What’s Missing From “7 Factors That Drive Museum Wages Down”?
Posted: March 4, 2018 Filed under: Alliance Labs, gender equity, Leadership and Gender, Museum, Museum Boards, museum career, museum salaries, museum staff, Museum wages, Nonprofit Boards, pay equity, Salary | Tags: career, history museum, Leadership, museums, nonprofit, workplace culture 17 Comments
As people who’ve written and spoken about the museum pay crisis since 2012, Leadership Matters was heartened to read 7 Factors That Drive Museum Wages Down. Written by Michael Holland, it was wonderful to see such an important topic addressed by a forum like Alliance Labs since by inference it carries AAM’s blessing. But that was before we read the article. In our opinion, Holland skipped a few key points. And judging from some of the 20-plus comments, one of which was ours, we weren’t alone. So here’s our response:
1: Gender inequity and the pay gap failed to make Holland’s list. In some ways this isn’t a surprise. Michael Holland is male, and by his own admission, he frequently works for large, well-endowed museums so maybe he hasn’t encountered the gender pay gap? Maybe he doesn’t know that many women doing work similar to his (exhibit design)–not to mention the traditionally female bastions of museum education or event planning– will not make as much as he did in 2017 until April 10 of this year? Maybe he doesn’t understand that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the museum field is 46.7-percent female, and that when a field slips down the pink collar slope it’s not a good thing?
2. While Holland lists the “Spousal Income Subsidy” as a way the field depends on hiring people who bring along a second income, he never explores what that means. Whether it’s an employee with a hedge fund spouse or an employee with a trust fund, the need for a second income frequently acts as a class and race barrier. Is it any wonder the museum workforce has a diversity problem?
3. He addressed the question of a burgeoning number of museum studies programs, offering both undergraduate and graduate training, and the resulting glut of too many inexperienced candidates desperate for employment, but he doesn’t mention these programs are costly, and that many emerging professionals begin their working careers with educational debt that’s the equivalent of a mortgage. And yet we work in a field that tells people if you don’t have a master’s degree, you can’t come to the party.
4. This is a corollary to #3. Holland makes passing reference to unpaid internships. (It appears he’s not a fan.) But he never addresses the damage done by an expensive graduate school education, followed by a series of unpaid or poorly paid internships, meaning that someone could be “in the field” for four years or so before finding a salaried position. And that’s if they’re lucky.
Don’t get us wrong. We’re glad Holland wrote his article, glad to see it published by Alliance Labs, and glad to see it debated and questioned in the Comments. Sometimes it’s depressing being the broken record yammering about gender, pay equity, poor pay, and lousy leadership every week. So–in the tradition of Leadership Matters–where we believe we can all make change, here are some things that might help the museum salary crisis.
For individuals, and women especially: Don’t take a job without negotiating. Use the GEMM (Gender Equity in Museums) 5 Things You Need to Know About Salary Negotiations tip sheet. And for goodness sake look at MIT’s Living Wage Calculator to make sure you can afford to live (really live) on what you’re being offered. If you’re already working in a position you enjoy, when your annual review rolls around, don’t forget to ask for a raise. Again, there’s a 5 Things Tip Sheet for that.
For organizations and directors: Work with your board to make sure it understands the value of your museum’s human resources. People matter. Make sure you and your board know what it costs to live in your community. Make sure the board understands the cost of a churning staff, the time it takes new staff to get up to speed, the resulting loss of institutional momentum and organizational knowledge when someone leaves, and the damage done when a team is disrupted.
Solve your wage equity problem first. Do men at your organization make more than women? Do white women make more than women of color?
If you’re faced with the you-can’t-get-blood-from-a-stone argument, make an effort to put all the other pieces in place to support staff–HR support, equitable benefits, paid time off, maternity/paternity leave, even housing if that’s available. When was the last time you reviewed your personnel policy? Make sure new applicants know the work you’ve done around wages and benefits.
For regional and national museum service organizations: Isn’t it time for a wage summit that would bring together big thinkers from inside and outside the field to tackle this problem?
Joan Baldwin
What We’re Reading, Watching, and Listening To…
Posted: February 21, 2018 Filed under: Diversity, gender equity, Happiness, Leadership, Leadership and Gender, Leading Across Organizations, Learning Organizations, Museum, Museum Boards, museum career, museum staff, Nonprofit Boards, Nonprofit Leadership, Organizational Values, Professional Development, Volunteers, Work Habits, Workplace Bias, workplace diversity | Tags: advocacy, feminism, governance, Leadership, museums, nonprofit, organizational learning, transparency, workplace culture 1 Comment
Leadership Matters was on the road over President’s Day Weekend, heading south to the Small Museums Association meeting in College Park, Maryland. There, we talked about “Lessons from the Workplace: Women in the Museum.” We’ll be back next week to report on the audience reaction to issues of gender and the museum world, but in the meantime, here are some things that have captured our attention recently.
