Trying to Plan in the Unsettling of COVID 2.0

John Fowler from Placitas, NM, USA - Chaotic Wave 2009, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64289851

I want to begin this post with a brief comment about this blog. It's called Leadership Matters after my book with Anne Ackerson of the same name. If you're a regular reader you know this blog isn't only for people in leadership positions, nor is it written only for folks who believe in leader-modeled leadership. Instead, it is for humans who understand change begins with you, no matter where you are in the museum food chain or as Halla Tómasdóttir, former Icelandic presidential candidate put it, ""There's a leader inside every single one of us, and our most important work in life is to release that leader."

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Those of you who know me or who read this blog weekly, know I suffer from a bit of an organization streak. I love lists. The strikeout feature gives me chills. My love language is planning. I am happiest when it feels like the future is laid out, and might actually move according to plan.

In the workplace, these attributes sometimes win you kudos because you appear organized and forward thinking. In some cases that may be true. You finish the project on time. You come in under budget. You don't drive your colleagues mad by changing your mind every few seconds and never having a plan. You are orderly. You may be this person or you may know this person. If so, you should have no trouble imagining what COVID has done to them, myself included, because COVID is the great unsettler.

I have two exhibits waiting in the wings. One which focuses on generosity and justice, with a nod to Darren Walker, and another explores the color blue as mood, hue or symbol through the work of 24 contemporary artists. Needless to say, COVID lurks in the background of both like a fault in the earth's plates. From paint, to plexiglass, to gas prices, to the very presence of other humans--And what artist doesn't want or expect an audience for their work?--to staffing, there's literally nothing COVID hasn't messed with. If you're a planner, COVID redefines the word disruptive. You find yourself planning not just for one future, but for many. If this happens, I will do this, but if something else transpires, I need to do that.

The Generosity and Justice exhibit was supposed to follow our school community's Martin Luther King Day activities. The day, traditionally one of no classes, dedicated to exploring the man, his mission, and Black culture as a whole, was derailed by a post-winter-break quarantine. Changing a date in the age of COVID means working around completely unreliable schedules because thanks to the Omicron variant, at any moment one or more staff could test positive while not feeling actually sick. So what do you do? You plan for all the possibilities you can imagine, and the future becomes not a path ahead, but a hydra headed beast.

I think we're way past the age of the hero leader, the lone individual who works everything out in the sanctity of her office before sharing decisions with her staff. Successful museum leaders in the age of COVID are the ones who say "I help lead the blah de blah Museum," not "I run the Blah de Blah." In a world that's continually changing no single human can master everything they need to know. They depend on a team to navigate the volatile nature of the pandemic world. So what does that mean for people like me who adore planning for the future, and really love having those plans work out? I think it means:

Living firmly in the present because no matter how much you want the future to comply with your wishes it likely won't. I mean did we ever think there would be a time when our loved ones could be hospitalized and die without our being there?
Working to protect our teams so they feel safe.
Working with our teams, creating a variety of answers to every problem so we can pivot, maybe not happily, but easily, knowing there isn't one path, but several.
Acknowledge our mistakes speedily and publicly to earn trust and thus increase colleague's feelings of safety.