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Grouse: What You Do When Your Salary Is Too Meager To Afford It

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It looks like it was a weekend for griping about performing arts. Ken Davenport at Producer’s Perspective opened the floor on an atypical Saturday post asking people to share their gripes. He promised to make it a monthly ritual if he got more than 10 responses and he easily passed that mark. A summary of the comments in one sentence would be – “How can they charge such high prices for tickets, yet pay me so little if I can shoehorn my way into a position at all.” There are a few complaints about audiences thrown in for good measure. The general source of the comments seem to be people living in and around New York City with a few people coming form other places. The tenor of most of the comments will be familiar to you if you work in the arts at all and are familiar with the New York City scene. Those aspiring to careers are following the same path those before them followed. This includes tales of people both inside and outside the business wanting them to work for fun or for experience.

My initial thought was that Broadway won’t change because it doesn’t have to and that people need to look elsewhere for their experience. While a similar situation is just about as institutionalized outside of New York City, those organizations are at least marginally aware that they need to find a better way to run their business and interact with their employees.

Which brings us to the second post I came across. Barry Hessenius posted an entry on his blog noting that essentially every job description for an executive director and senior management of an arts organization seems to be taken from the same template without any effort to acknowledge the actual specific needs of their organization.

He provides a tongue in cheek translation of this:

“The successful candidate will be a strong leader with excellent management and interpersonal skills. S/he will have the proven ability to build productive relationships with a broad range of internal and external constituencies, and have the demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with the various segments of the community. S/he will be an experienced supervisor with the ability and willingness to mentor staff and encourage staff development. S/he will foster an atmosphere of teamwork and collaboration among staff and volunteers throughout the organization. S/he will have a strong working knowledge of programs, production, board relations and operations. S/he will have excellent financial management skills and a track record for achieving budget goals…”

Into this:

“We want someone smart enough to help us figure out a cool vision for our future (that one is stumping us); someone who will attract great talent to the staff (though we can’t pay the staff very much) and whom the staff (despite working conditions that are hardly ideal) will love and follow anyway (someone who will hopefully get them to perform above their potential, because actually we’re understaffed by all reasonable criteria). We want someone who can make various factions of the board (currently somewhat dysfunctional and at each other’s throats) work harmoniously together and take on an ever greater workload (or in the alternative someone who will assume the board’s workload for them because it’s highly unlikely they will do much more than they are doing right now – which isn’t that much). We try not to micromanage, but we still do. We’re looking for someone who can get the best out of us, but someone enough like us so we are comfortable with them; someone who will push themselves, but not necessarily push us too hard. Did we mention that we want someone who can raise a lot of money? “

I have only excerpted a small portion of his translation so you will want to visit the entry to read the whole thing. I have also excerpted a portion of his sample job description. Trust me when I say you don’t need to go to the entry to read that. You have seen it many times before. I did a verbatim Google search on a couple phrases from Barry’s sample and found a number of job listings using them. I understand a desire not to reinvent the wheel, but if you are looking for the same person as everyone else, most organizations are bound to be disappointed. There are only so many of those paradigms to go around. The truth is, most organizations are indeed looking for someone a little different from the rest.

New Year’s Not To Do List

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So I am back and raring to go. This is the first Christmas holiday season I have been away from my bed in about 10 years. I went back to visit places I used to work and gained some insights and ideas. I bookmarked things to write about when I returned, but it will take a little bit for me to sort and process some of these things in my brain. One bit of wisdom to start off the new year I came across was linked to by Daniel Pink. It was an entry on the Drucker Exchange, a blog maintained by the late management guru Peter Drucker’s Drucker Institute.

The entry titled, Your Not-To-Do-List, essentially advises organizations and individuals to examine themselves and decide what efforts they are no longer going to pursue. It sort of follows the idea that if you bring something new into your house, you get rid of something old. In this case, you are encouraged to get rid of something old to leave room for the arrival of future innovations. The Drucker Exchange cites a 2004 interview in Forbes where Drucker says:

“A critical question for leaders is, “When do you stop pouring resources into things that have achieved their purpose?” The most dangerous traps for a leader are those near-successes where everybody says that if you just give it another big push it will go over the top. One tries it once. One tries it twice. One tries it a third time. But, by then it should be obvious this will be very hard to do. So, I always advise my friend Rick Warren, “Don’t tell me what you’re doing, Rick. Tell me what you stopped doing.”

The only hitch I think arts organizations might have with this is that waning audiences can make many programs look like they should be put on the not-to-do-list when some just need the attention being spent elsewhere to succeed. I think it is telling that Drucker focuses on the almost successes and achieved goals for elimination rather than targeting poor performers. While the latter should certainly be examined for elimination, Drucker reminds us not to become too invested in the moderate successes just because they provide a degree of satisfaction.

I just read the article this morning and spent most of the day catching up with a backlog of emails so I haven’t really had time to ponder what I might want to eliminate both personally and organizationally. However, over the holidays I had been thinking of discussing with the staff a new approach to one of our events with an eye to more closely connect with the local arts community. The old approach to the event might be the perfect thing to put on the top of our not-to-do-list.

Innovation In Practice

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A colleague recommended a piece on innovation that appeared in the Fall issue of Grantmakers in the Arts by Richard Evans called, Entering upon Novelty. Evans starts by talking about how the current state of things is based on the expectations created by the Ford Foundation when it was the preeminent arts granter starting in the later 1950s. He quickly moves to his vision of an alternative approach that he feels is more appropriate to the new environment within which arts organizations must operate. He presents a chart comparing the two which I have recreated here- Old Structure on the Left,  Emerging Structure on the Right

His commentary on the chart had some resonance with me.

“The emerging features are clearly those of a very different kind of organization, built on different assumptions. For example, in the third comparison, there is an underlying shift in assumptions about the nature of the artistic experience. From ”The quality of the artistic experience we can offer is dependent upon high levels of technical execution that are otherwise rarely experienced” to “The quality of the artistic experience we can offer is dependent upon the connection we make between our own and our participants’ creative aspirations.”

And, in the last comparison, there is a shift in assumptions about financial management. From “Permanent capital funds and buildings will stabilize our organization and protect us from annual upsets” to “Liquidity and fungible assets will support our ability to adapt rapidly to meet new conditions.”

Evans goes on to talk about how the arts have hobbled themselves by not engaging in a “genuine integration of artists into our organizations — not to represent a programmatic perspective, but as full members of the team, divergent thinkers and creative strategists.” It occurred to me that this approach helped to institutionalize the idea that artists must focus on their Art and can’t be distracted with the picayune details of business. Now we are engaged in attempt to get artists to think about the practical details of their careers and perhaps it is time to examine if the businesses have the artist’s creativity to be nimble and innovative in their operations.

Evans discusses how changes might manifest and the need for business models to change–and foundations’ funding criteria to make a corresponding shift in acknowledgment. What really interested me was his assertion that innovation could be institutionalized. He mentions a year long process that EmcArts, of which he is president, conducts to facilitate the move toward an institutional practice of innovation.

“The work is structured in three facilitated phases. The first phase concentrates on building an innovation team (not from the usual suspects!), researching possible new strategies, and focusing the team’s efforts on its most promising discoveries. The second phase is a midproject intensive retreat — five solid days locked away in the woods that telescope months of meetings and increase project momentum — serving as an Innovation Accelerator as decisions begin to be made. The third phase focuses on trying out the innovation through repeated prototyping and evaluation, in relatively low-stakes environments, as each organization decides whether, and how, to move forward with fuller implementation.”

It is the last stage that interested me most because as Evans says, arts organizations don’t have the resources in time/money/personnel, etc to test out new things. According to Evans, those who have participated in learning the process find that failure of an implemented plan has been productive for them and they are eager to try again.

As you know, we here at Butts in the Seats are interested in practical solutions.The desire to try again was the part that convinced me this approach might be worth serious consideration. There are a plethora of management and leadership techniques and theories that emerge all the time, many of which get discarded after a short time or when the next fad emerges. Just as when a business is recommended by a friend who says they will patronize it again, the fact someone is eager to employ an approach again says a lot for it.

Consortium Merger Update

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This week the state booking consortium of which I am a member met to start planning our upcoming seasons and also move forward toward our plan to merge with our sister organization. The governance committee upon which I sit had met about three weeks ago to discuss the steps we would have to take to accomplish the merger and work on rewriting our bylaws to come into compliance with practice. The committee spent about an hour discussing the relevant rules and laws the state attorney general’s office has for dissolutions and asset transfers of non-profit organizations and physically rewriting the bylaws.

Another three hours were devoted to discussing the implications of the changes we were proposing. Our consortium had already agreed we should shift from a membership to a board organization. What we ended up proposing this week was to shift from having organizations as board members to having individuals as board members. This was a rather significant move so discussing how it might manifest and what the impacts might be required some serious conversation. We felt this would provide much more flexibility and open up possibilities. For example, instead of focusing on writing grants to support the tours member organizations had arranged, the consortium would seek funding for touring or educational outreach and then decide how to apply it. The difference may be hard to discern, but it is possibly a significant change in the way the consortium operates and has the potential to position us as a partner to some granting organizations and foundations.

The biggest advantage is that the board would be free to choose its members rather than depend on specific organizations to send a representative. This would provide opportunities to bring people on based on their knowledge rather than affiliation. It could also allow the consortium to decide as an entity that it wanted to initiate a statewide arts in healthcare program where artists could barter their services working with hospitals, hospices, retirement homes, etc in return for low to no cost health coverage. The consortium’s direct involvement might be arranging outreach activities to these institutions by touring artists, but the benefit would be to all artists across the state, some of which may not be members of the consortium. Yet some of the board members may represent arts organizations that frequently employ these artists and find it in their best interest that the artists not have to worry about health care as they practice their craft. In this case, the board might seek to add a member from the healthcare field to advise and perhaps rally industry support for grants.

As the governance committee meeting was drawing to a close a few weeks ago, I mentioned that what we were proposing might cause a lot of debate at the full meeting because it was such a departure from the way business had been conducted. I noted that a shift in thinking away from the way we currently did business would be required. In fact, there was a lot of discussion about the proposal. There were a lot of “what ifs” asked based on the way we engaged in our activities. Some of the questions we had already considered and had responses to, but others illuminated the need for the creation of policy and procedures. Ultimately, I was happy to hear a board member who had not been part of the governance committee pointed out that we couldn’t think about the changes in bylaws completely in the context of how we currently operated and that it would require shifting our thinking.

