Building a More Human-Centered Future
A better future is possible, and it is up to us to make this happen together
Hey Changemakers!
After returning home from a scorching hot 3 days in Tucson, Arizona, at the Western Museums Association, I wanted to share a brief reflection on the conference itself as well as my thinking around the “human-centered” mindset that I spoke about at the conference’s Friday luncheon.
First of all, a huge thanks to Jason Jones, the WMA Board, and the entire Planning and Host Committee for pulling together such a wonderful conference last week in Tucson!! The overarching theme was “Balance,” and I think they nailed it. Among the standard conference sessions and panels, there was time to get outdoors (when it was cool enough), connect with colleagues, and get away to reflect, slow down, and breathe — all in the stunningly-beautiful landscape of the Sonoran desert.
I really enjoyed reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones, and attending some thoughtful sessions on leadership and community engagement.
Across all the sessions and the casual conversations, one burning question kept bubbling up for me and so many others — can’t we just be more human with each other?
Can’t we just set aside the BS, the bureaucracy, the ego, the unnecessary barriers, and the “business as usual” behaviors and truly bring care, compassion, empathy, and connection to the core of our practice? And what would that look like if we did?
During the conference’s Friday Luncheon, I gave remarks that focused on this idea of human-centered practice, pulling from my own writings (see Museums as Agents of Change) and thoughts that I have developed throughout the past 5 years.
I believe there continues to be an urgency to doing the work it takes to be more human with each other, and build a more human-centered future — for museums, for nonprofits, and for our communities. And that work can begin right here, right now — with us.
So here is my more complete piece entitled “Building a More Human-Centered Future.” Let me know what resonates with you, and how you might be able to take these ideas into your organization, your practice, and your life.
Enjoy!
Building a More Human-Centered Future
Let me start with an idea that, for me, is absolutely foundational: museums are human-centered and community-centered endeavors. They are not simply buildings or collections of objects. They are, first and foremost, about people and made up of people. Museums are us.
And the need for a human-centered approach to museum practice has never been more urgent.
Artist Andrea Fraser stated: “Every time we speak of the ‘institution’ as other than ‘us’ we disavow our role in the creation and perpetuation of its conditions.” Fraser’s work as an artist explores forms of institutional critique that problematize the museum as a complex social site, a view that can be expanded upon as we envision museums as agents of social change.
Considering a museum as a monolithic entity might make it easier to criticize from the outside, yet gaining an understanding of a museum as “us” certainly sparks a direct sense of the possibility of change from within as well as a clear sense of responsibility for those working in and with museums. As the people involved in the work of a museum, we have a responsibility to understand our role in the system of policies, practices, and power dynamics as well as our role to change that system.
We Are All Agents of Change
A human-centered approach to museums is an important basis for any discussion of museums, social change, and community involvement, since it defines the vision, mission, and work of a museum as the vision, mission, and work of the people who are part of that museum. Critiques of museums are critiques of us, and any necessary changes in museums must start with the people of that museum and its community. Each and every one of us has a role to play as an agent of change in shaping a better future for museums
My own passion for change in museums comes from a place of love that has grown over the past two decades through countless experiences of togetherness, connection, pain, sharing, learning, and healing – both within and outside the walls of these institutions. I’ve worked with museum professionals and community leaders to advance a more human-centered approach and push institutions beyond being just a collection of objects. I’ve seen museums being places where people learn from each other, see their lives from a completely new perspective, and come together to heal. I’ve worked to bring communities into the center of planning exhibitions, programs, and projects and seen institutions begin to be shaped by these communities in meaningful and powerful ways.
Museums worldwide strive to be agents of positive change in their local communities and beyond. It is essential to recognize that becoming an agent of change does not happen because of a single program or temporary exhibition project, and it certainly does not happen with just one person (no matter how passionate they are). The transformation happening right now at so many museums is the result of the passionate dedication of staff across departments as well as rapidly growing networks of community partners. By recognizing the power of human relationships and proactively building communities of change, we can collectively face the many barriers and challenges that prevent positive change.
