“My life is like a rowboat—I’m always looking backwards but moving forwards.”

Do you ever feel like sometimes you hear words as if they were meant only for you? The above phrase (see if you can follow this) was shared on a podcast I was listening to, whose host was interviewing a documentary producer, who was quoting them from an individual excepting an award weeks (if not months) ago. A long and winding path to follow for the source of a few words, I know... yet somehow, despite my personal disconnect from the source, it was as though this phrase was uttered through my podcast app at the right time just for my ears. 

Future-building requires a lot of forward movement while simultaneously looking back. That’s why I appreciate the time I spend doing this series. So here we go with month 9 of my leadership journey redefining the National Museum of the Great Lakes and taking history into the Future.

💡 As always, I welcome your thoughtful perspective and insight as I take on this new leadership role. Do any of my goals, successes, challenges, lessons learned, and next steps resonate with you? Let me know—I always value and enjoy your thoughts and feedback! 

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Month #9 (September) Goals

1. Expanding Boundaries and creating more opportunities for meaningful partnerships.
2. 2025 Budgeting and beginning financial modeling for our 5-year Strategic Plan.
3. Solidifying our Second Wave Expansion permanent exhibit and working through exterior and interior design decisions.

Successes:

1. Building an operating budget for our future. This is, by far, my proudest point of success this past month because, through development of our 2025 operating budget, we are also recalibrating our chart of accounts to better reflect our revenue generation and spending. An organization that is nearly 80 years old can carry a lot of baggage, especially in its chart of accounts. Although our work hasn’t changed through the years, the way we do the work surely has evolved (quite rapidly). And, our chart of accounts, hasn’t fully grown alongside that rapid pace of change. This month we reviewed, defined, and re-defined our income and expense codes, drafted the income section of our next year's operating budget and completely reimagined our expense tracking. We also have met with multiple board members, staff leadership, our accounting support, and other advisors to discuss advantages and potential pitfalls with our suggested changes. In the weeks of October, we will finalize our new numbers, share our plans with our board financial leadership, and plan to have a 2025 operating budget ready to present at our next full board meeting. I am very proud of the work I’ve done in partnership with our Director of Museum Operations—it required a LOT of work and time but it’s exciting to start seeing the fruits of our labor.
2. Building partnerships for the future. Up to this point, much of our partnership-building (an important part of our growth) has been reliant on small-scale, pre-existing, one-on-one relationship conversations. This past month, however, many of these conversations have grown in scale and/or have expanded to touch new potential partners. September found me in Buffalo, New York for the AGLMH (Association of Great Lakes Maritime History) Conference and also in Chicago for the Great Lakes Coalition’s Healing our Waters Symposium. Both of these experiences allowed me to grow my knowledge and networks, as well as authentically expand awareness of our organization’s new vision. Likewise, we're exploring a new mission: to preserve, share, and celebrate the past, present, and future of Great Lakes stories. (What do you think?) My conversations at these conferences allowed me to test out and speak this mission while gaging reactions to it. In other partnership developments, this October the National Museum of the Great Lakes is launching our first Maritime Career Day for Jr. High and High School students—designed to inspire students to explore a variety of Great Lakes careers. We’ve had a ton of corporate and educational partner interest in this work, and we are equally excited to utilize the event to expand youth awareness of the endless career and education opportunities available across the Great Lakes region. Finally, we have multiple formal partnerships about ready to launch connected to a wide variety of Great Lakes industries. I leave September with so much excitement about the growth of our partnerships!
3. Building a space for our future. We are 3-dimensional! It’s incredible how quickly things moved from below-ground foundational work, to structural beams and walls. We are still on schedule and have started delving into furniture and space conversations. (View photos of the current status of our Second Wave expansion at our blog here. ) Likewise, our new permanent exhibit stories are really taking shape with physical artifacts—from the delivery of the Medusa stack emblem to the transportation of the beautiful ship model collection which will depict the stories told in the new exhibit space. We are so grateful for the exceptional donors and friends who have assisted us as we build this incredible new history-making space.

Challenges:

1. The “nomadic" life. Wherein last month’s post I discussed the chaos and challenges of moving, this month has been all about learning to live in this new norm. Post-pandemic, it’s been my experience that working virtually is SO much easier—from utilizing technology to arranging virtual meetings, most of us now have an abundance of experience with remote working. It’s this abundance of “experience” that made me believe the transition to a more “nomadic work life” would be easier than what it actually is panning out to be. The reality is, it’s been an ongoing learning curve. Although there may be a (limited) number of desks to work at in our staff trailer at the museum, there is no privacy, no sound control, and no group meeting space. My briefcase is packed with “things I might need for work” but it seems to always be missing the one thing I actually need for work (whatever that “thing-of-the-day” might be). I’m still experimenting with the “right amount of stuff” to carry with me and bought a new bag to (hopefully?) help me consolidate and organize. However, at any given moment I feel somewhat like Gus Gus—the chubby mouse in Cinderella who's known to push crumb-carrying boundaries. From a distance I likely look a bit disheveled traveling between the home office, staff trailer, and the shared workspace at TolHouse. Throw in my out-of-state travel schedule in September, and, well… you can only imagine. Don’t worry! I’m sure I’ll get the hang of ”nomadic life” just as SOON as we’re able to move into our permanent office space. 😉 Ha!
2. Strategic planning efforts. I’m still going to place this in the Challenges section. We have made considerable strides forward by developing Key Strategic Priority (KSP) baselines and a framework for tracking our success, as well as completing a tentative draft of the first 3 of 5 KSPs. As I type this, I’m realizing how much we have accomplished, and that maybe I'm being too hard on myself. That said, we are behind a bit on the initial timeline, the last leadership team strategic planning meeting was probably the toughest conversation to date, and we have not held nearly as many key stakeholder conversations as I had hoped to by now. I still feel as though we made the right choice to facilitate the development of the plan internally, but I also see more clearly WHY people hire facilitators to help drive this work. The work is not easy, takes a lot if focus and time, and can sometimes feel overwhelming. I know we're doing good work, but I still feel like its an uphill climb with the mountain’s summit not quite yet in view.
3. Balancing my workload while also carrying the burden of others. Just so you know, I'm a REALLY good worrier. Am I supporting the staff enough? Are my expectations too high? Is everyone coping with the displacement and finding enough balance in their own life? Beyond being a very talented worrier, I also struggle occasionally with second guessing—particularly second guessing the balancing act between “doing things” versus “being at things”. As a parent, I prioritize being a good model for my kids, and I try to do the same thing for our staff. The difference is the work I do many days doesn't always model the same (important) work other team members do. I am trying to trust my team to do the work I can't, while simultaneously worrying that I'm overwhelming them. Essentially, I now realize, I’m attempting to both 1) balance my own life and 2) ensure the lives of my team feel balanced—which is in NO WAY realistic. Hmmm… 

What I Learned:

1. One of my biggest strengths and toughest hurdles is creative problem-solving. I don't back down easily, and I don't like to fail. I look at problems like a 1,000-piece puzzle — from every angle, in every light. I start with the pieces I know are easy, build out from those, and sew a solution together. When I get frustrated I take a pause, rest, and come back to it. I'm stubborn like that—I always come back and rarely leave a puzzle unsolved (just ask my husband). Yet, like a puzzle, sometimes pieces go missing. (It happens, and this is my toughest hurdle…) I need to learn how to be more comfortable with the occasional missing piece and simply move on. I'm working on that...
2. Life is not just one aspect of your day, it’s everything… It’s work, it's home, it's family, it's colleagues, it's your health and the health of those around you. If you’re stressed or unhappy at home, you bring that stress or unhappiness to work and visa versa. At least I do. I used to compartmentalize my life into two primary segments: work life and personal life. That just doesn't work anymore because the two overlap so much. (If I'm being truthful, they have always overlapped.) I'm so much more cognizant and appreciative lately of their intertwined relationship as well as my own need to nurture both aspects in order to be and feel my best.

UP NEXT:

1. Updating bylaws, developing an annual Governance timeline, and reviewing / evaluating the 2025-26 Board Officer & Committee Slate
2. Finalizing the 2025 Budget
3. Writing a Strategic Plan Executive Summery Update

In Conclusion:

“My life is a rowboat, I’m always looking backwards but moving forwards.”

This statement humorously yet adequately reflects how I've been navigating these past 9 months of leading a history museum into the future. But more than its direct tie-in to the power of history and the reality of my current life, this phase also put a better perspective on what I hope will guide our museum through this Second Wave of growth and beyond…

Midway through September, somewhere between Buffalo and Chicago, I had this enlightened epiphany that “Taking History into the Future” requires getting the next generation of history enthusiasts involved in both the Great Lakes past and present. There’s so much research and thought being put into solving the problems of tomorrow. As a history organization who celebrates the stories of our past, I believe we need to better embrace the the multitude of work happening now. Because, today's happenings are surely tomorrow’s history. Cheers to looking backward while moving forward in an effort to preserve, share, and celebrate the past, present, and future of Great Lakes stories.

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Did you miss any of my past reflections? Catch-up with my journey and follow along!

• MONTH 1: Leadership Out Loud - (January 2024)
• MONTH 2: Leadership Out Loud - (February 2024)
• MONTH 3: Leadership Out Loud - (March 2024)
• MONTH 4: Leadership Out Loud - (April 2024)
• MONTH 5: Leadership Out Loud - (May 2024)
• MONTH 6: Leadership Out Loud - (June 2024)
• MONTH 7: Leadership Out Loud - (July 2024)
• MONTH 8: Leadership Out Loud - (August 2024)