There is still a lot of work to be done on the bylaws and one of the members of my committee uncovered more regulations governing dissolution and mergers with which we need to comply. I feel very optimistic about the work being done and the potential of the reorganization. Of course, it helps that the local community foundation received a large amount of money from the founder of eBay and they are directing some of it toward encouraging innovation in non-profits. It makes what we are doing seem relevant and timely.

What’s My Cue To Exit?

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David Dombrowsky, Executive Director of Center for Arts Management and Technology, retweeted an article from Inc magazine about exit strategies for non-profit entrepreneurs asking, “Can you think of arts examples?” Since the Inc piece is about entrepreneurs using their exits strategically to help their organizations grow/transition, my assumption is that Dombrowsky is asking if anyone can think of a person who has done so in the arts. I can’t.

I have covered the topic of succession planning or the lack thereof a number of times on this blog. Most arts organizations haven’t addressed the absence of a succession plan much less examined if that plan considers how to leverage the departure of the founder/executive director to their benefit. I will be honest and say that outside of signs of mental instability it never occurred to me that the departure of the founder could be cause of increased confidence. At best, a well executed transition could maintain existing confidence that might grow as a successor proved their mettle. At worst, a poorly handled transition (or complete absence of a plan) could be cause for alarm and unease.

Says Susi Soza in the Inc piece,

This leads up to the second reason why exits are so important: They signal to the market that an organization has reached a certain level of financial sustainability and scale. Exits are, by definition, big, and for a company founder to achieve an exit—whether by acquisition, a mezzanine round, or an IPO—that means it has achieved significant milestones in terms of revenue, profit, and market validation.

[…]

In the non-profit social entrepreneurship space the word exit appears like a misnomer. How can you have an exit for an organization with no owners?….

Non-profit social entrepreneurs would benefit from exits just as much as their for-profit peers. I believe more non-profit exits would actually attract additional capital to the non-profit space as it does in the for-profit space. Donors are persistently frustrated by fragmentation and duplication in the non-profit market, and I believe exits – whether by acquisition, merger, or even just closing down shop – would bring some welcome consolidation and efficiency that would provoke additional philanthropic investment.

Exits are also important for organizational realignment and revitalization. In the for-profit world, exits are often accompanied by changes in leadership team and business strategy. Unless businesses build exits into their lifecycles, non-profits rarely have catalytic events to spur these types of transitions. Furthermore, succession planning and transition beyond the founding social entrepreneur are often neglected because there are no unambiguous end points in sight. What if non-profit social entrepreneurs could aim toward an exit that came with a $50,000 bonus to do with what they wished?

While her observations are mainly directed at the social rather than arts sector, there is still a lot that is applicable. The comments about donors being frustrated by duplication of effort especially resonated with me. Partially because I am meeting this weekend to discuss governance of our booking consortium after we absorb our sister organization. But also because the idea that there are too many non-profit arts organizations conducting similar operations in the same geographic area is more frequently discussed these days.

I recognized her point that there are not too many widely recognized milestones against which non-profits and their supporters can measure organizational growth. With that in mind, a clear plan for recognizing transitional moments can be valuable. I also like the idea of working toward a $50,000 bonus. Something like putting $5,000 away annually for 10 years, but not adding to it if the leader stays past the agreed period might provide an incentive to move along.

Of course, that only works if everyone has been working toward grooming a successor. If they haven’t it becomes too easy to fall into the trap of deciding the current leader is the only one qualified to direct the course of the organization and extending their tenure and bonus.

But briefly back to Dombrowsky’s question. Are there any arts leaders who have done this? Even if it is only a handful, their example provides a template.

Info You Can Use: So You Wanna Join A Board?

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I believe I have covered the subject of considerations to make when joining a non-profit board before, but Emily Chan did a terrific entry on the topic on Non-Profit Law Blog this week. She links to the BoardSource page on this topic at the end, but she reminds us of additional things to think about.

Among her suggestions are to research on the organization you have been asked to join by reviewing the financials, bylaws, ensuring they have board liability and evaluating the personality dynamics on the board and their work process. Chan also mentions one of the areas I think is often overlooked–education. People who are familiar with boards on a basic level will know there are fiduciary and legal responsibilities to attend but may not really push to receive a thorough education in these areas and about the organization in general.

Education: Will you have the tools necessary to succeed at this organization?

Incoming directors at an organization may have different educational needs for creating the right environment to thrive on the board. Factors such as past board experience or work experience in the nonprofit sector can be useful in quickly adapting to a director role and executing those responsibilities. Likewise, an organization’s investment in or opportunity for board development and mentorship may be an important factor of an ideal work environment for individuals who are first-time directors or new to the nonprofit sector. For those seeking board education, a few topics to consider are:

* Orientation: What information will be covered? What are you expected to take away? What type of resources will be provided? Will you need more help or information after this?
* Training programs: Are they offered? If so, do they address the skills and areas you need the most help with? Are they pre-scheduled or provided as needed? Will you need more training and education down the road?
* Job description: What is being asked of you? Are your responsibilities and duties understandable and realistic? Can you fulfill this role?

I also really like Chan’s comments on how to evaluate the personality dynamics of the board, but I didn’t feel I could copy that much of her entry and offer so little original insight of my own. Obviously, the article can also serve as a guide for the materials, information and education non profits should be prepared to present to a potential board member so that a well informed decision is made.

Duelling Boards

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A nod to Non-Profit Law Blog for their link to a very extreme situation addressing the question of who owns a non-profit. In a story that appeared in the Star-Tribune (MN) and Non-Profit Quarterly. The founder of a non-profit that works with former inmates was frustrated with what he saw as a lack of responsiveness from his board. He formed a second board with a former member of the first board. This second board voted to dissolve the first board and install themselves as the governing body. According to both articles, the founder ended up fired and being lead away by police in the presence of both board presidents, each claiming they were in charge.

The short answer about who is in charge is always the board. They bear the responsibility of the governance of the organization. But given that organizational founders are generally the ones who institute the formation of a board asking the initial members to serve, does a founder have an ability to choose his/her own board? There is a point where the ability to select board members passes from the founder’s hands. My suspicion is that absent a provision giving the founder or executive director the power to make appointments, this occurs once bylaws have been completed and properly filed.

The next logical question is, when a board is not living up to its responsibilities, what recourse do people have in replacing them? Presumably the board can be sued for not meeting their responsibilities and a court could dissolve the board and order the formation of a new one. I have never heard of this happening, though I am sure it has, so I can’t be certain. It may not be the board as a whole which is dissolved and only those whom have been proven to be remiss in their duties who are removed from the board. But basis of this would be whether members attended the required meetings and were diligent in their review and handling of organizational matters. If it were not essential or required that the members return calls or attend the organizational events, it might be difficult to have the board dismissed. If they were moving forward with the strategic plan and operating budget at a rate a court found reasonable, again it could be difficult to unseat them.

If the allegations of mismanagement originate from within the organization, as it did in this case, then there is also the stress of having the board and staff in a confrontational stance complicating the situation as well. As I mentioned, I am sure there have been times when boards have been dissolved because they failed in their duties, but I wonder how many of those instigated by staff. If anyone on staff is going to do it, it would be the founder given how much they have invested in the organization. Staff members may have provided materials to support the case against the board, but it has to take a lot of moxie for a staff to declare a company is ill-served by its board and initiate legal proceedings.

Reflecting on Civic Reflection

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Six years ago I wrote on the practice of Civic Reflection, a process which is supposed to help non-profits and civic groups.

“Imagine getting together with other civically engaged people and talking about your values and the choices you make in serving your community.”

It still sounds interesting though I haven’t come across another mention of it in the last six years. I wonder if it can be adapted to communities based on the internet. I renew my inquiry for more information from anyone who has engaged in this practice.

More Revisting Drucker

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Following up on my last trip to early entries, I had done a handful of entries on Peter Drucker’s Managing the Nonprofit Organization. I am not going to link back to all the entries, but I thought the topics covered in this one were particularly interesting because he addresses the unintended consequences of decisions and provides guidance on how to avoid them.

One of my favorite quotes:

“…Soon people in the organization no longer ask: Does it service our mission? They ask: Does it fit our rules? And that not only inhibits performance, it destroys vision and dedication.”

Oldies But Goodies

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I am off on vacation for a couple weeks, but I thought I would leave my readers with some things to ponder and review while I am away. The next handful of days will have links to some of my earlier entries that still seem very relevant.

The first is an entry I did on Peter Drucker’s book, Managing the Non-Profit Organization. I had taken it out of the library at the time but just bought the book this past winter. I can’t believe that was 6 years ago. Drucker wrote the book because he didn’t feel most management books addressed the particular challenges non-profits face.

Effectively Merging Non-Profits

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I apologize for missing my postings on Monday and Tuesday, I was away at a retreat to examine and discuss how to effectively merge the booking consortium to which I belong with the consortium that it spun off from. The meetings occurred in another part of the state and I didn’t have ready access to a computer and the time to write entries.

I use the phrase “effectively merge,” the same words we used throughout most of our discussions, because the truth is that an actual merger of two non-profits is a lengthy, involved and expensive process. What will happen in reality is that the one organization will be dissolved and its assets and members will be transferred to the other as is allowed by its founding documents. But in effect, it is a merger.

A good portion of the first day seemed to be spent composing the correct syntax for the required motions that would be made the next day at the annual meetings of both organizations to start this process. Since we already intended to rewrite our bylaws per the suggestions of an attorney we consulted, we were resolved to dedicate the next year to working on the rewrite. We also were determined to examine the organization and what we wanted it to be. As a consequence, both groups will remain in existence as separate entities for another year laboring jointly to define the bylaws and purpose of the combined organization.

Even though it is likely to be the most dry and boring, I joined the Governance and Membership Committee just for the experience of redefining the nuts and bolts of the organization. I figured it would make good material for blog posts if nothing else.

I also joined the Artistic Selection Committee. The other committees are Marketing/Sponsorship/Grants and Education. Among the things the committees are going to explore are what does it mean to be a member? What are the benefits of participation? Should membership be tiered to both allow casual partnerships with non-member groups and provide greater benefits to those who are more extensively involved.

