Going slow now to go fast later
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I have the privilege to co-lead Birmingham Museums Trust. Taking over the helm at the height of Covid-19, everything that could be disrupted has been. Now we get to invent our future.
More than ever, I know our work matters. Our museums can be places for connection, trust, social spaces and contribute to societal pillars like wellbeing and lifelong learning.
The fact is that change is constant. Change typically happens seemingly very slowly, and it is often hard to notice. However Covid rapidly accelerated some trends, bringing them to our attention.
In a recent staff survey 92% said they wanted to retain some form of home or flexible work.
The museum world hasn’t changed much in over forty years. If we rewound the clock even further to the late 1800s the Trust would probably look pretty similar too.
Our intentions have been good but in practice we don’t serve everybody. Museums are by design a thing of scarcity.
We have been on a treadmill, believing that the only metric that matters is people through the door. In part because this is easy to measure but mostly because our current business model relies on visitor spending onsite.
For example, we have always been too distracted to embrace digital technology even though the Web has been around since 1989. Today, 96% of households in Great Britain have access to the internet. Young people watch more streaming video than live broadcast TV. That is a scale I cannot ignore any longer and the cost of entry has never been lower.
The fact that Digital often sits under Marketing rather than Engagement shows our lack of understanding of technology for making connections and doing serious museum work. Yet 2020 showed us that not only was it possible, but it could be wonderful.
Through online activity we have unlocked something which breaks down some of the scarcity that a physical space creates.
Furthermore, we have seen that how we work could be something different. In a recent staff survey 92% said they wanted to retain some form of home or flexible work. It is not home working vs hybrid vs the office but something very different. Underneath the forced experiment of working from home is a deeper question about how our museum is designed and should operate in the modern age. What am I paying staff for? Their presence 9-5? A specified output? Or something else entirely? What does this alternative unlock?
The change won’t happen quickly, but now we know there are opportunities to be different. If we want to be around in the future, our organisation will have to change, step by step.
I feel I have a duty to lay fertile ground now that will serve us in the long term. After all, we hold our collections, stories and assets in perpetuity. I need to design an organisation that will roll with the slow trends as they ebb and flow. I need to do this amongst a background of change being constant and I can’t see into the future.
I’d rather take the time now and slowly build momentum than wait on the fence.
To do this I have started with a simple proposition which is that ‘If I can meet the needs of real people, I can build a business model around it’.
What could we look like if we dived deeply into knowing what people need from us? For example, if people are interested in the industrial revolution all over the globe, what stops us from seeing them as our target audience and not just schools within an hour’s drive?
If Covid-19 has accelerated existing trends, what are they? Here are some of the questions I’m considering, as a leader:
To be of the community how do I share power both in terms of the creation and consumption of culture?
Public funding has been slowly reducing, so how can I evolve my current business models?
If being in an office isn’t the only way, what are the opportunities to rethink what we call work and how we do it?
People have embraced digital wallets and buying online, how can we make the most of the opportunities this presents?
Digital currency is now a thing, what does this mean for us?
Automation of services, especially using machine learning is happening at scale in other sectors, what does that mean?
Do we need to become a media company to reach more people?
If we are part media company how does that change us?
How will smart buildings and smart cities impact our physical spaces?
Being an incumbent makes us slow and more risk adverse, how can re-invent our culture and organisation?
How can our organisation be better data-informed?
The skills for all of the above aren’t common in the sector, how can I afford to invest in an uncertain future?
Now is the time to get prepared, be brave and try the things we’ve long been unsure of. We can either do the work and try and learn, or wait for outside factors to force us to change. I’d rather take the time now and slowly build momentum than wait on the fence.
I don’t know what the future holds but I do know that it will always be focused on real people’s needs.
More about Dynamism
Find out more about the Dynamism investment principle:
Take a look at the Dynamism resources in the Investment Principles Resource Hub >
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