IN THIS ISSUE
November/December 2009

At a time of financial challenge, when a CEO’s first tendency might be to hunker down and ride out the storm, it may seem counterintuitive to pursue renewal, form new partnerships, and make long-range plans. But according to our November/December contributors, leaders who keep their institutions focused outward and forward in this way may be doing just what it takes to guarantee long-term survival. In this issue, we analyze the art of adaptive leadership, discover how the Noyce Leadership Institute program is helping its CEO Fellows strengthen themselves and their communities, learn how two Fellows have been applying NLI lessons in their institutions, and recall some high points of ASTC leadership over the past three decades.

Contents
• Leading for Continuity and Change, by Lynn Luckow
• The Practice of Leadership in a Changing Environment, by Julie I. Johnson and Randy C. Roberts
• Referents for Renewal: Finding Inspiration in Unlikely Places, by Dennis Bartels
• A Fellowship of Leaders: Building a Community to Serve Communities, by Jennifer Zoffel
• The Business of Leadership: Lessons for CEOs in Hard Times, by Kirk Ramsay
• ASTC Exhibition Services: Advancing the Science Center Movement, by Wendy Pollock
• Passing the Helm: Bonnie VanDorn’s Legacy, by Nancy Stueber

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By Julie I. Johnson and Randy C. Roberts
From ASTC Dimensions
November/December 2009

“Leadership is not a job or a position, but a way of influencing others towards ends recognized as valuable and fulfilling.”

—Amanda Sinclair, Leadership for the Disillusioned: Moving Beyond Myths and Heroes to Leading That Liberates

Who are the leaders in your organization? Close your eyes and think for a moment. Who is the first person that comes to mind? Is it your director/president? Someone from senior management? The coordinator of community outreach? What about the head of security or the ticket taker at the front door? Is it you?

We often think of the words leader and director in the same breath, but this way of thinking sets up a situation where staff members across the institution treat the identified leader with such deference that they abdicate their own power to make a difference in achieving organizational outcomes. Those who are not in positions of assigned authority may tend to wait for vision and direction from “on high,” rather than taking initiative to create positive change.

Today, museums are operating in a climate of change that calls for new ways of thinking about how leaders and followers across the institution take and support initiative in service of creating value. While it may be less stressful for those without positional power to give over responsibility to those with formal authority, the organization thereby ultimately becomes less creative and connected. When all are engaged in the work and take responsibility for direction, then our organizations will achieve alignment and balanced pursuit of goals.

Leading from within

In understanding leadership at all levels of an organization, it is important to recognize the distinction between and overlap of management and leadership. In his 1990 book A Force for Change: How Leadership Differs from Management, John P. Kotter points out that in some ways the function of management (to provide order and consistency) is in direct opposition to the function of leadership (to produce change and movement). Although these two disparate aims can reside in single individuals, their purposes are distinct.

Management emphasizes planning, organizing, and operating efficiently and effectively. Leadership, on the other hand, is not a linear process by which organizational direction is set out for followers, but rather an interactive practice that includes participation across levels of position and power. It is an activity that is available to all who are engaged. Leadership is a dynamic relationship between the fluid roles of leaders and followers.

Rather than understanding leadership in terms of the traits or qualities of a leader, one can understand it as a process. Such a view suggests that leadership is a phenomenon situated in context and available to everyone. Moving away from the heroic, “great man” theory that was prevalent in the 1980s, today’s understanding is more relational—envisioning leadership, as Joyce K. Fletcher notes in a 2004 article as a “multi-directional social process … aimed at collective outcomes.”¹ Leaders, then, are not solely those who are assigned to formal positions of authority. Equally important are the emergent leaders who establish informal authority based on how others respond to them in a given situation.

Think systems

How does this relate to museums? Museums cannot be totally understood by simply looking at the units of which they are composed—any more than mayonnaise can be understood by looking at eggs and oil. Museums are complex adaptive systems (CAS), made up of elements (individuals, teams, departments, divisions, etc.) that are interdependent.