We are going to examine how we go about selecting artists to present in the context of many different factors. Since we would like to pursue gaining sponsorships as a group and offer companies the opportunity to have exposure across the state, we will have to decide how the program is designed and the sponsored show is chosen. There is also the big issue of whether such arrangements will endanger relationships individual members had with these companies previously. Why sponsor shows at a single venue when you can do so across the entire state? On the other hand, perhaps your brand is diminished by having your name associated with theatres that serve a less elite clientele and you don’t want your ads appearing in their programs.

There are similar questions for the education area. A recent partnership resulted in an experience between schools, audiences and artists that could have yielded a more extensive interaction had the time and resources been available to exploit the situation. If these are the opportunities we want to pursue, where do the staff hours and other resources come from?

That brings us back to the work of the other committees exploring what it means to be a member and what sort of investment in the organization is needed to benefit from its efforts, including any packages put together to offer potential sponsors.

One of the desires stated this week was to expand the membership to include other arts organizations around the state. By redesigning the purpose of the organization a little, we hope to increase our relevance to other groups. They may only do a show once or twice a year, but they can find the process greatly facilitated by our expertise. I think there could be a reciprocal benefit. Perhaps connections the new groups have open up more churches and schools to chamber concerts and outreaches. (Or local artists and churches/schools became more aware of each other.)

So my question here at the end of the entry is this—has anyone had any experiences similar to this? I have to help generate bylaws and policies to guide this organization and it would be nice not to reinvent the wheel. Are you a member of a consortium or partnership between different arts organizations which works together to achieve certain goals?

I am looking more for an arrangement where all decisions and initiatives are generated and executed by the members rather than a situation like an arts council where the council works to advance the interests of the members. We operate as a board organization rather than a membership organization. Though I would be interested in learning about any multi-organizational partnership arrangement that diverges from everyone else does.

Leadership Training and Discussion Moves Forward

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If you have seen Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser on his Arts in Crisis tour or read any of his writings on the matter of arts leadership training, you will know that he feels not enough is being done to teach people about how to do the job well. On occasion, I have also opined that arts leaders don’t talk to each other enough about the challenges we face and the processes we employ in pursuit of our jobs and goals.

It seems like that is starting to change now. In addition to the Emerging Leadership Institute program Arts Presenters runs, they have decided to partner with Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA) at NYU on a program for mid-career arts professionals with an eye toward grooming them for senior leadership positions. The Leadership Development Institute is accepting applications right now in fact. The deadline is April 19. The pilot phase of the program will employ “two series of collaborative inquiry sessions, virtual webinars, online resources and one-day action-learning seminars.”

Over at Americans for the Arts’ ARTSblog some interesting perspectives on leadership in the arts are emerging from the various contributors. Just today there was a post by Joanna Chin listing all the general arguments for the value of the arts that she could think of: “Arts = Arts; Arts = Humanity; Arts = Health/Quality of Life; Arts = Civic Engagement and Social Change; Arts = Economic Vitality; Arts = Creativity/Innovation = Growth/Vitality; Arts = Cultural Tourism = Economic Vitality; Arts = Jobs & Industry; Arts = Shared Benefit.” She expands briefly on each of these areas and wonders if this is an exhaustive list. If you can think of others, visit the entry and contribute your thoughts.

Marc Vogl offered a clever analogy of “What a Seder Can Teach Us about Arts Leadership”

“Those in leadership positions especially carry the burden of executing the plan of record which, as many E.D.s will attest, means putting out the fire that’s blazing now or shifting the pots on the stove around so that none boils over today.

So, who is responsible for periodically stepping in and asking the elemental but critical questions?

Perhaps it should be those on top of the organizational structure – whether administratively or in governance positions at the board level – but frequently those are the people who must answer the questions.

In the Seder it’s the kids who sing out to the elders: why are we doing things the way we’re doing things?

And it is for everyone around the table to respond, and hopefully, to reflect for a moment on the history that informs that response, to consider the present circumstances and how times have changed, and maybe even to look ahead and determine what we can do going forward so that we don’t spend another year going through rote motions and taking important things (like freedom in the case of Passover, or making art that has meaning for those of us in this field) for granted.”

Shannon Daut who is Deputy Director at the Western States Arts Federation and has a broad perspective on how the arts are developing regionally and I would imagine nationally, talks about the lack of leadership opportunities for younger administrators because those on the executive level continue to circulate between the available positions.

“I recently had a conversation with WESTAF’s director, Anthony Radich, and asked him what his resume looked like when he was my age—35. He rattled off a list of ED positions at various arts organizations. I think his experience is pretty typical. Because the arts field was so young, experienced arts administrators were not available to fill open positions. They made it up as they went along and were entrusted with great organizational responsibilities at early stages in their careers.

For the most part, today’s emerging (and mid-career) administrators have not been able to benefit from an environment that would take risks on “unproven” job candidates. “

Finally, Letitia Fernandez Ivins, addresses the all important issue of balancing work and personal life in an industry where it has always been expected that one suffers for ones art. Her entry primarily deals with the impact of pregnancy on a career in the arts. However, the general topic is clearly an important one. There are many comments on the entry already. One woman expresses her relief upon learning so many other people are facing the same choices.

Actually, I shouldn’t say finally regarding Letitia’s post. There have been more than 20 entries on the subject of leadership since Monday. These are just the handful that resonated with me most today. I should mention that Americans for the Arts have their own Emerging Leader Network from which I assume the drew many of these contributions. I am pleased to see such great movement in leadership training and discussion happening right now. It wasn’t that long ago that I was mentioning the lack of such activity. I didn’t think this much progress would be made in a few short years.

Who’s Auditing The Auditors?

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Credit where it is due, Peter Hansen of NJPAC posted a link on the Performing Arts Administrator’s group on LinkedIn about the £2.3 million judgment entered against former London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) General Manager Cameron Poole for financially defrauding that organization.

Even though it was supposed to take 4 people to issue a check, Poole was able to take advantage of operational distractions to perform all the required functions himself, included forging countersignatures. The executive director, Tim Walker, admits some negligence on his part, but is amazed that not only did he and the board not catch it, but the auditors from Deloitte missed it on three separate audits. LPO is currently pursuing a negligence suit against Deloitte.

It raises the question of whether you can really be certain you have proper controls and diligence in place. Deloitte missed, or at least didn’t comment on something that became apparent to Poole’s successor in a couple weeks. Four of the biggest accounting firms in the country never made a sound about the suspicious nature manner in which Bernie Madoff financial reports were generated. (An entirely separate issue from the strangely superior returns his fund was generating.)

One would think that after Arthur Andersen’s accounting arm lost credibility following the Enron scandal, reducing the Big Five accounting firms to the Big Four, greater attention would be paid. But I think people may attribute more competence and honesty to organizations of great size and prestige than is warranted. Even on the non-profit front, I was aware of a number of scandals in the United Way, but I had no idea that there has been large scale mismanagement and embezzlement at four or five locations and alleged smaller scale fraud at over 20 others. One of the Spanish members of the LinkedIn group cited a case similar to LPO’s at Barcelona’s Orfeó-Palau de la Musica Catalana where the general manager embezzled millions of euros (some stories I have seen claim 23 million in over 30 years).

The piece I linked to above about the United Way claims “The nonprofit world has accepted that multi-million embezzlements are a cost of doing business.” As much as I am dismayed by the idea that making great efforts at due diligence may not guarantee security, I would hope no one hiring me would do so assuming there was a good chance I will make off with some of the money.

There is a price for lack of scrutiny when people begin to lose faith in you. About a year ago, there was a piece in the Washington Post about 21 Washington DC area non-profits withdrawing from the local United Way, which had been the subject of one of the larger scandals, in favor of another emerging charitable organization.

I am encouraged by the news that it didn’t take long for Poole’s replacement at the LPO to notice something was strange. It means that misappropriations can be spotted with a little healthy scrutiny that makes no personal judgments about the individual holding the books when you ask to see the raw data rather than the summary reports.

Still, most of us don’t have three weeks to pour over ledgers sorting through it all. So the real question becomes, how do you know you can trust your auditor to be meticulous enough on your behalf? I am sure I could find editorials about how the big firms are so big and so motivated to process as many audits in a year as possible, companies aren’t getting the competence and effort they deserve. I am also pretty sure that laziness and incompetence afflicts the small operations as well as the big ones.

There was an argument back during the Enron scandal that rotating accounting firms would help avoid the conflicts of interest that develop over a long term relationship and cause auditors to look the other way. That was countered by the idea that is wastes a lot of time and money when you have to get a new auditor up to speed about the way your business runs.

I am pretty much on the side of rotating. I don’t think most arts organizations and non-profits in general are so big that it will take too much longer to explain their operations to a new group every few years. That way you avoid any conflicts of interest and lack of rigor.

Leadership By Eyebrow

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Apropos my Inside the Arts co-denizen Bill Eddins post about what it takes to be a good conductor, is the TED video with Itay Talgam talking about the conducting styles of six great 20th century conductors.

Talgam approaches the leadership styles of different conductors from the apparently stifling style of Riccardo Muti to the comparatively free flowing style of Herbert von Karajan. According to Talgam, Muti was asked to resign from his position at La Scala because he wasn’t allowing the musicians any room in the performance. Karajan was apparently quoted as saying the worst thing he can do is give his musicians specific direction. Both approaches put a lot of pressure on the musicians to perform well.

Talgam contrasts that with the way Carlos Kleiber (in some very humorous clips) and Leonard Bernstein (conducting only with his head) balance exerting control with loosing the reins and giving the musicians their head, providing only minimal feedback.

Obviously, there is a lesson in all this about balance in organizational leadership. It would be the great arts administrator indeed who could run his/her organization just by wiggling their eyebrows like Bernstein.

Arts Administrator Residencies-Is There A Need?

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I am not quite sure what drew my eye to it but Fractured Atlas did an interview with the founders of the Philadelphia Art Hotel this January. I don’t know why, but the project just looks and sounds a like a cool idea.

Personally, if I were a visual artist, I would probably tend toward the residencies in rural settings which is where a lot of them are located. Ready access to the Philadelphia art scene is not to be undervalued though.

