Actions speak louder than words, or so the maxim goes. But as Lindsay Sharp, the director of the National Museum of Science and Industry (NMSI) group, steps down, it is unclear if it is what he did or the way he presented it that led to his sudden departure.
It seemed ironic that, a month after he was awarded a medal for his services to the public promotion of engineering by the Royal Academy of Engineering, the news leaked out that, contrary to earlier reports, he would not renew his five-year contract at the NMSI (which operates the Science Museum, London; National Railway Museum, York; and the National Museum of Film, Photography and Television, Bradford).
That this was a surprise decision, despite the best efforts of the museum to play it down, is shown by the fact that the announcement was officially made days after the end of the contract and recruitment for a successor doesn't begin until this month.
Sharp, 57, seems to have regularly divided opinion. To his supporters at the NMSI he was a visionary thinker, deeply committed to contemporary science issues such as the environment and sustainability, and keen to present these topics in fresh, fun, accessible ways.
To his detractors, he did not seem to love the institution, its curators, its historic collections and its specialist library - and his vision for the future verged on the fantastic.
When Sharp's appointment at the NMSI was announced, some of his fellow members of the National Museum Directors' Conference welcomed him as a breath of fresh air.
But at the same time, Canadian newspapers carried reports of unhappy staff at his previous institution, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).
The ROM, like the Science Museum, is a venerable institution struggling to modernise, and whatever the rights and wrongs of the direction Sharp took both in, it seems he found it hard to take the staff with him.
The NMSI has undergone a major staff-restructuring programme - which, as everyone knows, can be a bruising and difficult affair for staff and managers alike. Matters came to a head last year with a strike over pay and conditions - negotiations are still ongoing.
But as staff told Museums Journal at the time, the final trigger was growing concern over the NMSI's increasingly straitened financial circumstances, gallery closures at the Science Museum, the threat of the closure of the library and concern over the amount of time and money being devoted to the plans for an eco-attraction, store and business park at Wroughton.
But as Sharp steps down (the trustees have asked him to stay on to the end of this month), the incoming NMSI director will confront many of the issues he faced - and will be expected to implement many of his plans.
'The message is it's business as usual, we're holding to the strategy and the masterplan,' Jon Tucker, the acting director of the NMSI and the head of the Science Museum, told Museums Journal.
But if the forward plan is still there, so are the problems. The NMSI, with its 1,100 staff and three major museums plus the Wroughton open store, is struggling on its £50m a year government grant - which arguably compares unfavourably with some of the other national museums.
It is currently spending £200,000, granted by the department for culture, to examine its finances. But the fact remains it has suffered a loss in grant of £7.7m in real terms since 1997/8 on an already stretched budget.
With 70,000 sq metres of exhibition space across its sites, and with the largest number of employees of all the national museums, plus the need to renovate large tracts of exhibition space, particularly in Kensington, the sums simply aren't adding up.
Tucker clearly hopes that the government, particularly, the Department for Education and Skills, and the Department of Trade and Industry, will put its money where its mouth is - given the dearth of science teachers and scientists - and help fund the institutions that can inspire young people along the tough road of science study.
The museum is also taking steps to make more money itself. A new, innovatively-funded touring exhibition strand, called The Science Of..., will see the financial risk taken by the Fleming Media investment fund, with profits from ticket sales and receiving venues split between the Science Museum and its backers.
The museum has also expanded its shop and catering - though given its largely family market, it remains to be seen if it will achieve the kind of revenue of the Tate, fuelled by its unusually high proportion of young, fashionable visitors with large disposal incomes.
One of the reasons the Science Museum may have struggled is that it has never quite got over the introduction of free entry, which has shifted its financial model away from a (relatively) high-priced ticket at the door, which many families seemed happy to pay, to earning money from temporary exhibitions, Imax and other secondary spends.
Meanwhile the museum has found it hard to put on financially successful, high visitor volume blockbusters that are also critically admired.
But if the financial problems are solvable, the harder task is defining what the museum is - a problem that exercises modern science mu-seums across the world, if international gatherings such as the annual Ecsite conference are anything to go by.
How far do they go down the hands-on, science centre route - fun, popular and much-loved by younger children - and with an emphasis on concepts and interactives and not on collections?
How far do they emulate public service broadcasters (or even commercial outfits such as the Discovery Channel) with their big budget science programmes, and expanding (and heavily funded) websites?
How important is the collection, which may contain iconic, even romantic and inspiring, objects? And there is the ongoing problem of collecting and the fact that many scientific issues are poorly represented by a piece of hardware?
How do you make a museum that appeals to schools and families but doesn't send everyone else fleeing to the exits? Is science really ever fun?
Jon Tucker argues that the NMSI is grappling with the issue of being a 'multi-channel broadcaster', able to appeal to different visitors in different ways.
It will follow the children's Energy gallery, and the adult-oriented Dana Centre lecture space, with an expanded Launchpad hands-on gallery - the old one is so popular that it is wearing out.
These will be followed by an important Making of Modern Science gallery (above the Making the Modern World gallery) and one on cosmology, which will add weightier, more collections-based displays.
Unlike bought-in exhibitions such as the Lord of the Rings, museum staff will work to create the new The Science Of... exhibitions.
Actions speak louder than words. But words matter too, and so far, Tucker seems to have the knack of saying the right things.
Unlike Sharp, who talked big, controversial themes and used the phrases 'sexy' and 'sexing up' a lot in his interviews, Tucker talks about collections, curators, and scientific disciplines such as physics, nanotechnology and chemistry, as well as the importance of hands-on interactives and popular shows.
He robustly defends the staff against criticisms of being 'an Old Guard' and describes them as 'the most professional, dedicated and engaged staff you could hope for'.
