Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice. I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/) My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA. Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

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When Guilt Is Good

August 6, 2012July 30, 2012 by Joe Patti

Research by the Stanford Graduate School of Business had some surprising results suggesting that even more than extroversion, a sense of guilt may be a strong indicator of leadership potential.

Although “guilt” and “shame” may seem quite similar to most people…psychologists recognize a crucial distinction between the two: Whereas someone who feels guilty feels bad about a specific mistake and wants to make amends, a person who’s ashamed of a mistake feels bad about himself or herself and shrinks away from the error. Everyone tends to respond to mistakes according to one or the other pattern…

The researchers administered a test to measure how guilt prone people were and then put these people into a variety of situations. When they asked the participants to rate each other’s leadership qualities, those who scored higher for guilt were ranked highest for leadership.

According to the research article, participants weren’t picking up on people’s guilt but rather the behaviors that manifested from those feelings “making more of an effort than others to ensure everyone’s voice was being heard, to lead the discussion, and generally to take charge.” Similar research was conducted outside the lab at businesses surveying employees, clients and coworkers and produced similar results.

The key thing to understand is that guilt prone people feel responsible for the group at their own expense in contrast with shame prone people who tend to feel responsible for protecting themselves.

It should be noted, however, that guilt prone people are also most likely to support layoffs. While they feel bad about firing people, their sense of responsibility for the company as a whole will lead them to seek ways to fix the problems the organization faces. And good leadership abilities doesn’t guarantee good decision making abilities.

These results made me wonder about the qualities of non-profit leaders. A streak of martyrdom always seemed to be a prerequisite to work long hours for little pay. I don’t think it takes any great leap in logic to think it is motivated by a sense of guilt and responsibility to insure the organization is successful in providing its services to the detriment of oneself.

If this is actually a good thing according to the Stanford research, do people drawn to non-profit service actually have the best leadership potential and simply lack the training and resources to more effectively fulfill this potential?

No Simple Solutions

July 25, 2012 by Joe Patti

While I was out in the middle of the Mongolian steppes gazing out from my yurt, I happened upon a copy of the Oxford Business Group’s report on Mongolia in the dining hall. I put aside the novel I was reading and devoured the report. It was intensely interesting to me to read about all the factors that contribute to the emergence of a developing nation. In many respects, I saw some parallels to the arts and culture sector.

As I mentioned yesterday, one of Mongolia’s greatest assets is its land. The people are largely nomadic and their large herds of horses, sheep, goats and cows benefit from the grazing land. Tourists such as my friends and I come for the natural beauty. And the country has large mineral wealth.

There are many factors that must align for the country to be economically successful in each of these areas. The banks must have enough capital to support investment; insurance companies must have the resources to insure the industry; the government must be stable and generally unified in its vision; people must be confident that laws will be fairly applied and agreements honored; work force must be well trained and industrious; a quality transportation infrastructure must be in place.

This is no small task for a country that moved from Soviet style communism to a parliamentary republic in the early 1990s. The report mentioned that even countries like Canada which has a more mature and practiced economy and political system were challenged in trying to exploit their mineral wealth.

One of the things the report made clear is all these elements are interrelated. Success depends on addressing deficiencies in all theses areas and that balance is necessary. For example, there is a growing concern that the rise of the mining industry with its good salaries not develop to the detriment of other industries like manufacturing and tourism leaving the economy too dependent one segment. The impact of copper prices falling sharply a couple years ago is still fresh in people’s minds.

In the same respect, problems faced by the arts and culture sector in the U.S. and elsewhere won’t be simply fixed solely by achieving one of the following: more government funding, better cultural policy, more corporate donations, better board governance, changes in foundation policy, arts education in schools, new business model or marketing to younger audiences.

Its all of these and no one thing. We all generally know there are no simple answers, but it is difficult to remember when we are told the solutions to our problems can be achieved with a simple pill; in as little as 30 minutes a week; or just cutting/raising taxes.

Certainly when you are operating in perpetual crisis mode, or at least a low grade state of emergency as seems to be the case in the arts and culture sector, thinking the solution lies in achieving progress in one fairly significant goal provides the hope you need to carry on.

While it shows the reality of the situation to perhaps be more overwhelmingly complex, in the context of the factors necessary for developing the Mongolian economy, it is obvious that a more holistic and balanced approach to improving the operating environment is necessary.

It only makes sense that financing, infrastructure, law, education, etc are all important to a developing country. Progress won’t be made if one area is deficient. Trying to convince others to stop trying to advance conditions and policies in other areas and devote their time to what you think is important may ultimately be counter-productive.

Something to remember if you are making the rounds of conferences and such this summer and you are getting a lot of messages about what is absolutely the most important thing to do.

Summer Vacation, Asia Edition, Part II

July 24, 2012 by Joe Patti

Okay, as promised a little bit on my view on the Mongolian stage of my vacation. Mongolia’s biggest asset is its wide open spaces of natural beauty. Only reason I can figure Genghis Khan even thought about leaving is because winters get down to -40 degrees (it is same on Celsius and Fahrenheit). My friends and I had the pleasure of sleeping in ger (yurts) and had a great time.

Inside the Ger–Note Candles Are Only Light Source

Mongolians take great pride in the accomplishments of Genghis Khan and his progeny. The Khan’s figure appears in many places. The statue below just appeared out of nowhere about an hour or so from the capital, Ulan Bator. Apparently it was the site of one of his great camps.

