5 Ways to Move the Creative Needle
monster of skepticism, as Frank Vagnone puts it in his recent blog post, takes over. How many of you work for a truly creative individual or, if you're a museum leader, how many of you work for a creative board? Whether you do or not, you may want to dig out Linda Norris' and Rainey Tisdale's book Creativity in Museum Practice. Published by the late Left Coast Press in 2014, it's full of brilliant recipes for moving from mediocre to exceptional. One of my favorite pages is a little chart that compares creative and traditional leaders. Not surprisingly, creative leaders lead in many of the ways we harp on in this blog every week. Creative leaders engage, they're authentic, they experiment. They are hopeful. They understand how to hear criticism. The more traditional leader is (sigh) the sage on the stage who needs to be correct, both metaphorically and actually. She loves a harmonious workplace even if it's at the expense of creativity and engagement. She asks for feedback, but staff learn it's not something she knows what to do with. Her work is about sustaining things the way they've been. It doesn't take staff long to learn that innovation is sloughed aside in favor of "getting the job done right." What's right? The least threatening way that still delivers results: Wonder Bread versus a fresh-baked brioche. So what's this magical, nurturing leader look like in real life? First, she often has her own creative practice whether she's an artist, dancer or chef. She encourages collaboration and her staff knows it's imagination and ideas she values, not just elbow grease. For her, product isn't the end all and be all. Process is equally important. Why? Because that's where the magic happens. If she were to create the perfect staff, the folks around her table would be a wildly diverse lot, who communicate well, who bat ideas back and forth, and who value collaboration over competition. Her team reads widely, and thinks in terms of metaphors, analogies, and stories. Need to move the needle toward some creativity? Here are five things to try:
Understand your museum or heritage organization's bureaucracy. Know what happens to innovative ideas when they wend their way from the could-we stage to implementation. If competing constituencies deplete their innovative qualities, they are born shadows of themselves. Figure out how to protect ideas while they grow.
Encourage imagination, discussion, and dissension at the staff table. Disagreement forces staff to identify the values and ideas that matter most.
As the leader, you don't need to be the source of all ideas. You need to be the gardener. Identify the viable ideas, and nurture them. Toss the weeds. Know when to connect ideas that echo one another.
Provide intellectual challenge. Bored staff are boring.
Play to your staff's skills. Hint: That means you actually have to know them. Yours for less mediocrity. Joan Baldwin
