I also agree with the need to balance the provision of opportunities for current employees to advance with the need to bring in new people with new ideas. Though I have only worked full-time in two museums, I have worked in a great many organizations in a variety of capacities. One of the two museums suffered badly from offering very few opportunities for development and promotion to existing staff. This resulted in an unacceptably (to me, at least!) high turnover of talented young employees who saw they had little future in the museum and went elsewhere, which was a pity. Those who were left had a tendency to keep their heads down. On the other hand, the constant inflow of new ideas and people was refreshing in every possible sense of the word and no doubt contributed to the dynamism of the organization. The other museum kept the same staff doing the same jobs, year after year after year. The great wonder was that their employees continued to come up with good performance and quality products. However, the museum developed a reputation as a place where there were no new ideas and where nothing ever changed, which severely affected its visitation. I do not believe this reputation was entirely fair, as the museum DID continue to have its share of successes. However, it is also true that changes in museum technology and approaches largely passed it by, as it did not have the inherent knowledge to try new things and spent little time attempting to acquire it. In this institution, there were no opportunities for advancement of existing staff or for the infusion of new ideas that might have resulted from hiring new people. Too much emphasis was placed on continuity; as well, having the same old people fighting the same old battles resulted in deep-seated and difficult to manage personality conflicts and decreasing productivity. To my mind, this is a worst-case scenario. Based on thirty-five years of management, my feeling is that you need to balance a few basic things: a. the need to maintain a degree of continuity, which results from staff who have spent most of their careers in the institution and are highly devoted to it; b. the need to continuously motivate, challenge and reward staff by providing new learning opportunities and challenges by moving from one position to another, both laterally and up the ladder; and c. the need to maintain a constant awareness of and influx of new ideas and to keep "refreshing" the mix of personalities, which results from hiring new staff. Harry Needham Canadian War Museum