104631
Leadership Success in a Crisis Environment: A Leader’s Crisis Management Checklist
The spotlight of a crisis environment illuminates the character, values, and worth of a leader. As you prioritize functions, maintain order, and move the enterprise’s decision-making horizon further ahead, be reminded of the following principles for effective crisis management: Take stock of your assets. Maximize the good will and revenue potential of those programs and services whose value is increased by the new and changing environment. Manage time. Manage key external decisions. Manage perception of the crisis by key audiences. Review delegation in light of the tasks at hand. And think “collective impact.” This concludes a series of blogs intended to stimulate dialog about characteristics desirable in leaders during crises, the ways effective crisis managers think, the special needs and opportunities for leadership during crises, and the management principles that prove most valuable during crises.
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104626
Spotlight on 2020 Johnson Fellowship Nominees: Creating Space(s) to Activate Artistic and Cultural
Venus De Mars and Luke Stewart are among the 11 exemplary music artist nominees for Americans for the Arts’ 2020 Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities featured in our ongoing ARTSblog series. At different career stages, these artist-activists may be considered by some on the musical fringes. What they hold in common is a steady and deliberate dedication to bringing their communities out of the margins and advancing and improving conditions for them to thrive. As a punk rock singer-songwriter and transgender woman, Venus’ performances, speaking, and compassionate presence have created spaces of affirmation and communion for transgender people and fostered openness and understanding among audiences across the gender spectrum. Luke moves effortlessly between artist communities in jazz, DIY punk rock, and, most of all, improvised music. He uses his improvisation skills to be alert to and advance conditions that will allow musicians across these genres to create, perform, and learn from one another, while expanding appreciation and audiences for their work.
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104620
Leadership Success in a Crisis Environment: Leaders Demonstrate Value during Crises
This blog considers leadership action during the kind of crisis caused by a ubiquitous challenge that imperils the value in many kinds of transactions and organizations. Its examples are current actions being taken by the arts and cultural community in the following ways: Demonstrating concern for the challenges others face; making a special effort in a crisis environment to learn the current values and priorities of your stakeholders; taking advantage of opportunities to demonstrate the ways in which you can be of value and service consistent with your mission; motivating your stakeholder groups such as board and donors with opportunities to play meaningful roles to advance recovery and reposition the enterprise; and considering the lasting benefits of leading collective coping and organizing strategies. Treating others with empathy, generosity, and family feeling when everyone shares adversity will strengthen their support for you now and in the future.
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104595
Leadership Success in a Crisis Environment: A Perspective on Decision Making
During the kind of crisis caused by a ubiquitous challenge that disrupts the general operational environment, how can we stimulate, organize, and retrieve our best thinking when we need it? Where your daily actions and thoughts take you is going to provide you with questions and observations and insights, but not necessarily when you want them or when you can use them. But, if you organize your thoughts as they happen, you’ll position yourself to use and communicate them clearly, when the occasion is right, and in a way that both shows the reasoning and how your ideas will apply in the future. In mid-crisis, it’s difficult to make decisions about the future because so many variables are unclear, but it’s very useful to recognize and prepare for the kinds of decisions that will need to made in the very near future.
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104590
Leadership Success in a Crisis Environment: Leadership Roles and Goals
What should artistic and cultural leaders aspire to exemplify and accomplish in a time of crisis? Some crises are caused by an operational problem that approaches or passes a point where the survival of the enterprise is at risk. Other crises may impact before their cause is readily understood, with such impact or with such complexity that a leader must act before optimal information can be gathered. Let us focus on a third kind of crisis: one caused by a ubiquitous challenge that imperils the value in many kinds of transactions and organizations, threatening or disrupting the general operational environment. The COVID-19 pandemic fits this description. So does racism (about which there are many lessons to be learned by considering for whom this issue has been a crisis their entire lives and for whom this issue is perceived as a crisis more recently—and why). This blog is intended to stimulate dialog about characteristics desirable in leaders during crises, the ways effective crisis managers think, the special needs and opportunities for leadership during crises, and the management principles that prove most valuable during crises.
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103971
Spotlight on 2020 Johnson Fellowship Nominees: Women Musicians Elevating Black Culture, History,
In this blog, we feature Courtney Bryan and Ashleigh Gordon, two of the 11 music artists who were the exemplary nominees for the 2020 Johnson Fellowship. As consummate musicians in contemporary genres, each thrives on the stimulation of artistic collaboration with fellow musicians, poets, writers, and dancers, but also drives the collective work that builds strength as socially engaged artists. These artists advance self-representation and advocate for cultural equity in the music field, creating music and curating programs that showcase and elevate Black culture and excellence. Importantly, themes of racial justice serve as sources of inspiration and a reservoir of strength in their ongoing support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Committed to spirit and always to beauty, Bryan’s music responds to the present, confronting contemporary social injustices in her home city of New Orleans and across the globe. In her home community of Boston, Gordon is a musical force whose goal is to foster cultural curiosity about, and celebrate the music of, Black composers.
