2024-01-16 13:46
This beauty course is not aimed at putting beauty in service of business. My aim is the opposite. I want leaders to put business in service of beauty.
Diane Ragsdale (2022)
The world los… Read More
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The Artful Manager | Andrew Taylor
2023-06-01 12:00
I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about human cognition – about how we make sense and take action. The useful answer describes a combo platter of species-wide sense-making sys… Read More
2023-05-03 14:39
Any strategy or plan for future action is essentially a story. It describes the present and coming world, the dynamics of the past that invoked them both, and the actions that will propel an… Read More
2023-05-01 19:11
The Arts Management Program at American University has just posted a full-time contract faculty position for the coming Fall. If you’re interested in joining an amazing learning commun… Read More
2023-02-24 16:19
This post is a reprint of the most recent ArtsManaged Field Notes, a weekly email I send every Tuesday morning on the process and practice of Arts Management. Subscribe to get future edition… Read More
2023-02-15 16:24
The Google Books Ngram Viewer offers an interesting way to track the popularity of a term over time. The service draws from the scanned contents of tens of millions of books encoded by Googl… Read More
2023-02-08 21:07
I’m honored to serve on the governing board of Fractured Atlas, a national organization that helps creative people and creative projects along their journey with fundraising tools, edu… Read More
2023-01-20 15:13
If you and I make a plan to meet for coffee, next Tuesday at 1:00 pm, in a cafe on the second floor of a building downtown, what are we doing exactly? It’s easy to say that “we&r&hell…Read More
2023-01-11 14:36
I’m thrilled to announce the public launch of a new experiment, the #ArtsManaged initiative – a series of digital resources exploring and advancing the practice of Arts Managemen… Read More
2022-11-07 15:00
Managers of all sorts, including arts managers, frequently have to decide about complexity. When we select technology tools, rent/build/buy buildings, make policy, build teams, or develop wo… Read More
2022-10-27 19:41
The more I learn about cognitive science, the more I realize that our work in purposeful collective action – such as Arts Management – is built on faulty premises. We think, talk… Read More
2022-09-12 14:00
The balance sheet may be a “beast of boredom” for many in the world of the nonprofit arts. But I propose that it’s one of the most essential and evocative lenses on our wor… Read More
2022-08-26 01:34
This will be far off in the strange-o-sphere for many, but I’ve been working to describe lived human experience in a way that’s useful to practicing, learning, and teaching Arts… Read More
2022-08-19 13:31
The new episode in the ArtsManaged video series explores the PAEI Framework by Ichak Adizes, which defines four styles of management, or “concern structures,” that might be domin… Read More
2022-08-18 13:47
I’m slowly coming around to realize that the bulk of our management thinking, training, and practice is built on a useful delusion – that moving through time is like moving throu… Read More
2022-08-12 15:54
It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.Søren Kierkegaard
Photo by… Read More
2022-07-26 13:01
The latest edition in the #ArtsManaged video series explores marketing in the arts, and the useful framework of “search,” “experience,” and “credence” goo… Read More
2022-07-21 14:54
Emotion is a core element of expressive action — both in the conception and creation of new work, and in all of the collective human effort that brings that work into the world. We oft… Read More
2022-05-30 13:16
I’m in Lugano, Switzerland, for the Global Cultural Districts Network convening (it is odd, unnerving, and glorious to be traveling again). And I just had to take the opportunity of t… Read More
2022-04-21 17:01
The latest episode in the #ArtsManaged video series explores governance, that weird world of collective leadership that inspires and requires so many books, articles, workshops, and difficul… Read More
2022-03-31 21:08
Defining an artist is both simple — an artist is a person who makes art — and treacherous. In the context of Arts Management, cultural policy, or public practice, your particular… Read More
2022-03-17 18:31
Whenever you’re dealing with complex and entangled issues of human behavior (and honestly, when AREN’T you?), there are three words that can help you find a path to clarity, insi… Read More
2022-03-10 19:49
Episode 4 in the #ArtsManaged video series explores the concept and components of a “business model.” As I continue the search for the cleanest and clearest definition, I’m… Read More
2022-03-03 16:22
A brand new episode in the #ArtsManaged series focuses on what a nonprofit arts organization is, and why they exist. You’ll also find an overview of three broad “sectors” w… Read More
2022-02-24 15:01
