Category Archives: Governance and management

OAH Report Claims History is Imperiled at National Parks

The Organization of American Historians recently completed an evaluation of the “state of history” at the National Park Service.  Four prominent historians–Anne Mitchell Whisnant, Marla Miller, Gary Nash, and David Thelen–led the study, which was based on more than 500 staff responses to an online survey, interviews with current and former staff, site visits, discussions at national meetings, and a review of past studies and reports.

Their analysis revealed that much good work is going on in such areas as reinterpreting slavery and the Civil War, negotiating civic engagement, sharing authority, developing interdisciplinary partnerships, encouraging conversations about history through new media, and collaborating with historians in colleges and universities.  These are presented through a dozen profiles of projects at such National Parks as Manzanar, the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, San Antonio Missions, Harpers Ferry, and the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site.

Although they discovered that good work is being done in a few places, it is not “flowering on the whole” due to several intertwined issues.  Most significant is the report’s contention that, “the agency as a whole needs to recommit to history as one of its core purposes, and to configure a top-flight program of historical research, preservation, education, and interpretation so as to foster effective and integrated stewardship of historic and cultural resources and places and to encourage robust, place-based visitor engagement with history.”  These concerns are presented as a dozen findings, and from my observations, many also reflect what’s happening at historic sites outside of the National Parks.  For example:

  1. The History/Interpretation Divide.  The intellectually artificial, yet bureaucratically real, divide between history and interpretation constrains NPS historians, compromises history practice in the agency, and hobbles effective history interpretation. The NPS should find and take every opportunity to reintegrate professional history practice and interpretation. [In museums, this is comparable to the tensions found between curators and educators, where those who conduct research are often separated from those who teach.]
  2. The Importance of Leadership for History.  Without visionary, visible, and respected leadership at the top, and Continue reading →

Failed Organizational Culture at Goldman Sachs Suggests Remedies for Non-Profits

Greg Smith’s public departure from Goldman Sachs after a dozen years is one of the hottest pages of the New York Times today and while I tend to ignore the personnel matters of Wall Street (oh, another tycoon getting/losing/complaining about a bonus that’s more than the value of my house), reading his statement startled me.  So many of his concerns about the organization’s culture are shared by me and many of my colleagues in the museum and historic preservation fields:

1.  The overriding pursuit of money that’s out of balance with mission or ethics.  Smith describes a staff meeting at Goldman Sachs:

Today, many of these leaders display a Goldman Sachs culture quotient of exactly zero percent. I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.

Gosh, if this bothers someone at a financial investment firm, shouldn’t the lack of discussion about fulfilling mission and vision really bother the board and staff at a non-profit organization?  And yet most meetings Continue reading →

Why We Have Curators and Collections Managers

Times are tough and many museums and historic sites wonder about the value of keeping curators and collections managers on the payroll.  What do they do besides sit in their offices all day?  Well, boardmembers and CEOs, they keep an eye on your most valuable assets.  The University of California Berkeley, that fine institution of learning, provides a useful lesson on what happens when you don’t have curators or collections managers involved in managing your artifacts.  According to the New York Times:

Everybody misplaces something sometime. But it is not easy for the University of California, Berkeley, to explain how it lost a 22-foot-long carved panel by a celebrated African-American sculptor, or how, three years ago, it mistakenly sold this work, valued at more than a million dollars, for $150 plus tax. The university’s embarrassing loss eventually enabled the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, a large museum and research center in San Marino, Calif., to acquire its first major work by an African-American artist.

Fortunately, there’s a happy ending to this tale for the object, the artist, and the museum–but the university has egg on its face. First, for not recognizing and properly caring for a significant work of art and secondly for disposing of it for so little money. I’m not surprised. Most colleges and universities are notorious for treating their historic sites and museum collections poorly (have we forgotten about the University of Southern California’s long mistreatment of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Freeman House or Cal Poly Pomona’s neglect of Richard Neutra’s VDL House?).

For the complete story, see “Berkeley’s Artwork Loss Is a Museum’s Gain” by Carol Pogash in the New York Times (February 20, 2012) and Huntington Library Acquires Sargent Johnson Monumental Depression-Era Sculpture in Black Artist News (June 22, 2011).

Embezzlement: Is it Our Dirty Little Secret?

In the last few years, I’ve encountered a surprising number of cases of embezzlement–the internal theft of assets–at many of the non-profit organizations where I’ve worked or been on the board.  The experience not only undermines the trust among colleagues and friends, but also threatens the survival of the organization, many of whom are often skirting the edge of bankruptcy and now have a smaller bank account and a diminished reputation.  Given how frequently I’ve encountered it, I did a quick search about embezzlement at museums and historic sites in the last five years and discovered nearly a dozen heart-wrenching stories:

There are probably many more, but I suspect they’ve kept their stories secret out of embarrassment (but search for “embezzlement” at the Chronicle of Philanthropy to see how widespread it is in the non-profit world). Despite this small sample, there seem to be some common patterns:

  1. It often involves a senior staff member, frequently the Continue reading →

HBR: If People Are Your Most Valuable Asset, Do You Show It?

The January/February 2012 issue of the Harvard Business Review includes an article on building a team in which author Kevin Ryan, CEO of Gilt Groupe, argues that businesses succeed not because of ideas, but because of its people:

Execution is what matters, and execution relies on human talent.  Every company thinks it’s doing a good job of managing its people.  They all say, “People are our most important asset.”  But most companies don’t act that way.  Here’s a simple test:  Ask the CEO if he or she spends more time on recruiting and managing people than on any other activity.  For me, the answer has always been yes.

