I remember reading as a kid that ancient Romans ate from lead-infused dinnerware. I imagined them in their tunics and garland hair, frolicking as they ate from poisoned plates, and I wondered if we might have something like lead in our kitchens today — some insidious substance permeating everything we consume. If I had just stuck with the question, I'm sure I would have been the 11-year-old who discovered microplastics. Alas.
We tend to think of values and institutional principles as inherently good, but everything is contextual — fixed, unresponsive values in organizations can be just damaging over time as lead was for the Romans and microplastics will likely prove to be for us today. Values and principles color our decision-making in ways we don't recognize, creating second-order consequences we fail to examine. And just as Romans didn't connect their declining health to their dishes, unexamined values can fuel organizational decline.
When Consensus Becomes a Barrier to Progress
One of the more pernicious values that can poison us is the notion that since museums are for everyone, we should seek a majority or consensus in most decisions. It's a view that limits organizations' ability to provide relevant, personalized opportunities and support diverse outcomes. It hobbles leadership.
Example: I was speaking with the director of a discipline-specific association recently. We're looking for partners as we work to bring outcomes-based insights to museums through MaP³. I described how MaP³ provides data that helps museums prioritize and focus their efforts on specific outcomes that address strategic challenges. This, in turn, informs funding appeals, develops outcome-focused communications to visitors and members, and anchors the work of designers and curators to community-centered results.
The director said, "I'm interested. But some of our board members are really into using data and others just aren't. So, we might not be ready."
Later, I thought: So what if some museum leaders aren't interested in data? Some people aren't interested in going to the dentist, but I can still get my teeth cleaned. Plenty of people aren't interested in going to museums — should we close them all and wait until the majority are 'ready' to visit?
I do sympathize with the director's perspective — We're all social creatures, fearful of falling out of favor with our peers. It's unnatural for a human being who has found some security to do anything they imagine might jeopardize their position.
The problem is that there is often little to no risk in prioritizing the needs and interests of some people. That's how we create value for one another — by recognizing each other's interests and prioritizing each other's needs over our own immediate interests.
We do a disservice to the people who are "ready" to use data and adopt new models if we wait for everyone to be ready to integrate data in their decisions and adopt new models.
Most of all, conversations like this one remind me that there's more work to be done than I had imagined. Times like this remind me of the Russian saying …
“We thought we had hit rock-bottom, but then we heard someone knocking from below.”
How is it that a sector often obsessed with relevance also hopes that all their work should be relevant to pretty much everyone most of the time? Relevance increases in proportion to personalization, and personalization, by definition, introduces specificity. Specificity requires deep understanding of what matters to the people we support and the diverse ways they approach their goals. And that's before we even get to developing solutions in support of those goals and mental models.
I know what you're thinking: “That sounds like a lot of work. We don't have the capacity to do all that.”
Keep in mind that I hear this objection from not only tiny institutions but also huge organizations with budgets that make smaller museums salivate. The fact is, no one ever believes they have the capacity they need. Perhaps its because we assume that capabilities are given to us rather than built by us.
Imagine a business complaining about capacity. "We can't invest in understanding our customers or creating more value for them. We're too busy being a company!" Absurd. No company assumes it has the right to exist forever and that its employees should be able to keep producing the same products or services indefinitely without regard for results. Museums aren’t businesses, nor should they be — but we put museums at risk when we act as if museums don’t need to invest in understanding their communities at least as much as businesses seek to understand their customers.
A Knocking From Above
On the bright side, there are institutions that are moving forward. The institutions enrolled in programs like MaP³ and The Value Realization Collaborative are taking visible steps to prioritize outcomes over outputs because they know that “readiness” is a conveniently fluid target. They know that waiting for a day with perfectly clear skies and an ocean without waves is a game that never ends. They know they have to do the work to show results, and results are what produce the internal buy-in they need to continue the work.
They're generating consensus rather than hoping it will happen on its own.
They're building capacity by placing bets on their future, rather than passively managing resources (which is the same as betting on the past).
They are big museums and small museums; They're located in major cities and small towns; They're academic art museums and multidisciplinary giants.
If you'd like to be one of them, you can begin with a strategic assessment. We'll identify the outcomes your institution is uniquely positioned to support, invest in the staff members who are ready to align with this vision, and build capabilities that demonstrate value instead of merely hoping for it.
Reply to this email and we'll find a time to identify those outcome-focused individuals within your museum. Invest in those few catalysts now so that you can create the evidence others need to follow later.