Creative industries are a rapidly growing area worldwide. They are positioned between science, culture, economy and technology. The wide ranges of branches are very much connected, depending on one another, combining both the social values and economic effectiveness.  These industries include visual arts and crafts, cultural and natural heritage, performing arts, audiovisual and interactive media, design and creative service, books and print media, video games and many more. In Canada they employ directly 630 000 people and have an economic impact on the Canadian economy $ 46 billion (in 2011). Creative industries have a positive impact on the local communities. They improve the social life, transforming cities into creative spaces where citizens and tourists enjoy life and are part of a vibrant artistic community. Many branches of creative industries are the catalyst behind creativity and innovative capacity of the economy. Many cities across Canada have successfully included arts and culture in their revitalization and urbanization strategies.

The Banff Centre new creative industries leadership program

Capitalizing on former experience and in a broad partnership framework, the Banff Centre is in a process of designing a leadership development process for mid-career museum and gallery leaders in Canada. The Centre believes that artistic and creative institutions are essential for the well-being of vital and sustainable communities. For almost 80 years since its establishment, the Centre is an essential focus point and arts incubator for many projects, artists, leaders and researchers from Canada and around the world.

The initiative to strengthen leadership is based on an initial scan of existing creative industries programs. The conclusion is that there is a critical need in Canada for a program to develop existing professionals in the creative industries who possess:

–          Vision for excellence and innovation;

–          Skills to run business elements efficiently and effectively;

–          Talent to motivate, inspire, and manage funders, stakeholders and staff;

–          The ability to imagine and deliver on a future with a robust and dynamic creative sector.

The new program will leverage the unique assets of The Banff Centre in new ways and will create a common language around what leadership means for the arts and culture sector in Canada and beyond. The aim is to help the leaders in the creative industries sector to create, innovate, lead and transform in new ways.

The design process for the new program is currently in an exploration and validation phase, which includes roundtables with experts and cultural leaders, happening across Canada – in Vancouver, Edmonton, Banff, Winnipeg, Montreal and Toronto. The first focus of the new creative industries leadership program will be on mid-career museum and gallery leaders. Later, it will expand to other sectors, such as video games, advertising, music, performing arts, and  more.

The roundtable in Montreal

The round table in Montreal was held on May 26^th 2014 and was an excellent platform for sharing ideas, critical discussion on the initial 6 core themes around which the new creative industries program will be build up. During the discussion, we identified powerful keywords connected primarily with leadership in this sector, such as: innovation, sensitivity, social responsibility, active citizenship, adaptability, partnership, paradox, different perspective, pressure, risk, thinking outside the box, challenges, affecting people, pleasure, energy, curiosity, resilience, controversial, shared responsibility, youth power, energy, care for community, turbulence, pressure, caring, ambiguity, vision,  and many more. It was interesting to explore that some of the keywords have very optimistic and positive connotations, while others are more from the challenging and pessimistic side of the leadership practices in creative industries. The duality and diverse tensions of the daily life of cultural leaders were obvious.

Our working group outlined several important focus areas and directions, which need further consideration in the process of designing the new  program on cultural leadership is going to be established:

1.       Entrepreneurial Leaders and Organizations

Leaders in creative industries work on their own, or as part of organizational environment. In both cases, considering the scarcity of funding for the cultural sector worldwide, they need to develop skills and competences to elaborate and manage sustainable business models, to look at balancing external funding with alternative financing and self-generated incomes when designing a new project.

It is important to explore intrapreneurship in the arts  – how arts organizations can become more entrepreneurial and innovative based on setting up internal spaces for innovation, teams to work on profitable projects, and investing more in research and development. Strategies in creative industries, elaborated by the leaders and managers, should contain vectors of innovations and entrepreneurship to become self-sustainable in the future.

2.       Social impact and visibility

It is important to understand well the rationale behind a project or initiative – why arts organizations are doing their activities and projects. Cultural leadership is about shared values – not only about the impact to communities, but also- involving communities, making new connections, keeping the artistic quality while at the same time elaborating wide educational programs for diverse audiences groups to understand the art better. Formation of creative clusters and strategic alliances appeared important as well, especially considering the long-term effects of the creative industries on the society. Creating open spaces of learning, engaging and sharing is also important in the light of keeping the ongoing dialogue with the wider public.

3.       Leadership in the Creative Industries is Change Leadership

Leaders are change makers – they shake the existing orders, improve the situation, break the status-quo, ‘unfreeze” the system and bring new challenges and new perspectives. The difference between cultural leaders and others is that arts and culture is a special field, not like all others. It contains elements of uncertainty and risk, which should be understood and managed by the leaders. These sectors focus on talents who are not just “workers” or “employees”  and their working conditions as well as mindset are very different.  Leaders in these industries shape public opinions – they are also public figures and influence the society a great deal- this is why they have to be trustworthy, transparent, with a high level moral and social values.

4.       Changing Mindsets

The leaders in the arts are the one to help changing the mindsets, maintaining the balance between traditions and modernity. The generational approach is important: building bridges between the new and the old generation and finding a “common language”. Validating and considering different approaches at work and consolidating them in light of the organization’s mission is also very important. Leaders are connectors who catalyze the social processes in an organization and in the society as a whole. It is very important that leaders understand the mindsets before changing them-they are also good listeners together with being visionary doers.

5.       The World is Open

Collaboration and partnership building is very important in the sectors of creative industries. This is because many of them have social together with business nature, and also-because different branches are very closely connected. Social innovations can not happen without broad partnership between different stakeholders-public, private, nonprofit.

The openness of creative industries across the borders should also be considered. Many creative innovative ideas start locally, but in a short period gain global recognition. International entrepreneurship is a focus of creative leadership. International approach is important in the 21^st century where world is global and the connectivity is everywhere around us.

The connection between offline and online projects and how both angles should be balanced is also a priority in the skills and competences of the new leaders in the creative industries sector.

6.       Adjustment Best Practices

Learning about new examples, best practices and cases is important for cross-polarization and cross-fertilization in the sectors of creative industries. The ongoing interactions between arts and others sectors enriches the mutual benefits. It is important to pay attention on best practices in local and isolated areas, in remote countries and regions where we know very little.

Creative leaders are the one who look at the applicability of an idea into other countries and sectors. They also explore ways of how art influences other fields, e.g. health care, social sector, environment, education, business. They are the one to find out which management approaches and business models can be applicable to the arts and culture sector, and how the uniqueness of the arts could be explored further for both social and economic benefits as a result.

We believe that the process of sharing and exchange for designing of the new culture and creative industries leadership program will continue and as a result – Banff Centre will continue to explore creativity and innovation across disciplines and without boundaries. There is a hope that the new program will build strong capacities and skills of the new generation of cultural and creative entrepreneurs and will unlock the potential of the sector by investing in people, in social innovations and cultural and social enterprises across the country.