The sentence that unlocks board engagement
Are you using language your board understands?
Most arts boards are filled with business leaders who have overseen market disruption. They’ve navigated digital transformation. They’ve watched legacy advantage decay.
They know all the case studies (Kodak, Blockbuster, newspapers) that prove “When the world changes, the business model must too.”
But when you tell them:
“Attendance is down”
“We’re carrying a deficit”
“Donations are in decline”
The board hears that and thinks: “Those are execution problems. Fix the marketing. Cut costs. Adjust pricing.”
They offer tactical advice, because that's the groove you've worn together.
They haven't been asked to apply what they know about market disruption to the arts. Maybe because they’ve been socialized to think "the arts are just different.”
The sentence that changes everything for them is this: “Our business model was designed for a pre-digital demand environment.”
Now the board isn’t thinking: “Why isn’t staff fixing this?”
They’re thinking: “Oh right. This is structural.”
And business leaders know one thing cold:
You cannot solve structural problems with better tactics. You solve them by redesigning the system.
The moment you frame the sector's problems as structural, your board stops offering tactical fixes and starts asking the real questions: What's the market opportunity? How do we align our model with what customers need?
That's the unlock.
Now you can have the right conversation, with strategic partners who understand systems thinking, market disruption, and model evolution.
But you’re gonna need a framework for that conversation. I’ve mapped it out here.
