2023 Book Review
Books for Arts Administrators
If we haven’t met, I read a lot of nonfiction and business books. Several years ago, I started more carefully taking notes while reading, highlighting my takeaways, exporting the highlights (the best feature of using an e-reader in my opinion), and organizing them into my own action items and best practices. It’s nerdy. It’s also the biggest way I’ve been able to find inspiration for my work over the years, breakthrough professional challenges I’ve faced, and unlock paths forward.
Every year now I post a year-end roundup that’s a book review of sorts, specifically connecting the material in each read to our role as arts administrators. Our work at orchestras, operas, dance companies, theaters, museums, and other arts organizations is not getting any easier, but every year, a new list of experts (e.g. authors) offers a lot to help.
This year’s titles furthered my understanding about community building, systems thinking, how to use power for good, and, as always, fueled me with new ideas and research to inform my work.
Listed below is each book in chronological order I read them throughout the year, along with a note about why I read each one and/or what I got out of it. This is now the seventh year of my book review posts (you can view past years’ lists here), and I hope these titles help you professionally just as they did me.
Here’s to the year ahead and empowering ourselves to continue to learn and grow. The challenges we face at cultural institutions depend on it.
When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from Them
Julia Boorstin
Nothing bad happens when more women are in leadership roles. In fact, just the opposite happens according to CNBC’s Senior Media & Tech Correspondent Julia Boorstin, who combined lessons learned from her personal interviews with over 100 female CEOs with mountains of research, putting data to the stories shared.
Like in one study she summarizes, “teams didn’t perform better if they had equal numbers of men and women, they performed better if they had more women.” And another one so important to the future big decisions at our organizations: “when there is a critical mass of women — three or more — on a board, they can cause a fundamental change in the boardroom and impact corporate governance.”
In an industry that lacks female representation in CEO roles the larger the budget, and definitely lacks female representation in artistic roles as well, Boorstin makes the data clear that women are often recruited to top leadership jobs when the organization is already unstable, must display higher levels of competence than male counterparts, and then are held to a higher bar once they do break through to those roles. And in a weird, silver-lining way, because of all these barriers, women are now statistically “more scrappy, flexible, thick skinned, and innovative,” which just might be the recipe many arts organizations need to successfully address the challenges before them.
The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings
Nick Gray
Perennial entrepreneur and founder of Museum Hack (popular renegade museum tours) Nick Gray sold that business and pivoted to a career now holding stocks and sharing all he’s learned. Incredibly connected through all his ventures and adventures, he wrote this book to help even the most shy, introverted types break out of their shell and grow their networks.
Gray offers checklists, templates, and step by step instructions to — just like the title says — build big relationships, two hours at a time. And while the book is primarily meant for individuals throwing their own personal parties (I even used some of his tips for maximizing RSVPs for my birthday this year), I could not stop thinking about how so much of it could be applied to organization fundraising events and receptions to foster greater engagement. Whether your donor stewardship cocktail parties need a little jolt to help everyone better connect, or you want to grow your own network with some not-awkward interactions, Nick Gray is your guide.
Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy
Mark Schaefer
Mark Schaefer is no stranger to my book review list. I’m realizing this is the fourth of his books I’ve written about (2018, 2021, and another book of his was my favorite book of the year in 2019!).
So after having launched my own community this year, reading Schaefer’s latest was a no-brainer. A lot of the book focuses on why social media followers are weak relationship links when what a brand really needs is sales conversions — true whether you’re leading online courses like me or offering performances and growing the donor base like the organizations I work with — and how building community is the key to moving potential customers on the continuum.
When communities thrive, they’re not led by a single person; rather, members lead and encourage each other, word of mouth becomes an even more powerful tool than it normally is, and a sense of belonging is the cornerstone. Thriving communities are self-perpetuating, virtuous cycles, so it’s easy to see the benefits, but Schaefer cautions that creating that type of community doesn’t happen overnight. Building something up to critical mass takes substantial effort and time, and early adopters are the lifeblood.
I can attest to all of this, as well as also see so much potential for arts organizations of all kinds interested in this type of brand building strategy, like a community for recurring annual fund donors, or a benefit for membership-based institutions. At the end of the day though, every step forward with my own community experience fulfills me and propels me to keep going, helps me form richer connections, and brings a feeling of truly making and building something. A feeling that goes deeper than a social media follow or single ticket purchase any day, and I’m now chasing community hard because of it.
Love and Work
Marcus Buckingham
You can learn the skill to find love in what you do. This was a new concept to me by Marcus Buckingham, the world’s foremost researcher on strengths at work (also not a stranger to my book review list), as I had always thought we are supposed to find our passions, but never thought of that pursuit as something we can get better at. I picked up the book as a fan of Buckingham’s work, although admittedly thought this one might be a little touchy-feely for me, but it turns out, it’s just as research based as everything else he’s written.