Books: Women & Power-Manifesto by Mary Beard. A short (128 pages), but blistering account of how women have been silenced throughout history. Don’t want to spend the money on the book? Here’s the backstory from the New Yorker: The Troll Slayer.
Managing People and Projects in Museums: Strategies that Work by Martha Morris. Morris rightly states that “The majority of work in museums today is project based.” So, why not combine the topics of projects, people, management, and leadership in one easily accessible book from a veteran museums studies educator? In addition to a whole chapter on museum leadership, Morris takes a deep dive into creating, managing and sustaining teams, including the team leader’s critical role.
Articles & Blogs: Not enough ethical challenges in your leadership life? Read this: The Family That Built An Empire of Pain.
#MeToo and the nonprofit sector: Vu Le is the fertile mind behind the blog, Nonprofit AF. If you’re not reading, you’ll want to make this one of your weekly must do’s. In the post we highlight here, Vu offers up his thoughts about creating safe environments for staff, volunteers, and community members. “We must examine our implicit and explicit biases,” Vu writes. “We need to confront one another and point out jokes and actions that are sexist. And we need to do our own research and read up on all these issues and not burden our women colleagues with the emotional and other labor to enlighten us.”
In this Harvard Business Review article, the fastest path to the top of an organization usually isn’t a straight shot. The authors rely on extensive research to explore why big, bodacious, and bold may feel counterintuitive sometimes, but are usually the keys to CEO success.
The Women’s Agenda is a regular shot of women’s empowerment reading from across the big pond (Australia, that is). News and research is gathered from around the globe on women in leadership, politics, business, and life.
Are Orchestras Culturally Specific? Jesse Rosen, League of American Orchestras president and CEO, recently led a discussion with four thought leaders about orchestras and cultural equity. From the intro: “While diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are complex topics that require thoughtful consideration and strategic action, the concept of equity can be especially nuanced. It challenges us to fundamentally reconsider what it means for orchestras to play a constructive and responsive role in their communities—a role that acknowledges and responds to past and current inequities in the arts and in society.” Museums and other cultural institutions, take note.
Video: This video features CharityChannel’s Stephen Nill and members of the Governance Affinity Group of the Alliance of Nonprofit Management discussing their research on nonprofit board leadership. The discussion centers around a ground-breaking survey representing the second phase of research on this topic. The first phase, the widely acclaimed Voices of Board Chairs study, investigated the roles and preparation of board chairs, surveying 635 board chairs across the United States. Not only is there very little research that investigates nonprofit board chair leadership, but there is even less about other pivotal leadership roles within boards such as the officers and committee chairs.
You may think there’s not much connection between endurance running and museum leadership, but perhaps there is. Take a look at this video on how to run a 100 miles. Perhaps there are some parallels?
Sound: A big thank you to podcaster Hannah Hethmon who assembled all the museum-related podcasts in a handy link for us all: https://hhethmon.com/2017/12/31/a-complete-list-of-podcasts-for-museum-professionals/
The Silent Treatment (and what to do about it)
Posted: February 12, 2018 Filed under: Communication, Leadership, Leadership and Gender, Museum, Nonprofit Leadership, Workplace Bullying | Tags: career, museums, nonprofit, soft skills, workplace culture 6 Comments
Before we begin this week, let me express our profound sadness in light of the Berkshire Museum agreement with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office. While it is wonderful that Norman Rockwell’s Shuffleton’s Barbershop will remain in the public domain, the decision seems to leave the door open for any museum to use its collection as a trust fund. If a board expresses fundraising fatigue or fear that a major campaign will not make its goal, it can always look for something to sell. So those of you who are museum leaders, think carefully about how you will respond when a board member’s response to a big capital expense is, “Can’t we just sell our Frederick Church painting?” What will you say? Is referencing AAM’s ethical standards enough? Was it ever enough? Or was it the last leftover from the age of museum patriarchy and gentle person’s agreements?
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Apart from deaccessioning, we wanted to talk about executive directors who don’t use their words. We’ve written here about directors who can’t stop talking, but this is the opposite. To be clear, this isn’t a judgement on personality. Some directors are not Chatty Cathys. This is about leaders using silence with negative effects.