Back in November, I posted about Twelve Functions of Arts Management as a first attempt at a list of key/core clusters of action in the arts manager’s toolbox. I received some great fe… Read More
2022-02-17 16:50
As I wander the web, I notice only a few basic and foundational resources for arts and cultural managers, or those who aspire to the work. This is particularly true among short-form, video/m… Read More
2021-12-03 14:21
Why is it that some arts initiatives or disciplines tend toward commercial markets, others non-commercial? Some tend toward complex and durable nonprofit organizational forms and some toward… Read More
2021-11-29 16:48
Ask any arts professional or arts-management academic about the “functions” of arts management and they will likely have a ready list in mind. Production, marketing, management… Read More
2021-10-28 14:08
Way back in 2011, I took a shot at defining what a master’s degree in Arts Administration (aka Arts Management) was about. And in the process, I also (kind of) defined what Arts Manage… Read More
2021-10-12 13:58
It is strangely common to talk about our brain and our body as separate entities. Or to consider our senses and sensibilities as opposites, at war with each other. And yet, even a cursory ex… Read More
2021-09-16 17:33
It’s common to consider our brains as reactive – receiving sensory information from our bodies and our environments, making sense of that inbound information, and directing our r… Read More
2021-09-03 13:29
It’s a surprising and sobering truth that, after centuries of scientific inquiry, we only understand a tiny fraction of what makes up our universe. Everything we can see and name and t… Read More
2021-09-03 13:29
It’s a surprising and sobering truth that, after centuries of scientific inquiry, we only understand a tiny fraction of what makes up our universe. Everything we can see and name and t… Read More
2021-06-04 01:03
I’m thrilled to announce the publication of The Artful Manager: Field Notes on the Business of Arts and Culture in paperback and eBook formats (Kindle or Apple Book). This book gat… Read More
2021-03-25 15:37
The approaching summer is showing glimpses and glimmers of return to live performance in shared settings. Many theater, dance, and music companies are relaunching or reconfiguring themselves… Read More
2021-02-24 18:48
This story may sound like a metaphor. But it’s actually a case-in-point:
When preparing to launch the Navigation Technology Satellite 2 (NTS-2) in 1977, the NAVSTAR GPS engineering… Read More
2021-02-17 21:26
As the chaos and confusion of the global pandemic shows distant glimpses of something less chaotic (by Fall, or Winter, or Spring, or…), the question of “strategy” is emer… Read More
2020-04-27 17:29
While most performing arts organizations are still in the midst of emergency action around their current reality (safety, solvency, and immediate service, as mentioned in a previous post), m… Read More
2020-04-03 16:48
These past few weeks, a whole world of arts organizations have been searching for, revisiting, or assembling-on-the-fly their emergency readiness plans as the pandemic turns that world upsid… Read More
2020-01-28 11:50
When we “go to work” in the arts, we often mean actually going to an official and shared physical workspace. There are desks and phones and (sometimes) doors and walls where grou… Read More
2020-01-18 22:12
When we talk about organizations, or other forms of collective action by groups of people, we often speak as if we have dominantly conscious control. We talk about designing the business, de… Read More
2019-05-07 15:19
The recent book, A Restless Art: How participation won and why it matters, offers a beautiful balance between theory and practice, abstract and concrete. The author, François Matarass… Read More
2019-04-30 13:23
For a second video interview for my Presenting the Performing Arts class at American University, I talked with Mark Nerenhausen, President/CEO of Hennepin Theatre Trust in Minneapolis. While… Read More
2019-04-18 17:54
Nonprofit Quarterly has a thoughtful overview of complexity and sensemaking as they relate to organizations, the first of a four-part series on the subject. The general idea is that purpose… Read More
2019-04-01 15:28
The New York Times apparently wants us all to be more productive, since it’s hammering away at the subject from many fronts. In one article, Charlotte Lieberman tells us that procrasti… Read More
2019-03-11 17:52
In support of this semester’s “Presenting the Performing Arts” course at American University, I’ve started a series of video interviews with performing arts professio… Read More
2019-01-02 20:55
For over a year now, I’ve been stewing on and adapting the independent work of E.F. Schumacher and Ken Wilber (citations below), both of whom explore and explain what a “whole&rd&hell…Read More
2018-08-10 14:08
In the U.S. we’ve agreed to disagree about what to call that “other” sector of collective action that isn’t private (aka, privately owned business) and isn’t pu… Read More
2018-07-14 12:00
