by Hope Mohr
This post is the second in a series about HMD’s move to distributed leadership.
The first post (on “Stepping Back”) is here.
/////
Value-Driven Action
Sometimes a model of distributed leadership in the arts is expedient—founders move on or die and a team must step in to fill the gap. Distributed leadership models have clear benefits, including:
· Maximizing creativity by opening up space for everyone’s self-expression;
· Increasing staff ownership over the work;
· Creating a more sustainable, resilient organization by locating energy in multiple people and avoiding founder burnout;
· Creating opportunities for learning and change within the organization.
HMD did not decide to move to distributed leadership for any of these reasons. We did not make this decision because it was expedient. In fact, the work is slow, time-consuming, and expensive. I was motivated by a moral imperative bound up in my longstanding activist commitments. On the Continuum of Becoming an Anti-Racist Organization, a “commitment to institutional re-structuring” is an essential step in becoming a “Fully Inclusive Anti-Racist Multicultural Organization in a Transformed Society.”
HMD began the work of moving to a model of distributed leadership in the fall of 2019. At that point, I had become uncomfortable with the disconnect between our internal structure, which was a traditional, hierarchical, white-led nonprofit, and our public programs, which had become increasingly driven by cultural and racial equity values. In my personal and working relationships with artists of color, I heard increasing calls for white people to step back. I wanted to apply that call to action to myself.
The Subtext of Action
When distributed leadership is anchored in a commitment to cultural equity and racial justice, the action looks differently. More is possible. More is at stake. The actions must be more than cosmetic. The subtext of the action—the stories we tell about it, the language we use to describe it, and the cultural fabric around the action within the organization itself—must also be value-aligned.
When white people take action to address inequities, what stories do we tell ourselves and others about our motivations? Do we position ourselves as saviors? As martyrs? How are these narratives complicit with the systems we claim to oppose? How do we twist them to support our self-image and self-interest? (Progressive impulses so quickly become funding proposals.) How do we engage what Julietta Singh calls “the humanitarian imaginary”—the belief that our politics can ever be separated from our privilege?
In his article, The Nonprofit Paradox, David La Piana writes, “Nonprofits tend to recreate within their own organizational cultures the problems they are trying to solve in society.” La Piana also writes, “When people hold a very strong belief, they usually hold, unconsciously, its shadow side.” I am a staunch public advocate for sharing and giving away cultural power. Where in my life and in the work itself does the shadow of this belief appear?
I recently realized that in my zealous insistence on moving the organization to a model of distributed leadership, I had neglected to allow Cherie Hill and Karla Quintero—my colleagues and co-directors stepping up into power—to have their own time and space to vision a future for the organization. In pushing hard for what I tell myself is a progressive goal, I tend to replicate the very dynamics I want to change. Even writing these blog posts reveals my need to control the narrative.
This blog post sets forth a host of concrete actions toward an equity-driven model of distributed leadership. But underneath all of these actions must be an over-arching commitment to examine—indeed, to seek out—how organizational and interpersonal issues interact.
Taking Action
Before talking about concrete actions toward a model of distributed leadership, I want to emphasize that this work is slow, iterative, and emergent. It is not a checklist of discrete surgical tasks; it’s an unending unraveling. Changing a few job titles will not result in meaningful change for an organization. Changing how institutions work requires changing the way people relate, which requires trust, flexibility, and communication. The work is about loss and feelings and power. Messy stuff.
But taking action is essential. Especially now when it’s trendy to make statements of solidarity with people of color and “different” bodies. How far does solidarity really go? Organizations need to walk the talk. And you have to start somewhere.
In April 2020, with approval from the HMD Board, we made the public announcement that HMD was shifting to a model of distributed leadership. Following that announcement, over the past several months, HMD has taken the following concrete steps toward an equity-driven model of distributed leadership.
In the effort not to make this a virtue signaling exercise, I am framing each action in terms of “What if?” Because this is not a retrospective success story. These are baby steps. Experiments. Aspirational gestures that will hopefully crack open space for possibility.
What if we begin a learning and listening campaign? We have had many, many meetings among staff to talk about this work. We have created a designated staff meeting each month just to talk about the work of distributed leadership because it’s too much to deal with in our regular staff meetings (where we’re trying to do the usual work of an arts organization e.g., implement programs and raise money). We’ve met with other non-profit leaders who have navigated similar shifts. We sent a survey out to artists, donors, and advisors to solicit their opinion about the organization and its future.