CAS emphasizes the relationships and interactions among the elements. Through these interactions—which are based on shared knowledge, goals, previous history, and worldview—new learning, creativity, capabilities, and adaptability surface. It is important to note that what surfaces is the result of the interactions among elements and not the particular actions of an individual or a group. In addition, in CAS, history cannot be revisited (you cannot reset the museum to an earlier period of time), order is emergent (it is created out of the interactions), and the future is typically unpredictable.

Understanding museums in terms of CAS will bring new solutions for current times. Museums are social organisms, and the work in which they engage is exhilarating yet messy. Complexity science is a frame that enables us to embrace the messiness and see the strength and creativity that results when systems connect, collide, and/or coalesce. A CAS perspective supports thinking about leaders and followers as roles that individuals play at different times and in different contexts.²

So what does it mean to lead in complex adaptive systems? Who leads and who follows? The answer is, it depends.

Leading in a complex environment

In his 1989 book Managing as a Performing Art, Peter Vaill describes complex systems as environments of “permanent white water.” Navigating in permanent white water requires an approach to leadership that differs from that exercised in more stable environments and more hierarchical organizations.

Turbulent conditions call for what Ron Heifetz described in 1994, in Leadership Without Easy Answers, as “adaptive leadership.” According to Heifetz, two basic types of issues require steering: “technical challenges” and “adaptive challenges.” When facing technical challenges (those that have been faced and solved before, and for which solutions are clear), management is needed; when facing adaptive challenges (those for which no response has yet been developed or tested), leadership is needed.

Complex challenges frequently traverse barriers of knowledge, skill, and function. The solutions are often murky and may not easily be seen from the corner office. One of the greatest challenges in adaptive leadership is that in times of stress those not in formal positions of authority are often quite willing to give away power to those in assigned positions of authority.

Staff may tend to look to traditional leaders to provide answers they do not have, and traditional leaders may step up to the pressure by falling back on the technical solutions they know. This disables some of the most important personal and collective resources that could be available for accomplishing adaptive work at a time when creativity and divergent solutions are most needed.

Adaptive leadership suggests that solutions to those important challenges that are not routine are best addressed in the context of shared leadership, recognizing that those in authority do not—and should not—be expected to have all the answers. Heifetz identifies five strategic principles of leadership that those in authority can apply to engage the leadership resources within the organization:

(1) identify the adaptive challenge;
(2) keep the level of stress high enough to encourage action, but not so high that the top blows off;
(3) focus attention on issues rather than stress-reducing distractions;
(4) distribute the work at a rate that people can handle; and
(5) protect voices of leadership without authority.

When these principles are applied, emergent leaders and engaged followers are supported in leaving the safe shelter of dependence and deference, which may require sharing risks, costs, and responsibilities. They also share in the rewards of leadership.

Conclusion

The world in which museums operate is exciting and complex. There is constant competition for resources that must be allocated to achieve myriad priorities. The challenges of today are far more intricate than those of 5, 10, or 20 years ago. Understanding and embracing our organizations’ complex natures can provide energy and avenues for greater creativity and innovation. Incorporating a framework of relation-based leadership can open up the process to many—in particular, those who may not see themselves as being in positions of power.

This shift in concepts of power and authority may best be understood in the context of feminist leadership theory. Power within an organization can be granted on the basis of position or be derived from followers. If one continues to accept the traditional perspective of power as a zero-sum commodity, in which power taken by one equals power lost by another, the emplacement of power within an informal leader may seem threatening to management and control.

However, within the context of feminist theory, as Peter G. Northouse explains in Leadership: Theory and Practice, power is defined in terms of energy and strength, “a source of synergy … to be taught and shared.” In this context, power expands as it is distributed, creating more power. When an individual steps up to leadership, there is room for others to step up as well.

Museum professionals come to the field because they are passionate about their craft, their area of interest, and their potential to make a difference. The structures within our institutions can either support or limit the ability to employ creativity and passion in the service of leadership. How can museums fully engage the passions that exist for implementing the organization’s mission? How can museums be better positioned to engage with their communities to create public value?

In a forthcoming book, Richard A. Couto offers the following definition: “Leadership is taking initiative on behalf of shared values.” We propose that museums will best be positioned as leaders in their communities when it is understood that “taking initiative” is not confined only to the most senior levels of management.

