Building Back Better
By Rachel Nelken, CEO
Embedding Collective Leadership
Last June, just as the pandemic had started to make its critical impact on the creative and cultural sector, I applied for a role as Interim CEO for a small creative organisation, a registered charity and National Portfolio Organisation, Raw Material Music and Media, established in 1993.
For a number of historical reasons, the charity had found itself without leadership at a particularly crucial time, and therefore unable to make the necessary changes to adapt its programme to lockdown restrictions. Raw’s much-loved Brixton base – 3 floors of studios, live rehearsal room and production facilities – was closed, and a totally new approach to developing an online programme needed to be quickly designed and delivered. Raw’s Board had to act quickly to put new leadership in place to take this on. After an open recruitment process and 2 tough interviews, I was delighted to be offered the role. Initially offered as an interim contract, I was able to make good progress very quickly against a backdrop of 2020’s challenging circumstances. It felt like a good fit from the start and the Board took the decision to make my role permanent at the end of September.
Whilst this is my first CEO role, I came into this position with several years of leadership experience at major venues and 23 years in the arts and cultural sector including roles within funding bodies, local authorities and arts centres. I’ve had a wide and varied career in music and performing arts and a commitment to community engagement and practice has been a key theme running through it. I’ve been lucky enough to produce some incredible projects with high-profile artists, experiencing that thrill as a producer of seeing thousands of audience members responding to the work, but I have realised over time that creating opportunities for people to find and develop their own creativity - working with brilliant artists - over sustained periods is what I keep coming back to. Wherever I am, I want to build communities, particularly for those who have experienced exclusion or lack of access to the opportunity to develop themselves through creativity. This feels more important right now than it ever has done. And for me it starts with the teams I am working with, who are often part of and recruited from the communities we serve, but are not always seen that way.
Having worked for several arts and cultural organisations over the last two decades I have had the opportunity to experience leadership in all its forms. I have particularly seen middle managers and younger staff (often the colleagues who represent the ‘diversity’ that arts organisations are so keen to recruit) work themselves flat out for organisations where they are rarely involved in any of the decision making at top level. Decisions which usually involve ongoing and ceaseless delivery with little time to reflect /take stock of ‘why’ or indeed ‘how’. ‘We must do less!’ is a constant refrain at every organisation I’ve been part of but it never actually happens. I believe this is at least partly due to a lack of shared leadership. Those making the decisions on taking on that new project are not the ones who will have to deliver it. The burden inevitably falls on junior staff members, so committed to their organisations (and fully aware of their fortune in having secured a job in the industry they love) that they will work 12-hour days to deliver the project, which arguably had a limited impact in the scheme of things and wasn’t really needed.
Whether freelance or employed, staff members not at senior level are deeply impacted by the decision-making processes of the arts organisations which pay their wages. Yet they are rarely part of setting the vision and direction of the organisation, nor have any say in the multitude of projects which are taken on and the targets which are set. These staff members are not given the full picture of that organisation’s financial situation or contextual position in the sector. Arts organisations are by and large still deeply hierarchical, often led by one person (classically a Founder Director) at the top, sometimes supported by a Senior Leadership Team (SLT), all of whom themselves, despite their job titles, also have limited options to input into decisions around capacity and direction which directly affect the teams they lead. Many organisations hold regular “team meetings” where colleagues at all levels can be “consulted” e.g., asked to feed into overall organisational objectives or internal cultural approaches – but without knowledge and understanding of the true financial situation or the context, the organisation is working it's hard to make a genuine contribution. Even those below SLT who do understand the bigger picture are rarely empowered to, as the power dynamics lie firmly on the side of the “established leaders” within the organisation. Other contributory factors might include colleagues feeling suggestions from a different cultural perspective won’t be accepted, or that their youth/perceived inexperience is a barrier. It’s undoubtedly challenging to disrupt long-established static structures e.g., Artistic Directors and their Programming and Producing teams set the agenda, all other departments just have to make it work.
