Leave an Anonymous Legacy in the Infrastructure of Your Organization

This weeks reading of Good To Great  by Jim Collins taught me a valuable lesson in project management. The overlying message of the passage was that  good-to-great leaders began their transformations by first getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figuring out where to drive it. Rather, the “who” questions come before the “what” questions. Before vision, before strategy, before organization structure, before tactics. The idea is that a company, or any organization, is going to have to pivot when the time comes, and having people on board for the sake of being on board, rather than being there for a specific idea, will keep them around when it comes time to head in a new direction. It is also vital to know that having the right people in the right positions is what will really get your organization off the ground, because just getting the correct people in a room together and inciting rigorous debate can put you on the right track to solving almost any problem. This teaching is very relevant to my project in C4E this quarter, as having a strong connection with all of the correct personnel assets in the Art Department will be vital to having a successful gallery. A main fear amongst the teachers in the department is that I, as a soon-to-be-graduating senior, want to build an “ annual” art gallery, that I won’t be around to organize and manage any year past this one, leaving the responsibility to them. The faculty of the UA already teach 5 classes relative to the regular academic minimum of 4, so they are relatively overworked as it is, and from there I can see how the thought of taking on any more work would be worrying. I need to not think of this project as the “solo project” I have been deeming it and think of it more as an organization, in the sense that my main priority should be balanced between having a solid gallery this year, but leaving the organization in such a way that it will flourish and be even better next year in my absence. To achieve this I will do all of the work I possibly can to make this years gallery as easy as it can be on the faculty members while still enlisting their excitement and support, and at the same time make it easily duplicated when next year comes around. If I hammer out all of the contacts for catering, venue, date, etc. come next year all they will have to do is hit redial.