The Opposite of Kismet or What Happens When Work and Personal Values Clash?
By Dante Gabriel Rossetti - https://live.staticflickr.com/4787/26914297618_2bc237940d_h.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93503274
Recently I read an Emerging Museum Professionals posting. The writer had invested time and money in a graduate degree in Museum Studies. Covid blocked her path. Then her thesis was rejected. In the meantime, she'd found museum work. She asked whether she should finish the thesis or abandon her degree. Her respondents were divided on the answer, but everyone seemed to agree that investing in a degree is a big deal, and a lot of time and money to leave on the table. This post isn't really about the need for graduate degrees--that's another discussion.
It is about that golden moment when you find a field where everything seems right. Charmed by what lies ahead, you imagine yourself doing work that seems important and interesting. Then, grad school ends, and you are thrust into the world. If, like the EMP writer, you're lucky enough to be hired or already have a museum position, soon your narrative is subtly different. You are no longer a solo traveler; instead, you are part of a larger organization whose needs and values are paramount. How do you know if you're hitching your wagon to an organization whose values are similar to your own? How much do your own values matter? After all, they're paying you to be a registrar or an educator or a curator, not wax philosophical about ethics, right?
But what happens when that same organization, the one that chose you out of all those applicants, does something that feels wrong, implicitly or tacitly, sweeping you up in behavior you can't condone? In that honeymoon moment when you're courted for the position you've always wanted and everyone is on their best behavior, it's often hard to read a museum's values. We live in a fractious, divided society where everything from race to faith to medicine to climate change pushes friends and colleagues apart in a heartbeat. Did you ask the right questions? Were there red flags you missed?
If you're involved in the museum world at any level, you're likely aware of the Montpelier Controversy. In brief, Montpelier, President James Madison's 2,600-acre Virginia estate, once home to an enslaved population of 300, spent most of its years with an all-white board. In 2021, Montpelier announced its board would share governance with representatives from Montpelier's Descendants Committee. All seemed well until earlier this year when the overwhelmingly White board amended its bylaws, seemingly refusing to recognize or collaborate with the Descendants Committee. Subsequently the CEO and the Board fired five full-time staff who supported the merger. When I started this piece, 11,000 people had signed a petition asking Montpelier to seat new Descendants Committee board members immediately. More recently, after being openly chastised by the National Trust, the Board, Montpelier's Board voted to approve a slate of candidates put forward by the Descendants Committee.
Montpelier is a dramatic example of a heritage organization off the ethical rails, and the Montpelier Five are undoubtedly the poster children for a values/museum workplace clash. After all, getting fired for your beliefs certainly takes the uncertainty of whether to stay at a job that seems to compromise your north star. But what if your experience is less dramatic, but challenging nonetheless? In a field where jobs are hard won, few are privileged enough to pack it in over a values clash. And yet....where do you draw the line between your personal values and the organization's?
Start by acknowledging that all of us have different values.
If you haven't already, consider your organization's history. How did it get to be the place it is? Where are its values most evident? To do this, you may want to look at Aletheia Whitman's Institutional Genealogy pdf.
Is what you're struggling with a value conflict or a personal conflict? Admittedly the two can overlap, but fixing them means untangling one from the other. Don't go to leadership with a value conflict only to rant about how you're being bullied. Being bullied is wrong, and creates a horrific work climate, but it's not a value conflict.
Take baby steps: Try and suss out how the the behavior that is bothering you came to be. Was this an on-the-fly decision or the product of weeks of discussion?
Are you alone or one of many? There is a value in numbers if you plan to approach leadership about a values issue.
Is it one issue or is it the organizational culture?
Pause and consider what you believe and how far you're willing to go. Ultimatums lead to ultimatums.
Think deeply about where the line in the sand is for you. Are you willing to walk away?
You can't know 'til you know: Discuss your concerns with museum leadership.
If leadership won't or can't hear you, does your workplace have employee support for whistle blower complaints or concerns?
Many museums and heritage organizations have emerged from the last three years better organizations. They've become partners rather than pontificators, empathetic rather than my-way-or-the highway, collaborators in understanding who we are in the today's world. Change isn't easy though even at the most woke organizations. Part of your due diligence during the hiring process is to try to suss out your organization's ability to grow and change. Does it match your own? If you move at a different pace, are you willing to be an outlier, a Joan of Arc? Not all of us are willing or able to try and lead an organization out of a values morass. What are you willing to sacrifice?
Be well. See you in June.
Joan Baldwin
