Towards thriving 21st century organisations

Henley Centre - Andrew Curry/David Gunn

2005
The aim

To understand the characteristics of a thriving organisation by

looking at
− The drivers of organisational change
− Models of successful thriving organisations
− Implications for the arts sector

The method
− Henley Centre knowledge base
− A selection of expert interviews
− A review of relevant organisational literature
− Revisiting core trends identified for ‘Towards 2010’

© Arts Council England

Organisations in society: a model
Developing the model

• Characterising the ways in which institutions interact with consumers

• Fundamental distinctions of engagement, or just examples of different
channels?
• Classifying different organisational/consumer interactions
• Testing robustness for the arts

© Arts Council England

Summary of important drivers of change

Audience Resources Talent

Ageing and agelessness Feminisation of the Management of
workplace talent
The ‘experience economy’ Itinerant workers in the ‘Corporatisation’ of
21st century the arts
The search for authenticity The restrictions of Renegotiation of the
funding workplace
Desire for self-improvement Business and The artist as catalyst
innovation

Modal consumers Networks and digital Rise of the city

organisation region
DIY media and
personalisation
‘Always on’ society
Rise of rights

© Arts Council England

 A series of variables (1)

Transaction Emotional Belonging

Fixed Geography Mobile

Existing Work New

Specific Form Diverse

Permanent Duration Temporary

© Arts Council England

 A series of variables (2)

Passive Audience Participatory

Single Outlet Multiple

Implicit Pedagogic Explicit

Constant Access Confined

© Arts Council England

The model
Community
engagement

Fixed Knowledge
assets assets

Individual
engagement
© Arts Council England
Testing the model in a technology space
Community
engagement

Fixed Knowledge
assets assets

Individual
engagement
© Arts Council England
Testing the model over time - Virgin: the not-so-secret history…
Community
engagement

Fixed Knowledge
assets assets

Individual
engagement
© Arts Council England
Characteristics of arts organisations by quadrant
Community
engagement

Beware!
1 The classification is not
pejorative – thriving
organisations are found
Fixed In all quadrants Knowledge
assets assets
2 The distinctions between
the quadrants are relative
rather than absolute.

Individual
engagement
© Arts Council England
 Thriving organisations by quadrant
Community
engagement Ad hoc organisations
Own buildings
Home for touring or Temporary or intermittent
visiting collections Coalitions of enthusiasts
A ‘point of view’ Life not a lifestyle
Brand is location Brand is event, network, or
Innovation - communities of interest charismatic creative
around work ‘Testing the creative edge’
Subsidised by other work
Fixed Knowledge
assets assets

Own buildings No geographical location of limited

Repertoire/excellence access
Resident company or collection ‘Mainstreaming alternative’
Innovation – interpretation and Innovation – ‘making the
development of mainstream connections’ artist/audience
- Presentation and audiences Core management
Individual Some commercial impresarios
engagement
© Arts Council England
Testing the model against arts organisations
Community
engagement

Fixed Knowledge
assets assets

Individual
engagement
© Arts Council England
Thriving within an arts ecology: connections
Workshop
Community
performance
engagement
Local run Ad hoc
creatives
Local/ New
regional performers
venues Touring
company
Gallery

Fixed Knowledge
assets assets

Outreach
project
Specialist
National run music
network
Established Established
venue festival
Individual
engagement Commercial
transfer
© Arts Council England
Implications for ACE

• The relationships between organisations are as important as the

organisations themselves
− This may need different incentives in the system
• People who move between organisations in different quadrants have a
valuable role as ‘pollinators’ of the system
− Should ACE find ways of funding such individuals?
• The majority of ACE funding goes to ‘bottom-left’ organisations – but
this is not necessarily wrong
− Increasing share of funding to ‘knowledge-based’ quadrants only
improves arts outcomes if the right connections are in place

© Arts Council England

Organisations in society: key drivers
 The ‘tripartite’ structure of the creative enterprise

Talent

Audience Resources

Adapted from Martin Dale’s model of sustainable film production models

© Arts Council England

 Snapshot of consumers in the 21st century

Disposable incomes have

doubled since 1971

38% would take a pay 35% of 24 year

cut for less stress More affluent olds are graduates
Quality of life More
educated

40% of workforce
40% of the
are women
population over Older More
50 by 2010 feminised

Less Fewer
Over half of adults are happy children 1 in 4 women born
‘unhappy with their More in 1972 will not
standard of living’ fragmented have children
households

Only 1 in 3 households
contain a ‘nuclear’ family
© Arts Council England
Audience

