Why is Change so Hard? presentation at MANY conference

This past Monday March 30, 2009 I spoke at the annual conference at the Museum Association of New York, as I have for the last three years. My topic this year was "Why is change so hard?"

MANY changed the format of their presentations this year, to get away from "talking heads" on panels and instead asked presenters to propose topics that would stimulate discussion and debate.

I suggested my topic because of my continuing frustration with historic sites that cannot or will not consider a new future for their site if it is clearly on the downward trend. Here is what I proposed and what we did earlier this week at the MANY conference.

Since the publication of my book New Solutions for House Museums in 2007 I have been struck by the great interest it has attracted, but ultimately how little change there has been at house museums that are saddled with deferred maintenance that is far beyond the organization’s capacity to fix.

I have also been taken by the many audience members who seem interested in hearing about alternatives, but yet think of them as “good for someone else, but not us.” I suspect that what is preventing change at their museums is inertia. Change is hard, and getting started is even harder.

I have been reading a great deal of the change literature from the business world lately trying to figure out how to make change easier for house museums, or at least light a path in the darkness ahead, so that house museums forced to make a change understand the first steps.

John Kotter, a Harvard Business School professor wrote a 1994 bestseller Leading Change and several subsequent books about change that I find compelling. His eight step change methodology seems straight forward and easily understood. His change method has been used by NASA, Ford, the Pentagon, hospitals and other units of government. I believe it has general applicability to nonprofit organizations with some minor reservations. I have been using Kotter’s change methodology as a touchstone for describing the change process I am recommending for house museums at the Indiana Association of Museums conference, and at Preservation North Carolina’s annual meeting with great success.

This structured conversation for the MANY conference will focus on Kotter’s first step in Leading Change: creating a sense of urgency. This session is not geared to house museums, rather the conversation explores the nature of change and how museums could use Kotter’s methodology. I will provide a brief overview of Kotter’s 8 step change methodology, and the all important first step—creating urgency among stakeholders. For museums, the prime audience for this information would be mostly board and staff.

Then we would follow with Stewart Chase, Executive Director of the Berkshire Museum in MA who would share briefly how he was able to create urgency and get his board or staff to take a substantial action to see if it fits within Kotter’s paradigm.

After Mr. Chase's remarks, we would invite others to ask questions about how they can create urgency to start a change agenda in their institution. The session would encourage sharing of approaches to change, which, ultimately, is a very human process. Participants will be introduced to Kotter’s change methods, and how other museums approach institutional change.

So our session went exactly as planned. I made remarks for about 10 minutes. Stewart made remarks for ten minutes and we opened it up for questions and comments. About half of the audience of 50 made comments or asked questions of us the presenters or each other. This session was a very good use of the new format for the MANY conferences and the resulting evaluations were extremely positive. If you would like a free copy of the PowerPoint presentation please email me at donna@heritageconsultinginc.com