arts & business council

MetLife Foundation National Arts Forums Series

Past Forum Synopsis

Arts & Business Council of Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island

Building Effective Board Leadership in the Arts
06/21/2004

Panelists:

• Dr. Robert J. Allio, Allio Associates LLC
• Pamela W. Heffernan, Partner, Performance Management Associates

"Building Effective Board Leadership in the Arts" addressed a challenge many arts organizations face: ineffective or inefficient boards of directors. Targeting board members and executive directors, the forum offered critical insights and tools for building leadership within arts organizations and served as a springboard for future Arts & Business Council of Rhode Island programming around board issues.

Arts organizations everywhere are searching for additional resources: the board represents a latent resource that directors and administrators can mobilize to fill the gap. An enlightened board of directors can be the key to growing and sustaining a healthy organization. Likewise, when board directors fulfill their roles as leaders, the board can become an asset rather than a liability. But what, asked our presenters, are the leadership roles and responsibilities of a board, and how can we cultivate effective leadership?

The forum began with Pamela Heffernan leading a discussion on Servant Leadership as a model for creating a board culture of trust, respect, learning, and ethical behavior. Servant Leadership is a philosophy developed by Robert Greenleaf in which individuals demonstrate their "leadership position" through serving others, versus focusing on their own self interests and agendas. Servant leaders are not necessarily (although certainly can be) the individuals "in charge." Rather they are the people who decide to make a difference by their involvement in organizations and with other individuals. Through this involvement and service their reputation as a leader evolves. The skills associated with servant leadership are consensus building, collaboration, and active listening.

Dr. Robert Allio then explored what constitutes board governance failures and underperformance by highlighting examples from both corporate and nonprofit boards. He focused this discussion on the key management responsibilities of boards: fiscal health, endowment and fundraising, staff retention and development, and strategy.

Dr. Allio wrapped up the session by outlining four building blocks of effective board leadership:

• Designing the right board structure
• Selecting the right directors
• Assigning directors the right roles
• Asking the right questions

As boards and executives work toward developing these building blocks, they need to remember that no single standard works for all organizations, cautioned Dr. Allio. But there are best practices. Dr. Allio's guidance and framework helped attendees apply these lessons to their organizations.

This Forum provided an opportunity for board and staff to focus on leadership together. It started a dialogue within our arts and cultural community that will continue through future Arts & Business Council of Rhode Island programming.

Presenters Bios

Dr. Robert J. Allio, Allio Associates LLC, is an international authority on strategy. He offers a broad range of experience and has led top-level strategy consulting and management education projects for hundreds of firms in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and India.

Allio founded his first management consulting firm, Robert J. Allio & Associates, Inc., in Boston, after leaving Arthur D. Little in 1979. Over the past 24 years, his clients have included 3M; New York Life; GTE; Digital Equipment; Allied-Signal; Dominion Textile; Dupont; USX; Weyerhaeuser; and the U.S., Canadian, and Puerto Rican governments.

His corporate background includes senior operating experience with Babcock & Wilcox, General Electric, Noranda Mines, and Westinghouse Electric. His academic background includes positions as dean of the School of Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he was instrumental in launching one of the country's earliest successful incubator programs. He has also held an appointment as professor of management at Babson College.

Dr. Allio's publishing experiences is also significant. He has authored more than 100 articles on strategic management and four books. His latest, Seven Faces of Leadership, presents his perspective on strategy and leadership. In 1972, he founded Planning Review, a professional planning journal, serving as its editor and publisher until 1986. He currently serves as contributing editor for Strategy and Leadership Journal.

Dr. Allio has designed and led seminars on strategy and leadership for The Conference Board, Business Week, the YPO, and many other private and professional organizations. He is past president of the North American Society for Corporate Planning. He serves on the board of directors of several private firms, and has also been active with several incubator and venture capital groups.

He has worked with a number of arts organization and served as a founding board member of the Arts & Business Council of New York.

Pamela W. Heffernan, partner, Performance Management Associates, has brought more than 20 years of leadership, management, technical, and sales experience to the companies she has worked with. She has a strong history of demonstrated results throughout her career.

Ms. Heffernan developed her leadership skills by tackling challenging tasks throughout her 14-year career with IBM Corporation. She started with IBM in the late 1970s as a marketing support representative. Her career moved quickly through a host of sales, sales management, and staff management positions. In the late 1980s Ms. Heffernan was one of the first managers to take over a software sales group within the IBM sales organization. She led a group of professionals whose mission was to introduce IBM customers in the Northeast to a host of new software applications.

In 1991, she was recruited to a software company in Rhode Island to head up their support services. As vice president of product and customer services, she had responsibility for product quality, sales support, education and training, distribution, and customer satisfaction.

Ms. Heffernan and her partner, Mary Alice Callahan, formed Performance Management Associates in 1993. Their mission is to provide top quality, innovative, and customized training solutions for their clients.

Ms. Heffernan is a graduate of Holy Cross College. She is past president of the Rhode Island Special Olympics, an organization she has been involved with for more than eight years. Her community involvement includes being president of Partners In Education in her hometown of Cumberland, RI. She also chaired the 1997, 2001, and 2002 Program Committees for Leadership Rhode Island, an organization devoted to building leaders within the business community. She currently sits on the board of that organization.