Long-Term Audaciousness

Even though I have been following Seth Godin for nearly five years, I am still taken aback by how pertinent is daily blog posts are to the issues with which I am dealing. In today's post, "How much can I get away with?" Seth talks about the two, far competitive edges implicit in this question. Do you get away with doing as little as possible to cut costs, reduce services or charge more? Essentially, the easy route. Or do we push toward the opposite edge of doing more, being more audacious, providing better service and being greater than great? This is the tougher route, for most.

As I finish my first full week as a fledgling museum director, I am faced with this very question. After 30-plus years, the museum is doing OK. Much of the programming, exhibits, collections management and overall vision, however, has been in statis. This past Monday, I was given the charge to develop a plan, over the next couple of months, that will get the museum moving forward again. So, all week, I've been asking myself, "How much can I get away with?"

We do need to charge more for admission. We do need to trim overhead expenses a bit. We cannot, however, reduce services. And we have to do more. Can we aim for AAM accreditation? Is that too audacious for a small, academic museum? Can we replace static exhibits with hands-on, interactive educational experiences? Can we pursue a completely different business model that brings in vendors, increases professional staff, and attracts new sources of revenue? Can we raise $2 or $3 million dollars for an endowment that will take the worry out of paying the bills?

These "big" questions are scary. I have to convince not only my boss that, yes, in fact, we can do these things, but I also have to convince a handful of very influential university administrators, the community and, most of all, my staff. Hopefully, I can be practical enough to deal with the short-term fixes and naive enough to believe the long-term "audaciousness" can be realized.

In the end, I have to be encouraged and inspired by the handful of men who looked at a desolate salt dome outside Beaumont and believed they would strike oil. They didn't ask if they could get away with it. They just did it.

Oh, yes, I am looking to get away with a lot. Stay tuned....