A body of theory and practice about the competencies and qualities people and organisations will need to support creative practice in the 21st Century

Context

MMM’s proposition is that key to the success of the arts and cultural sector ‘designing for transition’ will be the people who work in and with its organisations. Yet, at a time when the demands of a rapidly changing, uncertain, information-overloaded and complex 21st century are placing significant new stresses on individuals, organisations and communities there is a pitifully inadequate infrastructure for people development in the sector.

Alongside this reality, MMM’s work to date has identified several strengths in the arts and cultural sector that suggest it might be fertile ground in which to grow what are being termed 21st century competencies – competencies that enable a significantly higher tolerance for and management of complexity, uncertainty and not knowing.

Why might this be so? First, the substance of the arts is intimately connected to meaning making – making sense of the buzzing confusion of our world. Second, the sector is generally loosely organised and configured with plenty of room for personal passion and innovation. Third, our observation of leaders in the sector suggests that some at least are already growing with and through our powerful times in ways that are less available to colleagues in the private and public sector.

The action research which fors the core activity of this strand is interrogating and planning to answer two key questions:

• What 21st century competencies drive success in the arts and cultural sector?
• How can they be developed in people to create environments in which they and the arts increasingly flourish?

We have refined these questions to be concerned with individuals thriving – in the arts and cultural sector. By ‘thriving’ we mean adapting to changing conditions in a life-friendly way whilst maintaining the function of making great work happen.

Activities

The first six months of our work on this strand has focussed on collecting information on the range of competencies described in the latest research and across different policy sectors. We have identified close to 80 different competencies that are understood to be critical to thriving in this period of huge change.

From these we have devised a series of questions for our practitioner control group and for our major sector-wide questionnaire which will be launched on the 18th August 2009 and will be live until the 14 September 2009. This aims to identify which of these competencies you think are critical for individuals in the arts and cultural sector. We invite you to take the time to contribute to this vital piece of work.

The purpose of the questionnaire is to test the extent to which the competencies, qualities and attributes that MMM thinks may be key to thriving are present in a sample of the sector in Scotland, England and Wales. We are looking to test if there is a gap in perception between the qualities that we think are key and those deemed important by respondents, and we will then look at what the implications might be in any gaps that emerge. An important part of this work, will be to understand whether we have a shared understanding of what it means to thrive in our sector.

Between October and November we will be carrying out a series of more in depth interviews with practitioners across the country, from different sizes and types of organisation, to look in more detail at the organisational factors that enable people to thrive. The final report and recommendations will be published at the end of January 2009.

The action research is being led by Roanne Dods and Nadine Andrews, and the project team includes members of the Institute for Cultural and Creative Entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths, University of London and a cross disciplinary team from the College.