From commitment to action: Cycle One of MGS's Anti-Racism Action Plan
We published our first Anti-Racism Action Plan last year as part of our involvement in the Delivering Change programme as a Museum Transformer. As Cycle Two begins, our Chief Executive, Lucy Casot, reflects on what it’s been like implementing Cycle One, what working this way feels like, and what other organisations can take from our experience.
How would you describe what this anti-racism action plan is trying to do in plain terms?
Put simply, this plan is about turning words into action. It is part of our continued response to the murder of George Floyd which sent shockwaves across continents and prompted many organisations to say, “Black Lives Matter.” Back then we knew that saying those words was not enough and we asked ourselves what they actually meant for us in practice. So this plan is part of how we are still answering that question: if we believe that Black lives matter, what are we going to do differently?
Our early response to that question has been support of the Empire, Slavery, & Scotland’s Museums report and recommendations. The report showed how deeply racism is embedded in the sector’s history and collections, and how much still needs to change. This led to the development of the Delivering Change programme, which has given us the structure and the learning to move from understanding the problem to actually doing something about it.
Several years of training, individually and collectively, brought us to the point where we felt ready to commit to specific actions. That’s what the Anti-Racism Action Plan gets us to. This is a list of actions, crowdsourced from across the organisation, that consider what we can do differently based on what we’ve learned about the problems we exist within. We’ve distilled that into four core goals with specific actions. Making the action plan public is a way to be accountable to our staff, to our sector, and to ourselves.
What’s worked well from the first action cycle?
What stands out for me is that this no longer feels like work that one or two people are charged with. Going through the Delivering Change training collectively, across two cohorts and with board members who came to sessions alongside staff, has given us a shared language. When you hear questions sparking from different parts of the organisation, or conversations happening that wouldn’t have happened before, you get a sense that something is beginning to be embedded. We’ve got a long way to go, but it does feel like a team plan now.
We’ve also been willing to be transparent about where we are. Publishing our Workforce Diversity Report and being open about our approach goes with our organisational values. What does ‘courageousness’ mean? It means exposing yourself to critique and questions. And when you get it wrong, being willing to have a conversation about that. It’s not a specific action but we’ve become more proactive in responding to external racist incidents happening in society around us. It’s an important part of allyship. It’s a signal that we’re actively working to dismantle racism rather than disapproving of it in silence.
Have there been actions from Cycle One that were harder to deliver than expected?
I don’t think any one action has been difficult but seeing the immediate impact is a challenge. This kind of culture change doesn’t happen overnight and I don’t want that to feel demotivating. Cycle One lasted six months so we’re not at a point where we can objectively measure the impact. Which is why I think it’s really important that we talk about what’s happened in Cycle One. We shouldn’t be shy about talking about what we’ve done even if they’re small things, because they all add together to keep the momentum going.
A lot of Cycle One was foundational work. Collating objectives, updating induction, getting our diversity data published. Those things are necessary to get to the more impactful actions and it takes time to get those foundations right. We’re a busy organisation and it’s been a challenge balancing the urgent and the important with the commitments that we’ve made. We learned that we needed even more foundational change than we expected, but that is the work.
The plan uses short cycles rather than a traditional multi-year approach. How does that feel different in practice?
It was something we were encouraged to try by our critical friends, Irene Mosota and Paul Reddish, who have experience of this kind of work elsewhere. And I think it has really helped. Short cycles require short actions, which means no one action feels insurmountable. It helps you choose a place to start, and you can see all the steps along the way. It also helps with accountability. It’s easy to publish a set of ambitions and then say nothing for a year. Sticking to short cycles keep the work visible and active.
There’s also real value in being able to adapt as you learn. Short cycles mean more opportunity to review and change things. If you discover you’ve got the wrong actions, you find out really quickly! We’ve been creating and refining it as we go along, and I think that’s genuinely what this approach means. Taking advice from others who’ve been on that journey seems sensible, and if a new great idea comes out of what someone else is doing, a three year plan doesn’t really work for that. That’s the learning together and alongside each other.
What has it been like personally to lead this, not MGS as an institution, but you as an individual?
You kind of separate those two parts of you and then they come back together again in ways that are quite tricky. I started thinking about my own relationship with history, what we have to unlearn, the stories we carry. The more you do this work, the more you realise how conditioned you are, and where those things come from. Taking part in the Leadership Programme of Delivering Change and having monthly conversations with my mentor have prompted a lot of reflection. Particularly on revisiting past decisions or thinking through future situations and how you could respond.
Doing this kind of work requires a lot of honesty and vulnerability. There’s something about the stakes of getting it wrong as a CEO that I think about. If I make a mistake, I get it wrong on behalf of the organisation in a very public way. People are watching what we do. That’s not a reason to stop. But it is higher stakes, and I think that’s important to be honest about.
What would you say to an organisation that’s nervous about publishing a plan like this?
Change happens in a multitude of little actions. Asking yourself “what can I do to act in an anti-racist way? What can we do collectively? What can you do within your own leadership role to create the space and the expectation for that?” Break it down. Start somewhere. And don’t wait until you can report a transformation. Talk about what you’re doing now, even the small things, because that’s how others learn alongside you.
When you make a plan like this public, you’re making a point to everyone who is experiencing racism. It matters, and you shouldn’t shy away from it.
Find the full list of Cycle Two actions, along with actions from previous cycles, on our Anti-Racism Action Plan page.