Think that doesn’t happen? Were you never in middle school or worse in a relationship where someone stopped speaking to you? This is the workplace equivalent of that. Sometimes this happens when new leaders worry about separating emotions from words. They don’t want to yell. Women, in particular, don’t want to yell because studies show us that an angry woman at work is judged much more harshly than an angry man. As a result, they don’t say anything. Or worse, a leader approaches staff weeks after something went badly, and by then it’s too late.
So silence is used to guard against anger and emotion, but there are also leaders who use silence to ostracize staff. They forget to tell them things; they don’t read weekly reports or share important news. As a result, staff find it increasingly hard to complete tasks because museum workplaces run on information. If a major benefactor is waffling, but no one tells you; if there are four candidates for the curator’s position not three, and so on. Incomplete tasks mean poor progress for individuals, departments and museums as a whole.
But for a staff member who tries to explain what’s going on, silence is a deviously tricky weapon. It is after all a sin of omission. No one yelled at you, no one’s overtly hurt you, so what’s the big deal? In fact, silence, coupled with ostracism is the polite form of workplace bullying, and far more common than bullying itself. A 2014 survey by the University of British Columbia of American workers, found that ostracism is far more common (71%) than harassment which was experienced by only 29%.
So what should you do?
- Marshal your facts. Are you the only one who’s being left out and not spoken to? Admittedly, it’s cold comfort, but at least it’s not you.
- Is there a work colleague you can speak with who might shed some light on your departmental or museum work culture? Are you not being spoken to because you’re not being noticed or is it more deliberate than that?
- Is this something only you notice or has your work colleague observed it too? If not, don’t think you’re being gaslighted. Your work experience may not be theirs.
- Channel your inner Michelle Obama and “When they go low, you go high.” Put your game face on. Stay positive in public. Be prepared. Speak up when you know something. Don’t let ostracism and silence lead you to doubt yourself. That said, keep a log describing when and how the silent treatment occurred.
- The last, and the hardest step is to confront the person. If it’s your ED, you may want to go to HR first, but don’t be surprised if you don’t get much of a reaction. HR sometimes doesn’t realize how hard the silent treatment can be. If it’s a co-worker who’s shut you out, be prepared for the fact that she may not admit what’s happened. Plan, but don’t script your conversation, and make sure your goal is to come away with a resolution.
It’s February. If there ever was a month where we need our words, it’s this one. Use them. Communication builds trust, trust builds loyalty. Together they create a hothouse of creativity and a happy staff.
Joan Baldwin
Looking Forward: Leadership Matters’ Wishes for 2018
Posted: January 2, 2018 Filed under: gender equity, Leadership, Museum, Museum Boards, museum career, museum salaries, museum staff, Nonprofit Leadership, Organizational Values, pay equity, Volunteers, Work Habits, Workplace Bias, workplace diversity | Tags: career, equality, museums, nonprofit, workplace culture 1 Comment
Happy New Year to everyone. We’d like to begin by thanking all of you, longtime readers and those who’ve just discovered us for your support, passion, and encouragement. Know you’re in good company. Leadership Matters had nearly 50,000 views in 2017–not our best year, that was 2016–but we’ll take it. While most of our readers come from the United States, people from 124 countries read this blog which tells us that questions and issues regarding museum leadership are universal. Our regular readers, garnered from WordPress, Instagram, and Facebook number 1,200. Building on 2016’s unbelievably popular post, Museums and the Salary Conundrum, 2017’s most read post was Are Low Museum Salaries Just a Money Problem? It seems there’s a theme here.
So now, suddenly, it’s a new year, and in a spirit of hope, here are our wishes–a baker’s dozen–for 2018.
- Museums develop and use equity and diversity policies to guide recruitment and conduct. AAM requires equity and diversity policies for all Accredited museums. AASLH requires equity and diversity policies as a StEPs standard. Need some help to jumpstart policy development? The Association of Science and Technology Centers’ Diversity Toolkit can be the place to start.
- That museums stop kicking the can down the road and address the wage gap now. You’ll find good information at the Gender Equity in Museums Movement (GEMM) website.
- More resource pooling or institutional merging among museums across discipline and geographic boundaries to increase impact and strengthen sustainability. Here’s a good starting resource from AAM.
- That museums remember that empathy isn’t just for the visiting public; it belongs in the workplace and boardroom too. The Empathetic Museum’s Maturity Model is a self-assessment that can help your institution better reflect and represent the values of their communities.