What if we move from a white-led hierarchy to a multi-racial and multi-ethnic co-directorship? Many arts organizations have multiple directors; this itself is not radical. I know several arts organizations that have shared leadership, but no meaningful institutional commitment to cultural and racial equity. But a co-directorship can be one element in an organization’s larger commitment to sharing and giving power to artists that historically have not had a seat at the table. Bringing multiple voices of difference into curatorial decisions is essential in order to trouble the singular aesthetic standard (Western European ideas of mastery and virtuosity) that has dominated arts programming for so long.
The Bridge Project, HMD’s curatorial platform, is now a co-directorship among myself, Cherie Hill, and Karla Quintero. That means that Cherie, Karla and I now jointly make all program decisions. Curatorial power is layered. It’s not sufficient for a founder merely to listen to input; the leadership team must equally share power to make final calls. Curatorial power includes not only the power to envision and propose ideas, but also to implement ideas. Implementation power requires knowledge about the organization’s financial capacity. This means all co-directors need equal access to organizational budgets and an equal say over allocation of resources. Implementation power also implicates the power to write contracts, cut checks, and call funders.
What if we implement pay equity among staff? You have to compensate people financially for stepping up into power. Pay equity is a necessary step in creating a culture of mutual respect, accountability, and trust. Historically, I was on salary and other staff were paid hourly. In order to move toward pay equity, I moved from salary to hourly. All three co-directors now are being paid the same hourly rate. In conjunction with this move, we raised HMD’s staff hourly rate to account for inflation, the cost of living in the Bay Area, and W.A.G.E. recommendations. Now I’m tracking my hours for the first time. Now all three co-directors are accountable for our time in the same way. Now I’m building a boundary between my personal life and the work, which is crucial when a white founder’s personality is entangled in the organization. Tracking my time also translates the work into discrete, tangible tasks (for example, I now know that I spend a certain number of hours a week on artist contracts), which makes it easier to delegate the work.
What if we disentangle public programs from founder personality? Too often, founder ego and aesthetics drive artist selection for residencies, mentorship programs, and performance opportunities. As the white founder, I’m stepping away from selecting artists for our Community Engagement Residency (CER). From now on, these decisions will be made by a panel of former CER artists, in dialogue with Cherie Hill, HMD’s Director of Art in Community. We’ve launched a separate website for The Bridge Project and are implementing a new logo for The Bridge Project that does not have “HMD” embedded in it. Further brand changes are under discussion. These moves are all part of a larger organizational culture shift away from the cult(ure) of founder personality.
What if we value-align the Board? Part of the vision for HMD’s model of distributed leadership involves moving the Board away from a traditional nonprofit Board composed of people with access to money and social networks and toward a Board composed of artists and activists. Change in Board membership is healthy, especially at turning points in organizational growth. In the wake of our announcement that we were moving to a model of distributed leadership, three Board members decided, in conversation with me, that it was time to step down. Now 100% of HMD’s Board is working artists. 50% are people of color.
Board transitions in arts nonprofits can feel tricky because often Board members become friends. More rigorous and formal practices around term limits are helpful in de-personalizing Board transitions. It’s also helpful to let go of outdated ideas of what a nonprofit Board looks like (wealthy, well-connected people who can “give or get”). Building a value-aligned Board requires a different set of intentions. Rather than building a Board from a set of “shoulds,” (“We should recruit someone with marketing experience. We should recruit a lawyer.”) what if people from the community that we serve compose the organization’s governing body? A Board of artists and activists can still fulfill their legal duties of organizational oversight. Value-alignment creates a different kind of energy. The funding will come.
What if we bring artists into positions of power over aesthetics and money? For HMD, distributed leadership must go beyond a democratic workplace; beyond co-directorship among staff; beyond a diversity mindset. We must make space for artists, and in particular artists of color and other artists of “difference,” to have power over aesthetics and resources. In addition to bringing more working artists onto the Board and having former and current artist partners select future artist partners, we’re talking about a paid artist council to make curatorial and budget decisions (a council with actual power, not just an unacknowledged or unpaid focus group). We’re talking about internal artist affinity groups to hold the Board and staff accountable to cultural equity values.
What if we work with an equity-driven consultant? To help us navigate these power shifts mindfully, we’re working with LeaderSpring, an equity-driven consulting group. This partnership has helped to create neutral space, an outside eye, and benchmarks for the work. Our work with LeaderSpring, which will unfold over the course of a year, involves meetings among staff, Board, and artist partners to articulate our values behind the work and to determine what model of distributed leadership best reflects those values. The work includes revising job descriptions, the way decisions happen, organizational by-laws, policies, articles of incorporation, Board prospectus, and figuring out how to communicate the work to the outside world.
