Night at the Museum… for Your Business

What’s your favorite museum? Just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean you have to give up museums.

I lived in the DC suburbs when I was a kid, and we used to go to the Smithsonian a lot for field trips. Though my favorite museum was the National Galleries of Art (not technically in the Smithsonian), especially the East Building with all the modern art.

One of my faves now is the Palm Springs Art Museum. It’s got a lot of contemporary art, plus an amazing sculpture garden. I am always here for a sculpture garden!

How long has it been since you went to a museum? Do you remember feeling a sense of awe or wonder? Maybe you ran across an interesting artwork, or fact about the natural world, or something else entirely. 

And if you’re a business owner, museums can help you build and maintain a thriving business. International Museum Day is May 18 – maybe that can be the inspiration to check out a new museum in town you haven’t visited yet, or hit up an old favorite.

Museums promote life-long learning

In my last corporate financial planning job, part of my interview included a spreadsheet with a fictional client's data to spot issues, create a rough plan, etc.  I didn’t need to know any advanced functions for the planning interview; the calculations were pretty basic.

Now, granted, there are plenty of financial planning software applications that exist, and the company did use one. Spreadsheets can still be helpful for some things, even if you don’t need them for certain situations where software is available.

Spreadsheet software dates back to last century. Back then, in the 1990s, there were two applications: QuattroPro and Excel (I actually preferred QuattroPro.)

Through a hobby of mine, I met someone who had interviewed for that same job. She was about a decade or so older than me, so probably in her 50s or 60s at the time. Which means she would have been working when QuattroPro/Excel came out, and she wouldn’t have been that old in the ‘90s.

She told me she failed the interview because she never learned how to use Excel. An application that had been in use for decades by the time she and I met. She would have been in her 30s or 40s when the software came out… and she just decided she wasn’t going to learn it.

Now, if she’d been in her 70s or 80s and didn’t want to learn it, I can understand that. But to be that early in your career and decide you’re just not going to learn about some new technology …? And she lost out on a well-paying job with good benefits because of her decision to stop learning.

I’m going to use the current felon occupying the White House as another example of what happens when you don’t engage in life-long learning. Consider yourself warned! (If you already know how tariffs and modern supply chains work, just skip the next seven paragraphs.)

You can tell from his policies that he still thinks the world operates the way it did in the 1980s. Which for those of you following along was about forty years ago. There have been a lot of changes in the world since then. Japanese cars were just starting to make inroads on American highways.

Back then we still had a solid manufacturing base here in the US, and the supply chain was largely US-focused as well. The raw materials from our land went to US factories to make the widgets, which were then sold to US consumers, while some were exported too. Call centers were mostly located in the US.

In the 21st century, the supply chain is global. It does not work the same way it did in the ‘80s. You can argue about whether that’s a good or bad thing, and there are certainly both positives and negatives. But like it or not, that’s the way the world currently works.

While the US does still import some raw materials, companies typically outsource manufacturing and other aspects of their widgets. That’s because of comparative advantage, which you may have learned about in economics class.

Yes, we can manufacture things in the US, but workers in other (poorer) countries work for less money and often have fewer benefits. From a cost perspective, it makes more sense to have a poorly paid employee or contractor do the work. Once the items are built overseas, they get shipped back to the US for sale. US companies are global, and of course companies from other countries also have employees here.

Targeted tariffs can work in some instances, though they mostly just drive up prices for items that come through global supply chains. Because the man in the Oval Office never bothered to learn how the world has changed, he’s trying to use tools that may have worked forty years ago but don’t make sense now. 

The result of his avoidance of lifelong learning is that prices will rise for all of us, unfortunately, and a lot of companies will go out of business.

As a business owner, you don’t have to worry about screwing up a job interview if you decide to stop learning in middle age. And if your sense of economics is rooted in last century, you probably won’t cause other companies to go bankrupt. But understanding the reality of your world helps you adjust to market forces and make good decisions about your business based on facts, not feelings.

Museums are constantly changing and coming up with new exhibits, so there’s often something new to experience. Even those that are dedicated to the past, like natural history museums, can show you why certain things are the way they are, or how we got here.

Understanding the context can help you see your business from a different perspective, and even why your clients behave the way they do. I don’t mean that in a negative sense, but more just that you can spot broader patterns and address them to solve their problems.

Museums are good for your brain… which means they help you improve productivity

Your prize tool as a business owner is your brain, not your computer. The machine can help you do certain things faster and can analyze bigger datasets than you can. But you have to know how to prompt it correctly and understand the analysis.

Your brain doesn’t work like a computer. In some ways it’s more powerful, and it needs nourishment in ways that computers don’t. That’s why your computer doesn’t need a museum, but these institutions can benefit your brain.

In addition to life-long learning, museums provide different ways to look at the world. Human brains didn’t develop for hundreds of thousands of years in an office environment, so that’s not how they’re wired. 

Before the modern office began in the mid-20th century, there was no need for eight hours’ worth of planning, strategizing, number crunching, and other “thinky” tasks that involve the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of the brain.

Which is why we don’t have eight hours of solid PFC work in a day. According to Cal Newport, we’ve got about four to four and a half hours. Brains don’t need a total shutdown after all this thinky work, but they do need a break from it. At the same time, brains like to be active, so passively watching streaming shows isn’t a good way to recharge.

That’s where things like museums come in. You can just walk around and be inspired, shift your perspective, have a shop at the gift store (not gonna lie, I ALWAYS hit the gift shop.) You’re still using your brain, but your PFC is getting a break. And when you see things that are interesting or that you enjoy, your brain releases some happy chemicals.

A museum visit won’t drain your PFC and decision-making “tank”. Instead, you get to use different parts of your brain and shore up your productivity tank.

Museums inspire creativity, which can benefit your business

I’m not a visual artist or sculptor or anything like that by any means. I do enjoy a paint ‘n sip studio every once in a while, especially if some friends will be there too. I’m just not particularly visual.

So when I say “creativity”, I’m not necessarily talking about creating art or needlework or anything like that. Though some people really enjoy those things and it’s their creative outlet. I’m more verbal and I like to write – and I know a surprising number of financial planners who also enjoy writing!

But even if you’re the kind of person who thinks you’re not creative because you don’t like painting or writing or music-making or anything of that nature, you can still be creative. It just means that you look at something in a new way, synthesize different ideas, or come up with a solution that’s different from what’s come before.

Creativity uses very different areas of the brain, so you need to have time set aside for creative thinking separate from your PFC time. Creativity isn’t logical. You might find you have great ideas in the shower or walking around your neighborhood, because the ideas have been simmering in your mind but can’t come to a boil unless you have time where you aren’t concentrating on PFC work.

Recap (tl;dr):

Museums are a great way to feed your mind, which enhances productivity.

Can't find the time for creative thinking? Schedule your free consultation here to see how we might partner to create that time.

Photo by Diane Picchiottino on Unsplash