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These are uncertain times. We don’t know what will unfold over the coming days and weeks. We are in a period of mass disruption, coupled with understandable anxiety and concern. At this time, we’re more committed than ever to support arts and cultural organisations across the sector. Today, we’ve spoken to Dr Dawn Langley, an associate at people make it work, founder of Alchemy Research & Consultancy and former Director of Organisational Development at ACE. We’re sharing her insights on how to plan for the coming weeks and months ahead.

Handling major disruption

We are in an open-ended situation and it’s important that we all ask ourselves some core questions such as:

What is our burn rate? What are the existing monthly costs that we need to cover – salaries, contracts, services?

What is our safety net? How much cash do we have to spend month on month – what income do we have that we can draw on?

Without knowing how long this crisis will last, what plans can we put in place for the next 3 months, the next year?

Knowing that change is happening now, how can we adapt our business model now? How will this change our working practices in the coming weeks and in the future? It seems less pressing today, but the reality is we will emerge from this crisis into a landscape that has changed. Our primary focus is ‘on the now’ but let’s not forget about our future state.

Some ideas that you might useful…

1. Form groups – collaborate with others
2. Stay in touch with your stakeholders
3. Stay in touch with your customers and beneficiaries
4. Review all your contracts and know your obligations – this includes event cancelations, tenants, artists, freelancers and ancillary services such as catering, IT support etc
5. Seek specialist advice – this may include insolvency advice
6. If you have a large team, consider a phased roll out of digital processes and access so you can test your systems. Think through the needs and access requirements of your team
7. Ensure you have good back-up systems
8. Know where to go for support – some of the recent Treasury announcements outline support that could be available to the cultural sector
9. Act compassionately. Everyone responds to this type of situation differently
10. Don’t forget to look at cross sector advice – like the Federation of Small Businesses, National Council for Voluntary Organisations.

We are all experiencing unprecedented pressure, as public facing organisations at the heart of communities, as vulnerable organisations often reliant on the public to remain viable, as employers and a source of income for countless freelance and casual workers, and as family members, friends and neighbours of people who are concerned and affected in myriad ways by this public health crisis.

We are all being tested in new ways and on multiple dimensions. How do we respond to the social, financial, personal and economic pressures we are experiencing today, and that might unfold tomorrow?

We know that organisational and social change is often hampered by complacency, everyday pressures and critically, the lack of a galvanising vision combined with a practical concrete plan that we can engage with; our response to the heating of our planet is a case in point. We know that short term organisational and social change is most effectively achieved when there is an urgent and visceral threat; our response to floods or missing children show us how these can punch through our ‘business as usual’ response.

We are all being tested in new ways and on multiple dimensions. How do we respond to the social, financial, personal and economic pressures we are experiencing today, and that might unfold tomorrow?

We know that organisational and social change is often hampered by complacency, everyday pressures and critically, the lack of a galvanising vision combined with a practical concrete plan that we can engage with; our response to the heating of our planet is a case in point. We know that short term organisational and social change is most effectively achieved when there is an urgent and visceral threat; our response to floods or missing children show us how these can punch through our ‘business as usual’ response.

The public health crisis, Covid-19, has clearly created just such an urgent and visceral threat. Our immediate challenge as organisations has shifted from being about how we reinvent the cultural experiences we deliver to make them ever more relevant and engaging for our communities in the 21^st Century, to how we survive for the next 6 months, stay connected with our communities and audiences and support our staff and colleagues through this challenging time.

While long term issues have to battle with complacency to get our attention, immediate issues challenge our composure – making it difficult to make good decisions when we are under so much pressure to make quick ones. We don’t have the luxury to be slow at times like this, but we also need to consult our wisdom and experience, to involve multiple perspectives and to build consensus.

How do we act quickly, respond authentically, enable action while also being nuanced and drawing on our wisdom? We have identified some insights that we share here with all humility.