What if we empower staff? Rather than a founder handing over a pre-cooked position or program, it’s important to inventory staff interests and availability and then to respond by tailoring spheres of responsibility to the people who will be stepping up into the work. It’s also important to give staff who are stepping up into positions of power time to vision. In this way, staff can have ownership over the future of the organization. The shift to distributed leadership has to go slowly enough to allow for staff input and visioning time.
What if white founders and artistic directors do anti-racist work? What if we engage with what we want to avoid? Feelings often sabotage aspirational values. (A later blog post in this series will look at barriers to organizational change). White founders need to clean their own house. I’ve found that the most effective anti-racist trainings focus on the emotional subtext of anti-racist work. Awareness of my own defensive habits invites me to notice when these habits appear; to choose a different way of showing up; to be more present for difficult conversations; to be more committed to the work of sharing and giving up power. This is lifelong practice.
What if we bring our community into the work? We convened a series of community meetings about the work with artists, Board members, and advisors. We paid working artists $100 for each meeting they attended. Participants included, in addition to HMD staff and LeaderSpring’s Safi Jiroh: Hannah Ayasse, Julian Carter, Gerald Casel, Tristan Ching, Chibueze Crouch, Zoe Donnellycolt, Tracy Taylor Grubbs, Belinda He, Jarell Phillips, Jen Norris, Bhumi B. Patel, randy reyes, Suzette Sagisi, Jane Selna, David Szlasa, Julie Tolentino, and Megan Wright.
These community meetings were both generative and challenging. We encouraged frankness. I often felt vulnerable and exposed. But more than anything, I felt grateful for the push and for the trust that people offered by participating.
People in these community meetings voiced vastly different ideas about what HMD should do, from dismantling to the organization altogether to various visions of evolution. At the close of the final community meeting, each participant was asked: What’s one recommendation you have for HMD in doing the work of distributed leadership? Here are those responses to that culminating prompt (listed anonymously):
· Put money into the conversations versus the products—conversations with other organizations, other leaders, and the community. This work has the ability to iterate out for others.
· Take the next 6 months to a year to focus only on internal and interorganizational change and sharing that. Do nothing else.
· Make more time for conversations about this work.
· Get the word out, get more of the community involved. Hold regular meetings for the process. Consider going into other spaces to learn and listen.
· Clarify the purpose of the artmaking piece and the community-facing and social practice. Critical thinking and community engagement don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
· Commit to an activist model of working with affinity groups so that there are multiple groups speaking into the organization and the Board. Instead of using the old model of inviting people into an existing model, recognize that bringing together different co-directors involves understanding how different people use time and learn. Instead of just “idea-making,” allow a new way of working to emerge that allows for different ways of relating to time. If HMD does this internal work, that understanding will be in place when the organization turns to working with artists.
· Whenever public facing action does happen, give people autonomy over their conversations and creative impulses. Don’t require a report back or a conversation with HMD.
· Who is and who isn’t at the table? Whose table is it? With regards to alliances and partners, what tables are in the room? Who isn’t even in the room at all?
· Staff should take six months to organize with each other and speak with and learn from each other separate from the concerns of working with HMD. Report out to the people who have been involved in these community meetings.
· Take time for this work. Be transparent and share out structural decisions that HMD makes about this work.
· Raise more money.
· Seek and share clarity about the separation and overlap between community organizing and artmaking/art production.
· Give credit to ideas that have come up in these conversations. Serve communities of color. Budget in for healing. Budget for long-term commitments to artists. Advocate for artists. What is your actual capacity? What are your limitations? Don’t over-extend yourself as an organization. A white-led organizational coalition feels important.
· Budget in for staff self-care. Don’t be afraid to rebuild from the ground up. Don’t be afraid to cede power to queer, trans, black, brown, and people of color. Decenter and dismantle whiteness as much as possible in every aspect of the organization.
· In the process of wanting to decenter whiteness and cultural equity work, what shows up? Do the internal work so that when community gathers, the organization has the capacity to create space where all views are welcome and where people feel safe to express what they need. It’s slow-going. Take a lot of time to invest in this work.
/////
Upcoming post:
Beyond Restructuring: Shifting the Culture of Arts Organizations
/////
HMD is partnering with LeaderSpring to move to an equity-driven model of distributed leadership. For more information go to https://www.leaderspring.org/.