It’s clear that Buckingham lives to help organizations and leaders make work better, more enjoyable, and ultimately, more productive and rewarding for both employee and employer. Being excited to go to work every day isn’t a pipe dream, Buckingham contends, it’s a skill we can develop to help us craft the work we love and thrive at most.
Package Your Genius: 5 Steps to Build Your Most Powerful Personal Brand
Amanda Miller Littlejohn
What energizes you? What feels effortless? What’s draining? These questions are the beginning of a framework Littlejohn uses to walk readers through defining and refining their brand. This year for me was dedicated to expanding my business and shifting the model to more online content and course delivery, and so I felt that even though I had already done some personal branding work over the years, it was time to revisit it all and think strategically about what the brand looks like today and going forward.
From her years as a PR strategist and personal branding advisor to clients around the globe, Littlejohn expertly takes you through how to not just determine what fires you up, but how to make the case for why your resulting work brings value to others. For anyone who wants to hone in their personal brand and/or has a product to sell — administrators and artists alike — Littlejohn offers an actionable guide, and I’m still utilizing my notes from this one.
Good Power: Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World
Ginni Rometty
Power can be good when it’s wielded respectfully, navigates tensions, and strives for progress over one person’s idea of perfection, says IBM’s ninth President and CEO Ginni Rometty. In her memoire, she shares her tenets of what she calls “good power,” such as being uncomfortable (“growth and comfort never coexist”), building belief among the people you’re leading (when turning a massive ship like IBM to compete with younger, more agile rivals like Amazon and Google, you better believe she needed people to believe in the direction she was taking the company), and knowing not only what must change but also what must endure and not change (bringing old and new together to create something better, as she describes it).
Throughout every chapter, I couldn’t stop thinking about the parallels for arts organizations. Not unlike orchestras, theaters, museums, and opera and dance companies, IBM faced both journalists and the general public calling them an antiquated dinosaur, too stuck it their ways to ever be nimble, and according to one magazine cover, “Can IBM Ever Be Cool?” Tell me you see the parallels. The way Rometty brought about a culture of change, using her power as CEO (and all her roles there before it) for good, is a fascinating case study that remains one of my favorite reads of the year.
The Inclusive Organization: Real Solutions, Impactful Change, and Meaningful Diversity
Netta Jenkins
Let’s say, hypothetically, that you worked for an organization where 95% of the employees identify as coming from an advantaged population and the remaining 5% identify as coming from systemically overlooked backgrounds. This scenario that feels not at all hypothetical but alarmingly close to home in the arts and culture sector, is one example of what Vice President of Global Inclusion for Unqork and one of Forbes’ top 7 anti-racism consultants in the world Netta Jenkins shares from her 15+ years experience helping companies implement her DEI framework.
Called the 3 P’s: people, practice, and product, Jenkins’ framework covers everything from simple yet practical employee reimbursement policies, to how to develop effective feedback processes that actually protect the people offering said feedback without judgement or retribution, to not just hiring a “Head of DEI” role and thinking that solves everything, to offering employees proper PTO and an annual learning stipend (the latter I have written about before).
Something has to move the needle of inclusion in our industry of arts and culture. I find myself grieving often for people who share their stories of exclusion as well as read about it publicly in some cases (if you really need examples, here, here, and here to scratch the surface of recent coverage). We’re still talking about these kinds of things because we haven’t made much progress on the whole.
It starts with one organization though — just one chief executive and one board chair doubling down. The rest will follow, because not only is there a moral imperative, Jenkins makes the research clear that more inclusive workplaces experience greater productivity, higher revenues, and simply happier employees who love their organization. Being “mission driven” is not enough to achieve those things, as our profit and loss statements make all too clear these days. Whatever the barriers to this work, we are stunting our potential when we don’t actively pursue solutions to pervasive, systemic issues. Because as Jenkins writes, “that’s the thing about exclusion — it cuts the same regardless of the reasons behind it.”
Acting With Power: Why We Are More Powerful Than We Believe
Deborah Gruenfeld
Over a decade ago, I used to watch videos by Stanford professor Deborah Gruenfeld on this topic of power — who has it, how to gain it when you don’t, and how to share it when you do. Apparently along the way Gruenfeld had also written a book on the topic, which I discovered this year as I continued my exploration of how to use power for good.
There’s a lot we often get wrong about power. And sometimes, she argues as the book’s thesis, approaching power like an actor — like you’re a character on set — is the way to go. Gruenfeld explains from her research things like why playing power down when you have it has benefits; how to act to stop abuse of power, aka bullying or toxicity; and the difference between the characters who demonstrate power abuse versus being a tough boss.
The most effective acting with power though, Gruenfeld concludes, isn’t about standing up for ourselves; it’s about being a guardian: caring for others, using your social capital to help others in your circle, and actively shutting down bad or rude behavior. Extending your power actually gives you more of it, not diminishes it — because in the end it helps the larger group or team to thrive. I want to play that kind of powerful character any day of the week.
