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Creativity is a given in the arts world, yet many who work in it experience creative frustration. Sibyl Ruth asks whether we are fortunate to be working in the arts.
A few years ago, when I was already an old hand in the arts world, I was sitting outside the South Bank, before a meeting. Not being blessed with a large expenses budget, I was sipping Nescafé from a thermos and nibbling a home-made sarnie. A nearby braying voice was saying Id love to be working in the arts. Then, with great intensity, I just dont feel Im using my creativity at the moment. The voice belonged to a man in his twenties wearing a posh business suit, drinking real coffee. Chances were he worked in the City and earned at least three times my salary. I wanted to go over and tell him not to be so daft.

Because theres nothing creative about doing loads of admin, and attending meeting after meeting about audience development while box office figures stubbornly refuse to rise. Lots of people who work in the arts may have creative talent; they might have opted to be musicians, writers, painters. But they have put their dreams on the back burner and chosen to work on behalf of other artists. Of course theres a buzz in dreaming up arts projects, then making them happen. There is satisfaction in enabling people to participate in artistic activities. Its great being able to help performers develop and give them a platform.

Burn out

But do organisations that champion the arts encourage the artistic development of their own staff? Perhaps, when time and money are at a premium, theres a dilemma for managers. (If I encourage X to do her own photography project, will she be able to organise the spring courses?). For the managed, theres a sense that because were lucky to have paid work in the creative sector, we mustnt push our luck by asking for time out. There are plenty of fresh-faced twenty year olds out there, eager to step into our shoes...

But if sabbaticals for longer-serving staff in the arts became a benchmark of good practice, would so many of us get burned out, retrain or go freelance? Recruiting and training staff is expensive more flexibility in relation to taking leave might pay dividends. The perception that were fortunate in serving the arts for no more than an average graduates starting salary and a few complimentary tickets is widespread. I was once talking with the journalist Polly Toynbee. Shed just published her book Hard work, which deals with the exploitation of the UKs lowest paid workers. I told her Id done time as a caterer and gardener. She smiled at me kindly and said, But youve got a good job now. She had a point. But if we stop focusing on artistic product and start looking at their working practices, are these good? Its like stepping out of a venues shiny foyer and discovering another, seedier, world backstage.

Take workplace stress. Acknowledged causes include a high degree of uncertainty about job security or career prospects, the prevalence of temporary work and fixed-term contracts, cuts in funding that lead to increased workloads, lack of recognition or reward for good job performance, and inadequate time to complete tasks to personal or company standards. Then lets ask ourselves how many arts organisations are sufficiently stable and well-funded to offer job security, career progression and make significant investment in the training and development of their staff?

Training

And theres the problem of leadership. Ive worked in both advice centres and arts centres, and have encountered a variety of management styles. There have been micro-managing control freaks, and individuals who were laid-back to the point of being comatose plus a few genuinely inspirational people. But I think arts management is more fraught. For starters there is no single preferred route into or training for this role. A spokesperson on workplace bullying states that problems can be caused by a manager who is good at getting results but doesnt have any proper management training. But the task of leading cultural organisations is so onerous, that those making appointments are tempted to appoint those whose style tends toward the macho end of the spectrum.

Okay, theres a surface informality in the arts, but this can be a decorative veneer, concealing a rigid hierarchy, fierce jockeying for position, and subtle or not-so-subtle ganging-up on faces or voices that arent on message. The TUC provides excellent training on identifying and tackling workplace bullying. However, many staff in arts organisations arent unionised. Individual workers may be reluctant to act in support of victimised colleagues. The arts world, though fragmented, is not a large one, and theres a fear that whistleblowing may impact adversely on ones future prospects.

Who else can ensure that good employment practices are adhered to? Arts Council officers may be more concerned with the artistic product of an organisation than its internal workings. In organisations that have charitable status the Management Committee is the employing body, charged with ensuring the charity is well and legally run. However, committee members are likely to be closer to senior than junior staff and, in situations of conflict, will tend to uphold decisions made by those at the top. If this sounds bleak, my hunch is that arts organisations taken as a whole are neither better nor worse than other businesses of similar size and turnover. Im still hooked on the arts. But Im now almost interested in the nature of business. I find articles about organisational theory as interesting as poetry.

Im keeping my own creative flame alight. I am going to attempt a novel and edit an anthology. But I also have dreams that centre on the workplace. Dreams of every arts employer instituting 360-degree staff reviews. Of exit interviews in which managers will learn about why people leave. Im staying on in the arts. But I know Ill stay longer if I link up with other arts professionals, start to make these dreams come true...

Sibyl Ruth has spent the last ten years working in a variety of literature-related jobs, and has also been involved in programming dance and theatre. She has just started as Programmes Director at Script, the development agency for dramatic writers in the West Midlands.
e: sibyl.ruth@scriptonline.net