The “leadership crisis” in the arts is an issue of concern for nonprofit arts managers and researchers in the field. The conventional wisdom is that arts organizations are unable to retain bright, talented workers because they are unable to match the salaries offered by the private sector. Others believe that younger workers lack the leadership qualities considered essential for the nonprofits.
My experience as a consultant tells me that the roots of the “leadership crisis” are found in the “generational conflict” between Baby Boomers and Generation X. Workers from Gen X were born in the mid-1960s to 1970s and have seen rapid social and technological changes in their lifetimes. They tell me they feel Baby Boomers are stuck in their ways, are uncomfortable with the organization’s social diversity, or lack appreciation for the technological skills that are now considered essential to maintain productivity in the workplace. Further, the current economic crisis means that many Baby Boomers have decided to postpone retirement rather than turning over the reins to a new generation of leaders, limiting the potential growth within the organization for mid-level managers.
Policy research confirms my observations from the field. While bigger salaries are one way to retain workers, they are not the only, or even the most significant, factor when employees are weighing their options. A recent study by the Movement Advancement Project surveyed Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered employees and discovered that workers did not necessarily want more money. Rather, what they valued most was the ability to grow in their jobs and create long-term careers for themselves.
Francis Kunreuther, a fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University did a fascinating case study of generational conflict within organizations. You can see Kunreuther’s article here.
Kunreuther’s research finds that within nonprofits founded or run by Baby Boomers, that “the dilemmas of younger workers are barely acknowledged, much less addressed successfully.” (p. 7) Further, the study reports that Gen X was more effective at integrating collaborative management practices into the mission or meaning of the work than Baby Boomer leaders.
Proposed solutions to the “leadership crisis” in the arts encourage dialogue, collaborative decision-making, and mentorship programs. While I respect these efforts, I can’t help but wonder if the approach will only perpetuate organizational conflict. Many of these “younger” workers are now somewhere between 40 and 50 years of age, hold graduate degrees in management, public policy, and business. Somehow, the mentor-mentee relationship just doesn’t acknowledge the technological know-how or the broad experience in programs and management that Gen X brings to the field.
What’s happening at your organization? Are there conflicts between generations of workers? How are they dealt with? What’s working? How do you think they could be handled more effectively?
I think you’re hitting on something common to many types of nonprofit organizations. In the LGBT movement, the problem is compounded by the fact that the people following the Gen Xers view the world even more differently than we Gen Xers do compared to our older colleagues. So now there are 3 distinct cohorts trying to work together for a generally common purpose. I’m not sure how much longer we can say there is even a common purpose across the cohorts; right now the differences really show up when we look at the tactics and strategies each cohort wants to use, but I can see that soon expanding to open disagreement about the end state we’re working toward.
It would be helpful if funders of a particular field or movement started viewing their grantees as subsidiaries of one larger corporation, and supporting professional development through that lens. Moving people out of and/or into more suitable jobs would be much easier if we considered all of the organizations and all of the jobs in the larger universe, rather than individual workers trying to navigate their way through the one or two organizations they know best. The corporate world could be a great model, since they’re more likely to support the training and development of their workers, and are open to moving them from department to department or location to location, in order to grow the person professionally (of course, they’re not doing this to be nice; they’re trying to boost their bottom lines by creating a solid workforce; funder should be doing it to achieve their missions and/or a larger social or political goal). I would love to see funders and organizations approach workforce development and its challenges in this way, but the current resource constraints (human and financial) of the current system make movement forward nearly impossible.
I own a high-tech company that is often implementing cutting edge technology. I’ve found that the more cutting edge I go, the younger the consultants I have to use, to the point were some of my best consultants are high school students or young college students.
It is very common for me to work with vendors who have senior managers that know very little about technology. If they are smart, they stay out of the details and let younger employees run the technology projects. When older managers do get involved in the details, they often make poor decisions, even against expert recommendations to the contrary.
Employees that end up continually having to kowtow to their manager’s arrogant or ignorant incompetence eventually leave the company and often start their own business to get out from under the “generation conflict oppression.” It’s very liberating and rewarding to finally be able to let one’s competence flourish.
Sue Gelber sent a link to this Chicago Tribune article on ‘reverse mentoring’ in organizations. Interesting given what we’ve been talking about. http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sun-social-mentors-oct25-,0,7142585.story
Great article about Rotnems.. or would it be Srotnem?
Look at the age of one of Facebook’s newest hires as “Manager of Public Policy Communications in D.C.:”
http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/10/facebook-adds-a-third-employee-to-dc-office/
He will be hobnobbing with VIPs over twice his age.