This work involves an enormous amount of listening, developing trust, and a focus on building relationships – both within a museum as well as with audiences and communities. It involves growing a community of change and advocacy from within and embracing a human-centered mindset in everything an institution does.
As obvious and straightforward as it sounds to think about museums as human-centered institutions, this idea has faced a legacy of rather fierce opposition grounded in outdated traditions and histories. For example, consider the following questions:
How many museums still have mission statements that prioritize collecting and preserving objects rather than fore-fronting the people-centered work of building community, growing empathy and understanding, celebrating human creativity, and cultivating engaged citizenship?
How often do museum directors and boards make decisions that value objects and collections over staff, volunteers, and museum visitors? We certainly saw evidence of this during the pandemic through targeted budget cuts and staff layoffs, and we continue to see evidence of this in pay inequities and severe workplace burnout.
What if those in positions of power and authority considered human relationships and human impact first and foremost when making decisions about exhibitions, interpretation, programs, facilities, policies, and practices?
What if the core values of an institution reflected the core values held by its staff?
Becoming More Human-Centered
At its foundation, being a more human-centered museum involves shaping and productively debating a set of core values that reflect a commitment to care, empathy, and human connection. When we put people first – above collections, above endowments, above budget spreadsheets – we are making a commitment to advance compassion, human potential, and collective well-being as integral elements to our institution’s values and culture.
The process starts with individuals engaging in deep/ deeper self-inquiry:
What matters most to us?
What are the ideas and people that have shaped our core values?
If our institutions and workplaces could create environments based on deeper human values, what would that look like?
How can we more bravely and consistently align our practice with our core values?
Self-inquiry is crucial to making institutional change, and it requires work. Spend time asking yourself these questions. Share them with others and start larger conversations with colleagues in your department and across your institution.
Through facilitating workshops and talking with museum leaders during the past few years, I have learned how common it is for people to skip this step. We’re so anxious to jump into the work of making change happen that we don’t take the necessary time to understand who we are, where our beliefs come from, and what is motivating our desire for change. It can even be important to pause and reflect on our own relationship with change itself, thinking about how we react and respond to change happening in our own lives – not just through our museum work
Community organizer and activist Grace Lee Boggs wonderfully wrote, “Transform yourself to transform the world.” So the first step may be recognizing the change we need to make within ourselves. Our own life and work can be the first place we start practicing a more human-centered approach.
In his book Moving Icebergs: Leading People to Lasting Change, Steve Patty argues that in order to create lasting change within an organization, we need to dive below the surface to engage our deeper values and beliefs. He writes,
“Every organization needs to hold candid conversations about values and beliefs, purpose and meaning.”
Too often, the institutional culture of museums – as well as that of many nonprofits, businesses, and corporations – undervalues these more personal conversations and the vulnerability required to connect with each other in deeply human ways. We avoid talking with each other about our personal core values because it’s ‘too personal’ and best left to private reflection outside the workplace
Being a more human-centered museum, however, means creating an environment where we can all be more human with each other, understand each others’ beliefs and convictions, build trust, and treat each other with care, respect, and dignity, especially in the face of crisis. This requires rethinking an organization’s hierarchy, developing a shared sense of leadership, and engaging in equity across every aspect of the organization. To bring a human-centered approach into museums, we need to question everything and leave the status quo mindset in the past.
Leading Means Being More Human
During the first few months of the pandemic back in 2020, I participated in a reading group on leadership in times of crisis. We were asked to read Who Do We Choose To Be? by Margaret Wheatley, a teacher and leadership consultant best known for her classic 1992 text Leadership and the New Science.
One quote early in Wheatey’s book resonated with me, and has helped me understand the vital importance of transforming leadership, specifically, as part of the work to change museums. She writes:
“I know it is possible for leaders to use their power and influence, their insight and compassion, to lead people back to an understanding of who we are as human beings, to create the conditions for our basic human qualities of generosity, contribution, community, and love to be evoked no matter what.”
