Operate Like Which Business, Exactly?

Arts managers and board members are fond of explaining to anyone who will listen that, in order to survive in today’s world, arts groups “need to learn to operate more like a business.” Andrew Taylor says it’s a profoundly unhelpful bit of advice. “Most businesses are poorly run, and many business practices correlate with mediocrity, not greatness… Business tools are merely ways to see the world, and ways to structure our interaction with it. Let’s be like the artists around us and explore those tools with creative abandon.”