I would probably sell my children into slavery to participate in the Arts/Industry program at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

It is probably fortunate then that I am not a visual artist. And I don’t have kids either. That is probably better since they have a performing arts program and I would still love to work there for the washrooms alone!

I don’t really talk about artist residencies too much. Perhaps because there aren’t too many for arts administrators. If you check the residency search tool at the Alliance of Artistic Communities website, administration is not even a search option. The only place I am aware of that offers one is The Studios of Key West which I wrote about 18 months ago.

I start to think that people like Michael Kaiser are correct when he talks about how few training opportunities there are to make people good arts administrators. There aren’t many opportunities for them to take a retreat and do research. Though to be fair, residencies for arts managers isn’t really part of the ethos. Arts administrators don’t get granted long periods of time to hone their skills. I don’t know if there is a market for offering residencies to them. How many administrators would ask for the opportunity? Most would say they don’t have the time. Kaiser talks about starting his day at 4 am which pretty much reflects the trend for many arts administrators.

One might say the Kennedy Center’s Art Management Fellowships are a sort of residency for arts managers. It combines practical work experience around the Kennedy Center with classes on relevant topics. And I believe they provide a $20,000 stipend to support yourself which is really pretty decent compared to what I was paid to intern. Though since the fellowships are for mid-career administrators,they would be bringing much more to the table than an intern would.

In any case, I would imagine the days there are just as long and involved as the position the arts manager left to become a fellow. That doesn’t give a lot of time for reflection and thinking about what the future of the arts might be and how one can restructure their organization to move forward to acknowledge these changes.

This summer I waswoolgathering a little about taking advantage of low real estate prices in Detroit to help grow an arts community there. I wonder if I was being too narrow in my vision and should have been thinking of including opportunities for arts managers to cultivate their skills too since there are so few opportunities.

Info You Can Use: Employee or Independent Contractor

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As usual, the folks at the Non-Profit Law Blog provide some useful links. I will quickly point out a short piece about the Senate has recently passing a jobs bill that will provide incentives to hire and keep employees.

The measure would exempt private employers, including nonprofit groups, from paying their share of Social Security taxes for employees they hire through the end of 2010. The new hires must have been out of work for at least 60 days.

They would get an additional $1,000 bonus if they kept the employee on the payroll for a full year

I had heard about this a few weeks ago, but it never occurred to me that this would be a real boon for the non-profit world where a little savings can go a long way. I wish I could remember where I heard it, but I was listening to a radio show where one of the panelists said he wished the money going to public works was directed to non-profits because you could create hundreds of non-profit jobs for every construction job created.

The main of what I wanted to discuss is examining the employment status of people who work for your organization. According to Jessica R. Lubar, a lawyer at Venable LLP, the IRS is undertaking a study of employment tax compliance. They will be focusing on three areas: worker classification, fringe benefits and officer compensation.

What I wanted to point out specifically was the issue of worker classification. I know of a number of organizations that call those who work for them independent contractors so that they don’t have to attend to any of the tax withholding details. However, if the IRS doesn’t call them the same thing you do, there could be a lot of trouble.

“A worker is considered an employee if the employer exercises the requisite amount of control over the employee under common-law principles. Over the years, the courts and the IRS have articulated certain factors that are considered in making that determination. The IRS organized the factors that are considered into three categories: (1) Behavioral Control – whether the business has a right to direct and control how the worker does the task for which the worker is hired; (2) Financial Control – whether the business has a right to control the business aspects of the worker’s job; and (3) Type of Relationship.”

If you have made a mistake in classifying an employee as an independent contractor, there is an opportunity to rectify that situation and obtain relief from the penalties of that mistake. Lubar outlines these in the entry. You would obviously want to consult a lawyer because I am already confused by the first of the three requisite criteria–not treating a person like an employee. That seems to me to imply you have been treating the person like an independent contractor which means you are in the clear.

Perhaps the distinction is in whether you contractually had the right to behavioral and financial control but never enforced it thereby treating someone as if they were an independent contractor when technically they were not.

Guess that is what the lawyers get paid to tell us.

Funny Thing Happened While Revising Bylaws

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I was really surprised at some recent developments in my block booking consortium today. For about a year we have been scrutinizing our bylaws because people began to realize that practice was deviating from the specifics of the document. I had contributed some information on bylaws to the conversation based on material I wrote about in an earlier entry.

Since the last meeting a committee had met to discuss the bylaws. I wasn’t surprised to learn that people were leaning toward merging with the organization that “birthed” us. Most of the membership overlapped so we generally ended up having meetings together. The only defining difference between us were the genres of entertainment we booked. The discussion of merger brought up many technical questions that will require consulting a lawyer.

One of the interesting questions that arose was if we dissolved one organization and consolidated everyone into the other, could the funds of the dissolved organization be absorbed by the remaining organization. While non-profits’ assets are usually only transferable to other non-profits, an organization’s charter may specify where the assets should go if it ceases operation. Someone mentioned a group to which he belonged had stipulated the funds be split among some local music programs.

What surprised me was the amount of introspection that was occurring about the organizations. It turns out my experience as a member, that of a partnership to leverage our buying power and to collaborate on grants, is not the ideal upon which the groups were founded. There is a lot of history of which I am unaware. At one time there was a much greater focus on community education projects. And the membership was much larger. As coordinating tours started monopolizing greater amounts of time at meetings, the organizations became less relevant for many members and they started drifting away.

By the time the meeting ended, we decided to have a retreat prior to our annual meeting in May to examine the identity and purpose of the groups in addition to discussing whether they would merge or not. This was the last of my associations I expected to be organizing a retreat to contemplate its ideals. Everything has been very practical. Discussions have revolved around times, dates, hotel rooms needed, artistic fees and whether a group offered ed services.

Now people are questioning whether we can be a force for arts advocacy in our community.

I am starting to get a little excited about this planned retreat in May and what might develop.

My First Solicited Book Review

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Disclaimer
I recently received a request from the authors of Performing Arts Management: A Handbook of Professional Practices to review the book. (Actually, it was from one of their student assistants.) While I have read and summarized books on this blog before, they have been books I have been interested in reading rather than ones I was solicited to read. The only consideration received for this review was a free copy of the book. When I was asked if I would like to read the book, I told them I was interested in learning more, but made no promises I would write a review, much less say anything nice about it.

My Approach
I am not going to even attempt to approximate the format or voice of some of the more prestigious book reviews. Mainly my approach is going to be as a person who used theatre management texts both as a student and as a professor, seasoned with my experience working in the industry.

Overall, Great
By and large I thought the book was really excellent as a resource. Nearly every time I made a note that they hadn’t covered a topic, I later came across a chapter segment where they handled that subject in great detail. The authors, Tobie Stein and Jessica Bathurst, conducted a massive number of interviews over a number of years which yield a great deal of practical advice.

Weaknesses First
Most of this entry is going to praise the book so I thought I would get the few criticisms out of the way first. Though they were extremely thorough and detailed in most areas, one of the subjects that I would have liked to see covered was volunteer recruitment and the care and handling thereof. This includes board recruitment. Given the importance of these two groups and their comprehensive coverage of so many other areas, I was really surprised there was very little about recruitment, cultivation and retention of volunteers.

New York City Is The Center
The other thing is that the book is VERY New York City and theatre oriented. This is probably no surprise given the authors live and work in New York and Brooklyn. Many of the people and prominent organizations they need to interview are located there. There are mentions of arts organizations outside of New York like the Kennedy Center, Guthrie Theatre and New England summer stock theatres, but everything seemed to come back to New York. Discussion of Las Vegas focussed on how Broadway shows were abridged for Vegas audiences. There are interviews with people from other disciplines certainly, but so much seemed to orient on theatre.

The section on touring seemed to assume that the reader would be presenting a touring play or musical. In some regard, these are the best disciplines to cover because all the unions potentially involved gives something of a “worst case scenario” of the issues that might need to be addressed in a tour. The options of music and dance are mentioned and some of the agents interviewed mention the dance companies they represent. But the focus was so heavily on plays and musicals, I am afraid students using the book might think that is the only sort of touring that goes on.

I was also concerned that people who intended to work in other parts of the country and present differ types of performance may feel the book didn’t contain anything of value for them. I think this is especially true these days when arts organizations have to be more nimble with the type of shows they present and produce. At the very least, it would have been nice to have a contract for a dance tour or musical group included in the examples at the end of the touring chapter.

No, Performing Arts Management Isn’t Boring
The final thing I thought was a weakness for the book was employing the “professional input quote” technique in the first chapter. For most of the book, these quotes are extremely valuable and add great insight. I will even mention a couple instances later. In the first chapter, it drags it down. Here is an example on the second page of the chapter. In the first full paragraph starting with “Commercial producers organize…” The authors took three different interviews with people in different times and places and made it sound like they were participating in the same discussion.

As I read, I could see this book from the student’s point of view. If these were the sort of discussions arts managers had, the job was deadly boring. What was quoted weren’t interesting anecdotes, but rather dry definitions of commercial theatre that were probably better just stated outright rather than quoted. These definitions were made more difficult to comprehend by the inclusion of lengthy background information on the person being quoted. Do I really need to know that Sean Patrick Flahaven is Managing Director of the Melting Pot Theatre, a small off-Broadway non-profit producing theatre to absorb the fact that “The goals of the commercial venture are to first payback its investors, then make a profit and then make something with artistic integrity.” That is his only contribution on that page and he doesn’t appear again until three pages later.

As I have have mentioned, the practice of quoting people is very valuable throughout the rest of the book. There are times later in the book when quotes are also used to provide dry definitions, but they appear amid varied information and citations. But at the time, I was just dreading the whole book was going to be like the first chapter and wondered what I had gotten myself into when I agreed to read the book.

Where It Was Strong
Okay, having gotten that out of the way. I was really impressed by a lot in the book. It was much better than the text I had learned from *mumble* years ago. The comments from different arts professionals interspersed throughout the chapters made good on the promise of the book’s title to discuss the practice of arts managers.

Producer Richard Frankel’s story about how Mel Brooks and Susan Stroman turned the process around and “auditioned” producers for the production of The Producers was great. The way he described the lengths he went to make his proposal stand out was reminiscent of the things actors will do to get themselves remembered at auditions.

Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Peter Gee discussion of the way they decided to furlough employees in the wake of the financial downturn following September 11 was very relevant to the current times.

Well Supported and Designed
Every chapter has examples appropriate to the subject matter. Many right from the people cited in the chapter. I was impressed with the amount of material included in some of the chapters. Charts, graphs, spreadsheets, etc from multiple organizations were included in many chapters so that the student has examples from groups of different sizes and budgets to compare.

The thing I appreciated in terms of classroom activities was that there were discussion questions and occasionally activities/exercises after every section of a chapter. I know as a student that I would skip over the questions at the end of a chapter unless otherwise assigned. The placement of these questions are good on many levels: They are harder for the student to avoid. If a student doesn’t quite understand what they should derive from a section, the questions immediately emphasize what concepts were important in the preceding text. The questions are valuable to a professor for the same reason–if students don’t seem to grasp a concept, the questions are readily available to facilitate learning and reduce pressure to think of discussion topics to lead students to comprehension.

Clear Investment of Time
What impressed me most was the time spent on some of the subject areas. In text books I have encountered before, mission statements received a few paragraphs. In this book, there was an entire chapter on crafting mission statements and how they fed into visions statements and formulation of organizational strategy.

The legal considerations surrounding the decision to found a for or not-for-profit also received an entire chapter. Included was information on filing for non-profit status, including the forms needed and the time line for gaining state and federal approval of your application. While I said I was disappointed that board recruitment wasn’t covered, I thought the book did a very thorough job discussing bylaws and board structure and responsibilities.

I also really appreciated the treatment the book gave Educational Programs. They talked about structure and how to set them up. Included were tips on creating professional development opportunities for teachers and teaching artists. There were some nice examples of program evaluation forms at the end of the chapter.

Since many of my duties include facility management, I was happy to see a chapter on that topic. The examples of forms and policies at the end of the chapter were as long as the chapter itself. There was a chapter devoted entirely to labor relations familiarizing the reader with pretty much every organization representing artists and labor that one could conceivably ever deal with.

I was also impressed by the amount of time the authors devoted to discussing how a agent puts a tour together in the touring chapter. I have never seen the process covered in a text book before, much less in such detail. (I have also engaged the artists represented by one of the agents so I was glad to see him getting so much space.)

I think the strongest statement on the reality of the arts was that the longest chapter in the book was on how to develop a funding base followed in length by the chapter on ticket selling strategies. Again, there were a lot of good examples at the end of the chapters and the authors really encouraged people to take a realistic view of their organization and place in the community when it came to positioning themselves as a cause worth supporting and patronizing.

Good As General Resource, But What About The Students?
Most of the textbook could serve as a general resource for anyone becoming involved with presenting and/or producing performances. And of course, since that is the goal of many students who will use the book, it succeeds in that respect. But for as long as I have been involved in the performing arts, there were a few sections that provided entirely new information to me (e.g.- detailed discussion of non-profit incorporation process). So I will be holding on to this copy.

The one chapter that is particularly valuable to students though was on internships. One of the biggest challenges for students is getting a meaningful experience out of their internship. Not only does the book come right out and say this, but like the rest of the text, student anecdotes about their interning experiences fill the chapter. There is a detailed discussion of how to seek and land internships as well as what to expect.

Should It Be Included?
This chapter also delves into organizational dynamics a little bit too. This is an area I was a little on the fence about in respect to whether more should have been included. Some arts management texts I have seen do include a discussion of this topic. Is it crucial to learn if you are getting into performing arts management, especially given the length of the book already? That is hard to say. While we are all generally subconsciously aware of organizational dynamics operating around us, I personally found it helpful to have the different ways decisions are made in an organization pointed out to me when I was in school. Given the informal structure of many arts organizations, there are often systems in place by which things get accomplished which have no relation at all to job titles.

So anyway, there is its. Performing Arts Management: A Handbook of Professional Practices by Tobie S. Stein and Jessica Bathurst. It seems a valuable resource thanks to an incredible amount of research and interviewing. (The footnotes for each chapter will knock your socks off.) I plan to keep my copy for quite awhile.

Staying Married To The Artistic Process

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I came across an interesting article in The New Republic, by way of Arts and Letters Daily that suggested that a shift in business school orientation partially contributed to the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States. At one time universities focused on training graduates to manage manufacturing businesses and often had mini-factories on campus to give students practical experiences.

The focus since about 1965 has shifted to finance and consulting. While this has been largely beneficial for the economy, (until they started creating bad financial products), it is one of the reasons why the country has become weaker in manufacturing. That has been pretty bad for the country.

“Harvard business professor Rakesh Khurana, with whom I discussed these questions at length, observes that most of GM’s top executives in recent decades hailed from a finance rather than an operations background….But these executives were frequently numb to the sorts of innovations that enable high-quality production at low cost. As Khurana quips, “That’s how you end up with GM rather than Toyota.”

At first this was just an interesting theory to me, but then I realized that this describes exactly what people are afraid will happen if arts organizations are “run more like a business.” The fear is that decisions will rest entirely on return on investment and will be divorced from the manufacturing process as it were.

There was a time I would not have imagined that any arts organization would have a disconnect between the administration and the artists. I assumed that the administrators would be passionate about the arts with which they were associated. Why else would someone work so hard for so little pay?

Nearly five years ago, I cited observations that orchestra administrations were disassociated from the performances and performers. Given all the conflicts and closures since then, I don’t think the overall environment has gotten any better since. I also don’t assume that this situation is necessarily unique to the orchestra world.

In the last week I have heard Michael Kaiser on his Arts in Crisis tour and Andrew Taylor debating the utility of the arts management degree. In both conversations there was an obvious focus on training arts managers well. But the necessity for training boards well was mentioned too.

It seems to me that maybe the need to advocate the intrinsic value of the arts is necessary internally in addition to external constituencies. Perhaps one of the dangers of emphasizing the economic contribution of the arts to the community is that it creates greater expectations for boards and administrators that the art and its creators be ever more economically viable as well.

These Theatres Ain’t Dead Yet

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So last week was indeed cause for Thanksgiving and perhaps optimism for the arts as a whole as news came that two shuttered notable theatres, the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami and the Beverly, MA North Shore Music Theatre would be reopened thanks to the efforts of other theater operators.

According to a Boston Globe article, William Hanney, who has a history of buying and quickly reopening businesses, has arranged to purchase the theatre. His intention is to generally preserve the traditional programming of the facility but revamp the staffing structure which he felt was was too top heavy and would need to be evaluated.

Coconut Grove Playhouse will undergo a similar restructuring according the Miami Herald, except the focus will be on the physical plant. They intend to replace the 1100 seat theatre with a 300 seat theatre and a footprint for a 600 seat theatre. Since the Coconut Grove board has a previous agreement with a development company, there is a possibility the new theatres won’t occupy a space within the facade of the old theatre. The new theatres will be operated by Coral Gables based GableStage whose proposal was one of four the Coconut Grove board received.

I don’t know the full story behind the revival. I am assuming the Playhouse owns property beyond the confines of the theatre building if they are able to provide space for up to two theatres outside the facade of the old building. I also haven’t been able to discover if the board had sought proposals from arts organizations to occupy the space or just entertained proposals for a variety of uses and happened to accept one from a group who wanted to bring performances there again. I would like to think that despite the $4 million debt which is likely what prompted their deal with a real estate developer, the board was dedicated to preserving the arts in Coconut Grove and resolved to set aside some of the space for that purpose.

If anyone can fill in the blanks, I would love to know.

What is encouraging to me is that there are people who recognize the value of performances in their communities and are working to bring them back. Of course, in both examples the thing to note is that the plan for success includes streamlining operations rather than restoration of the previous environment.

Update: Thanks to CLJ at South Florida Art Scene for providing more background on the situation in the comments section.

How Do I Assess Thee? Let Me Count

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The authors of Human Sigma take a pretty damning view of the evaluation process of most companies as being antithesis to productive improvement of the employees.

“First, where did the set of things to be rated come from? Did they come from a systemic study of the necessary outcomes of your job, or did they come from a committee of people who described all the things they think you should do in your role? Does the list mix hard financial and operational outcomings with fuzzier ratings that sound good but may nor may not have any bearing on how well you do your job (as compared to how others think you should do your job)?”

They also feel the way those measures are utilized during the evaluation period is flawed.

“Once your manager has identified your “deficiencies,” how much of your review is spent discussing them and how to fix them? Now compare that with the amount of time you both spend discussing the ways in which you most naturally and powerfully think, feel and behave, and how better to capitalize on that.”

Their feeling is that “most workgroups and managers can be optimally measured with only two classes of metrics: the critical financial and operational outcomes that are the purpose of that business unit and the HumanSigma level of that unit.” In their mind, the aim of the evaluation process is to forge a productive and trusting relationship between supervisors and subordinates rather than a primarily corrective one.

As mentioned in my earlier entry, the focus of an evaluation should be on what the employee is expected to accomplish, not how they are supposed to do it. It isn’t about if they are working hard toward a goal or following every prescribed step, but rather if they reach the goal. (As a cog in an bureaucracy with an often inane attention to detail, I am all for that!)

Achieving a situation where such an approach will be successful starts with the hiring process. The authors urge focusing the interview and hiring process on inherent talent plus willingness to pursue new skills and mastery as a measure of performance. They counter the argument that it is difficult to identify and measure talent by noting that there are instruments out there, that while not perfect, are accurate enough to be useful in assessing an individual’s talent. Even with talent, hard work is necessary. Even someone as talented as Mozart was pushed to practice early in life by his father.

They cite the necessity of 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery for everyone, regardless of talent. Without effort, even a great talent atrophies. This is not to say that hard work allows people to achieve mastery in the absence of talent. A person receiving training which emphasizes their talent will likely progress at a much greater rate than one whose talents are unsuited for the position.

I would really love to know if there is any performing arts organization that actually pursues a hiring process that even closely approximates this approach for their non-performance employees. In an industry which subjects highly skilled and talented artists to grueling audition processes which are often resolved by attempting to discern minute differences between people, how many administrative managers, executives and general employees are subjected to a comparable detailed assessment of their talents and abilities in relation to the various dynamics of their positions? For most arts employers it is matter of experience and passion for the arts (for some, passion doesn’t seem to be a prerequisite.)

