Four Barriers to Change

There is not a single industry in the world right now that does not need to master the art of change. Many professionals know this. But what about the heritage industry? What about those that deal with the past - isn’t the point to avoid change? Isn’t heritage about pushing back against the massive changes that are shape-shifting humans into a species unrecognizable by our ancestors?

Yes and no. 

For a long time I thought heritage was only about preservation. Keeping something exactly the same. But more and more I see the importance of change in this industry too. Change is what threatens heritage... but it is also what can save it. Accepting we might need to do things differently to pass something on to the future is an important, if not difficult, idea to accept. Sometimes change is what can push through an otherwise lost cause. 

In light of this, common business knowledge like understanding the barriers to change, something  studied by business students, can be quite useful to heritage professionals. In a general business training, I was introduced to the four common barriers to change. These are general reasons why companies (or individuals) do not respond to change. Failure to change when its necessary is costly, sometimes detrimental. Understanding these barriers felt like a good use of my time.  These are the four from that training, and my thoughts on their use in protecting and promoting the past.

Barrier to Change 1: Perception

A perception barrier happens when those immersed in a changing environment fail to understand the changes going on. They either underappreciated the scope of change, assuming its minor, or don't realize it exists at all. If you do not realize change is happening or your perception of that change is skewed, you likely won't respond accurately to it.

A general example of this would be those who think AI is not going to impact their industry. This is a dangerous assumption, no matter what industry you are in. Those who don't appreciate the scope of this disruptive technology are misinterpreting (or just missing) a major change going on. Because of that, their response to change will be to ignore it or fail to act at a level appropriate for its magnitude. Their perception of what is going on is off, and therefore their response will be off as well. 

There are many major disruptions impacting heritage work these days. AI, climate change, wealth transfers impacting who your future customers or donors might be, generational trends, and the shifting winds of social media are a few that come to mind. All of these will impact heritage tourism, museums, historical societies, non-profits and government agencies whose missions include protecting and promoting the past. I would venture a guess that many who work in these types of organizations have a perception problem to one or more of these changes. They fail to grasp how these massive shifts in human communities and the global economy will trickle down to them. This is a dangerous mistake. 

Barrier to Change 2: Knowledge

In some cases, resistance or failure to respond to change comes from a lack of knowledge. An organization might realize there is a change but not truly understand it. You might have an accurate perception of the impact AI could have, but if you lack the knowledge of what AI can actually do, you won't truly grasp where and how it will create change. We know change is happening, but we don't know enough about it to act appropriately. 

People who choose to work for heritage organizations often do so because they love the past. They may not be willingly to spend time engaging with the technology or trends of the future. And yet they need to. You don't need to like AI, but you do need to understand it. Otherwise, your lack of knowledge will leave you unprepared to respond to its shock waves. Heritage organizations might focus on preserving and promoting the past but their business and legal structures are very much rooted in the present and the future. We need to understand how and where money is flowing, how and where technology is disrupting, and what legal and political winds are creating waves (just take a look at what is going on right now with Section 106, a key legal protector of America's historical sites). We need to do more than just acknowledge change; we need to learn about it...in great detail. And this learning is not a once-a-year workshop kind of deal. We need to make time every week to engage in the present and future if we want to protect and promote the past. Ironic, but true.

Barrier to Change 3: Motivation

Whether or not we have the right perception and knowledge is pointless if there is no motivation to respond to change. Motivation, a key determination in the success or failure of so many things, cannot be ignored. What happens when you have staff unwilling to change, even as things crash down around them? Maybe they have been doing something one way for decades. Maybe they are really attached to that old way. Maybe they are scared that their contributions will be considered obsolete if there is change, and those contributions make up a huge part of their identity. The psychological research on motivation is dense...and absolutely worth reading for anyone who is trying to understand and respond to change. 

Again here, I cannot help but think the nature of the heritage industry might be susceptible to this barrier. People who do this kind of work may be less motivated to react to change than other industries. Maybe they are against technology. Maybe they hate what social media has done to people and wont use it, meanwhile missing out on key forms of advertising and promotion, but also the place important news is shared ( everything I know about Section 106 changes is from following a State Historic Preservation Officer on LinkedIn). The desire to react to change must be present and widespread in order for a response to succeed. 

Barrier to Change 4: Coordination/Capability

Finally, after we address perception, knowledge, and motivation, we must consider the final barrier that can stop us from reacting to change accordingly: capacity. Inability to coordinate a response and lack of capability to initiate changes can be HUGE barriers. If you lack the resources, staffing, technology, or data needed to respond to a change, it doesn't matter how perceptive, knowledgeable, or motivated you are. Your response will be weak at best. 

This is the most heartbreaking barrier I see in heritage work. People understand they need change and they want to change, but they still can't get it done. So many organizations charged with protecting and promoting heritage are understaffed and lacking resources. They work so hard just to keep going. They don't have time to enact sweeping changes. In rural areas (like where I live) nonprofits are even more precarious. They are unlikely to have the capacity to react to what is going on right now. We don't see them leaning into AI, despite its ability to help get things done, because they don't have the time or energy to learn it. We don't see them using social media enough because they don't have the staff to create good content. And we didn't see them shift from grants to other forms of financial support when Federal agencies were emptied this year. They didn't have the capacity to launch private fundraising campaigns, create endowments from scratch, or design money-making endeavors ("disregarded entities") to funnel revenue through. They are underpaid and exhausted. Hard to coordinate much of anything in that state.

Likewise, heritage organizations often lack consistent leadership. This summer I saw many area Executive Director postings for nonprofits in general. When I read the job descriptions, I had a good idea why those spots were empty. Our EDs are loaded up with what should be two jobs (day-to-day operations manager and capacity-building leader should not be one person, in my opinion). So they leave. Their salaries are tiny (and they are often guilt-tripped away from asking for more money). So they leave.  There is no space in their schedules to do things that could break down the barriers above - learn about change and experiment with ways to react to it. As a result, they feel like they are leading a sinking ship. So they leave.

Sometimes we can blame individuals for the barriers above. We can cite their resistance to change, unwillingness to learn about new things like AI, or lack of motivation as the barrier. We can blame the leaders too, saying no one has loyalty to an organization anymore. While that might be true in some regards, that ignores a system that is set up wrong. Many heritage organizations are stuck in a cycle producing barriers or pushing people towards the behaviors that built those barriers. Without accepting and changing the system, we wont be able to change the people. And if we don't change the people, we will never respond adequately to change.  And if we don't respond to change, we won't build organizations that can break out of the old system.

Round and round we go.

Final Thoughts

I am not going to share any solutions or ideas at this point. But I wanted to point out these critical barriers. I also wanted to show how a basic business training can produce meaningful insight into heritage work. Heritage professionals should be paying attention to, and training in, business research. When I was a teacher, I told so many of my anthropology students to go take a class in the business school. I repeat that unsolicited advice for everyone who works in heritage. History might be your passion, but business acumen is what will allow you to do something with that passion. We need a whole lot more people who love heritage but have the skills of an entrepreneur, accountant, or MBA graduate. And we need them now.

Lead photo: setup from one of my deep work sessions. These are getting harder to schedule these days and my work suffers from it. If we want to understand, motivate, and enact change, we must find ways to find deep, uninterrupted work time.