This week marks the 15th anniversary of the launch of The Artful Manager blog, brought to life through the invitation and innovative brilliance of ArtsJournal editor Doug McLennan, and my ow… Read More
2018-06-25 12:30
The yelling and pointing in our current civic environment keeps me going back to futurist Paul Saffo and his mantra: “strong opinions, weakly held.” In his extensive work explori… Read More
2018-05-30 18:42
There are countless ways to categorize collective human action (by legal entity, by sector, by formal/informal structure, by tax status, by geography, and on and on). But sociologist/politic… Read More
2018-05-16 18:06
One of the remarkable attributes of experts in a discipline or domain is how quickly they can assess and respond to a complex moment. In a flash, it seems, they cut through the noise, &ldquo&hell…Read More
2018-02-27 13:27
So much of leadership, management, and change narrative is about “gap analysis.” The thinking goes that we achieve a desired future by describing a bold vision, defining our curr… Read More
2018-02-21 13:04
It’s common modern practice to consider art and commerce in opposition to each other, and artists and accountants as cartoonish polar opposites, as well. But it wasn’t always so… Read More
2018-01-03 19:01
The idea of “best practices” has always driven me a bit nuts. The world is full of complexity and context and interconnections, I figured. How could any “one way” or… Read More
2017-11-17 17:55
The new episode of my “Concept Test Kitchen” explores the PAEI Code, a framework by Ichak Adizes to explore the four functions/concerns of management and their interplay and impl… Read More
2017-10-12 19:04
We often talk about an organization having a mission, as if the organization exists as some separate entity with its own individual will. But increasingly I’m wondering if that attribu… Read More
2017-09-14 17:14
I’m launching a new experiment with this pilot episode of “Concept Test Kitchen” — a video series presenting interesting frameworks or approaches to arts management (… Read More
2017-09-13 14:53
My previous post suggested a multi-layered view of our work in arts organizations, including attention to the nouns of our ‘products’ or ‘outcomes,’ the verbs of our… Read More
2017-09-06 17:21
So much of our training, theory, practice, and focus in cultural management has to do with outcomes and processes. When we look to improve how our organizations ‘work’, we tend t… Read More
2017-06-28 14:00
A former professor of mine used to say that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into kinds of people, and those who don’t. Now as a professor myself… Read More
2017-06-19 15:34
One of the core actions of aesthetic/artistic attention is to step back – to make a little space between yourself and the object of your attention, so you can see it as it is, rather t… Read More
2017-06-07 15:02
If you work in the arts in higher education (or any education, for that matter), you are likely talking or hearing more about “complex problems,” or perhaps “wicked problem… Read More
2017-06-01 16:52
The idea of “belonging” has long been a key point of aspiration and advocacy for the arts. Art builds empathy. Art builds community. Art infuses a sense of belonging into a world… Read More
2017-05-30 16:27
Arts initiatives that seek social change often face an identity crisis: They are driven by passion, purpose, meaning, and making, but they are generally described and evaluated by more tradi… Read More
2017-04-06 15:12
We talk a lot in the arts about being “accessible” — which tends to mean open and available to many different people. The assumption (and often the experience) is that a lo… Read More
2017-04-04 12:00
One of my favorite moments in any planning or strategy meeting is when someone looks suddenly resolute, and says something like: “You know what the problem is? The problem is that we d… Read More
2017-02-01 15:57
When faced with stress or dramatic change in our environment, we humans have a tendency to conflate things in our thinking — to bundle two or more separate ideas or issues or observati… Read More
2017-01-19 16:37
I haven’t been able to assemble many words since November, so I’m grateful for those who have. On the one hand, thoughtful rhetoric and reasoned language seem increasingly discou… Read More
2016-10-19 13:15
I’ve offered a few posts recently on the craft and qualities of language in advancing purposeful work. Torbert et al’s “four parts of speech” described the different… Read More
2016-09-26 14:28
Most of us have been admonished from an early age to “think before you speak.” But it turns out that speaking doesn’t work that way. Studies in psycholinguistics (Smith and… Read More
2016-09-21 14:21
In my last post, I shared four forms of speech (Torbert et al) that define a richer and clearer palette of conversation in meetings (or in life). The two I find most absent or abused in purp… Read More
2016-09-07 14:30
With a new academic year now begun, I’m noticing again how odd and awful meetings can be. People of strong intellect and good intent, when gathered over an agenda (or a lack thereof)… Read More
