Case study: Reinventing the British Museum

The story
When Neil MacGregor became director of the British Museum in 2002, the institution was one year short of its 250th anniversary. It was also £6m in debt, viewed as one of the least user-friendly museums in the world, and struggling to justify possession of certain relics, notably the Elgin Marbles.

The British Museum’s management culture was inward-looking and weighed down by rivalries between curatorial fiefdoms. Visitors were often viewed as an inconvenience, getting in the way of research and scholarship.

The challenge
Mr MacGregor had two overriding objectives: to change an entrenched yet fragmented organisational culture and to reaffirm the institution’s sense of purpose, for internal and external stakeholders.

The strategy
Mr MacGregor refocused on the founding ideals of the institution. He trumpeted its role as an encyclopedic museum that encompasses everyday artefacts as well as art treasures – a collection to which any visitor from anywhere in the world could walk in for free and construct a story about their cultural history.

In his choice of themes for exhibition, Mr MacGregor forced different curatorial areas to work together. For example, Treasure: Finding Our Past, its exhibition on British archaeology, highlighted key finds made by ordinary people rather than archaeologists.

As part of the anniversary he allowed the BBC to make a documentary that celebrated the normally unseen work of its specialists, while also emphasising the need for openness to the outside world. Externally, Mr MacGregor forged cultural links with countries – such as Iran and China – that did not enjoy warm political relations with the west, which led to subsequent exhibition loans.

By recasting himself as a kind of “cultural diplomat”, Mr MacGregor also helped make the museum’s links with Britain’s imperial past less problematic.

The British Museum also engaged in new types of collaboration. It made its collection available to museums from emerging markets, thus reinforcing the director’s claims that it was a unique resource for the whole world and establishing what he dubbed the “lending library” model. At the same time, however, Mr MacGregor was protective of the integrity of the collection and used strong terms, such as “dismemberment”, when discussing any proposed restitution of artefacts, such as the Elgin Marbles to Greece.

To reinforce the museum’s claims to universal appeal, Mr MacGregor deepened its links with the BBC by devising A History of the World in 100 Objects, a radio series that showcased artefacts and civilisations that visitors might normally overlook using pieces from the collection. He chose one object from ancient Greece and two from medieval western Europe – but 11 from Africa.

The results
Net income quadrupled in nine years and donations and legacies have grown eightfold. Visitor numbers reached record highs (nearly 6m last year) the radio series alone drawing an estimated 250,000 extra visitors.

The museum’s departments are also less siloed – curatorial staff started to speak of “the collection” in the singular.

The lessons
Over time, an organisation can lose its sense of purpose, so the leader must keep reinforcing it through constant communication as well as constantly refreshing it in a way that resonates with all stakeholders.

Mr MacGregor delivered a consistent message about the museum’s distinctiveness and used the media intelligently. By emphasising the museum’s role as a lender of objects, he also helped to defuse, for the time being at least, the restitution debate.

A key lesson for other executives is that just as Mr MacGregor was able to reshape his role into being a “cultural diplomat”, they often have more latitude for reframing their job than they think. And this can help them to redefine and rejuvenate their organisations, too.
- Financial Times, 30 Jan 2012