• Ageing and agelessness

• The experience economy
• The search for authenticity
• The cult of self-improvement
• Modal consumers
• DIY media / personalisation
• The ‘always on’ society
• The rise of rights

© Arts Council England

 Ageing and agelessness

• Ageing population Projected UK

• Impact on future resources and on population
Median age
changing social expectations and in years 2000
values 50 2025
2050
• Impact of the over-50s on 46
spending 45
43
• Beware of assumptions about
40
stereotypes 38

• New demographic groups 35

30

25

Source: US Bureau of the Census, International Data Base, 2002 © Arts Council England
The experience economy

• Purchasing material goods, or

purchasing ‘experiences’?
• The pleasure of consumption –
what does it depend on?
• Retail or leisure? – or both?
• What do consumers expect?
• ‘Bite-size’ art, or elaborate
experiences?

© Arts Council England

The search for authenticity

• The unusual is becoming more

and more commonplace
• The concept of the ‘authentic’
• What is authenticity?
− Defined origin
− Handmade
− Traditional
− unique
• Mass-produced and easily
replicable products and services
are under pressure to engage with
consumers

© Arts Council England

The cult of self improvement

• Replacing the ‘bluffers’ guide’

mentality
• Life coaches
• Evening classes
• Learning holidays
• ‘Bibliotherapy’
• Growing interest in books and
book clubs

© Arts Council England

Modal consumers

• The modal consumer

• Negotiating multiple roles, helped Self Citizen

by technology
• Four key types of activity:
− Recovery (eg hobby, sport)
− Sanctuary (eg time with the Family Worker
family)
− Territory (eg gardening)
− Exploration (eg web surfing,
creative writing)
• Varying leisure experiences
Consumer Friend

© Arts Council England

 DIY media and personalisation

• Increasingly selective consumers

Use favourites list - Interactive TV
• Self-scheduling of content
% Use bookmarks - Internet
• Self-editing and creation of own
90
content
80
• Greater expectations that what
70
consumers access / purchase is 58 57
57
54 55
personalised to their needs and 60

interests 50 44 42
47
37
40
• In commercial environments,
personalisation of content appears to 30 22
be higher value but reaches smaller 20

proportion of the market 10

0
15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55+

Source: Henley Centre / BMRB Digital Viewer Wave 6 / Olympus Research © Arts Council England
 The ‘always on’ society

% agree with statement:

• Mobile phones ‘I like to be contactable on my
• ‘Always on’ is the default; % mobile all the time’
switching off is now a 80
70
choice 70
• Similar expectations around 60
access to companies and 50
experiences 37
40
• Impact on social interaction
30
20
10
0
Age 15-19 Average adult

Source: Henley Centre, PCC 2002, W2 © Arts Council England

 The rise of rights

• The growing disparity between % share of total income by

household
the richest and poorest in society
Top 10%
• Dramatic divisions of access and Bottom 10%
inequity across UK society
1979 4.4 20
• Increasingly strong public
awareness of the infringement of
1990 3.2 25
rights and means of reparation
• Attracting consumers from ethnic
1996 3.5 24
minority backgrounds and
disabled people is a key aim
2010 3.0 30

10 5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
%

Source: ONS, Households Below Average Income; Henley Centre © Arts Council England
Resources

• Feminisation of the workplace

• Itinerant workers in the 21st century
• The restrictions of funding
• Networks and digital organisation
• Business and innovation

© Arts Council England

 Feminisation of the workplace

• Gender and the UK workforce

• UK women returning to work % of UK workforce
Male Female
within a year of having a child
60 57
• The pay gap 55
51 50 50
49
• The growing importance of 50
women in the workplace 45 43

• Substantial changes in work 40

practices 35

30

25

20
1982 1992 2002

Source: EEDA “Equality in focus”; GEM Report UK 2002; Nomis; The Guardian Viewpoint #10, The Economist © Arts Council England
Itinerant workers in the 21st century

• Moving from rigid to fluid

organisational structures - new ways of
using resources
• Hot-desking and sharing other
resources
• Cost-driven innovations can also
facilitate creativity
• Temporary collectives to fulfil specific
pieces of work, with temporary use of
resources
• The rise of dynamic, short-term
employment on a project basis in the
creative industries

© Arts Council England

 £
The restrictions of funding

• Funding remains a crucial issue

• Current organisational structures for funding can
be damaging -
• Restrictive both in structure and in the way they
operate
• demanding specific outputs, rather than “It’s almost a rule
empowering artists to follow a line of creative that the better an
thought
• encouraging organisational structures and
organisation is at
attitudes that do not foster creativity attracting
• Social inclusion can confuse collective government
understanding of the key role of the commissioned
work funding, the worse it
• Innovation can often derive from highly resource- performs”
constrained environments