Two years ago I wrote about an article by Peter Drucker urging people to learn about how they work best and communicate that information to colleagues and supervisors. Fleming and Asplund make a similar suggestion when it comes to rewarding people in relation to how they would like to be recognized. Some people love attention and want public parties, others don’t and would prefer a private intimate acknowledgment. Rewarding people counter to their preferences may undermine their investment in the company.

I think that the company’s varying procedure for rewarding employees needs to be made very clear from the outset otherwise other employees’ investment may be undermined vicariously. Someone who has a big party thrown for them to celebrate their success may be perplexed and hurt when no overt recognition is accorded an esteemed co-worker who achieved just as much.

These same basic suggestions are applied on a larger scale to workgroups and segments of a company. Each group has its own set of traditions and symbols associated with celebration. Trying to replicate that with another group hoping to motivate them may fail because the practice has no significance to them.

Their suggestions for corrective action are more measured. You accentuate the positive quickly and publicly, but consequences for sub-standard performance, while clear, are not as enthusiastically applied. Their purpose is to remove fear as a motivator for improvement. If change does not manifest, the authors suggest mentorships and retreats as later steps for bringing about change.

Most of their suggestions are far more nuanced than I am able to present here. For example, awards where one group continually wins or everyone gets a chance at winning are equally worthless in helping to motivate improvement. Likewise, many mentor programs and retreats are ineffectual.

Obviously, if anything I have said in the last week or so of entries sparks your interest, you should pick up the book to explore further. While I have linked to Amazon’s listing in my entries, it was for convenience sake rather than to sell anything. I got my copy at the library.

Gulp! Let Employees Set The Rules

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So getting back to my Human Sigma discussion in this entry. There is quite a bit I am skipping over generally because I have discussed many of the concepts before in other entries. For example, the idea that customers can develop an emotional investment with a company based on how different factors align with how a person identifies themselves. The surroundings and other customers conform to their idea of cool and upscale and so they develop an attachment with it.

One thing authors Fleming and Asplund mention that evoked an “ah-ha!” connection for me was the importance of having design empower customers. People want to feel competent in their relationship with your organization and design contributes to that. This is why many chain stores have standardized layouts. Nothing erodes the confidence of a do-it-yourselfer like not being able to find what they seek in a big box hardware store by yourself.

This made me think of the need to have easy to navigate websites and voice mail systems, but most importantly for the arts—an easy to navigate season brochure. How many season brochures have you picked up and couldn’t figure out how to buy single tickets much less fully subscribe to a season? The fact that people aren’t subscribing much any more may be a partial blessing for organizations’ relationships because negotiation of many a brochure has been the bane of arts patrons.

One study finding I alluded to in earlier entries is that Human Sigma isn’t just about getting customers highly invested in the company. According to their research, even within the same company, the branches that were most profitable had high emotional investment by both customers and employees. Having one group actualized but not the other is good, but having both improves success exponentially.

Now you may be thinking this is great and your organization is about halfway there because arts people almost by definition are highly emotionally invested in what they do. But they aren’t necessarily invested in promoting and interacting with patrons. If you recall the list of quotes in yesterday’s entry, at least one artist wondered why he/she needed extra training to be an arts educator given all they had received in their discipline.

Employee-Customer interactions contain the most terrifying suggestions in Human Sigma because Fleming and Asplund urge instructing employees about the end goal but leaving it to them to achieve it. Because a standard script of responses can’t cover all eventualities, the authors essentially propose using one as a FAQ document rather than as part of a set procedure. This is pretty scary because it requires giving up a lot of control. Though I should note, it doesn’t mean relaxing standards, just re-evaluating how those standards are measured.

Instead they suggest creating a series of strategies employees can use to improve their interactions with customers. Rather than rewarding people on the basis of how many people they can process in an hour, the focus is on engaging in conversations to assess their needs. “The uncomfortable truth here is left on their own, employees will develop their own strategies for interacting with their customers and their fellow employees, whether you play a constructive part in that process or not.” They posit that you are better off involving yourself at the start to keep it constructive.

The process is more than I can explain here so you will have to read the book if you are interested. In summary though, they say that the best environment to help people develop new strategies for customer interaction is one where they are held accountable for their mistakes and high quality feedback is provided. What they aren’t suggesting is that each person does their own thing, but rather that employees be allowed to develop new approaches by group consensus.

One of the things that popped out as I read the book was the concept of decision making silos. These silos emerge when decision making is compartmentalized rather than shared throughout the organization. The example they use was an airline whose advertising arm promised much better service than the front line service personnel had the resources to deliver. In fact, each had been provided with contradictory guidance. Advertising was tasked to improve market share, the front line was instructed to ruthlessly control costs. Neither consulted the other to discuss how to resolve an essentially mutually exclusive set of expectations.

I have talked about how marketing isn’t just the job of that department before. The authors go a step further by suggesting the position of a Chief Human Sigma Officer who will watch out for such conflicts and has the authority to move an organization toward more interactive decision making. They suggest consolidating all marketing and human resource responsibility into this executive position. (Though acknowledge other configurations are possible.) I don’t know how this might manifest in many art organizations. Though given that disciplines like theatre are merging artistic and management executives into one position, maybe merging marketing and human resources isn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

I am nearly done with my discussion of the book. Next entry- Assessment and Reward

That You Care Is What Matters

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Yesterday I alluded to the research findings presented by Fleming and Asplund in their book, Human Sigma, that how you handle customer problems is more important to your relationship with them than actually solving the problem. (I should mention, HumanSigma is a program of Gallup so they have a lot of experience in surveying.) They say that “customers who encounter a problem and are extremely happy with how the company handled the problem often have levels of emotional attachment equal to—and in some cases exceeding– those who have no problem at all.”

The Means, Not The End That Matters
They say that customers don’t expect a business will always resolve a problem to their liking, “but they do except the company to handle them in an exemplary way.” There is also the issue that not everyone has the same expectations of a solution to contend with. They use the example of receiving an undercooked meal at a restaurant. Some people may be content with having the meal cooked properly and the offer of complimentary dessert. Others may feel the whole meal should be free. You are likely to be more successful creating good procedures to address problems than you are at creating solutions that will please everyone.

They have found that people who have a high emotional investment are likely to give a company the benefit of the doubt when a problem arises viewing it as an honest mistake or even pondering how they may have contributed to the situation. Those with low engagement are more likely to place heavier blame on the company for the problem making it more difficult to please them.

Steps to Resolution
Fleming and Asplund suggest six steps that should be part of resolution procedures.

First is to acknowledge the problem exists. Second is to apologize. They are quick to add that apologizing is not accepting the blame. Lawyers warn clients not to apologize out of fear it can be used against them in lawsuits. But according to a NY Times story, policies of apologizing have cut malpractice suits and legal costs for the University of Michigan and University of Illinois hospitals. People who feel wronged view the refusal to apologize as a lack of empathy for the situation and so they escalate matters in an effort to gain acknowledgment.

Good resolution processes can actually strengthen a relationship with people who have experienced a problem. According to Fleming and Asplund, people who have encountered a problem and have been extremely satisfied with the way a bank handled it were 51% full invested in the bank versus 26% full investment by people who never experienced a problem. They say that apologizing validates a person’s trust in the company and reinforces their value as a customer.

The third step they suggest is “Take ownership of the problem and follow up, even if the problem is unresolved.” Promising to follow up by a certain time or date is better than a vague “as soon as possible” because the customer may feel they have to continue checking in on your progress. Even if you haven’t solved the problem by the appointed hour, it is better to contact the customer with that information than leave them wondering or in the position of having to track the contact person down again.

Suggestion four is to handle problems on the spot rather than bumping it to a supervisor. This means empowering front line service people to respond with a solution appropriate to their position. If the customer is not satisfied, then someone higher in the chain can be contacted. They use the example of a hotel chain that generally had managers resolve problems with free nights’ stays. Among the steps they took were to empower housekeeping to offer gift baskets, robes and bouquets of flowers and only refer a problem to the manager if a person was dissatisfied. Because they weren’t defaulting to free accommodations to resolve their problems, their costs dropped and satisfaction rose.

Their fifth suggestion is have a process which quickly brings the problem to the attention of a supervisor or manager. The mention a logging system which alerts managers if a problem remains unsolved after a certain period of time. Most arts organizations are small enough that a computerized system is not needed to communicate complaints to other staff. Just the same, there is plenty of opportunity for the complaint to lie dormant on someone’s desk and never be brought to a supervisor’s attention so the importance of communicating a complaint needs to be emphasized. The authors warn to be wary that your system not make people feel their responsibility in addressing complaints ends upon handing them off to someone else.

The last suggestion is to leave people better off than they were before the problem occurred. Even if the solution is not the one they desired, they should still be in a better position than they were before. Presumably this means gaining intangible benefits such as feeling more valued as a customer and perhaps having a specific contact person who can address future difficulties if the current problem hasn’t been completely resolved.

Business Solutions Unfair to Customers

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Emotional Advocacy
Yesterday, I started writing about the book, Human Sigma by John Fleming and Jim Asplund and as promised, I wanted to continue exploring the book today. One of the things I was happy to see addressed was the idea of the single question customer survey. I had pondered the validity using the question, “Would you recommend this company to others?” in a past entry.

Fleming and Asplund note that not only do you miss a lot of information by asking only one question, but also all advocates are not created equal. As discussed in my last entry, people can be satisfied and thus have no reservations about suggesting a company or service to others, yet they aren’t really invested in the company and may defect. Then there are those who are emotionally invested and can serve as enthusiastic promoters.

The authors don’t have any specific suggestions about what questions to pose on satisfaction surveys, likely because they urge you to “get under the hood” of customer relationships and ask about things that matter. What matters to one business may not have any significance to another.

The authors give an example of a survey they conducted at an amusement park where most of the feedback they received was negative. People complained on and on about the parking, lines, the prices, the food and the lack of shade. When they were asked if they would return, everyone said they would without hesitation. The deciding factor was their childrens’ enjoyment. Had they the same experience on a Saturday night (sans the lack of shade) at one of our performance venues, they would never come back again, but the vicarious joy they experience through their kids provides an emotional connection with the theme park.