Combine clarity with iteration

• At moments of extreme uncertainty, people crave clarity. As leaders we need to offer definite steps and clear guidance. But when circumstances are changing so fast, and when we might not have had time to explore the question from every viewpoint, let’s aim for “fast and flex” not “fast and fix.” Let’s issue clear guidance, but with an indication that it will be updated on a regular basis, that we are continuing to be in dialogue with a range of people and we expect it to iterate. And let’s tell people how they’ll hear the next iteration and how they can make their own voice heard.

Process Vision

• We all want a clear vision of the future. As leaders we can sometimes give that, but more often we will enable it to emerge. Let’s share a “process vision” rather than “destination visions” with our teams at this time. A process vision gives a clear journey about how we will shape our plans and future together, what the steps and options might be and how we will reach decisions. It tells people how we will arrive at a destination vision, but doesn’t define it now. Process visions are great in times of uncertainty, since they give clarity of process without fixing our final destination.

Organisational culture and values

• We need to trust our true culture and values – how we do things in this organisation – what our authentic approach should be. Let’s draw on our values at difficult times, they give us a routemap through complexity. When we stand in our values our next steps often become clear. During a crisis it is often tempting to ditch our shared values and issue an edict. But our values are only truly useful when they are under pressure… Let’s make sure our culture shapes our times, not our times shape our culture.

Collective insight

• Even when we are under pressure the diversity of perspectives in our organisations is crucial, and so let’s make time to hear the wisdom, experience and intuition that exists across our organisation. We’ll make better decisions with multiple viewpoints, and the decisions will be owned and implemented with greater clarity if the fingerprints of the whole team can be felt on our response.

Connect with our Audiences and Communities

• Many of our organisations have missions that involve creating transformational experiences for individuals and communities. If we stand in that mission, what responses, interventions or actions suggest themselves? Of course our audiences are not only footfall, bums on seats or income sources… and we know that they are stressed, have needs and that their cultural organisation might be a positive force for them. Let’s stand in our missions and be inspired by our higher intentions as well as by the tyranny of our survival.

Kubler Ross and Transitions

• We know that as humans we respond to change in predictable and understandable ways. The Kubler Ross curve eloquently captures the ways we feel as negative change unfolds in front of us – with immobilization, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and testing preceding acceptance and we also know that organisations and individuals experience a drop in productivity and clarity as we transition from one reality to another. Let’s remember that each of us has an inevitable set of human responses to change and uncertainty, and that these responses call for a patient and empathetic response.

Create opportunities for control

• Most of us struggle when we feel control has been taken from us. Fast moving global, national, local, personal situations inevitably shift our sense of certainty and erode our sense of control. Let’s look for opportunities for everyone in our organisations and communities to exercise control – offer options, encourage the development of individual or team plans, explore alternatives and give choices wherever we can. While the circumstances might be beyond our control, our personal responses don’t need to be.

Today, we convened a panel of sector and industry experts to help us, our Change Creation cohort and the wider sector navigate our response to the current COVID-19 crisis.

How do we respond? What can we do to support our staff, stakeholders, trustees and communities? How can we re-model our current programme and offer to support communities, people and partners? How can we adapt to a new way of working? What  does our contribution need to be to support the greater good, the health and wellbeing of our communities?

A link to the video can be found on our resources page.

We’ll be posting videos of the panel, insights and ideas on how you can communicate, re-shape, plan and prioritise over the coming weeks and months. We’ll share all our tools and resources and if you need any support, please do get in touch.

Our thanks go to our panellists who gave their time to share ideas and wisdom to support the resilience of the sector.

Now, more so than ever, we are supporting arts and cultural organisations at this difficult time. We are sharing good practice, resources and ideas on business continuity, re-modelling, cashflow, finance, communications and more. We’re making tools available that will help you plan your changes and support your teams and people. If you would need support to make fundamental changes in your organisation and art form please get in touch and check out our resources page. We’re committed to sharing best practice and providing any support we can to safeguard the organisations who provide art, culture, heritage and life changing experiences for our communities.