In the plaza across from our hotel was a government building with three different statues of the seated Khan. Below is the largest.

We were somewhat fortunate to be in Ulan Bator during the national holidays for the Nadaam Festival, the athletic event showcasing the three great Mongolian pursuits-wrestling, archery and horse back riding. I say somewhat because traffic in the captial increases greatly during this time and many shops were closed for the week. We didn’t go to the stadium, but everywhere you went a television was tuned into the festival.

While I am not really into sports, I have come to recognize the importance of communal bonding around cultural events. We left Mongolia the day after the athletic competitions concluded, but the festival continued with a huge gathering of people in traditional costume in the square across from our hotel. From what we understood, it was something of a fashion show/contest.

Finally, since a country’s money often provides insight into the things the country values, I thought I would show off some of the pocket change I had left over. As you might imagine, Genghis Kahn appears on many of the higher value tugriks. Many others have portraits of Damdin Sükhbaatar who was instrumental in gaining Mongolian independence from China in the 1920s. The backs have images of ger/yurts being moved or pictures of horses with various backgrounds.

Because of its close association with the Soviet Union after their independence, Mongolia has its own version of Cyrillic as well as an older script related to Uighur. Both types of text appear on the money.

mongolian front — Front of Mongolian tugriks

mongolian back — Back of Mongolian tugrik

While I am on the subject, the current series of the Chinese currency (ren min bi) almost exclusively features Mao Zedong. There is still some older currency in circulation like the half yuan notes below which feature pictures of the Miao and Zhuang ethnic minorities. Other notes had other minorities or the classic communist figures of an intellectual, a worker and a farmer.

In addition to Chinese characters and pinyin, since 1955 in something of an acknowledgement to the 50+ ethnic minorities in China each note includes the denomination written in Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur and Zhuang on the back. Newer notes (circa 1987) also have this information in Chinese Braille. Even though English isn’t the national language, just imagine trying to get addition languages written on currency in the United States.

Summer Vacation 2012, Asia Edition

July 23, 2012 by Joe Patti

So I am back from my vacation (my thanks to Drew McManus who kept an eye on the blog). This trip took me to China and Mongolia, both of which will provide content for a few days of discussion. Both countries have long and interesting cultures.

However, the most immediate and visible celebration of national culture I saw was in Korea’s Incheon Airport. Not only did they showcase the talent of their classical musicians as is common in many airports. (click on any image to get an expanded view)

They also had people wandering the terminals in traditional costume. I had seen people in costume coming out of a back room when we transited to China and assumed perhaps it was a special occasion. It wasn’t until I returned that I realized this was a regular event. There are a number of Korea Traditional Cultural Experience Centers throughout the terminal and the costumed people move between each one, gathering a fairly large following as you might imagine. They perform a short program and then pose for pictures.

Between these performances and the multiple cultural experience centers, it appeared to me that the Korean government is pretty invested in promoting its cultural assets. They are letting people who visit know what cultural resources are available and giving people like myself who are transiting reason to think about visiting in the future.

Korean Traditional Costume — Korean Traditional Cultural Experience

One thing I have enjoyed in China are some of their large, beautiful public parks. They also have some beautiful historic gardens wedged into the middle of their cities like Yuyuan Gardens in Shanghai and Prince Gong Mansion in Beijing, both of which I visited this trip.

Beijing is also the home of the 798 Art District, the site of former military factories which artists gentrified into Beijing’s version of Greenwich Village. The district has been frequently under threat of being closed down and redeveloped thanks to its geography but its prominence as a tourist attraction seems to be staving that off for the present.

An arts administrator I met while in Beijing complained that the district was becoming too commercial and the artists could no longer afford to live there. Welcome to the negative side of the market driven economy I told him.

I experienced a little of the commercialization myself during my visit. The last time I was in China, I learned about the 798 Arts District and a sculpture, The Wolf Is Coming. I was really interested in seeing the sculpture and asked my friend who had been to the district a few times before to take me.

However, this was what was in its place-

Now I wonder if she was mistaken about the location because this courtyard doesn’t look like the one in the picture of The Wolf Is Coming I linked to above. That said, there were a number of Transformers robots in this courtyard and in the windows of stores and galleries around the district.

I couldn’t take pictures in the galleries but here are a few other pictures from around the district.

This trip afforded us the opportunity to walk over to Macau which was generally a little too cheek to jowl living for my taste, but did have some wider, attractive plazas.

We just happened on the start of a parade that included all sorts of musicians, lion dancers, people bearing a long dragon on poles, characters from Journey to the West and other mythical figures I couldn’t identify. They also had hand drawn carts with little girls perched so precariously at top a small platform that the girls had to be supported by pole bearers walking alongside.

This entry is getting a little long so I think I will continue tomorrow with Mongolia and some reflections on the whole trip tomorrow.

However, while I am on the topic of precarious situations, I wanted to comment on an amusing, but seemingly ill advised hotel design trend. One of the hotels we stayed at in China offered an unlooked for artistic display of a sort–windows in the shower.

View from the throne — View from the “throne”

Yes, you are seeing correctly, the rooms offer some interesting view even with the shades closed. I thought maybe this was a trend in China but our hotel in Mongolia had the same features. I could understand if these were a romantic hotel, but both hotels were very much aimed at business travelers. Both hotels had blinds you could close, but the ones in Mongolia were inexplicably perforated which meant you could still see someone in shower unless the lights were off. (My room mate on I opted to warn each other when we going into the bathroom.)