Managing messes
"Managers do not solve problems; they manage messes." – Russell Ackoff
“Managers do not solve problems; they manage messes.”
Russell Ackoff
Most arts managers I know are consummate problem solvers. They expect and engage a full range of obstacles to the shared goals of their teams. They keep things moving by navigating (or dodging) as each twist or turn presents itself. Over time, they recognize and respond to oncoming issues more quickly by sorting them into categories: programming, marketing, sales, fundraising, finance, facilities, accounting, governance, and so on.
This sorting works wonderfully until we begin to believe the categories are concrete and separate silos. When we divide our thinking and our teams into insular functional islands, we find ourselves with a map that doesn't match the terrain. As organizational theorist Russell Ackoff puts it:
Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes.
The Ten Functions of Arts Management are my attempt to softly sort the skills required of our work, without losing the larger truth that they’re all entangled. Spaces/Systems and Finance are close companions. Marketing and Hosting/Guesting complete each other’s sentences. Of course, it can be useful to filter our attention, perception, and action by function or by problem. But it’s also essential to remember that it’s all a thicket – a “complex system of changing problems that interact with each other.”
For some, the idea of “managing messes” can be overwhelming, especially when you consider yourself a problem-solver. But for me, when I'm faced with a problem that seems unsolvable, it's liberating to remember that the problem is bounded by my narrow definition of it and that the mess it is part of offers a world of possible paths forward.
Mess managed,
Andrew
Photo by Dennis Brekke on Unsplash
From the ArtsManaged Field Guide
Function of the Week: Finance
Finance involves designing, maintaining, and sustaining systems of money and stuff.
Framework of the Week: The Ladder of Control
The Ladder of Control is a communications tool for supervisors and their direct reports to help calibrate reporting relationships across different kinds of work. The ladder offers seven levels of authority, from the least agency (“Tell me what to do…”) to the most agency (“I’ve been doing…”).
Thank you, Andrew. Speaking of messes, when does a mess become a hot mess? When does a hot mess become an existential crisis? At what point does the Overton window open? In all seriousness, our sector lacks any sort of diagnostic process that would distinguish between garden variety problems and intractable problems that require structural change to solve. I think a lot of managers spend a lot of time trying to "downgrade" higher-order problems in order to avoid paradigmatic change.