The number of managers in a given organization is finite. We are not all managers, nor do we all aspire to be. However, we all can exercise leadership any day and every day in ways big and small. Leadership must be encouraged and supported across all organizational levels. Leaders at all levels must embrace their capacity to lead, and leadership development must be accessible to all who are engaged in the practice of leading. Nurturing and investing in leadership practice within museums will strengthen museums as leaders in their communities.

Julie I. Johnson is the John Roe distinguished chair of museum leadership at the Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul, and Randy C. Roberts is deputy director of the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California. Both are in the Ph.D. in Leadership and Change program at Antioch University.

Readings

• Couto, Richard A. (ed.) Political and Civic Leadership: A Reference Handbook. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications, in press.
• Heifetz, Ronald A. Leadership Without Easy Answers. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994.
• Kotter, John P. A Force for Change: How Leadership Differs from Management. New York: Free Press, 1990.
• Northouse, Peter G. Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications, 1997.
• Sinclair, Amanda. Leadership for the Disillusioned: Moving Beyond Myths and Heroes to Leading That Liberates. Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2007.
• Vaill, Peter. Managing as a Performing Art. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989.

Footnotes

1. Fletcher, Joyce K. “The Paradox of Postheroic Leadership: An Essay on Gender, Power, and Transformational Change,” Leadership Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 5 (2004).
2. For more on CAS, see Benyamin B. Lichtenstein, Mary Uhl-Bien, Russ Marion, Anson Seers, James Douglas Orton, and Craig Schreiber, “Complexity Leadership Theory: An Interactive Perspective on Leading in Complex Adaptive Systems,” in ECO, vol. 8, no. 4 (2006). Available free online at http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/managementfacpub/8.

IN THIS ISSUE
September/October 2009

Climate change, genetic modification of foods, stem cell research, nanotechnology, ocean resource management, alternative energy production—these are just a few of the fields of current scientific and technical endeavor that directly impact human lives. In all of them, choices made by scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs, and government officials both spark public interest and excite controversy. What is the responsibility of science centers to present exhibits and programs on “hot topics” like these? Should we be more active in promoting social applications of scientific knowledge? In this issue we hear from professionals who represent a range of responses.

Contents
• Powerful Words, Strong Commitments, by Lesley Lewis
• Aquariums as a Force for Change: New Roles for Conservation and Social Impact, by Julie Packard
• Many Experts, Many Audiences, by Larry Bell, Tiffany Lohwater, and Ellen McCallie
• Convening Conversations about Climate Change: The Adirondack Model, by Stephanie Ratcliffe
• Making Choices: What Visitors Want to Know about Current Science , by Susie Wilkening and James Chung
• Public Dialogue about Science: Creating Successful Experiences, by Kathy Sykes
• From Public Understanding to Public Engagement, by Richard Jones
• Global Warning: Next Steps for the Science Center Field, by Charlie Trautmann, Sheila Grinell, Emlyn Koster, and Kim Cavendish
• When Scientists Take a Stand: Plenary Speakers at ASTC 2009, by Sheila Grinell

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By Julie Packard
From ASTC Dimensions
September/October 2009

The last quarter century has brought with it unprecedented and disturbing changes in the health of our aquatic environment, from the collapse of fisheries to dead zones in the oceans. In response, aquariums worldwide have evolved in their missions, and many of us have launched initiatives to advance our conservation role by promoting public awareness of environmental issues and undertaking field conservation work. Some of us have taken our mission a step further, moving from informing and engaging people to mobilizing them to take action on behalf of conservation.

In 2004, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, in Monterey, California, took a bold step in this direction when we launched a new policy and advocacy center, the Center for the Future of the Oceans. Our experiences to date may serve as a useful roadmap for other institutions as they consider expanding their role in conservation and other issues of broad public concern.

Launching the Center

Unlike the mission of the aquarium itself (to inspire conservation of the oceans), we launched the Center for the Future of the Oceans with a mission to inspire action on behalf of the oceans. A set of key questions informed by thought leaders in the field of conservation guided the center’s initial work: What can an aquarium contribute to an otherwise crowded field of conservation players? Which issues are both important and also ripe for action? What resonates with our audience and connects to our on-site experience?

