How to become more dynamic

Here at Social Convention we’ve been having multiple conversations about entrepreneurship in arts and culture – something strongly reflected in Arts Council England’s Dynamism Investment Principle.

How do we become more agile, responsive and dynamic? How do we plan for the unplannable? How do we innovate in the fundamental ways we make and share work? How do we adapt business models from other sectors or create our own new ones?

This inevitably leads to buzzwords being thrown around about creative entrepreneurship, agile principles, big I “innovation”, and more. For a lot of us this can feel exhausting, if not downright off-putting. My god, haven’t we done enough? Is Susan from Exhibitions going to become a scrum master and lead the volunteers in sprints and double diamond design-thinking exercises? (Go on then Susan).

Planning for agility

Creatives naturally work in an agile, or effectual manner. While Silicon Valley packaged up these methodologies, many of these ways of planning and working are inherently creative and ingrained in the ways we already produce creative work or attack projects.

The problem is that non-profits and cultural institutions have embedded strategy approaches, workflows, and team structures that actively work against the creative process. They rely on overly centralised planning to maximise the feeling of stability and predictability (not something known in the cultural sector) rather than embracing a continual evaluation of resources, changing contexts, and serendipity.

We try to be dynamic and agile within discrete projects – to test it without any major changes to decision-making and resource planning structures. But it’s very difficult to embed change or build momentum toward big wins.

Instead, we get stuck in a cycle of novelty – a nice new thing here, a cool new approach over there – that fails to embed growth. To be agile you have to live agile, across all areas of your organisation, and to live agile you have to plan for agility.

Introduction to effectuation

We love Dr Saras Sarasvathy’s theory of Effectuation as an entry point into planning and operating in a more entrepreneurial way. This theory has four core principles:

●   Bird-in-Hand: You have to create solutions with the resources available here and now.

●   Lemonade principle: Mistakes and surprises are inevitable and can be used to look for new opportunities.

●   Crazy Quilt: Entering into new partnerships can bring the project new funds and new directions.

●   Affordable loss: You should only invest as much as you are willing to lose.*

Effectuation is a theory based on extensive research into how successful entrepreneurs – including social and creative entrepreneurs with very limited resources – continually re-assess their ways and means to make “the next best decision”.

This is a process of solving the challenge at hand rather than fretting over how difficult and complex change can be. Crucially, it differs from the more traditional approach of causal logic, “where there is a predetermined goal and the process to achieve it is carefully planned in accordance to a set of given resources”.

Fundamental incompatibility with unknowables

There’s nothing wrong with a goal, but a causal logic forces us to assume that there is a linear and knowable path to achieving the goal; that external conditions can be forecast with reasonable precision in advance; and that the necessary resources can be guaranteed at the planned time. This seems a little far-fetched in our industry (and in our experience).

This causal logic is how many arts and culture organisations undertake long term strategic planning and approach major new projects. We plan, we budget, we do (and if we’re good students, we also evaluate). Rinse and repeat.

The core issue with this working approach is that it is fundamentally incompatible with unknowables, risks and changes in circumstance. From ticket sales to grant funding to global pandemics, we can confidently say that few industries have more unknowables, risks and susceptibility to change than the arts and culture sector.

So how can we build creativity and adaptability into our core processes to approach these dynamic challenges with confidence, or even joy?

Reality fails to turn out as forecast

We’re not suggesting that clear goals and smart objectives are wrong. You need them for ensuring a clear direction and proper accountability, especially when public funds are such a key resource.

However, we are suggesting that a linear, departmentalised decision-making and delivery process leaves little room for responding to the inevitable way reality does not turn out as planned or forecast. Plus, it leaves opportunities on the table.

Most importantly, we see effectuation as a practical, flexible and holistic approach to foreground agility and dynamism across every aspect of running an organisation – from strategy and planning, to finance and HR, to community involvement and programming – not just as an exercise at a project meeting.

With that in mind, we’re going to explore effectuation as an agile framework for arts and culture organisations in depth over the coming months in a series of articles and provocations designed to be practical and applicable for culture businesses of all sizes.

Follow us here on Arts Professional, on Twitter or through our new initiative for entrepreneurial creatives #ClubLemonade.

Cimeon Ellerton-Kay and Natalie Hall are Co-Founders of Social Convention.

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