4 Workplace Pledges Worth Making (and Keeping) in 2020

I wish for sustainability and everything that entails---a society that values culture, institutions and human diversity, wages and benefits that reflect the training and experience held my museum workers, and safe and equitable work spaces. Kristy Griffin-Smith
Challenging systemic biases that are so ingrained we often can’t see their true impact. Karen Mason-Bennett No surprise, we have some wishes of our own. Some echo the two above, a few don't.
We wish museums and heritage organizations could collectively acknowledge climate change as a key issue for global museum life in the next decade. As the University of Manchester wrote in 2018, "Museums represent key sites for climate change education, engagement, action and research. There are over 55,000 museums worldwide. They represent an existing infrastructure. Many museums are already connecting their work with climate change education, research and management." Like many issues that "feel" political, this is not one you should ignore in the hopes others--perhaps bigger, better-funded museums--will do something about it. This problem belongs to us all, and if we don't collectively own it, we can't possibly help remedy it. From the way you ask visitors to dispose of trash, to decisions regarding capital improvements, to the context you offer around historical and scientific questions, museums have a climate change role. Like so many issues, not playing a part in this one is, in fact, taking a side. Don't be neutral. If you feel you don't know enough, assemble a team of advisors. After all, if 17-year old Greta Thunberg can be an international climate change activist, you can probably create a plan--beginning with small, sustainable changes-- for your museum or heritage organization.
We want museums to acknowledge the ways they disadvantage various demographics. You may believe decolonization is a word for big-city museums. It's not. Instead, consider it as hierarchical, outmoded thinking, privileging one group over another in explicit and implicit ways. For some of us it's habit, a habit we hope museums will work to break in the coming year, maybe by experimenting-- only exhibiting work by women or women of color or by sending the organization's youngest staff to conferences instead of its older team leaders or by changing traditional label narratives or, frankly, the labels themselves. Do it until what is outside the box feels normal and every day. Don't get me wrong: Museums need people of privilege. They are generous, many to a fault. But museums can't act as though a white, predominantly male, narrative is the only one of importance, and everybody else is other than. So make 2020 the year you shake things up.
Women are now 50-percent of the museum workforce in the United States. Women's problems are human problems, and it is not a woman's job to solve them. (Believe me, if that were possible, it would have happened ages ago.) Our wish? That in 2020 museums and heritage organizations, led and supported by their service organizations, will end the museum field's gender pay gap, and pledge to stop sexual harassment in the museum workplace. (You can do your part by signing GEMM's Pledge now.)
Leadership matters. No kidding. A lot. We wish museums, heritage organizations graduate programs, and boards of trustees would recognize leadership is a key ingredient in creating strong, sustainable organizations. We understand many museums, particularly larger ones, need recruitment firms, but the museum hires the recruiters, not the other way around. Are you comfortable with firms who tell female candidates what to wear, but not male ones? Are you comfortable with firms who preselect based on their vision of what your museum should be? Whether you're a board member or a museum leader, don't leave hiring decisions to others who may not understand your organization's DNA. And remember, boards with the courage to step outside the white male box, hiring people of color and LGBTQ candidates to fill the top spot, change more than the director's position. They show their communities what community means. The new year is a time we all pledge to be better humans, change our habits, exercise more, eat healthier, meditate. A week ago, we published the top Leadership Matters posts since 2013. Sadly, the one that garnered the most views was "The Silent Treatment (and What to Do About It," followed closely by "Workplace Bullies."What does that say about the museum workplace? So among all your other behavior changes for 2020, let's make this a year of kindness. If you're a leader, remember what it was like when you worked for an ogre, and be someone different. If you're a follower, be the person you wish your leader were--or, if you're lucky--the person your leader is. Bottom line: exercise a little kindness to each other, our communities, our planet. Joan Baldwin