- Museums become recognized leaders in workplace reform, emphasizing workers and volunteers as valuable and valued human assets. Looking for ways to begin difficult conversations at work around equity, diversity, inclusivity? This article may help.
- That museums remember that no matter how carefully they construct their public face, boards, staff, and volunteers need to check bias at the door, and work to create open, authentic environments. Here’s a playlist of TED talks to share at work.
- Museums lead the way for nonprofits by becoming places where women DON’T experience sexual harassment. That means supporting women not just punishing men. Need some support? This one-pager from 9-5 might help.
- Museums lead the nonprofit world in board education and development.
- All museums articulate their organizational values and figure out tangible ways to live by them….every day. Doing so will keep them agile and responsive. The resources here and here will get you thinking about organizational culture and values.
- Museum boards commit to sharpening their governance knowledge; museum staff commit to sharpening their creative edge. Together, boards and staff commit their museums to becoming active and transparent learning organizations. What will you do to create the change that will make 2018 better?
- Museums emphasize building endowment as a key strategy leading to long-term financial stability. Coupled with community building grounded in a dynamic and relevant mission, the result is a museum at its most resilient in the face of economic and social change. This article from the Nonprofit Quarterly offers an excellent overview about what an endowment is and underscores the importance of organizational commitment to building and maintaining one.
- Museums make time to hit pause, to plan, to think big, fight mediocrity and encourage community engagement. Consider how you will nourish creativity among your staff.
- Museums commit to an open, fair, equitable hiring process; that they cease posting jobs without posting salaries, and that they stop insisting on a graduate degree for every position. Nicole Ivy’s article starts the conversation.
And don’t let the wishes end here. Let us know what you care about and what you wish for in 2018, and if you’d like to write a guest post, send us a writing sample, and a possible topic.
Anne Ackerson & Joan Baldwin
Workplace Misery: Advice for Supporting Colleagues
Posted: December 4, 2017 Filed under: Museum, museum career, museum staff, Nonprofit Leadership, Self-Aware, Work Habits | Tags: career, museums, nonprofit, self-worth, workplace culture 1 Comment
If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down. David Foster Wallace, “This is Water,” a commencement speech delivered at Kenyon College, May 2005
Over the past month, we’ve spoken to several people who are more than miserable in their jobs. We’ve also read tales of workplace misery on Facebook where individuals question how they should move forward in the wake of situations that redefine the phrase, “You can’t make this stuff up.”
Some of these situations are truly horrific, some frustrating, and some just examples of a museum worker’s really, really bad day. But one thing seems to be universal: Everybody tells the complainer to quit, to leave, to find the nirvana job. These comments come in a chorus. Some are couched in concern for the worker’s mental health as in “this can’t be healthy for you.” Some are little red flags demonstrating the listeners have heard enough as in, “I can give you some phone numbers if you think you’re ready to move on.” And some respond only to the technical details of whatever workplace horror the story outlines.
Maybe there’s another way though. Maybe since most of us aren’t social workers, psychologists, or HR people, maybe, in Post-Weinstein America, we ought to respond a little differently. First, remember you’re the listener or, in the case of Facebook, the reader. That’s your job. Just listen. Next, establish if the person feels safe at work. If they do not, are they experiencing sexual harassment, workplace bullying or simply horrific leadership? If they are not safe, if they are bullied or harassed online or in the workplace, a site like AAUW or the EEOC (and there are many more) can help with filing a harassment claim.
Part of listening–regardless of the nature of the individual narrative–is that leaving one job and getting another isn’t as simple as ordering on Amazon. Leave aside the competitive nature of today’s museum job search, there are also questions of partners, partner’s jobs, real estate, children, extended family, and love of place that tie us all to our positions. While walking out may be a healthy choice, it’s not always possible, and brings with it its own set of stresses, not least of which is no pay. So remember, advocating quitting is not always helpful.
And don’t let the person narrating a workplace complaint believe that because they work for the Who-Knows-Where-Historical-Society that this is business as usual, that non-profits aren’t subject to employment law. They are. Yes, it may require more courage or at least a special brand of courage to take on the big wigs in a small community as opposed to walking into HR at a big museum, but the law still applies.
Last, remember that sometimes humans just need to be heard. They need to know they’re valued. Channel your inner grandma: Smile and look people in the eye. If you can’t say anything nice, be quiet. Be kind. Be respectful. Say thank you. Model the place you want to work in, and build a better museum work culture.