© Arts Council England

 Business and innovation

• The increasing role of

corporate sponsorship
• Initiatives which combine
artistic experimentation
with corporate research
• Mobile Bristol
• But how applicable is this
to more established art
forms?
“There is much to be said for
seeing artists as servants of the
innovation process”
John Thackara
Source: www.mobilebristol.co.uk/flash.html © Arts Council England
 Networks and digital organisations

Supplier Supplier Supplier

• ICT developments can enable organisations
to move away from in-house expertise
Purchasing
• Brands are able to outsource many
responsibilities
• More responsive interactions with Finance
consumers, allowing focus upon a
company’s core expertise HR

• The dangers:
Brand Manufacture
• Limiting awareness of wider perspectives
and possibilities Marketing

• The brand reputation relies on others who Sales/Service

are only overseen at a distance
• The potential for dynamic resource
allocation

Customers
Source: BT © Arts Council England
Talent

• The management of talent

• The ‘corporatisation’ of the arts
• Renegotiation of the workplace
• The artist as catalyst
• Rise of the city region

© Arts Council England

The management of talent

• The importance of horizontal, non-

hierarchical structures and fluid
organisational processes
• Organisational innovation needs
clear principles
• The ‘holarchic’ organisation -
each fragment of the organisation
reflecting the whole “You can’t socially re-engineer
these systems without
• The role of the manager understanding them intimately.
You need to know what it’s like to
struggle with the pressures at the
grass roots”.
Prof Henry Mintzberg

© Arts Council England

The ‘corporatisation’ of the arts

• Increasing professionalism of the arts

• Changing expectations from funders
• Wider social trends such as the Managers
importance attached to formal
+ +
qualifications
• Emphasis on management skills at
the expense of professional expertise
Targets Budgets
− A trend seen in both the public sector
and the private sector
− A ‘site of struggle’ which creates
permanent organisational tensions _ _

Professionals

© Arts Council England

 Renegotiation of the workplace

Change in employment status, 1971-2005

• Change from fixed contracts to
Full time Part time Self employed
more negotiated relationships
000s
• Large rise in part-time and 5
temporary workers 4173
4
• Employees demand greater
2792
flexibility and work/life balance 3

• Office structures are moving 2 1381 1405

1046
towards ‘club’ environments 776 629
1
− Space for meeting, thinking etc
− Leisure facilities, shops, dry- 0

cleaning, creche facilities

-1

-2 -1415

-3 -2461

Male Female Total

Source: ONS; Henley Centre, PCC 2001; DTI projections © Arts Council England
The artist as catalyst

• Traditional concepts of the artist

• The importance of individuals and
artistic organisations as creative
catalysts
• Organisational, facilitative and
financial strands of the creative
process
• The role of creative catalyst in the
growing integration of arts
initiatives with wider social
initiatives

© Arts Council England

 The rise of the city region

• Increasingly mobile workforce

• Gravitation towards cities seen as tolerant
and outward looking, and having good
public spaces and culture
• The focus on the rehabilitation of urban
centres as ‘marketable’ popular cultural
venues
• ‘Safe’ cultural choices and the
predominance of corporate ownership can “Historic, residual and
lead to the homogenising of cultural alternative forms of nightlife are
experiences increasingly marginalised…
• Cultural innovation often occurs in over-regulated till they
temporary, marginal areas disappear… or bought out under
the weight of urban renewal and
gentrified leisure”

Source: Henley Centre; Richard Florida, the Rise of the Creative Class; Chatterton & Hollands, Urban Nightscapes: Youth
© Arts Council England
Pleasures, Pleasure Spaces and Corporate Power (2003); Archis 2003; Hakim Bey
Key questions

• What are the key qualities of arts organisations in our model? Which are
shared by every quadrant? And which are peculiar to one quadrant?
• Can organisations exist in different quadrants at the same time? What allows
them to do this?
• What are the key things to be learnt from organisational practice?
• In what ways do arts organisations differ from other organisations?
• How best can arts organisations ensure they are sensitive to consumer – or
audience – demands?
• How best can arts organisations manage their resources to ensure quality and
innovation?
• What methods of funding best support this?

© Arts Council England

11-33 St John Street London EC1M 4PJ
T +44 (0)20 7955 1800
F +44 (0)20 7955 1900

betterfutures@henleycentre.com
www.henleycentre.com