A Letter, Some Advice, and Reading for New Museum Leaders

In a week a friend and colleague of mine and Anne’s begins a new job. When all the papers were signed, and everything was real, she wrote to tell us the good news. Moving from a smaller organization to a much larger state-funded position, means she transitions from supervising a few to many.

Our friend and colleague is beginning a new chapter, and she isn’t alone. In the last year a number of our professional colleagues have gotten new jobs or new job titles. One thing distinguishes all these folks; not one thinks s/he has “arrived”. They are all learners. They read widely, observe carefully, and reflect. So while this annotated list is for them–you know who you are–we hope all our readers will find something they like.

For the Individual Leader/learner:

• For women leaders: 7 Small Steps Women Can Take to Make Their Voices Heard
• The importance and danger of bias in the workplace: 13 Cognitive Biases
• One of our colleagues to whom this post is dedicated, spent part of his first 100 days as a new leader doing other staff members’ jobs. He already knows what this article teaches us.
• What If Companies Managed People As Carefully as They Manage Money
• This was written by women to their younger selves, but we believe much of it applies to humans: Six Leaders on the Advice They Would Tell Their Younger Selves

About the Business of Museums:

• Written using theatre as the primary example, this article asks a lot of basic questions about non-profit workplace diversification. Diversity for Dummies
• If you aren’t already reading this blog, you should be: How Imaginary Lines Drawn By Cultural Institutions Hold Them Back
• An explanation of the difference between diversity and inclusion and why it matters: Beyond Diversity

A Short list of books and Ted Talks for leaders:

• Daring Greatly by Brenee Brown.
• We Need to Talk About An Injustice a Ted Talk by Bryan Stevenson.
• Why It’s Time to Forget the Pecking Order at Work

Six Practices for Your First 100 Days from Leadership Matters:

• Listen. Don’t wait for your turn to talk, listen.
• Love what you do.
• Participate before making decisions.
• Model empathy and respect.
• Practice reflection. Write, walk, meditate before or after work.
• Identify your biases and work to leave them outside the office.

And, last, a poem from Mary Oliver:

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver taken from https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html

Good luck,

Joan Baldwin & Anne Ackerson

 

 

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