Joan Baldwin
Leadership and Workplace Bullying
Posted: November 13, 2017 Filed under: Communication, Leadership, Leading Across Organizations, Museum, museum career, museum staff, Nonprofit Leadership, Workplace Bias, Workplace Bullying | Tags: Leadership, Leadership Matters, museums, nonprofit, workplace culture 8 Comments
First, we would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge Nexus LAB’s work on leadership released this week. Leadership Matters’ own Anne Ackerson was part of the team that worked for four years, talking, writing, designing better paths to leadership for museums, libraries, and archives. If you haven’t taken a look at the Layers of Leadership, print it, stick it up over your desk, and see where you and your colleagues are.
Next, we’d like to talk about an issue common to many workplaces not just museums. In the past month we’ve observed two organizations where staff were essentially hounded out of their positions. Neither organization is unsophisticated nor underfunded. Each has layers of leadership, and yet at the critical assistant or associate layer there was and is ongoing failure to lead. The “why” is not something we will ever know. The “how” speaks to executive directors who may believe their leadership teams function well, and not realize what’s going on. That in itself is a bit scary. As an ED, shouldn’t you be aware of everything that’s going on particularly when it comes to HR? And how well do you know your leadership team if, at the end of the day, they’ve forced someone to leave? What message does that send to remaining staff?
In a nutshell, both individuals, at very different organizations, were made aware that their performance wasn’t up to snuff. No, this wasn’t done in an annual performance review, nor was it done in a series of calm meetings with advance notice provided, where expectations were laid out and timelines set. Instead, associate/assistant directors criticized, berated, and belittled. The end game seemed to be to make the employee leave of his or her own accord. Whoa, you say, does that really happen? Yup. Probably more than anyone acknowledges.
There is no law against being Cruella Deville in the workplace. In fact, it’s one of the few places left where as long as you don’t cross the Title VII lines, you are allowed to be a bully. Should you be? Heck no. But can you be? Sure. These situations rarely happen once. They are often a series of incidents, that accrete over time; where, for example, responsibilities are subtly increased while authority is diminished. Or where an employee is constantly the victim of understated remarks about performance, ability, and organizational loyalty, often in public. Just to underscore how bullying this behavior is, it’s sometimes coupled with comments about the employee’s emotional state—“You seem angry;” or “You seem upset;” What can we do to work on that?” or “You know you need to keep your emotions in check at the workplace.” The latter is one frequently aimed at women. Public displays of emotion, particularly in the workplace, are hugely gendered. Studies show that men demonstrating anger makes them seem competent and may lead to promotion. Not so for women where anger–especially if it is coupled with tears– is perceived as the exact opposite–a lack of capability.
So, if you’re an executive director of an organization large enough to have a leadership team supervising staff, what should you do?
- Make sure you are apprised of all ongoing HR issues. Ask questions. Ask for transparency. If things are going as they should be, you’ll receive all the evidence you need. If they’re not, push back. Don’t assume.
- If you don’t have an HR office, seek advice from a professional particularly when an employee appears to be struggling. Does he or she have a job description? Has she had an annual performance review? Have her abilities changed overnight or has her supervisor changed? Who’s new on the team, and how was that transition handled?
- Make sure you have an equitable HR policy coupled with job descriptions for all staff.
- Know workplace bullying when you see it. Don’t tolerate it.
Joan Baldwin
Museums and Investing in Social Responsibility
Posted: November 6, 2017 Filed under: Leadership, Museum, Museum Boards, Museums Are Not Neutral, Nonprofit Leadership, Organizational Values | Tags: advocacy, museums, nonprofit, transparency, workplace culture 3 Comments
Thursday I spent the day at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Although I wore my “Museums are not neutral” T-shirt, I’m not sure anyone noticed. The topic of museum neutrality, however, is one that interests us here at Leadership Matters because it intersects directly with how museum directors lead, and the role museums and history organizations play in their communities.
Museum neutrality has been in the wind for a while now. For some it means, museums should openly take a stand on issues of community or national interest. For others, it means museums should use their scholarship to refute false narratives in an age of post-truthiness.
A notable example of a museum taking a stand took place last winter when the Trump administration banned travel and rescinded visas from seven majority-Muslim nations. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), usually a-political, responded by removing work by Picasso and Matisse and hanging paintings by living artists from the banned countries. And just in case MoMA’s selfie-taking audience missed what was going on, it labeled each newly-displayed painting with the following lines, making it crystal clear where it stood on the travel/immigration debate.
“This work is by an artist from a nation whose citizens are being denied entry into the United States, according to a presidential executive order issued on January 27, 2017. This is one of several such artworks from the Museum’s collection installed throughout the fifth-floor galleries to affirm the ideals of welcome and freedom as vital to this Museum, as they are to the United States.”