He admits this situation can only apply to organizations with more than 50 people because in smaller organizations the CEO has to tackle lots of other important issues to succeed.  But Ryan does offer many other provocative approaches for finding and retaining great employees and you’ll want to read the article if you’re an executive director, manager, or boardmember.  Here are some highlights:

  1. Some managers prefer that executives check with them before talking with their people.  That’s not going to happen here.  Continue reading →

Forbes on the Charitable For-Profit Organization

A previous post on organizational hybrids (for profit non-profits) prompted much interest, so here’s the latest from attorney Evangeline Gomez at Forbes on this topic with more legal details:

In recent years, two new types of corporations have been created to address the goals of making money, attracting private investors and addressing societal concerns:  the benefit corporation and L3C.  A study shows more than $120 billion in potential investments for these socially-minded companies.   The emergence of these corporations serve as alternatives to the traditional C or S Corporation structures. [and perhaps the 501c3]. . .

 

The benefit corporation is recognized in Maryland, California (which also has the flexible purpose corporation), Hawaii, Vermont, Virginia, New Jersey and (as of February 14, 2012) New York.  In order to incorporate as a benefit corporation, the corporation must have Continue reading →

The Changing Nature of Careers in Museums and Historic Sites

One of the perennial topics at professional conferences and when I meet colleagues are the challenges of working at an historic site, historic house museum, or history museum.  They often center around ever-decreasing resources, board members who aren’t raising money, and the constant attention to financial and personnel management.  Nothing new about that, except you’ll notice some additional topics depending on the person’s age.

Generation X (those born 1965 to 1980) frequently mentions that career advancement is stagnant.  They’ve been blocked by the previous generation, who were the first major generation of trained museum professionals and have held senior positions at museums and historic sites for twenty years or more. These Baby Boomers will be retiring en masse soon to open up many opportunities, but Gen X may be caught Continue reading →

Mark Twain House Embezzlement Case Featured by IRS

The million-dollar embezzlement case that hit the Mark Twain House has been memorialized as a featured fraud case for Fiscal Year 2012 by the Internal Revenue Service:

On November 21, 2011, in Bridgeport, Conn., Donna Gregor, of East Hartford, was sentenced to 42 months in prison and three years of supervised release, for embezzling more than $1 million from the Mark Twain House & Museum. On August 5, 2011, Gregor waived her right to indictment and pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return.  According to court documents and statements made in court, between 2002 and 2010, Gregor employed two different schemes to defraud the Mark Twain House.  In the first scheme, Gregor submitted false information via the Internet to the Mark Twain House’s payroll management vendor in order to receive, as a direct deposit in her personal bank account, an additional amount of pay to which she was not entitled.  Gregor then adjusted Continue reading →

Montpelier Adopts New and Improved Mission Statement

Mission statements are required part of non-profit organizations, but I’ve often found that they’re treated like death and taxes–inevitable but you don’t want to think about it. In museums and historic sites, you can tell when they’re particularly useless when you can swap the name of the organization with another and it still makes sense.  Good mission statements are distinctive, memorable, and passionate.  They have to help you make decisions–is this project, activity, donor, or partnership right for us?  They have to go beyond “collect, preserve, and interpret” and describe what you want your audience to “think, feel, and do“.  Creating a good mission statement isn’t easy and examples are hard to come by, so when I find them, I collect them like golden eggs.

Montpelier's new mission statement on the back of a business card.

When I visited James Madison’s Montpelier last week, I learned they adopted a new mission statement.   Developed as part of their strategic planning process by a small team of trustees and staff, it was then shared with the entire board and staff for comment and revision before it was adopted by the board of trustees.  I thought it was so good I wanted to share it as an exemplar:

Our mission is to inspire continuing public engagement with American constitutional self-government by bringing to life the home and contributions of James and Dolley Madison.

Yes, there’s a bit of jargon that requires some explanation but it’s so much better than the previous one:

The Montpelier Foundation preserves the legacy of James Madison, his family, and
Montpelier’s plantation community, and seeks to inspire an understanding and
commitment to the ideals of the Constitution as the first successful form of self
governance to secure liberty for its citizens. The Foundation’s mission is founded on
the fact that the Constitution is a landmark in the history of mankind’s quest to achieve
freedom. James Madison, the individual most responsible for the Constitution,
provided both the innovative ideas central to its success and the leadership that
brought about its creation and ratification.

Yikes.  Try to fit that on the back of a business card.

Want Buy-In? Build Trust

John Kotter is a prolific author of books about “change” in organizations.  Getting people, organizations, and communities to move in new directions or to end old habits is difficult, but he’s developed lots of practical strategies and outlined a step-by-step process to succeed based on his studies of dozens of companies.  Fundamental is a relationship of trust among the participants (e.g., managers and employees, city council and residents, historic sites and neighbors), which is a result of transparency and openness, and a willingness to listen and discuss tough issues.  It sounds obvious but I’ve seen national organizations create an atmosphere of suspicion, hostility, and fear simply because they hold too many closed door meetings, only communicate bland or stale news when the environment is clearly unsettled, and won’t answer simple questions about what’s happening.  The result is change has to be forced (and enforced and reinforced) and buy-in, participation, and support is low.  It’s the worst way to implement change, except for war.

If you’re dealing with change at your historic site or house museum (either leading or experiencing it), John Kotter introduces this idea in, “Levering Trust to Achieve Buy-In,”  a short video at Forbes posted last week.  If you want to explore his ideas further, I’ve found his books Leading Change (a classic) and Buy-In:  Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down (really a handbook, great for advocacy and fundraising) to be helpful.