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It is so tempting to exercise perfect 20-20 hindsight and explain from the
outside just why the Exploratorium is cutting staff.  I'd expect that on the
part of members of the public who write comments to sites like SFGate.  All
I can say is that, having been through similar crises myself, many times (as
Eric Siegel noted here yesterday), I have learned that that in most cases of
organizational crises things are rarely as simple as they seem from the
outside, and they are NEVER as simple as they appear in the mass media (even
in careful papers like the New York Times).

In these situations I encourage resisting the impulse to provide gratuitous
advice from the outside in any public forum, including this one.  It is not
likely to help, and it is very likely to cause pain and frustration.  If
someone thinks they have special knowledge or insight into an ongoing
situation, I recommend sharing those ideas with the organization's senior
staff, in private.  Ninety-nine percent of science centers in the US are
private, non-profit organizations, and they cannot always respond to public
criticism, even if that criticism has gross errors of fact and ignorance as
many of the SFGate posts do.  Government or publicly-owned organizations are
something quite different, and I think we can have at them in any forum.

In my own big crises as a science center CEO, I relied on my staff, Board,
and those external supporters who knew us very well. It was impossible to
explain our complex decisions in a 10 second sound bite or a letter to the
editor.  Many decisions involved individuals whose careers would be
affected, and in respect for their privacy we couldn't share with others why
we were taking certain actions and not others.  It hurt to read outsiders
say that senior management were being selfish, were blind to reality, had
done everything wrong, and that simply cutting the salaries of the
leadership or just firing them would solve the problem.  We didn't always
make the right decisions, but we did try really, really hard, and together
we made it through those crises with what I believe was a minimum of pain in
the long run for all concerned.  If you'd like to see some of what I learned
about handling financial crises, there is a short essay on the topic,
"Tactics for Surviving a Financial Crisis" at
http://www.friedmanconsults.com/essays.

I am neither defending nor criticizing decision-making at the Exploratorium.
I'm a fan but an outsider, and I don't know just what decisions they are
making or why.  I have counseled organizations in crises (I have one such
client at the moment, and it is not the Exploratorium).  I just want to
offer my opinion, after 40 years in the field, that outsiders like me who
would like to be helpful are not likely to achieve much good in a public
forum, and could unintentionally do much harm by second-guessing complex
situations.

Alan
________________________________________
Alan J. Friedman, Ph.D., Curmudgeon
Consultant for Museum Development and Science Communication
29 West 10th Street
New York, New York 10011 USA
T  +1 917 882-6671
E   [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
W www.FriedmanConsults.com <http://www.friedmanconsults.com/>
 
a member of The Museum Group
www.museumgroup.com <http://www.museumgroup.com/>





On 8/18/13 12:00 AM, "ISEN-ASTC-L automatic digest system"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> There are 12 messages totaling 1251 lines in this issue.
> 
> Topics of the day:
> 
>   1. Exploratorium cuts 18% of staff as attendance lags - SFGate
>   2. Exploratorium cuts 18% of staff as attendance lags (6)
>   3. Autism and math
>   4. Exploratorium layoffs (3)
>   5. Kudos Cal Academy on Teen Science Night!
> 
> ******************************************************************
> 



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