Back in September, Seth Godin wrote a short post on the idea of doing one’s best.
It’s a pretty easy way to let ourselves (or someone else) off the hook. “Hey, you did your best.”
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By defining “our best” as the thing we did when we merely put a lot of effort into a task, I fear we’re letting ourselves off the hook.
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It’s entirely possible that it’s not worth the commitment or the risk or the fear to go that far along in creating something that’s actually our best. But when we make that compromise, we should own it. “It’s not worth doing my best” is actually more honest and powerful than failing while being sort of focused.
Since it is the beginning of the new year, a time of making resolutions to do better, I thought it was an appropriate time to call attention to this idea.
(By the way, what does it say that I took a short post about doing your best and abridged it further, thereby lowering expectations of the reader’s attention span?)
I chose this post of Godin’s and edited it as I did because I wanted to focus on the sincerity inherent in being realistic rather than being idealistically aspirational.
There is already a lot of idealism in the non-profit arts, especially when it comes to creation, and there is nothing wrong with that. If there is, I am among the chief offenders.
There is also a lot of idealism in non-profit arts organization mission statements that promise to offer the “highest quality, best-in-class, world-class, superior” etc., product or experience.
In the face of declining donations and revenue generating attendance, groups often don’t have the resources to provide the highest quality product and experience. Instead of making a resolution for the new year to strive for some nebulous standard of excellence†, I think it is worth engaging in a little self-examination along the lines Godin suggests and acknowledge where you are not providing the best.
For example, are you offering the very best events your budget will allow, even though that means there will only be four events a year? Or are you making compromises so that you can offer a wider variety of experiences over the course of 8 events?
Is your staff trying to do more with less or have you scaled back services due to budget constraints?
An honest assessment of this situation rather than continuing to mouth platitudes about offering the highest quality interactions may help you better understand the implications of these trade offs. If you can say, yes we decided it wasn’t worth keeping the office open as many hours six days a week, you take responsibility for choosing not to serve a segment of your community or at least choosing a course that makes it difficult for some to receive service.
While it can be disappointing to face the areas in which you are falling short, it is a more constructive approach than claiming you are at a loss to know why attendance is falling or a demographic of the community is failing to engage with you. You can better address these issues if you have a good sense of the causes behind them.
†If you have a well-defined plan for achieving excellence with criteria, milestones and resources dedicated to achieving it, by all means go for it!
The basic idea of this post is good, but there seems to be an underlying assumption that things are going poorly, and that justification is needed for cutbacks and falling short.
The arts organizations I’m familiar with are facing challenges, but they are more along the lines of not being able to find the space they need to operate, rather than falling attendance or failing to engage with the community. I suppose the difference is between being in an area like Portsmouth, Ohio, where land and rent are cheap but the population is shrinking, and being in Santa Cruz, CA, where land and rent are hellishly expensive, but the population is growing.
Santa Cruz Shakespeare is hoping to build a new performance site after being kicked out of the UCSC campus (for reasons that no one has clearly articulated)—their biggest problem may be NIMBYism from the neighborhood around Delaveaga Park, where they have proposed the new site.
WEST Performing Arts has been limping along with just the Broadway Play House, after the West End Studio lease was cancelled (to make room for a new microbrewery that could pay a higher rent). They’ve been looking for affordable space with sufficient parking for over a year, with no success so far. Last summer they had to spread their classes out over three sites, no one of which was really adequate for their bigger classes.
Yeah, I used the scenario of things going poorly because many people can identify with it. But by the same token, it is just as easy to loosen your standards while you are in a good situation and fool yourself into thinking you are doing your best simply because you are flush with cash and business.
There is still room for some self examination and admitting you aren’t doing as a good as job as you could be or claim to be doing because there isn’t any margin in working harder. Think of your cable company or the airlines. Bad service may be part of the calculation – http://www.insidethearts.com/buttsintheseats/2015/04/28/your-bad-customer-experience-may-be-a-feature-not-a-bug/
Sometimes that realization can keep you honest and help you decide to turn your attention to the places your priorities are and stop pretending otherwise.
In the worst case scenario, it may lead you to decide to keep milking the suckers for all they are worth because they haven’t exhibited a significant preference for the alternative options. (Or maybe it is just how it feels to fly domestic airlines)