2016-06-30 15:29
It can be comforting when a solution or a path presents itself to you as the obvious choice. When you feel comfortable moving to the next problem or question without even thinking much about… Read More
2016-06-20 13:30
My favorite books about writing are really books about thinking, and crafting those thoughts into powerful, public form. So, whenever I’m in a thinking thicket — as I was for the… Read More
2016-06-10 02:05
I’ve been to enough ‘creative economy’ presentations to know how they generally flow: They draw a big circle and then flash a big number. The big circle includes lots of cr… Read More
2016-04-18 12:46
Theater journal has just published my review of Peter Frumkin and Ana Kolendo’s book on cultural construction projects: Building for the Arts: The Strategic Design of Cultural Faciliti… Read More
2016-03-30 17:45
Apple, Inc. has done a(nother) clever thing. In the midst of helping its customers succeed in individual goals through its iPhone and iOS systems, the company has also built resources to hel… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
In voting for the dissolution of the San Diego Opera last month, the organization’s board was attempting something that’s all but impossible in a cultural nonprofit: acknowledgin… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
All that I think or write or teach or wonder or learn about the management of cultural organizations connects back to Dr. E. Arthur “Al” Prieve. Not only was he my first professo… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air shares a beautiful interview with author Colm Toibin which weaves through religion and ritual and beauty and faith. While the whole thing is worth a… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
Sarah Lutman, formerly of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and currently of the consulting world, shares an essential and compelling treatise on art and place, and the interplay between the tw… Read More
2016-03-17 13:41
Most of us would admit that our work comprises a complex bundle of interconnected problems. Each day we attack the particular problems in front of us (or the problems that pop up or pop into… Read More
2016-02-23 19:00
One of the best arts conferences I attend each year is only steps away from my office door. This is convenient, and also completely awesome. The Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium, which will b… Read More
2016-02-17 15:44
Arts organizations are in the business of aesthetic experience. I hope this isn’t a radical statement, but an obvious point. Whether the organization is fostering work by artists, conn… Read More
2016-02-11 15:55
Budgets and balance sheets and audited financials have a tendency to simultaneously over-simplify and over-complicate organizational life. The way they appear on a page suggests a linear, lo… Read More
2016-01-21 19:56
Here’s an obvious premise: As we grow from children to adults, we gain proficiency in engaging the world around us. We learn its conventions, assumptions, and physical laws, and we lea… Read More
2016-01-15 00:16
I began my professional life as an arts management educator just over 20 years ago, in Fall 1995. My focus, since then, has been rather specific: effective management of (mostly) professiona… Read More
2016-01-13 14:40
One of the challenges of connecting aesthetics and “beauty” to arts organizations is that aesthetics and reason work on different terms. We all know the “reasons” to… Read More
2016-01-08 04:31
Anyone who took physics or wore a black turtleneck and smoked clove cigarettes will know about ‘entropy’ – the tendency of a system to descend into disorder, to lose workin… Read More
2015-11-05 18:31
One of the attributes we recognize and admire in great artists, curators, and other professionals is how quickly and decisively they assess the world around them. They see almost immediately… Read More
2015-10-29 18:18
I’ve been reading a lot lately about data-informed decision making…more than is likely healthy for me. And so much of what I read begins and ends with the assumption that more d… Read More
2015-10-23 13:34
As a professor of Arts Management, I spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking about structure and strategy…all the ways that the tools of our work distort and distract the goa… Read More
2015-10-08 14:56
For a long while, my teaching in arts management has emphasized “balance”…the nuanced navigation of opposing forces, the careful and reflective response to instability.
c… Read More
2015-09-24 11:30
A favorite line from a favorite poem is dogging me these days. It’s from Wallace Stevens’ “Man Carrying Thing“, which begins:
The poem must resist the intelligence… Read More
2015-09-17 15:57
It’s been a long, long while since I posted to this blog. For those who were annoyed by that, apologies. For those who didn’t notice, hello. Truth is, I’ve been doing other… Read More
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