An introduction to
Move on Up
Strategic change coaching programme
for 21st Century arts organisations
“
Move on Up has provided a catalyst to bring all staff on board
through a creative strategic process that has revealed a confidence
and excitement about our future.
EUAN MURDOCH
CEO, Chamber Music New Zealand
”
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
Introduction
Creative New Zealand, in partnership with Morris Hargreaves
McIntyre (MHM), launched Move on Up in 2007 to facilitate a change
process within organisations wishing to become unequivocally
artistically-led but relentlessly audience focused.
Eleven organisations have completed Move on Up since June 2008 –
Centrepoint Theatre (Palmerston North), Fortune Theatre (Dunedin),
Chamber Music New Zealand (Wellington), Taki Rua Productions
(Wellington), Circa Theatre (Wellington), The Physics Room
(Christchurch), Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (New Plymouth),
Artspace (Auckland), Footnote Dance Company (Wellington), Toi
Maori (Wellington) and Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.
Creative New Zealand has invested in Move on Up for four years and it is
our flagship organisational development programme. The programme has
been evaluated and the outcomes over the past 3 years have exceeded all
expectations with participating organisations making bold, exciting
changes and in some cases re-imagining themselves in such a dramatic
fashion that they have inspired audiences, funders and their own staff.
Move on Up has had such significant impact on New Zealand
organisations that Morris Hargreaves McIntyre has exported the
programme to the UK, North America, Scandinavia and Australia,
where it is commonly known as the ‘New Zealand Model’ with New
Zealand graduates cited as centres of exemplary practice.
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
How do you become unequivocally artistically-led but
relentlessly audience focused?
Well, let’s start with how not to do it…
#1 Marketing
You can’t become more audience-focused through marketing.
Marketing has never and will never win the hearts and minds of arts
practitioners. Marketing will always be a function not a philosophy.
#2 Top-down
You can’t impose passion any more than you can force creativity. But
you need both for real change, and no board or senior management
team can hand them down from on high.
#3 Management consultants
Arts organisations are so much more than businesses and audiences
are so much more than customers. Every time we try to transplant this
reductive business-think and worse, that mind-numbing businessspeak, into the arts a little bit of our creativity dies.
#4 Business planning
Got to be done but don’t confuse this with real planning. Instead of
writing a mission statement, you need to be on a mission. So, tear it up
and write a manifesto instead. Once you’ve got zeal, the business
planning is easy.
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
OK, so what works?
Four things we do…
#1 Understanding the prevailing culture
MHM and Creative New Zealand operate outside your organisation but
have insider knowledge of the sector. So we come with understanding and
empathy. Our examples are relevant and our questions are informed.
#2 Insist on being artistically-led
The art and your expertise about that art. And did we mention the art?
We’re a bit one-eyed here. We believe that’s virtually everything that
matters. So we put that front and centre. Actually, we’d go further –
compromise one jot and you stop being an arts organisation.
#3 Involve the cleaners
We get everyone involved; board members, CEOs, artists and even the
cleaners. If we are embarking on a big journey, we should leave no one
behind. In our experience, great ideas can come from anywhere; staff
from the foyer usually have the best view of the audience.
#4 Scaffolding
That’s all we do. We provide facilitation, guidance and some very useful
structures and models. You do the rest. In short, we scaffold your
development rather than lead you by the nose.
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
Who is Move on Up for?
Ask yourself…
#1 Are you a strong artistic leader?
Those who lack passion and conviction or who are looking over their
shoulder to see what their peers think need not apply. This programme
is built around you and your ideas. Bring your best game.
#2 Are you solvent?
This programme takes you from good to great – it’s not designed to
rescue you from the red to the black.
#3 Do you have faith in audiences?
We don’t buy the cascade of disdain that rains down on audiences’
heads. We don’t believe that big audiences mean it’s bad art. We think
audiences are amazing, intelligent, interesting and interested. If you
have faith in yourself and your art to connect, engage and transform,
then that faith in the audience will be repaid.
#4 Are you up for a challenge and open to change?
No point if you’re not. But if you are, you stand a good chance of real
renewal. Ironically, arts organisations are often some of the least
creatively run companies around. Let’s make your organisation as
creative as your art. Move on Up: The 21st Century Arts Organisation
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
Background reader
A strong theoretical base
The workshops in Move on Up are dynamic, creative and designed to
generate ideas.