Fairness In Interactions
Later in the book, the authors discuss perceptions of fairness and how that can feed people’s emotional investment. That section of the book is fairly long so it is difficult for me to cover all the ways interactions can be viewed as fair or not. Anyone who has worked in customer services knows that people’s preferred treatment can swing between wanting to be treated exactly like everyone else to wanting an exception made for them, all depending on their situation.

There were a few examples they gave that are recognizable as significant the arts world. For instance, subscribers and donors who have invested themselves in your organization expect preferential treatment in return for their loyalty. (The example the book gives is airline frequent flier program.) If you launch a campaign to attract new business that offers a better situation to new people than to long time customers, you run the risk of alienating them. An example that comes to mind is the low introductory rates offered on cable television packages that are only good for new accounts while you get no recognition for your long term relationship.

Another example in the performing arts world can be found in ticket exchange policies. Many organizations have a no return/no exchange policy with subscribers and donors being the only exception. As long as policies and procedures are enforced equitably, there is no problem. But once you perform an exchange for a flat tire but not my canceled babysitter excuse, then the inequity in the system is exposed. And then there are policies that are confusing to patrons from the start such as why internet and phone orders incur a service fee but walk up orders don’t.

Business Solutions Unfair
One example they give as an impediment to good customer relationships is the phone queue with the recorded message about your call being important leaving you to reconcile how this can be if the place is so poorly staffed the average wait time is twenty minutes. What the authors say about this really struck me, (my emphasis) “From the customer’s perspective, any process or system whose primary purpose is to solve a business problem rather than a customer concern is unfair.”

They also note that treating people equally can appear unfair. If your customer service staff follows the exact same scripted process with customers not recognizing that the script can’t cover all eventualities, the result may make you look incompetent and patronizing for asking questions or suggesting solutions which obviously do not apply to the situation.

Tomorrow I want to address what the book says about solving customer problems. It turns out how you attempt to resolve a problem is much more important than whether you actually solve it.

Emotional Satisfaction

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A two years ago I had been entranced by a comment Neill Roan made about arts administrators being so emotionally satisfied with their jobs, they didn’t feel the need to keep current on the latest literature and theories about arts administration. Earlier this year, I was in touch with Neill on another matter and asked him about the source he had cited. The book was Human Sigma by John Fleming and Jim Asplund.

Human Sigma and Emotional Satisfaction
I had assumed Human Sigma would be about psychology or the biological factors which emphasize or inhibit our actions. Instead, the book is a response to the Six Sigma process which the authors feel is detrimental to employee and customer interactions. Six Sigma seeks to reduce inefficiencies in the workplace. The authors note that human interactions, especially those with customers, are inherently inefficient and trying to make them otherwise can be alienating.

Biology does actually wield a lot of clout in our decision making processes. The authors cite NYU neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux who,

“has argued that it is much easier for emotional responses to influence our thinking than for rational responses to temper our emotions. This is because the neural pathways that extend from the emotional system to the cognitive or thinking system of the brain are wider and faster than those that extend from the cognitive system back to the emotional processing areas.”

This is a contributing factor to the field of behavioral economics which examines why people don’t always behave rationally in their own best interests. The book mostly focuses on employee and customer interactions. My intention is to talk about some of the things that caught my interest in this and future entries.

Even though the book doesn’t explicitly address how high emotional satisfaction can cause people to–well, it is difficult to find the right word because most either connote willful or unconscious neglect or incompetence, let’s say overlook—the need to keep abreast of latest developments, there is a lot be learned about how people make their decisions. In fact, some of this might help explain why people choose to devote themselves to causes with low material rewards like the arts in the first place.

Satisfaction Ain’t Enough
About 10 years ago I went to a session on customer service where the speaker said that satisfaction and competitive price doesn’t contribute to a long term relationship with a customer. She noted that people who were satisfied with the service they received would still defect to a competitor. The book breaks this down on a finer level distinguishing between those who are emotionally satisfied and those who are rationally satisfied. Those who are emotionally satisfied with a company have a far greater investment in the company than those who are rationally satisfied.

What surprised me was that those who are rationally satisfied “behave not any differently than customers who are dissatisfied.” They use the example of a credit card company. Those who were emotionally satisfied spent an average of $251/month and used the card 3.1 times a month. Those who were rationally satisfied spent an average of $136/month and used the card 2.5 times each month. Those who were dissatisfied also spent $136/month and used the card 2.2 times.

The authors make the point that tending to a person’s emotional satisfaction can actually enhance their material value to your company. Investment in relationships is an investment in the financial health of your organization. We in the arts should understand this because of our constant efforts to woo and maintain relationships with donors. Even though we have a list of benefits we provide for different levels of support, we will go above and beyond to stay in a donor’s good graces.

The example of the credit card company was really apt in my case. I just canceled the card I had for 20 years because I felt the card company violated our relationship. I started the card with a $500 limit in 1989 and had gradually built it up to nearly $30,000 after the last two decades. After the fiscal crisis in 2008, they cut my limit by more than half despite my excellent credit. I never needed anywhere near the limit, but it was a point of pride for me that I had built it up to that level. Not an easy thing to build excellent credit while working in the arts.

There was also some deceit a couple years back when Bank of America bought the credit card company. They sent me a letter saying my card number had been compromised. When I called to find out who had been lax with my card information so that I could avoid the company, they gave me the run around before finally admitting everyone got the letter as an incentive to move to the Bank of America card.

That episode made me leery, but it was the credit limit cut that sent me into the arms of my credit union. I tolerated all sorts of rate hikes and the suspicious changes of payment due dates, but when they attacked the source of my pride it was over.

When I called to cancel the card, they didn’t even try to stop me. I have heard stories about companies being willing to reduce interest rates and do other things to keep customers, but they didn’t even ask me to reconsider after I told them my reason. I wonder if they have received so many calls they have learned that there is no use in talking people out of it.

Bootstrap Conducting

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Continuing on with the theme of young artists forging places for themselves, I was recently reading about a young conductor, Alondra de la Parra and couldn’t help being impressed. The interview I read was in the Arts Presenters’ magazine, Inside Arts. I don’t know what the general consensus of her abilities is in the orchestra world, but that hardly prevents her bootstrapping efforts from being inspirational to other young artists and administrators.

Apparently the transitional moment in her career came when the Mexican consulate asked her to put on a concert and she ended up as a one person “manager, press agent, producer, presenter, fund raiser and conductor” for the event. She describes the experience as a nightmare and had decided to go back to school. However, so many people saw the event as a success and told her she had to continue on. That is how she ended up founding the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas which describes its mission as “a laboratory for artistic expression, embracing our responsibility to support promising young performers, composers, instrumentalists, conductors and all kind of diverse artists from Latin America and beyond.”

Watch the video here to learn more about their philosophy and the way they are involving school children in composing music for the orchestra.

One of the benefits of having had gone through that initial trial by fire is that Alondra feels “it makes me relate to almost every person that goes into a symphony orchestra, from the PR director, to the stagehands to the librarian.” Reading Adaptistration all these years, this is apparently a rare quality among musical directors. She says as much in detail in a 2008 NYT article. (2nd page, 3rd column)

At the end of the Inside Arts piece, she is asked what she would like presenters to know about orchestras. She makes the oft mentioned points about demystifying the music so that people don’t feel they need to know every detail about the piece and the composer–and of course the appropriate time to clap–to enjoy the performance. At the end she comments, (my emphasis) “When you go to a rock concert, nobody is going to ask you do you know who the band is and do you really know their first album in ’82. Nobody cares as long as you yell and jump and enjoy it. The next time, you’ll know the song. You’ll sing the song.”

I would like to think that there is a chance for orchestras if more leaders like her start emerging. There is a lot of excitement surrounding Gustavo Dudamel leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic. El Sistema has come to the US and will perhaps manage to transform the lives of young people here as it has in Venezula. (Is it my imagination, or does Latin America seem poised to save classical music?)

As I read about the Honolulu Symphony facing bankruptcy, and the problems other orchestras are facing it seems that the excitement generating can come none to soon.

Talkin’ Bout Emerging Leaders

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Okay special double blog post today. Since my other entry was dealing with education and arts people following their passion, I felt I needed to call attention to the Emerging Leader conversation that has been transpiring in a special blogging salon on Americans for the Arts website. It started October 16 and just finished today.

There are a lot of great entries on the blog, including ones that question the definition of Emerging Leader in terms of age and experience. American’s for the Arts defines Emerging Leader as “either new to the field, with up to five years of experience, or are 35 years of age or younger.”

Ian Moss’ post on Generation Y and Entitlement garnered a long series of comments and is worth reading if have any young people working for you or ever plan to. Other participants add to the conversation like Ruby Classen’s entries on why jobbing hopping by a younger generation seeking a broader skillset can be viewed as lack of loyalty by long time arts leaders.

What was also interesting was reading that a number of veteran arts leaders were contacting people involved with organizing Emerging Leaders at Americans for the Arts and 20UNDER40 who saw these efforts as a storm the Bastille and kill the old folks.

Just as great to read the rebuttals from the veteran leaders too both as entries and comments. It shows that people from many stages in their careers are aware of these issues and engaged in these conversations.

It was also a little disconcerting to learn that because of the internal politics of some organizations, people who wanted to participate felt they had to remain silent.

People share their stories about lack of confidence they have had about their career choices and direction. This includes difficulties in finding jobs in the first place, of course. As many entries as I have linked to, it ain’t near all of them. If you have any interest in arts administration at all, bookmark the site and resolve to spend a couple minutes everyday reading a few entries until you have gotten to them all.

Substitution Blues

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Ken Davenport posted some interesting information about the impact of absenteeism in Broadway shows on Producer’s Perspective. He was curious to learn if the need to have an understudy stand in was having an impact on audiences so he commissioned someone to study the question.

The impetus for this was the increasing rate of absenteeism in Broadway shows, particularly West Side Story. I had read the NY Post article Ken links to back in August and I couldn’t believe there was such a high rate of absences given that there are no lack of performers who are just as talented waiting to step on to the Broadway stage. Cameron Mackintosh did clean house on Les Miserables when he felt the quality was flagging so it seemed pretty risky for actors to appear to be slacking off. In retrospect, I suppose there is always the teensy little chance that the Post sensationalized the problem beyond the reality.

