Ms. Katherin Canton

On Shifting Systems and Equity

Posted by Ms. Katherin Canton, Mar 17, 2016 1 comment


Ms. Katherin Canton

In 2011, I came across a professional development program that was centered on connection, peer learning and “real talk,” Emerging Arts Professionals San Francisco/Bay Area (EAP/SFBA) was a new home for me as I entered the full time arts admin workforce. I was drawn in by the brilliant and compassionate people who represented experiences along the career spectrum, were not afraid to hold space for each other to have tough conversations about work, life, and the field. I share this because the Arts Leadership Forward report reflects EAP/SFBA conversations and I see the connection between Hewlett’s recommendations and successful pilot projects around the region.

From where I stand in the field the second recommendation of the Arts Leadership Forward initiative is a promising strategy towards a healthier arts ecosystem.

RECOMMENDATION 2

Build capacity for leadership to be distributed across generations to encourage leaders of all ages—who likely have varying levels of experience, formal training, values, and work styles—to engage in leading together.

Supporting arts administrators across the career/experience spectrum has provided EAP/SFBA with an understanding of the impact of meaningful opportunities for decision making and visioning. We hear that long-time executives/senior level staff want to learn, relax, and connect while at the same time emerging leaders want to stretch, imagine, and get stuff done together. Projects like the Living Transition Plan by the Dancers’ Group, Arts for a Better Bay Area, and MALI are prime examples of shifting leadership models that align with shifting systems of leadership development, social/political landscapes, inequity, and access. These projects are important because they include staff directed organization planning, multi-generational advocacy stewardship, and capacity building for leaders of color.

What I find compelling is that this recommendation could connect the report’s key findings on using innovation as a tool, diversity as an intention, and equity as long term goal, tangibly together. The outcome I am excited to see through my work with the EAP/SFBA network is the systems and models shifts that bolster capacity for organizations and individuals. Not only does this tactic better support individuals and organizations, it also builds the capacity of the field to better embrace cultural shifts while also retains decades of lessons learned. This capacity building allows the field to be more responsive to the changing demographics of the state in a way that is genuinely valued by those doing the work and those participating. This could shift the conversation around equity from a buzzword to an operationalized framework that varies across organizations, but lives throughout the field.

One of the biggest potential challenges from this work is the tension brought on by the perception of differing values among colleagues. While this provides space for healthy dissent and communication skill development, it also provides an opportunity to practice peer-coaching, to develop tools for greater empathy, and to collaboratively problem solve more often. I look forward to more moments of healthy dissent, collaborative leadership, and encouraging folks to regenerate their practice all within a more intergenerational space. I know the network will continue to be thrive as we collectively work within more cross-generational collaborative leadership spaces.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s report, Moving Arts Leadership Forward, describes a changing arts leadership and workforce. Americans for the Arts, in partnership with the Hewlett Foundation, has asked a diverse group of arts leaders to respond to the report’s findings and the recommendations it makes for the field.

1 responses for On Shifting Systems and Equity

Comments

March 17, 2016 at 7:36 pm

Thank you very much for your comments.  I was particularly taken by your perceptive thinking regard the phrase "using innovation as a tool, diversity as an intention and equity as a long term goal, tangibly together."  This provides a good framework by which we can shape our work.

using innovation as a tool, diversity as an intention, and equity as long term goal, tangibly together. - See more at: http://blog.americansforthearts.org/2016/03/17/on-shifting-systems-and-e...

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