But before staff and stakeholders get to the workshops, we want them
to do some thinking.
Our background reader, Insight required, challenges many of the
shibboleths about audiences and opens up a debate that results in
richer more informed workshop sessions.
This is available from our website:
http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/assets/ckeditor/attachments/69/7_pillars_of
_audience_focus.pdf
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
OK, let’s get more specific…
Start with the end in mind, so here are the outputs:
#1 A manifesto
Articulates your beliefs, values, ethos, aims and impact. Ten times more
powerful that the cookie-cutter vision statement.
#2 Seven Pillars scorecard
Every member of staff scores the organisation on 35 questions and they
then compare, contrast and resolve. This produces three things: a score, an
internal debate and a list of actions to increase lower scores.
Of these the debate is the most useful and the list the most practical.
#3 Strategic brand model
The brand model is your DNA code – you at your best. Forget logos – it’s
more about what you do. The resultant brand audit generates yet more
actions for improvement.
#4 Strategy Tree
The ultimate one-pager, relating every action to a strategy and every
strategy to an objective and all objectives to your mission and vision.
#5 Written change plan
All the above in a pithy, focused 10-pager. Dream it. Do it. Prove it.
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
What are the Seven Pillars?
They provide the structure for the programme:
#1 Vision-led
To what extent are you unequivocally artistically-led, and relentlessly
audience focused? Do you believe that the audience is as important as the
art? Do leaders champion the art and audience equally?
#2 Brand-driven
Does your brand codify your essence, beliefs, personality and impacts?
Does the brand inform all aspects of your operation?
#3 Interdisciplinary
Is it everyone in the organisation’s job to understand, think about and
respond to the audience? Or do you work in silos?
#4 Outcome-oriented
You believe that your art transforms, but how exactly? And how will you
measure it?
#5 Insight-guided
Do you have a deep understanding of your different audiences? Are they
segmented? Is this insight your lifeblood?
#6 Interactively engaged
Do you believe that the audience is intelligent and creative? Do you want
them to be as challenging to you as you want to be to them?
#7 Personalised
What do you do to help each member of the audience to fully engage and
respond socially, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually?
Scorecard for the Seven Pillars
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
#1 Answer 35 questions
Every member of staff and each stakeholder is asked to score the
organisation out of 10 for 5 questions in each of the seven pillars:
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
Scorecard for the Seven Pillars
#1 Visualising the results
The 35 questions from the scorecard are answered by every member of
staff. Staff then compare and harmonise in departments, generating
actions to improve lower scores. It’s not uncommon for different
departments to have very differing views of their organisation.
The chart below illustrates this. These are then also compared and
harmonised, generating yet more suggestions.
#2 The scores
There is a point to the scores – they are a closely debated metric and
offer the chance to repeat in, say, a year and measure progress
#3 The discussion
This makes the scores look like a by-product. Colleagues from your
department or from other parts of the organisation often score the
same question completely differently. The ensuing discussion goes the
heart of most misunderstandings and creates a sense of common
understanding.
#4 The action lists
At every stage: individually, in our departments and between
departments, we generate lists of how to improve individual scores.
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
Strategic Brand model
#1 The model
Our model below is anchored by the four key brand elements:
- ESSENCE (the big idea)
- VALUES (what you believe)
- PERSONALITY (what you’re like)
- BENEFIT (what they get)
It then defines the attributes that help you to achieve the
three core objectives of all arts organisations:
- TO ATTRACT
- TO ENGAGE
- TO IMPACT
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
Strategic Brand model
#2 The example
Here is one that has been populated
through Move on Up:
#3 The audit
We then ask every team to review every aspect of
what they do and to list each activity in one of three
boxes:
- ON BRAND (celebrate, disseminate, repeat)
- NEARLY THERE (refine - some elements wrong/missing)
- OFF BRAND (exit strategy needed)
#4 The action list
For each box they then generate the list of actions that
will help them repeat, refine, exit etc.
#5 The inspiration
For new projects, Move on Up organisations use the brand as an
inspiring aide-memoire to better planning and design. Many have it
pinned above their desks.
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
The Strategy Tree
#1 The example
How the Strategy Tree works
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
A logical cascade
#1 The hierarchy
Your belief informs your vision and your vision informs your mission.
Your mission is translated into objectives and the objectives are served
by strategies. Each strategy is broken down into a series of actions.
