Is it All in Your Head?
By Cory Miller
Much of our time as arts administrators is devoted to creative problem-solving of future concerns and challenges of nonprofit institutions. By now we are all too familiar with the laundry list. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel illustrated by one very important challenge whose outcome we can control: institutional memory, defined as a collective of facts, concepts, experiences and know-how or, in other words, historical data that still yields useful applications.
To tackle this topic I enlisted the help of Nancy Kolb, who has been the President and CEO of the Please Touch Museum for almost twenty years. She has recently announced that she will be retiring in less than two years, shortly after the museum moves into their new, expanded facilities. Therefore, the passing on of institutional memory is at the top of her agenda as she has been preparing her successor and slowly transitioning leadership, while garnering the support of the board and constituents.
Nancy Kolb first recommends that institutional memory should “never be in just one person’s head, but must be spread throughout several people in the organization.” A CEO’s responsibility is to make sure that anything they know how to do, other people on their staff know how to do as well. She jokingly refers to this as the “What if you were hit by a bus? syndrome” where a stable organization should be able to continue operations smoothly should a staff member not come to work that day… having been tragically hit by a bus.
She also warns organizations not to become too dependent on technology, explaining that the database in only a band-aid solution to institutional memory, and that communication among staff about their activities, processes and procedures is still necessary. Kolb describes that the really important questions of: “How does the organization function? How do people relate to each other? What’s the decision-making tree?” are not usually recorded in a database but still need to be known and understood by multiple people in any organization. While a database can provide solutions, they are not always the “one-stop shopping” that nonprofits desire for them to be.
Kolb describes her favorite measure to ensure institutional memory and communication among departments: a weekly newsletter that is not only emailed to every staff member but is also posted “everywhere else you think people might have two minutes to look at it.” Each department is required to report on happenings from the previous week as Kolb says that a CEO will quickly tire of the age old excuse recited at staff meetings, “We never knew this was going on!” Many departments who do not find the time to talk to other staff may treat this lack of knowledge as an institutional fault, so by ensuring that all news is given to everyone on a weekly basis a CEO demands accountability of their staff. She also recommends that these newsletters are not hierarchically oriented and that any staff member be allowed to contribute a story or piece of news.
Kolb also highlightsthe importance of whom you hire for your organization. Some personality types are more likely to share information with others, while some are predisposed to isolating themselves and their activities as a result of “ownership.” The latter will halt institutional memory and may be holding onto information as a way to gather additional power. Nothing creates more harsh feelings within a staff than the perception of being the last to know.
Kolb advises that when a long-time leader of a nonprofit is to be replaced, the next generation of leaders can be found within the organization itself, as current employees already possess institutional knowledge. While the for-profit world usually does this, many nonprofits insist on looking outside the organization for a “fresh perspective.” This is not always what a nonprofit needs, especially if it is already undergoing major changes while looking for new leadership. Kolb explains, “The knowledge, the talent, the ability and expertise to manage organizations already exists within them if the they are growing towards being great.”
Communications among staff, databases, succession planning and mutual trust are the ingredients to a perfect nonprofit recipe for institutional memory.
Cory Miller is a graduate student and Dean’s Fellow of Drexel University’s Arts Administration program and the Office and Development Administrator of Philadelphia Young Playwrights.
Cory wishes to thank Nancy Kolb for sharing her wisdom on institutional knowledge with Artsline.