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103944
How Public Art Programs Can Join the Movement Against Police Brutality, White Supremacy, and Anti-
On May 25, 2020, Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin brutally murdered George Floyd, an unarmed Black father accused of issuing a counterfeit $20 bill, while other police officers stood by. This tragedy, following many other recent police-involved shootings of unarmed Black men and women that have been broadcasted and protested nationwide, has sparked renewed and global visibility for the Black Lives Matter movement. This most recent wave of protests has prompted a discussion within the public art field: How can public art respond to the Black Lives Matters movement? Should it? What will we do about the public artwork that is being tagged and damaged during these protests? Public art, at its best, is an authentic reflection of our times and values. Public art should reflect the community around it, and represent the hopes, lives, and aspirations of the people in that community. What we can do as public art policy makers and administrators is uplift those voices in our communities that are calling for justice and equal protection for people of color under the law. It is time to talk about the lack of diversity within our public art commissions, artist selection panels, and our public art workforce. We need to address the elitism with which we dictate to communities which artworks are acceptable, and which persons and cultures are worth affirming with monuments and beautiful objects.
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103719
Business Spotlight: Hotel Leverages Arts to Welcome Community and Social Transformation
For over 10 years, The Betsy has been celebrated as one of the world’s great art hotels, known for a unique artist in residence program, high profile exhibitions by globally-known artists, creating and nurturing a place for poetry in Miami, and placing classical music and jazz side-by-side in daily performances by the best and brightest players in all genres. We live in challenging times. We need the arts (and artists) more than ever, but at the moment almost 62% of artists are unemployed. Even when they were working, many were in a struggle to survive. This needs to change, and here’s why: To solve the problems of our world—whether one is thinking macro or micro—we need to include individuals who think in new ways. Keeping the status quo just is not going to work when the stakes are so high. So, our challenge is to continue to advocate for the power of the arts. Even as we recognize that although artists “will always find a way” to do their work, we need to support creative enterprise at the highest levels.
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103705
Artists as Essential Workers with and within Local Government: Models & 3 New Resources for a
In early April, as the City of Boston became an escalating COVID-19 “hot spot,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s office responded with forceful measures on many fronts. In the midst of extreme circumstances, on April 3, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture (MOAC) also announced the fourth cohort of artists-in-residence in its Boston AIR program. The program pairs local artists and staff from City of Boston departments to co-design projects that test new approaches to City policies and processes and that often address the social and political context of that year. In the years ahead, municipal and county government officials face unfathomable challenges in recovery and reconstruction stemming from COVID-19. Programs such as Boston AIR and Los Angeles County's Creative Strategist Artist-in-Residence have demonstrated that artists working in partnership with government are essential workers who bring creative practices and solutions to issues that municipalities face. Local arts councils and commissions often play a big role in conceiving and coordinating these programs in tandem with local government.
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103697
How to Combat Gentrification (and Save an Arts Community)
We all know that the arts can be seen as superfluous, or non-essential, especially in times of crisis or economic hardship. This was certainly the case for the small, working-class community of Elysian Valley (aka Frogtown), a mixed-use neighborhood along the Los Angeles River in the center of the city. In the middle of the last decade, residents of the area (with a mixture of Latino and Asian ancestries) co-existed uneasily with a small group of artists and craftspeople who (sometimes illegally) occupied the former manufacturing buildings lining the river. The relationship between the two groups was non-existent at best, and full of suspicion at worst. In 2006, a small group of artists, architects, and craftspeople came together to create the first Frogtown Artwalk. The event was intended to bring together and to support the creative group of individuals operating “in the shadows” of the area. The initial Artwalk, held in November, was small, underlit, and sparsely attended—nevertheless, an arts community was born.
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103699
10 Reasons to Invest in Your Local Arts Agency During a Crisis
Cities are in trouble. A new report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and National League of Cities—The Economy and Cities: What America’s Local Leaders are Seeing—shows that effectively every city, county, and town in America is expecting a budget shortfall this year. “[The] coronavirus will have a staggering impact on municipal employment,” notes the report, with about half expecting layoffs or furloughs. Depending on population size, 50% to 75% of municipalities will cut public services—and more than half expect that to include police. With cities facing their most severe budget headwinds in generations, every sector of government can expect to be scrutinized to gauge impact on the community, including the nation’s 4,500 local arts agencies (LAAs)—arts councils, arts commissions, cultural affairs departments that lead, cultivate, and support an environment in which arts and culture can thrive. They ensure vibrant and accessible arts experiences for all. LAAs are an essential tool for local leaders as they work to rebuild their economy and promote social cohesion in the wake of COVID-19. Here are 10 reasons why investing in LAAs benefits everyone.
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