The Dangers of Scarcity

This past Monday, I spoke alongside colleagues Christy Coleman, Norman Burns and Micah Parzen in a virtual session for the American Alliance of Museums. Charged with discussing four cardinal dysfunctions of our field, I offered the following comments on scarcity mindset.

Last year, as a council member of the American Association for State and Local History, I received training from the William Winter Institute on implicit bias.  They taught that an individual’s work to address their own implicit bias is a spectrum. Under ideal conditions – you feel safe; overall risk is low – you may be at a “four” on a personal growth scale of one to five. But in times of perceived or actual threat, you revert to previous stages of your personal growth, places on the spectrum you thought you had long put behind you.

Across the past two months, our field has been grappling with the very real threat of scarcity - a limited amount of resources - layered on top of our long held scarcity mindset - the belief that there will never be enough and if we don’t act quickly, we will be unable to access resources and opportunities.  In reaction to finding ourselves at the overlap of the scarcity Venn diagram, we’ve reverted to ways of being that do not serve us and inhibit our institutional growth.

Scarcity mindset is easy to understand in a time like this one. However, our field-wide scarcity mindset predates the last two months.  It is in fact one of our industry’s core dysfunctions, underpinning our lack of intellectual humility, our struggles with equity and inclusion and our inability to address legacies of institutional colonialism.

When organizations operate from a scarcity mindset, a few things happen:

Scarcity-driven institutions seek to create permanence for both themselves and others. Imagine that staff member who continually cites your organization’s mission as the reason they will not try something new. Consider that program you continue to offer – seemingly unchanged - in perpetuity, for fear of audience disappointment if you make any minor adjustment.

Institutions in a scarcity mindset consistently view themselves in competition with others. Imagine the museum who wants to be THE destination for Americans to learn about (insert topic) rather than actively encouraging the growth and success of other (insert topic) destinations.

When scarcity-minded institutions or leaders, really want something - say a new expanded building or a hologram of Paul Revere – they focus on it obsessively whether or not that new hologram is truly in alignment with their institutional values.

Being in scarcity leads institutions to believe there is not enough - and this isn’t always about financial resources. For example, an institution in scarcity will argue that they must pay exorbitant salaries for a non-profit CEO because there is a limited pool of people talented enough to fulfill those positions rather than being open to “non-traditional” candidates.  Similarly, we see scarcity mindset in museums who argue that there simply aren’t enough qualified candidates of color for the field to have diverse, equitable institutions.  

Institutions working from a scarcity mindset generally seek to be in charge fearing what could happen if they cede and/or share control with their audiences or other institutions. And they often invest less in job functions that require more time, like relationship building.

Leaders who operate from scarcity lack trust in others, feel they alone have the answers, are driven by a focus on cost rather than impact, and are prone to micro-management.

Scarcity mindset leaves our institutions myopic and short-sighted. Though our field has talked about building community, sharing authority and increasing our relevance for years - in the face of economic insecurity, many of us laid off or furloughed the very staff with the most experience, training and interest in accomplishing those goals.

We are in dire need of a dose of abundance mentality.

Those who work from abundance are purposeful. These institutions define their values and use those values as a rubric in making all institutional choices.   If you don’t establish your values, plan by them and make them public, your institution runs on default mode - which for our industry is the scarcity mindset.

Abundant institutions see themselves as dynamic. They may choose to work, like the team at Women’s Rights National Historic Park once did, from a “mission question” rather than a mission statement.  By directing their work in pursuit of answering a question - What will it look like when men and women are truly equal? - institutions can more easily make a case for dynamic and responsive work as their context changes and their purpose evolves. Should the question ever be answered, the team and their stakeholders can set their eyes on work that helps their community answer a new pressing question.

Scarcity mindset depletes our cognitive resources, affecting our abilities to plan long term. We need to protect and develop our team’s cognitive resources by providing them with time, compensation and connections to engage in continued learning and, most importantly allowing them to rest when necessary. 

Rather than define our work by the “needs” of our communities, we must understand our communities as assets. Asset maps are inventories of the strengths and skills of the people in a community. Asset mapping highlights community interconnections, which in turn reveals how to access these assets. 

Abundant institutions partner with other nonprofits in the same area they serve. Scarcity mindset causes us to see organizations with similar missions as competitors rather than allies. We must find ways to collaborate so that each of us plays to our strengths and understands that our differences enable us to better serve the community as a whole.

Abundant institutions are generous with their time and resources. Daron Dickens argues - “In a world where giving is essential for our survival, a scarcity mentality has no place. Generosity isn’t just for the people that you are asking to support you, or for the people you support.” Generosity drives the ways in which you engage with others.   This may mean allowing the time and resources for authentic community consultation - recognizing that this may not happen on your timeline – but could also mean mentoring other institutions.  One of the greatest professional gifts I ever received was a week spent in Los Angeles with the late Irene Hirano and the leadership of the Japanese American National Museum as I stumbled through being a first time curator at the Arab American National Museum.  

Provide training in scarcity/abundance for your teams.  Leaders who operate from abundance prioritize better, are focused on collaboration to succeed, have greater trust in their teams and focus on impact rather than cost.