Given MoMA’s size, wealth, and presence in the art world, it’s likely that Glenn Lowry and his senior staff took more than a few minutes to decide how to respond to the travel ban. And given what we heard from Shankar Vedantam, National Public Radio’s Social Science correspondent this week, that’s a good idea. Vedantam reported on the risks CEO’s take when they invest in social responsibility. And based on the researchers he interviewed, doing good with corporate profits can be bad. Here’s why: In the corporate world everything points towards making money. No surprise there. And community aid, activism, diversity initiatives, and support for education don’t get the product out the door. Nonetheless, they do generate a lot of good will, and that should be good for the corporation, yes? Not necessarily.
Vedantam interviewed Timothy Hubbard who teaches at Notre Dame University. He and two colleagues studied what these types of community investments mean for CEOs’ careers. In a nutshell, here’s what Hubbard said, “We see this double-edged sword where if the firm is doing well, investments in corporate social responsibility can buffer a CEO from dismissal. But on the other hand, if there’s negative financial performance, it can really set the CEO up for a situation where they could likely be terminated.”
We aren’t aware of any work on whether acts of social responsibility by museum leadership shortens an executive director’s tenure, but since many museum board members come from the corporate world, it’s worth bearing in mind. Nonetheless, there is a difference between taking a stand, and taking a stand relating to facts, collections and the truth. Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellman, a CEO of the Gates Foundation, was also interviewed on NPR this week. Desmond-Hellman makes the point that,”Scientists can’t be ivory tower,” adding that “What we’re really hearing from people is I no longer trust authority.”
She suggests that scientists (and we would argue curators, conservators, museum educators, and directors) need to be part of the public dialog. She asks her fellow researchers when was the last time they attended a PTA meeting, Cub Scouts, your church, synagogue or mosque, adding “If we’re not part of that dialog, soon science won’t matter.” (And maybe history or culture?) She points out that in an age when the public relies more on emotion and personal belief than scientific evidence, then there’s a problem.
We believe first and foremost that museums have to understand their communities, and their entire community, not just the largely white, heterosexual, wealthy community who wanders their galleries and attends openings. But how do museums decide when and how to take a stand? Is what’s relevant to the director important to the community? And how about the board? As a director, if you take a stand will it matter to the people you’re trying to support? Does not being neutral mean being a good citizen, and how should an organization be a good citizen? How do museums engage their communities while being transparent?
Tell us what you think.
Joan Baldwin
Don’t Use Your Museum’s Nonprofit Status to Mask Real Workplace Threats
Posted: October 2, 2017 Filed under: Leadership, Leadership Development, Museum, Museum Boards, Nonprofit Leadership, Work/life balance, Workplace Bias, workplace diversity | Tags: museums, nonprofit, work-life balance, workplace culture Leave a comment
This week we read two great posts, one in Alliance Labs titled “Leaving the Museum Field,” and one on Know Your Own Bone titled “Does Being a Nonprofit Impact Perceptions of Cultural Organizations?” If you missed them, read them. Soon. There is so much good writing out there, but these two pieces, which strangely echo one another, deserve your attention. Why? Because the museum field has a problem. And it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
Both posts examine issues affecting the museum workplace. The Alliance Lab’s article, written by four mid-career professionals, looks at attrition in the field. It’s based on a survey, with over 1,000 responses, conducted by the authors. The top three reasons their respondents gave for leaving the field include low pay, “other,” which included racism, poor or no benefits, and the inability to get or keep a job, and poor work/life balance. According to their survey the tipping point for leaving seems to occur sometime in a museum worker’s first decade or 16-25 years into a career. Among the former, the issue driving folks away seems to be pay, among the latter, it’s work/life balance. Apparently an investment of more than 25 years in the museum field means you’re here to stay.
Know Your Own Bone’s Colleen Dilenschneider asks us to think about how museums hide behind their non-profit status. She points out that visitors often don’t know or really care whether an organization has its 501C3 designation. People, she says, are sector agnostic. The museum world, however, is not. Here’s Dilenschneider making the point that museum missions get lost in proclamations of non-profitness:
Here’s how Disney does messaging: We are Walt Disney World. We create magical, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Buy a ticket.
Here’s how some museums do messaging: “We are a museum! We are a nonprofit organization. Buy a ticket.
