Leading a museum requires knowledge about the key changes of the field and an idea about the future. Museums have been described as mausoleums, cemeteries, temples, laboratories, places of reflection, platforms, meditation chambers and much more (Noever 2001). They form the collective memory of society (Urry 1996). Since the turn of the 21st century, strategies for displays, collections, education, audience development, branding and funding have transformed mu- seum management. Buzzwords have changed from the discursive museum to the inclusive, participatory and beyond, and so have expectations. The museum’s
client group consists of visitors onsite and online, funders, donors, the media and academia, as well as politicians and decision makers.
Professionals need to understand the complexity of the culture industries and the links from the museum’s own activities to the larger whole, meaning society at large. Many of the world’s leading museums draw record numbers of visitors, i.e., millions of people, thus contributing to the economy of a city, a region and even a country. Culture is seen even as a way to brand a region, the Nordic countries for example (Asplund & Fransson 2018, pp. 199–202). Culture has both direct and indirect impact value.
One could ask: What would then be the ideal combination of competencies to run a museum? The question is not new, quite the contrary. Already in 1978, the Association of Art Museum Directors (in the USA) stated that it makes more sense to train art historians to be managers than to train administrators to un- derstand the role of museums. Stephen E. Weil, deputy director of the Smithso- nian’s Hirshorn Museum and later senior scholar emeritus at the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, continued to analyse the question by comparing the pros and cons of the discipline specialist vs. the management generalist. He argued that the managerial generalist cannot be expected to have
“the education or experience that would enable him successfully to formulate a consistent, persuasive, informed and authoritative point of view with respect to the museum’s subject matter” (Weil 1990, p. 103).
I could not agree with Weil more. The reason is very simple: the director uses the voice of the museum and that voice needs to be trusted. The competence that is required from a director is much deeper than the capacity to master Excel-sheets and budgets, fundraising and investment plans. He or she must have an academic profile, a field of expertise that an organisation consisting of hard-core specialists can trust. The director is expected to cope even during the toughest times and have the guts to fight for the institution through good and bad. Most importantly, the director must understand what the museum is and to whom it is, and make sure that personnel is on board.
Certain core competencies required from museum leadership can be identified no matter which decade or century we are looking at. Put simply, we are dis- cussing connoisseurship, understanding numbers and getting along with peo- ple. Apart from that, the director has to understand how the museum relates to society, and the other way around. He or she must have eyes open for the new competencies that the institution needs in order to succeed in a complex world. This can be translated into a recipe for successful museums, which has been illustrated in figure 1.
Figure 1.
The museum staff must have the right competencies in place and understand that needs change when the environment changes. When I began my career at the end of 1980s, there was hardly anyone working with information and marketing issues, not to mention fundraising, IT or environmental issues. They were skills that became important only when new requirements created new imperatives: museums needed more visitors (and ticket income) and broader external funding. Technology, in turn, opened new possibilities that changed the ways of communicating. Today, such skills as cultural literacy and diversity awareness, audience development, sales, ecological planning, trend analysis and future research belong to the list. Once competencies are in place, muse- ums must invest in their staff members, their wellbeing and the professional development. Diversity in the work force creates a positive spiral. From the leadership perspective, investing in people, connoisseurship and new compe- tencies are of crucial importance. Hiring the right people for the right positions creates possibilities, whereas wrong choices hit hard like bad investments – not least because museum professionals tend to work a long time at the same place.
Forbes Magazine listed the 10+ most important job skills every company would be looking for in 2020, with a footnote that according to the World Economic Forum 35 percent of the skills that we see as essential today will change in only five years. The list included skills such as data literacy, critical thinking, creativity and emotional intelligence, as well as cultural intelligence and diver- sity. Strong cultural intelligence was seen as an asset needed to develop more inclusive products and services. Creativity, in turn, was described as critical for any workplace for moving forward (Marr 2019). One could also add agility and tolerance to the list.
Another element in figure 1 refers to balancing and securing the museum’s re- sources. The strategy points out the priorities and tells us what to do – but also what not to do. That is also needed because the world is full of exciting projects.
Resources are quite often understood solely as funding, but that is only one third of the pie. The two other thirds are skills and time. The museum might have huge potential for development, but if the people are not right, their competencies are outdated or of low quality or if they randomly do this and that instead of focusing to the strategic areas, the whole organisation will end up facing severe problems. Therefore, the skills and competencies plan is as important as the financial plan, and it is critically important that staff members use their work hours wisely. For example, if a chief curator needs a whole week to prepare a
standard lecture, it might be better not to give the lecture at all. But if the lecture is strategically significant and contributes to the success of the museum, then it might be time well spent.
Strengthening financial resources requires new ways of collaborating with ex- ternal stakeholders, as well as new thinking. In the 1980s and 1990s in Finland, sponsorship was a relatively new phenomenon in the cultural field and the rules were very straightforward. The museum received a lump sum of money and published the sponsor’s logo in connection with the exhibition. International contemporary art exhibition ARS95 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Hel- sinki, housed at the Ateneum building at the time, changed that scene in Finland.
ARS95 was one of the first heavily sponsored exhibitions that also developed a new language between the museum and its funders. Sponsors’ visibility was defined according to the size of the contribution and the companies also used the exhibition as a venue for customer events. The new funding system created some debate, and opinions were divided: one group saw opportunities for the museum and the arts in general, but the other group despised the idea that a publicly-funded museum took money from the outside. The criticism was linked to fear of the commercialised and Americanised way of running a museum, thinking that the autonomy of the museum might be threatened.
Nowadays, sponsorship is a much wider concept than the exchange of money or services against company visibility on the museum’s onsite and online platforms.
Instead, one should be able to specify what the added value is that collaboration brings to the museum and, ultimately, to members of the public. What would be the societal impact of such collaboration? As an example, a company can fund an activity that brings art to the people who would not otherwise have an opportunity for that kind of an encounter, or make sure that the museum can afford longer opening hours, as Friday Lates, which are popular in several museums from, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London to MoMa in New York, demonstrate.
The third focus area presented in figure 1 is related to contributing to the suc- cess and well-being of society. Museums are never cut off from the rest of the society or the people living in it. Helpful questions are: How does the museum articulate its contribution for the benefit of the people? What is the impact of museums? How can this be demonstrated? This is discussed in more detail in the next section.