There is often a lack of financial transparency within arts organisations (at least partly driven by the disparity between salaries at the top and bottom levels) with limited attempts made to develop junior staff’s knowledge of financial planning and management. How and when are you meant to develop these essential skills? These staff are so often the very people we state that we want to support to rise to leadership positions, and who have featured prominently for better or worse post BLM and as a result of Covid’s impact. So many organisations made performative statements around their Diversity work post BLM and yet we know that redundancies over the last year in the creative sector have disproportionately affected Black, culturally diverse and disabled communities. For true change to happen knowledge and experience of so-called ‘high-level’ decision making should start as early as possible – and should not be confined to “high levels”. Ultimately organisations will themselves benefit from it. If we are truly committed to moving forward with inclusion and diversity, and changing the face of arts leadership in this country, this has to be a major part of that process.
“Our process (of strategic planning and budgeting) so far has been intense but equally, exciting. Also, it’s important to remember that we are a small team who are working through a global pandemic – and doing a great job might I add! As well as collective leadership, I am a member of the local community and for once, I actually feel equally responsible for the organisation I work for.”
Flexible working and the breaking down of traditional power dynamics are crucial in terms of creating access and inclusion. Collective leadership approaches and a willingness to share power can also tackle that long-established problem in both the arts and charity sectors - succession planning. I have worked in 5 job shares in senior roles in the last decade and am a huge advocate of their benefits - both in terms of inclusion (for anybody who wants or needs a part-time opportunity) - and for organisations who tend to benefit by getting two brilliant people for the price of one. Raw’s Board agrees with me and it is no coincidence that we have an innovative Co-Chair model in place now leading the Board, or that one of our Co-Chairs is herself a Co-CEO for a major international charity. Surely success looks like an organisation that can thrive and prosper without one person having to be at the heart of every development - rather than one which will collapse without that person at the centre.
“Raw offers a perfect balance of autonomy and shared responsibility. I have complete knowledge of the organisation from our financial set up to everyone’s daily tasks which means everyone’s voice and skill set is valued and utilised. This allows me to approach every task with confidence.”
In this new position where I find myself, I am putting this into practice. I have been hugely influenced by living with a software developer whose teams work using ‘Agile’ methodology – a collaborative and collective approach to project management and design which feels so much more progressive than anything I have experienced in the arts sector to date. At Raw, we are a small and diverse staff team of 6 which includes three young creatives – Naz (25), Chavez (28) and Matty (22 – quoted above) – all representative of the South London communities we serve. Tamara our Programmes Manager (29) is experienced in the sector as a professional musician and producer. Katy our Admin and Finance Manager is an experienced manager and mother of older kids like myself but from a non-arts Finance background. I get a lot of fresh perspectives in meetings which I really value and which is undoubtedly feeding into an organisation that is authentically serving our communities. From my team’s lived experience, I have gained a much better understanding of what it means to be a working creative in the current landscape and to have grown up in the South London communities we serve. I have committed to using plain English and avoiding artsy jargon. I have (somewhat reluctantly and very belatedly) accepted the importance of Instagram in our lives...
In the 4 months, we have been working together as a team at Raw, we have:
Worked through the organisational budget for 21/22 as a team together. The first time anyone on the team had done that exercise – it took some explanation but now everyone on the team could confidently tell you our financial position, incomings and outgoings
Created the organisation’s new Mission statement together
Created the organisations 21/22 Team Objectives together
Collectively created our first Content Strategy and agreed on what we should be talking about
Agreed as a team how we want to communicate, sharing hosting and leadership duties in meetings and at events.
As a result of this, our younger team members particularly feel more empowered in their roles for our organisation than they have done previously.
“Working alongside our new team I feel more equipped, involved and informed as I am able to take lead with decisions. Rachel brought forward a new way of thinking amongst our team; ‘transparency.’ This made me feel much more comfortable in my role and allowed all team members to communicate freely amongst ourselves, regardless of our position within Raw. This has built my confidence, and I now have a sense of empowerment allowing me to achieve my potential through all aspects of my role, - and this is just the start for me.”
Not only are team members gaining knowledge which will help progress our work, they are learning about organisational development and can take this with them whatever they do next. They will be able to talk confidently and with understanding in interviews to come about their experience and their understanding. And their commitment to this organisation is increased by a fuller understanding of what we are working towards and why.
In the end, knowledge is power, and it is something we can freely give to our colleagues, allowing us to be true supporters and in this continuing unequal society, good allies. So - why wouldn’t we?