We would add that all too often the myriad workplace issues described in the Alliance Labs article are the result of museums and heritage organizations who believe being a non-profit gives them a pass on paying equitable wages, having a personnel policy or dealing with staff who are victims of sexual harassment or racism. In short, while museums may use their non-profit status as a mask, offering up mushy or mediocre mission statements, we would also argue that it allows too many boards to behave toward museum workplaces in ways that are not tolerated on the for-profit side of things.
As you might imagine, Leadership Matters isn’t convinced that workplace attrition by the field’s best and brightest is its only problem. Here are our top four threats to the museum workplace:
- The field is over-credentialed. Surely you don’t need an advanced degree to become a museum intern or an assistant to an assistant? Does a bachelor’s degree teach you nothing? How hard can it be for the museum job sector to get off the graduate degree merry-go-round?
- Pay is too low and demands are high. We’ve probably written about this more than anyone else. We are adamant that museum boards and leadership need to invest in their staffs–in their salaries, benefits and professional development. Is it possible that by investing in the best staff it could, a museum might find capital expenses would come easier? And is it possible that there’s a high degree of workplace burnout because in too many workplaces staff aren’t led, they’re managed (and managed badly).
- Leadership is frequently mediocre. There’s been a lot of work on leadership lately across the field, but more is needed. While more and more new museum professionals seem to understand that leadership is an ingredient of a strong career whether you end up in the corner office or not, there are still too many boards whose understanding of the museums they lead is poor, resulting in weak decision making. And we’re not convinced that boards aren’t still trying to shift their fiduciary responsibilities to a museum’s top spot, making the ED the chief fundraiser not the leader.
- Conditions for women and minorities are not great. This is a bad one, and a thorn in the field’s side. It’s an impediment to diversity, and–when you combine racism, sexism, lack of paid family leave, poor benefits and long hours– a leading cause of people leaving the field.
If the last decade was a time of big building, maybe the museum world’s next decade could be the time to invest in building leadership capacity at all levels. What will the field look like in 2027 if internships and lower level positions are populated by smart, interested humans fresh from college? What will it look like if many museums have endowed positions, shifting cash to other places on the spread sheet? What will it feel like to be the only part of the non-profit world where women’s wages–all women’s wages–are equitable? And what would it be like if all museum leaders weren’t afraid to demand staffs treat each other with tolerance. Nirvana, right? But it’s something to work for.
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We want to end this week’s post with hearty congratulations to our friends Bob Beatty and Steven Miller who both had books come out in September. They are: An American Association for State & Local History Guide to Making Public History (Bob) and The Anatomy of a Museum: An Insider’s Text (Steven). Bravo to two humans who’ve done a lot to prevent museum mediocrity!
Joan Baldwin
Who’s Leaving the Field and Why Data Matters
Posted: September 18, 2017 Filed under: Museum, museum salaries, Stay or go?, Work Habits, Work/life balance, Workplace Bias, workplace diversity | Tags: career, museums, nonprofit, workplace culture 7 Comments
This week there were a few articles and comments about the young and talented leaving the museum field. Principle among them was a post by Claire Milldrum on Paul Orselli’s blog. Pictured with her Corgi, she is apparently much happier in her post-museum life and for that Leadership Matters is glad.
We have written probably more than anyone else about work in the museum world. We have ranted about salaries, about living wages, and about the ridiculous cost of graduate school which, as Ms. Milldrum points out, seems to be the entry ticket for even the lowliest, most pathetic position at the biggest, fanciest museums. So don’t get us wrong when you read what comes next.
First and foremost one blog post is not data so everyone who commented as if this were a daily occurrence, where’s the data? Do we actually know how many young professionals leave the museum field before they actually start, scared off by the thought of low salaries (where there’s plenty of data) and high graduate school debt (where at least we have raw costs if not the number of students taking loans)?
Second, Milldrum conflates several things: galleries, libraries and museums, and work and internships, in all three sectors. While at the entry/internship level they may appear alike, in reality there are differences among the three fields. She also reports that she’s sad she’s not starting graduate school this month, but says she got into one of “the top grad schools in Library Science, and at one of them, a guaranteed student work job in my subfield.” Again, confusing because a masters in library science is not a degree in Museum Studies, art history or public history, it’s an MLS which provides entry to a field where the median salary is $57, 680, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and where the American Library Association lobbies hard for entry level salaries. Last, in my experience–and admittedly it’s only my experience–libraries do hire humans possessing only a bachelor’s degree for jobs not internships. They are not librarian jobs, but they are not internships, and allow a young professional a necessary window into the sector before they make a commitment to graduate school.
