Creative decision-making is better shared

It’s a revolution that builds on decades of independent practice. Artist-led collaborations – both formal and informal – exploring mutual preoccupations and interests. I’m thinking of theatre and dance companies that know the benefits of shared creative leadership. Richer ideas, more capacity, more fulfilling careers, less stress.

Many of these companies were doing Let’s Create long before it was Arts Council England (ACE) policy. Making collaborative work that celebrates a multiplicity of voices, perspectives, experiences.

The quiet revolution is, I hope, now happening in more mainstream cultural spaces. Slowly but surely, a new model is emerging. One where the notion of the singular creative lead is being replaced by a more a democratic and distributed set of artistic decision-makers. 

A many headed beast

I’ve always felt the idea of the single creative visionary who leads an organisation is only one way of doing things. How can one person have all the ideas about what an organisation that exists to serve thousands (or hundreds of thousands) should do? Is it right that a single individual gets to determine what an arts or cultural building does? 

Surely in a world where all arts professionals are striving to better represent the communities they exist to serve, we need better representation in decision-making. If we want our companies to align to the principles at the centre of ACE’s Let’s Create, then we need artistic decision-making to be shared more widely. 

I worked for five years in partnership with David Jubb, as Joint Artistic Director at Battersea Arts Centre (BAC). Together with a team of brilliant producers we gathered weekly to talk about the artists and the companies and shows that we were interested in. And crucially to make decisions about the programme. Together we were a many headed beast with different lived experiences, tastes, favourite artists and shows. And these differences contributed to a programme in the service of the organisation’s mission to invent the future of theatre. 

Solo artistic director is unsustainable

It was an experiment in distributed creative leadership. What happens when you let a number of people make decisions about commissioning and producing and programming? The results at BAC were electrifying.

That same energetic commitment to sharing responsibility for creative decision-making is happening in other theatres now. I’ve seen the Queens in Hornchurch scrap the artistic director role and recruit a new creative leadership team of artists from a broad range of backgrounds. People who together collaborate on a programme more relevant and representative than any one person’s view of what a theatre should do. It's a bold and fast response and over the past year has yielded a much broader programme centring under-represented voices.

Many heads have better ideas than one. They’re more representative too. And they get to share the responsibility of big and high-pressure roles. In a world of 24/7 social media and a hair-trigger cancel culture, the job of solo artistic director is increasingly hard to sustain. 

A radical reimaging

Perhaps the largest and most high-profile experiment in a new creative leadership model is going on at Theatre Royal Plymouth. At the time of writing the company is recruiting a team of eight Creative Associates – specialists in artforms and specific agendas – to drive the company’s producing and programming ambitions. Plymouth is making a substantial investment in new roles to radically reimagine a more diverse programme. 

This is a smart way to better reflect what people want to experience when they go to a theatre (or an arts centre or a gallery or a museum). Not one person’s world view – biased and limited as all our individual worldviews are. But a collaborative and collegiate team’s view. One that I’m sure (if it’s anything like the team at BAC) will be a generator of spicy arguments and disagreements and long conversations and, ultimately, brilliant decisions that are beyond the ken of just one person.

From experience, I know there’s a price to pay for this devolved or distributed creative decision-making. More staff can cost more money (although the experiments at the Queens and Theatre Royal Plymouth are being delivered within previous salary envelopes). Decisions take more time because differences of opinion can slow things down. Conversations can get heated. Egos can be bruised. Pet projects side-lined. 

But – and it’s a BIG but – if the organisational mission is clear, then the benefits of sharing power and influence are significant. If everyone understands what the organisation exists to do, a team of creative decisionmakers are working to the same overarching set of goals.  

A quiet revolution

I’m fascinated to see what Theatre Royal Plymouth might do under a new team of Creative Associates. How might the programme look in 12 months? What kind of work will the company be producing and programming? How will audiences be different? 

And if this experiment is successful, what else might be possible? What other decisions might be opened up to other staff? Or volunteers? Or audience members? How might Theatre Royal Plymouth change as a result? How might Plymouth change too? Or Battersea, or Hornchurch, or any number of towns and cities and rural areas that want to see their cultural organisations better reflect the people who live and work nearby? 

It's a quiet revolution. Slow in coming but, in places, bold and radical. And I hope, inspired by these current experiments, a feature of more arts organisations in the future. To be truly relevant and representative, creative decision-making needs to better reflect the people we exist to serve.

David Micklem is a writer and arts consultant. 
@davidmicklem