As part of a series of features looking at different ways in to the ‘Fragile to Flourishing’ research, Colin Mulberg shares his initial reaction.
Fragile to Flourishing is a set of resources on museum operating models that helps museums and heritage organisations take a fresh look at how they operate, their resilience and new ways of facing an unclear future. It explores the overall sector landscape and the strategies that organisations need to adopt to deal with the considerable challenges ahead. It also focusses on specific areas that relate to financial stability and sustainability (e.g. types of income source, endowments, reserves, etc.).
The work is crammed full of thought-provoking analysis, ideas, and concrete suggestions on how to review and improve different financial and organisational performance, to move along the five-stage continuum from ‘Fragile’ (just surviving) to ‘Flourishing’ (confident outlook).
New ways of working
Looking at sector trends in the medium- to long-term, the message is uncompromising – that traditional museum models are increasingly difficult to sustain and are no longer fit for purpose and that the assumptions behind the way that many organisations function are no longer valid.
The research and case studies suggest a fundamental reset for many museums and heritage venues to face an uncertain environment and move towards becoming flourishing organisations. Central to this is adopting a different mindset, which looks systematically across the whole organisation at all levels of activity and operations, identifying opportunities for growth, change, innovation and expanding entrepreneurism.
This may require a radical re-evaluation of how services are delivered, becoming more dynamic, flexible, cross-disciplinary and moving easily across analogue and digital. Planning will need to be ready to adapt to future trends and situations, becoming modular and joined up rather than in separate silos.
Many of the specific suggestions for change will be familiar to AIM Bulletin readers. They include diversifying income streams; developing a mixed economy/enterprise model; making the most of all your assets to increase earned income and support other activity; understanding and engaging local audiences and communities and building lasting relationships; focussing more on visitors, community and stakeholders and becoming less collection centred.
Organisational cultural change
A main thread running through the work is the need for many organisations to change their culture. This includes becoming more outward looking, commercial, systematically exploring opportunities to renew and update their visitor offer, looking to offer something fresh and distinctive within their audience markets.
Strategic development will move away from a ‘defensive crouch’ where an organisation is treading water or making piecemeal changes to one that embraces change and innovation across all areas of activity, actively challenging assumptions and exploring how to do things differently – ‘what would it look like if . . .’
This type of operating model imagines a fluid way of working, which is less governed by rigid sections or departments, but more vibrant and cross-functional, driven by looking to the future, delivering strategic growth, and moving the organisation towards the characteristics of ‘flourishing.’ Accompanying this is a move towards co-operative teamworking, empowering staff to generate ideas, take responsibility and have control over decision-making not hampered by strict staffing structures.
Encouraging creative risk
Cultural change involves encouraging creative risk. Developing an outlook that routinely identifies creative opportunities that go beyond playing safe and proactively embeds creative risk across processes and activities is a major shift for many organisations.
Creative risk inevitably means dealing with uncertainty and the difficulty of assessing and balancing risk as the price for moving away from easy options. Giving permission for creative risk recognises that failure is part of the creative process and can give valuable insights. This only works across an organisation if accompanied by an understanding that creative risk is harder to manage and that there are acknowledged rewards for undertaking risk within the process of organisational development and change.
Creative partnerships play a key part in embracing creative risk. The research and case studies show how they can extend reach and bring in new audiences. Partnerships in different sectors add fresh viewpoints, approaches, and expertise, as well as opening possibilities for moving outside a venue’s walls and embedding organisations more within their local communities.
Choosing a development path
Fragile to Flourishing helps each organisation to assess its own situation and choose a suitable development path. The approaches, resources, KPI’s etc. are intended to be adapted to individual circumstances. Planning, embedding, and managing change are the foundation of a wide range of suggested activity throughout the resources and can be incremental, starting small and building up success, confidence, and a culture of change. Fragile to Flourishing is a call to action – the first step on the path to change is to make a start.
Colin Mulberg
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