White Women Cry and Call Me Angry
Yanique Redwood
Having read about white dominated philanthropy in Decolonizing Wealth a few years ago (see the book review), in this memoir from Yanique Redwood, I felt like her work as President and CEO of if, A Foundation for Radical Possibility, really confronted many colonized aspects of philanthropy head on. And on the heels of two previous books on power this year (Good Power and Acting with Power above), Redwood put into practice how power and the distribution of it can be a positive force for change.
Under Redwood’s leadership, the foundation moved to participatory grantmaking, planned to give community members control of their major grant portfolio, and brought on four community members to the board with sizable compensation. But as she shares, being a Black woman in leadership came with experiencing endless microaggressions; countless overt, rude, and unacceptable outright aggressions; and people regularly questioning her expertise — all at a nonprofit who self-defined as “radical”. The exhaustion and despair all that brings comes through clearly in her story.
I’m grateful for her sharing her lived experience publicly, but I’m not the intended primary audience. For women of color who want to know you’re not alone in the nonprofit sector, Redwood wrote this for you, sharing freely and openly — and with receipts.
Thinking in Systems
Donella H. Meadows
I had been thinking a lot this year about how to accelerate change in the arts and culture industry at scale, so I picked up Donella Meadows bestseller classic on the topic of systems design. Whether within a society, a sector, or an institution, systems are complex, often have reinforcing feedback loops, and therefore can perpetuate their own behavior. But as Meadows, one of the world’s foremost systems analysts explains, systems can be designed as well as redesigned. In my favorite part of the book, about two-thirds in, she breaks down leverage points — aka the tactics to infuse new life into a system and alter its course — and ranks these leverage points from least to most effective.
This primer on systems thinking is the go-to standard for a reason, and it gave me a new outlook on some of the challenges of the arts and culture industry and how to address them. Because as Meadows contends, once you start thinking in systems, you can’t go back. “You’ll stop looking for who’s to blame [for any given challenge]; instead you’ll start asking, ‘What’s the system?’”
Run It Like a Business: Strategies for Arts Organizations to Increase Audiences, Remain Relevant, and Multiply Money — Without Losing the Art
Aubrey Bergauer
It’s the book I spent the most time with this year by far. Over the last 12 months with the manuscript, we cut, culled, elaborated, pulled in more data, reworked passages, removed the jokes my editor said weren’t funny, kept the ones that at least made her crack a smile, added charts, designed graphs, and proofread many times over.
It’s been a year of getting this book in the best shape possible to help bring you value, ideas, inspiration, and actionable strategies to advance our organizations. And now it’s off to print and close to being an available resource (and chapter one is available now on my website for everyone who pre-orders).
I hope this book, like all the others in the list, helps support your work as arts administrators, leaders, and board members. And I hope that even though our work at orchestras, operas, dance companies, theaters, museums, and other arts organizations is seemingly not getting any easier, we can equip ourselves to learn, grow, and definitely change that narrative.
See all past book reviews here.
Interested in more professional development? Order my book, Run It like a Business: Strategies to Increase Audiences, Remain Relevant, and Multiply Money — Without Losing the Art.
You’ll learn how to:
- Grow audiences and keep them coming back again
- Make our organizations more inclusive
- Get younger attendees in the seats and on the donor rolls
- Generate millions more dollars in revenue
- Continue to create the art we love — without the stress of figuring out how to afford it
Just because your arts organization is a non-profit, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t make money; it means the money the organization makes goes back to fund the mission — whether that’s music, visual arts, theatre, dance, or one of many other mediums that enrich our lives.
About the Author
Hailed as “the Steve Jobs of classical music” (Observer) and “Sheryl Sandberg of the symphony” (LA Review of Books), Aubrey Bergauer is known for her results-driven, customer-centric, data-obsessed pursuit of changing the narrative for the performing arts. A “dynamic administrator” with an “unquenchable drive for canny innovation” (San Francisco Chronicle), she’s held offstage roles managing millions in revenue at major institutions including the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As chief executive of the California Symphony, Bergauer propelled the organization to double the size of its audience and nearly quadruple the donor base.
Bergauer helps organizations and individuals transform from scarcity to opportunity, make money, and grow their base of fans and supporters. Her ability to cast and communicate vision moves large teams forward and brings stakeholders together, earning “a reputation for coming up with great ideas and then realizing them” (San Francisco Classical Voice). With a track record for strategically increasing revenue and relevance, leveraging digital content and technology, and prioritizing diversity and inclusion on stage and off, Bergauer sees a better way forward for classical music and knows how to achieve it.
Aubrey’s first book, Run It Like A Business, published in February 2024.
A graduate of Rice University, her work and leadership have been covered in the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Thrive Global, and Southwest Airlines magazines, and she is a frequent speaker spanning TEDx, Adobe’s Magento, universities, and industry conferences in the U.S. and abroad.
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