Asked by Dasha Bushmakin in LinkedIn
mvh answer. I belonged to an artists’ collective once, years ago. I was the potter. (I have a photo of myself inside a kiln with shoulder length hair.) When times were good, things worked fine. But when a crisis hit, it essentially fell apart; we had no way to make the quick decisions needed. Collective decision making didn’t work well. People argued while we went off the cliff.
The collective of artists needs to be the board of directors: create the vision and basic strategy, spell out the policies. Then turn it over to a real manager–whether one of the members or someone hired from outside–and keep hands off day-to-day decisions. The board sets goals and policy, the manager executes. This way, one competent person responds quickly to whatever arises.
The board gives guidance and feedback in pre-arranged ways, and if the manager doesn’t do the job you want, then replace ’em. This works out best for everybody. The artists get to be artists and not managers (which they probably detest having to do). And the business is run according to their broad wishes.â€