A much less flamboyant manager than Sharp, we can only hope that he and any new NMSI director can take the employees with him.
Jane Morris is an arts journalist
It seemed ironic that, a month after he was awarded a medal for his services to the public promotion of engineering by the Royal Academy of Engineering, the news leaked out that, contrary to earlier reports, he would not renew his five-year contract at the NMSI (which operates the Science Museum, London; National Railway Museum, York; and the National Museum of Film, Photography and Television, Bradford).
That this was a surprise decision, despite the best efforts of the museum to play it down, is shown by the fact that the announcement was officially made days after the end of the contract and recruitment for a successor doesn't begin until this month.
Sharp, 57, seems to have regularly divided opinion. To his supporters at the NMSI he was a visionary thinker, deeply committed to contemporary science issues such as the environment and sustainability, and keen to present these topics in fresh, fun, accessible ways.
To his detractors, he did not seem to love the institution, its curators, its historic collections and its specialist library - and his vision for the future verged on the fantastic.
When Sharp's appointment at the NMSI was announced, some of his fellow members of the National Museum Directors' Conference welcomed him as a breath of fresh air.
But at the same time, Canadian newspapers carried reports of unhappy staff at his previous institution, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).
The ROM, like the Science Museum, is a venerable institution struggling to modernise, and whatever the rights and wrongs of the direction Sharp took both in, it seems he found it hard to take the staff with him.
The NMSI has undergone a major staff-restructuring programme - which, as everyone knows, can be a bruising and difficult affair for staff and managers alike. Matters came to a head last year with a strike over pay and conditions - negotiations are still ongoing.
But as staff told Museums Journal at the time, the final trigger was growing concern over the NMSI's increasingly straitened financial circumstances, gallery closures at the Science Museum, the threat of the closure of the library and concern over the amount of time and money being devoted to the plans for an eco-attraction, store and business park at Wroughton.
But as Sharp steps down (the trustees have asked him to stay on to the end of this month), the incoming NMSI director will confront many of the issues he faced - and will be expected to implement many of his plans.
'The message is it's business as usual, we're holding to the strategy and the masterplan,' Jon Tucker, the acting director of the NMSI and the head of the Science Museum, told Museums Journal.
But if the forward plan is still there, so are the problems. The NMSI, with its 1,100 staff and three major museums plus the Wroughton open store, is struggling on its £50m a year government grant - which arguably compares unfavourably with some of the other national museums.
It is currently spending £200,000, granted by the department for culture, to examine its finances. But the fact remains it has suffered a loss in grant of £7.7m in real terms since 1997/8 on an already stretched budget.
With 70,000 sq metres of exhibition space across its sites, and with the largest number of employees of all the national museums, plus the need to renovate large tracts of exhibition space, particularly in Kensington, the sums simply aren't adding up.
Tucker clearly hopes that the government, particularly, the Department for Education and Skills, and the Department of Trade and Industry, will put its money where its mouth is - given the dearth of science teachers and scientists - and help fund the institutions that can inspire young people along the tough road of science study.
The museum is also taking steps to make more money itself. A new, innovatively-funded touring exhibition strand, called The Science Of..., will see the financial risk taken by the Fleming Media investment fund, with profits from ticket sales and receiving venues split between the Science Museum and its backers.
The museum has also expanded its shop and catering - though given its largely family market, it remains to be seen if it will achieve the kind of revenue of the Tate, fuelled by its unusually high proportion of young, fashionable visitors with large disposal incomes.
One of the reasons the Science Museum may have struggled is that it has never quite got over the introduction of free entry, which has shifted its financial model away from a (relatively) high-priced ticket at the door, which many families seemed happy to pay, to earning money from temporary exhibitions, Imax and other secondary spends.
Meanwhile the museum has found it hard to put on financially successful, high visitor volume blockbusters that are also critically admired.
But if the financial problems are solvable, the harder task is defining what the museum is - a problem that exercises modern science mu-seums across the world, if international gatherings such as the annual Ecsite conference are anything to go by.
How far do they go down the hands-on, science centre route - fun, popular and much-loved by younger children - and with an emphasis on concepts and interactives and not on collections?
How far do they emulate public service broadcasters (or even commercial outfits such as the Discovery Channel) with their big budget science programmes, and expanding (and heavily funded) websites?
How important is the collection, which may contain iconic, even romantic and inspiring, objects? And there is the ongoing problem of collecting and the fact that many scientific issues are poorly represented by a piece of hardware?
How do you make a museum that appeals to schools and families but doesn't send everyone else fleeing to the exits? Is science really ever fun?
Jon Tucker argues that the NMSI is grappling with the issue of being a 'multi-channel broadcaster', able to appeal to different visitors in different ways.
It will follow the children's Energy gallery, and the adult-oriented Dana Centre lecture space, with an expanded Launchpad hands-on gallery - the old one is so popular that it is wearing out.
These will be followed by an important Making of Modern Science gallery (above the Making the Modern World gallery) and one on cosmology, which will add weightier, more collections-based displays.
Unlike bought-in exhibitions such as the Lord of the Rings, museum staff will work to create the new The Science Of... exhibitions.
Actions speak louder than words. But words matter too, and so far, Tucker seems to have the knack of saying the right things.
Unlike Sharp, who talked big, controversial themes and used the phrases 'sexy' and 'sexing up' a lot in his interviews, Tucker talks about collections, curators, and scientific disciplines such as physics, nanotechnology and chemistry, as well as the importance of hands-on interactives and popular shows.
He robustly defends the staff against criticisms of being 'an Old Guard' and describes them as 'the most professional, dedicated and engaged staff you could hope for'.
A much less flamboyant manager than Sharp, we can only hope that he and any new NMSI director can take the employees with him.
Jane Morris is an arts journalist