#2 Deceptively simple, but revealing
If the hierarchy seems simple it’s because it is. But that doesn’t prevent
most business plans from mixing up objectives and strategies. And
they rarely have a convincing way of linking the detailed practical
actions of page 17 to the inspiring words on page 3. Our approach
articulates and displays those links. And exposes those actions that are
not adequately linked to strategies and strategies that are not directly
serving objectives.
#3 Reading ‘down’ the tree
So, if you start at the top of the tree, every time you read ‘down’ a level,
you can just insert the word “by…” in front of the next level.. We pursue
our belief by creating a vision; the vision by committing to a mission;
the mission by setting objectives; the objectives by pursuing strategies;
and the strategies by implementing actions.
#4 Reading ‘up the tree
Conversely, you can read up the tree by inserting the phrase “in order
to…” to explain how every action serves a strategy, and its objective,
helps achieve the mission to pursue the vision to act on our belief.
In this way, we make sure every objective has an adequate plan and
that every action is for a purpose.
The programme
One-to-ones, workshops and homework
#1 One-to-one mentoring
Underpinning each Move on Up is the critical relationship between the
consultant and the artistic leader. We make time to meet, to build
rapport and trust and to ensure that the leader is central to the
development proves. We continue to meet and to speak throughout
and, crucially, afterwards to follow progress and give advice when
needed.
#2 Workshop sessions
We stage three intensive, full day workshops over a number of months
that are designed to stimulate maximum creativity and discussion.
#3 Homework
The work done in the workshop room is taken back to base, opened up
for more staff to contribute, worked up and circulated. We begin
writing the final document in the very first session and piece the first
draft together from the various outputs. It’s organic, transparent and
empowering.
#4 The written plan
We support the production of the final written plan to ensure that it
fully captures the workshop contributions and articulatesthe
organisations’ manifesto, belief, vision, mission, obectives, values,
brand DNA, strategies and actions, especially those arising from the
scorecard and brand audit exercises.
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
Does it actually work?
Absolutely
#1 Taki Rua Theatre Company
Taki Rua is a national Maori theatre company in Wellington, New
Zealand, run by the inspirational artistic director, James Ashcroft:
“Profound. The programme has personally come at a time that management
was in need of inspiration and encouragement. It has also provided us with the
tools to start developing thought and discussion with board, artists and
partners. Response has been uniformly creative, reciprocal and positive. Move
On Up has reintroduced us to our vocation.”
#2 Govett-Brewster Art Gallery
Govett-Brewster is a contemporary art gallery in New Plymouth in New
Zealand, run by the dynamic Rhana Davenport:
“On a daily basis we using the terms 'on-brand', 'outcomes', 'essence' as a
shared vocabulary which is very useful. We are now refining and developing the
identified 'strategies' and 'actions' as constant reference for priorities /
planning / programming.”
Further Information
If you have any questions, please contact:
Helen Bartle
Senior Adviser Audience Development
Creative New Zealand
[email protected]
T: 09 377 8750
M: 021 662 892
#3 Circa Theatre
Circa Theatre is a Wellington-based theatre and company run by an
energetic council that includes actor and director, Simon Vincent:
“[Move on Up] has taught me that the business and creative sides of arts
management come from the same impulse and it has clarified for me the
purpose and importance of strategic audience focus in a practical and useable
way”
Move on Up | The 21st Century Arts Organisation
Morris Hargreaves McIntyre
Morris Hargreaves McIntyre is an award-winning creative research
consultancy that specialises in helping organisations to transform their
business activities through enhanced audience focus. The company is
renowned for using market insight to make a real difference to the
organisations they work with.
Their clients include The British Museum, Tate, the V&A, the Southbank
Centre, Barbican, Arts Council England, Edinburgh International Film
Festival, Malmo Opera, Australia Council for the Arts, Christchurch Art
Gallery, Te Papa, Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Creative New Zealand.
Morris Hargreaves McIntyre has professional project management
resources, qualified statisticians and are members of the Museums
Association, British Evaluation Society, Market Research Society,
Chartered Institute of Marketing, Association of Qualitative Research and
Visitor Studies Group.
Most of importantly of all, they are passionate about understanding
cultural consumers, getting to the heart of the issues that matter to your
organisation and making practical recommendations. They measure their
success based on the impact they have on the organisations they work
with.
www.lateralthinkers.com