each organization.
I can’t imagine doing my job without the education I received at b-school. Understanding that there is a much bigger picture than my particular role, being able to work across departments as well as understanding something about market research helps me every single day.
Kelly-
Thanks for the response. You didn’t mention, what is your current job to which your B-school skills apply so well?
Joe
Thank you for your reply. I am the director of audience engagement at the Pacific Symphony and I work closely with the marketing, education, and artistic departments.