The creation of an aquarium-based conservation advocacy center was not without risk. We realized that people might not welcome our increased focus on conservation messages. Our visitors might not want to get personally involved with conservation action, or they might look to other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for this guidance. Some visitors and donors might disagree with our points of view or feel we should not be taking positions on issues. And this new focus might distract from the core business of ensuring that our aquarium continued to thrive. As our work unfolded, none of these issues turned out to be barriers; instead, the public response was overwhelmingly positive.

Our first major policy focus was to promote implementation of marine protected areas in U.S. state and federal waters. We had the opportunity to support a groundbreaking state law—the California Marine Life Protection Act—that mandated creation of a network of marine protected areas along the entire coast of California, a first in the United States. Our involvement ranged from providing our policy staff’s input on legal language to engaging our visitors to send more than 20,000 postcards to the governor in favor of new marine protected areas.

The second focus was sustainable seafood. Based on an exhibition we opened in 1997 that highlighted global fisheries’ problems and solutions, we launched Seafood Watch, an informational pocket guide to sustainable seafood choices. The guide and our sustainable seafood outreach program are now part of a global movement to change how fisheries operate. Together with other U.S. aquariums, NGO collaborators, and sustainability certification systems like the Marine Stewardship Council, we’re driving change in the way major U.S. seafood buyers do business. Results to date include commitments from big seafood buyers like Aramark and a growing family of celebrity chefs who work to share their convictions about the importance of fishing and farming sustainably.

A third policy focus was conservation and restoration of key threatened marine wildlife species in our care—in particular, sea otters, tunas, and sharks. Our conservation field research program had been under way for many years, but until we created the Center for the Future of the Oceans, we did not have the policy expertise to convert these scientific findings into action on behalf of wildlife conservation. For example, today we are working in partnership with advocacy NGOs to improve management regimes for threatened Atlantic bluefin tuna, to turn around the 90 percent population decline of what is now the world’s most valuable fish. A fourth area of focus—climate change and the oceans—is now in development as well.

Our vehicles for action have been both “grassroots” and “grasstops.” We created a group called the Ocean Action Team—now over 19,000 strong—to enable our visitors to participate in policy issues on an ongoing basis by signing up through our web site or on the exhibit floor. At the higher level, our trustees are helping to promote our issues based on their expertise, from a fisherman who guided language for marine protected areas to a former member of Congress who made visits to Capitol Hill.

Public perceptions

Starting in 2007, we undertook an ambitious public opinion research effort to guide our next steps for outreach and advocacy. We began by studying attitudes and awareness of our current and potential members through Internet-based surveys conducted by IMPACTS Research. These studies yielded some surprising results.

Even though we are first and foremost an aquarium, many people think of us as an ocean conservation organization. In an open-ended question, respondents listed us in the top 10 ocean conservation organizations, alongside NGOs such as Greenpeace and the Nature Conservancy.

Of course, the public also continues to think of us as an aquarium, and in this regard we actually have two personas: an attraction and a trusted authority. In California and the western United States, our brand recognition as an attraction is strongest, but our authority brand extends nationally. We already have a large number of people who are members but never visit us, and there is significant potential for this national constituency to grow. In fact, the majority of responding members said the primary benefit of membership in the Monterey Bay Aquarium is feeling that they contribute positively to the conservation of the world’s oceans.

The research also showed that Seafood Watch has surprisingly large awareness levels across the nation. What began as a modest outreach program has mushroomed through the distribution of millions of pocket guides through aquariums and other institutions nationwide, a major effort to garner national coverage in the food media, and other outreach activities. Along with direct impact on the practices of restaurant owners and big buyers, Seafood Watch is a portal to engaging people in broader conservation issues facing our oceans.

A framework for the future

In the past, we have thought of our conservation advocacy and policy work as an add-on to the education and research programs that are considered an essential part of most modern aquariums. Today, guided by our new thinking, our conservation work is an essential part of our business strategy for the future.