So while Milldrum’s career path was confusing, her charges about the museum world weren’t. It has a long and sorrowful history of maid-of-all-work internships that prepare participants for nothing except debt. And those type of internships are a not-so-subtle race and class barrier. (See The Diversity vs. Salary Question). Clearly, once she decided to forego graduate school and the museum world, Milldrum had the skill set to walk into a well-paying job in non-profit finance. And why couldn’t she have gotten a similar job in the museum world that would have allowed her a normal work week and a chance to go to the dentist? She’s clearly smart. She’s a good writer, and based her description of working both one job for pay, and another as a volunteer to build her resume, she’s a hard worker. Is the museum world really so rarified that it couldn’t stand an infusion of some folks with newly-minted bachelor’s degrees? I mean we love what we do, but this isn’t oncology after all.
Milldrum’s post isn’t data, but perhaps it’s a bellwether, and we owe it to ourselves to acknowledge that and compile the data. In the meantime, if you’re in museum HR or director of a small museum, would it hurt if you lobbied for an entry level position or two without a graduate degree? Is a master’s degree necessary for every job in your institution? If not, be the person who breaks the mold. Hire someone with smarts and passion and see what happens. The field will likely be better for it.
Joan Baldwin
Museum Workplace Confidential: An Opportunity for Women at the Met and Come See Us in Austin
Posted: August 28, 2017 Filed under: AAM, AASLH, gender equity, Leadership, Leadership and Gender, Museum, museum career | Tags: career, equality, Leadership, museums, workplace culture 1 Comment
We begin this week’s post with an invitation. For all of you traveling to Austin for AASLH’s annual meeting beginning September 6, we hope you will join us for “Workplace Confidential: Museum Women Talk Gender Equity,” a panel discussion on women in the museum workplace. Moderated by Anne Ackerson with panelists Ilene Frank, Shakia Gullette, Wyona Lynch McWhite, and Jessica Phillips, this panel is for everyone across the history museum world who has experienced gender-related workplace issues. It’s for emerging professionals who’ve had to deal with sexual harassment; it’s for women of color, who deal daily with the intricate intersection of low pay and benign racism, and for leaders who handle complex personnel issues daily. Panels like this one can’t wave a magic wand and send you home to a changed workplace, but they can help you feel you’re not alone, and offer advice and encouragement.
So if you’re going to be in Austin, we hope we’ll see you September 7 at 1:45 pm. Anne and I will also be around afterwards if you want a copy of our new book, Women in the Museum: Lessons from the Workplace. We’ll even sign it for you!
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Last week Artnet News ran an article titled “Is It Time for a Woman to Run the Metropolitan?” Their answer was a resounding yes, and just in case the Metropolitan’s interview list isn’t gender balanced, Artnet provided them with names of 11 stellar female candidates.
Leadership Matters would like to see the Metropolitan with a woman director too, but we’re going to go out on a limb here: The Met’s having a woman director is not the goal. The goal is equity in the hiring process. Frankly if the Met’s destiny is female leadership, history tells us now might be the moment. The museum has reorganized its leadership structure so that whoever becomes director will report to Daniel Weiss, President and COO. This “almost” position is a traditional spot for women. It is a place they frequently occupy in government museums, playing the role of task-oriented collaborator while the political appointee (often a white male) in the corner office is the performance based communicator. In addition, if you scan leadership positions in American museums, you will find that women are often hired to lead troubled organizations. Once they are off the respirator, they’re frequently handed back to a male leader.
Even though we wrote the book on women in the museum workplace, there’s something really depressing about parsing the leadership game by gender. In an equitable world we would assume that the Metropolitan’s top-five list might include women, people of color, and openly gay or queer candidates because we would assume that good leadership is good leadership. We would assume that as the country’s largest museum, the Metropolitan wants to lead by example. We would assume it incorporates blind screening into the hiring process, and that HR staff and board committees discussed how unintentional bias affects hiring. (They could learn a lot from AAM here.) Last, we would assume that the Metropolitan wants a professional with a proven track record and a particular skill set. This is very important for candidates who are not white males. Why? Because statistics show us that men are promoted on promise and potential while women are promoted on performance.
The bottom line? It would be awesome to see the Metropolitan join the Brooklyn Museum, giving us two organizations with budgets over $15,000, 000 with woman directors, but it’s the process we care more about. Changing lives for women leaders means museum workplace culture must change too, and that means boards need to be open, transparent, intentional, and as bias-free as possible in the hiring process. When it comes to hiring, boards need to recognize that what is paramount is the museum, not their private discomfort or uneasiness in the face of difference.
Joan Baldwin
Leadership Matters 