MichiganX: Inspiring and Motivating Arts and Culture Teams

Offered by the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in collaboration with National Arts Strategies , this course focuses on equipping leaders in the cultural sector with the critical skills for inspiring employee engagement and performance while motivating people to adjust behavior and embrace change.

You will learn how to create a shared vision for your team and effectively communicate it to your teammates. You will also learn how to set effective goals and expectations in a way that best enables your team to attain the shared vision. Finally, you will understand the most important needs and drivers of performance across cultures, and will learn to align rewards with desired behaviors so that your teammates are motivated to attain the team’s objectives.

Motivation represents a crucial challenge for contemporary organizations. A recent Gallup poll revealed that only 13% of workers worldwide exhibit high levels of engagement and motivation. We will show you why these motivation problems are not simply due to a “bad” or “unmotivated” team member. Rather, motivation is very much driven by what work conditions we create for our teammates, how we structure goals and objectives, and how we reward people for the accomplishment of those goals. This course will help you diagnose and solve motivation problems so that you can bring out the best in your people.

This course features lessons from both University of Michigan, Ross School of Business faculty and practitioners in the arts and culture field. Leaders such as Franci Phelan (Kennedy Center), Aaron Dworkin (UM School of Music, Theatre and Dance) and Tim Cynova (Fractured Atlas) share their stories on effective leadership and HR practices in the cultural sector.