It is hard for professionals to connect with and translate ideas from experts outside their field. We select top flight faculty from leading business and graduate schools around the country for our programs. These professors are expert in their fields and perhaps even more important, they are very skilled at facilitating meaningful and deep conversations with diverse groups of executives. They have taught executive education to many levels of leaders and worked with many different types of corporations around the world. The hallmark of each and every one of our faculty members is that they bring relevant ideas and ways of thinking to our field that we have had little or no access to because of cost or location. They are sensitive to the diverse needs of arts and culture leaders, and do not teach “the one answer”.

In cities around the country, there are many excellent opportunities to learn specific skills and exchange information around specific or discipline based topics. Our programs cross disciplines and bring ideas from outside our field to help us all see things in new ways. Comments from previous program participants show us that this complementary approach is much valued.

One (minor) concern: How will our arts administrators respond to these experts from outside of the cultural arts industry? It will be important for our instructors to acknowledge and address the application of teachings to the arts. Many times (to their own detriment), arts professionals will put themselves in a perceived bubble (by discipline and as an industry) and shut down at the thought of learning from an outsider. We’ve seen this happen when we invite professional marketers from the for-profit world to serve on panels at our marketing workshops. Andrew Taylor references this issue on his blog, The Artful Manager” http://www.artsjournal.com/artfulmanager/main/the-difference-that-makes-a-di.php

With the years of work NAS has in providing these types of interactions, I’m sure you have addressed this issue. Do you have thoughts / tips / ideas to share?

I especially like bullet #2 – Miami is full of “green” arts executives that are craving any and all opportunity to further their leadership capacity. The nurturing and molding of these colleagues is crucial to the future success of our local arts industry.

On another (semi-related) note, here is an interesting letter to arts administrators from Adam Thurman of the Court Theatre in Chicago that addresses some of the frustrations of working in the arts.

http://blog.artsusa.org/2009/05/27/an-open-letter-to-arts-administrators/#more-1334

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us! I think there is a great underlying insight in your comment in addition to your thoughts about the sequencing: we need to be sure all of the content is accessible and useful for the participants at their current levels of experience and knowledge. Thank you for that!

With the understanding that this is a “kick-off” year for Future Leaders and the exciting possibility of further development, I see both “Power and Influence” and “Network Mapping” making good core learning sessions before moving into the other areas. By obtaining the knowledge and skills of these two experiences, one would be able to leverage Power, Influence and Networks to become more successful with the remaining topics.

Conversely, I see greater challenges with Management, Negotiating and Developing Innovation without a solid understanding of the importance of Power, Influence and Networks.