Embracing a human-centered mindset in museums asks us to elevate care, relationship building, and collective well-being as integral elements to our institutions’ values and culture. It is about putting all human beings, not just visitors or audiences, at the center of our organizational thinking rather than collections, big donors, endowments, curatorial silos, or shiny capital projects. For those in leadership positions, I think this means setting aside ego, stepping back, learning to listen in radical ways, and making decisions based on care and deeply-held human values and doing this all while it runs counter to conventional thinking, entrenched legacies of leadership, and the expectations of funders
In his 2019 book Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up, leadership development expert and executive coach Jerry Colonna writes about how the habits and behavioral patterns of CEOs have been detrimental to their own well-being and the well-being of others. On page one, he states:
“I believe that better humans make better leaders. I further believe that the process of learning to lead well can help us become better humans.”
In my copy of Colonna’s book, these two sentences are heavily underlined. I remember reading this for the very first time, and just sitting with it. I was in the middle of a particularly challenging decision, and I was looking for guidance on how to move forward. Much of Colonna’s book and practice is focused on radical self-inquiry and finding ways to listen deeply to our own hearts.
Being a more human-centered leader – and leading from a place of deeper human values – requires us to resist this pressure to perform the rigid expectations of leadership that are harmful. It requires us to slow down and ask ourselves a series of meaningful questions:
What is my work to become a better person?
What is my own power and privilege within society and within the structures of this institution?
How can I break free from existing and traditional expectations, and lead from my heart and from a place of humanity?
This process of self-inquiry is ongoing, and we need to practice holding space for qualities such as care, compassion, healing, deep listening, emotional maturity, and a sense of interconnectedness with other human beings and with our planet. It is a practice that we can cultivate and grow through journaling, meditation, mindfulness, dialogue with others, building a community of support with those who truly value these qualities, and learning from the work being done outside the field of museums in social justice, restorative justice, community organizing, nonviolent communication, climate activism, and healing practice.
These are not soft skills, as they have often been called, in order to write them off and devalue them. These are essential skills. At a time when our society is in desperate need of care and healing, being a more human-centered leader means making a commitment to creating the conditions in which these qualities – and the people who hold them – can flourish.
An Opportunity for Change
In her widely watched 2010 TED talk entitled “The Power of Vulnerability,” researcher and author Brené Brown talks about connection as a fundamental human experience. “Connection is why we’re here,” she says, “it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.”
At a time when we are surrounded by increasingly fragmented societies and growing socio-political divisions, museums have the potential to be powerful catalysts for empathy and human connection. The challenges of our time have given us the perfect opportunity to radically rethink museums and create a path forward that is deeply grounded in care, kindness, courage, patience, resilience, and love. I’ve seen these values practiced by activists and changemakers across our field, yet so many institutions still cling to outdated power structures, oppressive legacies, and harmful dominant cultures.
As we move forward, we need to reflect inward as individuals and develop a strong grounding. Let’s take the time to ask ourselves who we are and how we want to bring our truest and fullest selves to the collective work of transforming museums and into our human responsibility to change our institutions.
I know what museums look and feel like when they begin to live up to their full potential as open-hearted spaces of care, humanity and love. My demands for change are rooted in these experiences. Museums everywhere have the potential to take action and be the places that bring people together and change people’s lives.
A different future is possible, and it is up to us to make this happen together.
Being Community-Centered Is a Key Part of Being More Human-Centered
Working to make our institutions more connected to our local communities is a key part of being more human-centered. It’s crucial to form meaningful, reciprocal partnerships with local organizations and groups already creating positive change across a variety of issues.
To explore this work further, I invite you to join me for the Fall Community-Centered Engagement Intensive, starting October 30.
This online interactive workshop will provide tools and strategies for building stronger, more authentic connections with your community, so you can foster real change both inside and outside your institution.
I’m really excited to launch this workshop and bring together an incredible group for this fall’s Community-Centered Engagement Intensive.