We must remain attentive to maintaining our reputation as one of the world’s great aquariums, continuing our investment in husbandry research and development and engaging people in new ways through our exhibits. But our ability to grow attendance at our site is limited by a high level of repeat visitation and stable population growth among likely paying guests.

If we want to engage more people as contributors to, and active supporters of, our conservation mission, we must move our focus far beyond our walls. This will require a stronger emphasis on Internet communications, and a new more integrated approach to outreach across our workgroups.

Our ultimate goal as an aquarium is to build a constituency that will work to protect and restore the world’s aquatic ecosystems, which sustain all life. Engaging and activating people in a meaningful, long-term relationship may take many forms, whether we are asking them to visit, give, or act.

These forms of engagement are mutually reinforcing. Visits can motivate action when visitors are inspired to adopt a personal conservation behavior during their visit or to join our Ocean Action Team. Action can motivate visits when a Seafood Watch pocket guide stimulates a dinner table conversation, and friends learn about the aquarium and its work. Doing meaningful conservation work that builds brand loyalty and respect is the best business investment we can make.

Implications for the broader museum community

What can the broader museum community learn from our experience at Monterey Bay Aquarium? Our experience and recent research examining public attitudes about the role of zoos, aquariums, and museums in environmental action provide clear direction.

First and foremost, people expect our institutions not only to inform but also to guide; they are seeking information they can trust in a sea of communication media. Regarding environmental issues, they believe their actions can make a difference, and they would like us to suggest specific things they can do toward this end. Young people know and care more about the environment than do adults; they are more willing to act, and they influence opinions of their parents. These findings present clear opportunities for us all.

All of these factors provide compelling reasons why I believe the time has come for our institutions—from zoos to aquariums to science museums—to mobilize for broader social impact, whether our issue is the environment or the quality of K–12 science education or how evolution is taught in our schools.

Regardless of our varied locations, institutional cultures, or community backdrop, I believe that people everywhere are desperately seeking a common vision of a sustainable future on Earth, one that is practical and attainable and that they can contribute to realizing. While our underlying concerns may vary, people everywhere hold in common a quest for integrity and a yearning for hope that they can make the world a better place.

Aquariums and other informal science institutions can offer these key elements. By understanding our audiences wherever we are, we can craft meaningful ways to respond to their interests and their desire to be part of the solution to the global environmental and social crises in which we find ourselves. Building on a strong reputation, we can have a much bigger impact. With so many issues at stake that require scientific understanding and action, there is no time to lose. It’s time to stretch our wings.

Julie Packard is executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, California. The author thanks Jim Hekkers, Monterey Bay Aquarium managing director; Scott Corwon, principal of IMPACTS Research; and the aquarium senior staff for their essential contributions to the work described here. This article is based on a paper presented at the 2008 International Aquarium Congress in Shanghai, China. For more information on the Center for the Future of Oceans and the Ocean Project public opinion research, visit www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cffo.asp or www.theoceanproject.org.

IN THIS ISSUE
July/August 2009

As science centers and museums welcome increasingly diverse audiences, many of them are working to accommodate the linguistic needs of their visitors and to foster a sense of ownership and belonging. Immigrants, indigenous populations, and visitors who are Deaf bring a variety of languages with them to science centers around the world. This issue will explore how centers are recruiting bilingual staff, reaching out to linguistically diverse communities, and constructing multilingual exhibitions, materials, and educational programs.

Contents
• In Other Words: Developing Bilingual Exhibitions, by Carlos Plaza
• The Languages of Science in Wales, by Chris Mason
• Secrets of Circles: Evaluation of a Trilingual Exhibition, by Sue Allen
• Sharing Yup’ik Language, Knowledge, and Heritage, by Ann Fienup-Riordan
• Language in a Learning Ensemble, by Derlly González and Kristin Leigh
• Challenges for English Medium Instruction in Sri Lanka, by Sean Perera
• Expanding Informal Science Education for Latinos, by Robert L. Russell and Malu Jimenez
• The Self Reliance Foundation and Science Education, by Robert L. Russell
• Addressing Deaf Visitors with an American Sign Language Multimedia Tour, by Christine Reich and Elissa Chin

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