While some respondents to the survey liked the idea of an understudy having a chance to surpass the star, absenteeism was generally seen in a negative light. The perception was that it is becoming more prevalent and that the quality is not the same. Some respondents felt that they had to apologize to the guests they asked along or advise their friends not to attend the show. On the whole, people said they are becoming more cautious about their ticket purchases.

Davenport suggests the Actors Union and Producers get together to explore the problem. It should be noted that his survey results said people thought there was more absenteeism, but there was no study done on the question of whether there actually is more absenteeism over all. Though as a practical matter, the truth has little bearing if audiences have decided the problem is widespread and are acting accordingly. As Davenport suggests, better training of understudies may begin to reverse the perception that understudies are offering a vastly inferior product.

One of the commenters on the entry suggests that the understudy notice in the program book may have a psychological effect prejudicing a person against the show before the curtain rises. (Though I have attended a show where there was a small flurry of the notices falling out when I opened the Playbill. That certainly didn’t help my confidence.) Of course, eliminating proper notice probably runs afoul New York’s fraud laws.

While reading the entry, I recalled Holly Mulcahy’s September column on The Partial Observer about substitutions in orchestra programs. I wondered if the practice of changing up a concert offering was undermining confidence in orchestras as much as changes in casts are in Broadway shows. And has anyone ever done a study on that?

Continuing Mystery Gets Me Chocolate

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Okay, some updates on recent posts!

I posted about the state furloughing teachers 17 Fridays over the next year. I was happy to see a local theatre immediately jumped on the opportunity to offer a Furlough Fridays program teaching kids about musical theatre. One of the things I liked was that they require you to attend all the classes emphasizing that student commitment to their classes was just as important as commitment to the classes they were missing.

Parents have actually started a movement to pay the teachers themselves on the furlough days. This raises a number of issues about the use of the school facilities, workman’s comp coverage and insurance. It also raises the question about why people are resistant to having their taxes raised a little bit to support the schools for the whole year but okay with paying a lot more to have their children taught on a few days out of the year. Is this going to reveal the gap between the haves and the have nots if parents in more affluent neighborhoods are able to pay to have their kids taught while the schools in poorer neighborhoods stay empty on those days for lack of the same funds?

One of the biggest impediments actually is a decade old ethics rule that prevents teachers from being paid privately to teach their students. The rule was enacted to prevent basic concerns like whether a teacher skimped on the instruction during the day in order to guarantee the need for additional instruction after hours.

The other update I have is to the situation I covered in my entry titled The No Sell Sales Pitch. Recent events, I am afraid, have done nothing but renew my curiosity about the approach being employed by the two dancers who visited in late August. Today I received a package with a 1 lb bar of Trader Joe’s Belgian Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds, a bag of Trader Joe’s Trek Mix and a tea candle in a blue holder. There was a card thanking me for meeting with them, praising the work we are doing and hoping our paths will cross again. Still no material about their company which I am assured by others does indeed exist.

Maybe they just aren’t that into my theatre.

The No Sell Sales Pitch?

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There were some dancers who were vacationing in the area who contacted me via a local dance critic to set up a meeting for this morning. I was hoping it wasn’t going to be a hard sell about why we should book their company. What actually transpired I don’t even know if I can label a soft sell because we really didn’t talk about their company or what it did at all. In fact, the name of the company was only mentioned once at the beginning of the meeting in response to my assistant theatre manager’s query. But for his memory, I would have no way to check out their work because they didn’t leave any print or video materials.

You might assume from that description of the meeting that they were unprepared to promote themselves and advance their interests. Promoting their company and work didn’t seem to be their intention. Instead they talked to me about the local arts environment and made notes. They talked about some of the other geographic places they hoped to have performances and promised to submit a proposal for the sort of work they hoped to do.

I was somewhat bemused by their whole approach and pretty much let them determine the direction of the conversation. The whole situation intrigued me enough to give their proposal full consideration when it arrives.

I don’t know if the proceedings were part of some business model they had in mind. It is pretty labor and time intensive to visit and discuss things one on one with different performing arts venues so this will never be viable large scale. They said they want to move beyond operating in Los Angeles. It appears as if they have chosen geographic locales where they would like to work on the Pacific and Rocky Mountain regions and set out to develop relationships with venues in those places.

The benefit will be having a deep understanding of the needs of each venue so they can create performances and residency activities suited for those places. They mentioned they would have a home season too, so they probably aren’t looking for these partnerships to provide all their support.

Sales professionals will likely find a lot wrong with how they conducted our meeting, especially those from the always be closing school. It was all wildly inefficient and they have no more inkling as to whether I am interested in presenting their group than they did before calling to set up the meeting.

What really appealed to me about the portion of their approach I have seen thus far, whether they intended it or not, is that it places them in a more active decision making role. Instead of making a shotgun solicitation of people to present their work, they are choosing where they would like to work and approaching those places. I still have a great deal of decision making power, but if I do decide to accept their proposal, our relationship will be a more equal one because we both know we choose to work with each other.

Neither Carrot Nor Stick Does Creativity Make

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A couple links as complement to my entry yesterday on motivation, customer service and volunteers.

First, Americans for the Arts, hearing President Obama’s call for Americans to volunteer more has created a website at which people can share their stories, pictures and videos – United We Serve.

A newly posted video on TED.com has Dan Pink talking about motivation. He provides some interesting findings about motivation, namely that when it comes to performing creative tasks conditional rewards (if you complete X by Y, you will receive Z bonus) are not as effective as intrinsic rewards in obtaining results. The conditional rewards actually get in the way of creative thinking. This may explain why arts people are able to create in the absence of monetary reward.

I wouldn’t let this get around lest people insist that paying you more may rob you of your creativity.

He makes a link to our current financial difficulties saying that there is a disconnects between what science has known for over 40 years and what businesses does, which is essentially the carrot and stick approach.

Pink says the new operating model should be based on:
“Autonomy- Urge to Direct Our Own Lives
Mastery- Desire to get better and better at something that matters, and
Purpose- The Yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.”

Sounds a lot like the way arts organization and non-profits have been running things for awhile. If the next wave of economy is indeed going to be Creative, then perhaps non-profits and those who work for them will have something of increasing value to offer. We just need to understand what we do, how to do it well and how to teach/model it for others.

A Folding Table, A Jug of Water and Thou Sweating In The Parking Lot

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I am reading a book about customer service right now. My intention is to report some observations on the text as a whole at some point. However, I saw an illustration of one of the points made in an early chapter today. The book had noted the veracity of “time flies when you are having fun” pointing out that a well designed wait that is 30 minutes long can actually seem shorter than a poorly designed wait that is only a third as long. Because human perception is involved, you can ruin a relationship with a customer in the latter situation even though you significantly reduced their wait time.

Our campus is in a situation with many strikes against it. Budgets have been cut so staffing is down but enrollment is up adding an additional 1500 student to our commuter campus. Alas, the heretofore un(der) used overflow parking is now inaccessible due to long delayed construction projects.

There wasn’t much to be done about the parking unfortunately, but someone got organized this year and had information tables distributed about the campus with all sorts of hand outs and big coolers of water. There were also large color campus maps that someone slapped up on the sides of buildings so people didn’t have to seek out kiosks to figure out where they were.

I looked around wondering why no one had thought to do this before. People had always volunteered to serve an hour or so on the welcome committee but it was never this organized or welcoming. People stood around smiling, answering questions and engaging people who looked lost. Now there is a table identifiable as a source of information from a distance that is stocked with information—and most importantly after trekking in from that parking space in the hinterlands you stalked for 30 minutes–water to drink.

While I walked around comparing what I was seeing to previous years, I realized that tweaking your customer service up a level or two doesn’t just help your relationship with those you serve. It also sends a message to other employees about the commitment of the organization. Memos about improving service are useful and identify areas for improvement. In this case, there were no memos that went out about how things were going to be done better—it was just done.

I am obviously someone whose business it is to think about improving customer interactions so I notice such things. But I have to believe that others noticed the improvement, how it fit in the context of other recent changes and what it all says about the direction of the organization.

I also had some insight into the issue of providing volunteers with opportunities to feel they are doing important work. I have never really had much desire to volunteer for welcoming slots before. Today when I witnessed the increased effort at hospitality, I had a desire to participate next time around. (Just have to remember not to schedule sending the brochure to the printer, interviewing a ticket office clerk and starting internet sales on this day next time.) In previous years, my impression of the job was that it provided a pleasant first impression of the institution and directions to buildings. With the addition of tables, maps and water jugs, suddenly it seems like an important contribution to relieving anxious new arrivals.

We are planning a volunteer luncheon/training in a few weeks so perhaps I am in a receptive mindset on the subject. We have been thinking about how to design the volunteering experience so people have a greater feeling of doing something of value. We have been discussing increasing volunteers’ scope of responsibility and authority. I believe we also have to consider if these duties will allow them to feel they are providing a service patrons find valuable. Though certainly, people volunteer for different reasons and more authority may be a bigger motivator than being useful.

Stuff You Can Use: Board Ponderables and Resources

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There were a couple board related pieces I marked on the old Google reader I wanted to share.

First was an excerpt from a talk Gene Takagi of Non-Profit Law Blog recently gave for an American Bar Association seminar this month. The portion posted on the blog site deals with common governance problems boards engage in. The six points he makes deal with how boards misunderstand their role in the organization and the laws governing non-profit organizations.

Part of the third point caught my eye because it is a common practice but I have really never heard it discussed as a problem. (My bold emphasis.)

A lack of attention paid to the internal laws of the organization. Is the organization operating in furtherance of the exempt purpose stated in their governing documents? Do the directors really know, understand, and govern consistent with their bylaws and other governance policies? This problem often results when a board adopts bylaws that it copied from another organization without careful thought and consideration about how they work under different circumstances. It’s far too common for nonprofits to ignore membership requirements they’ve inadvertently created, elect a different number of directors than is authorized, and not maintain officer positions and/or committees required under the bylaws.

Not knowing where to start with bylaws, a lot of organizations use those of others as a template. I suspect that people choose to leave in elements that sound important and potentially useful when they really aren’t that important to the organization. I say this because a board I sit on tasked one of the vice presidents with a bylaws review and he essentially reported this very situation. The bylaws had originally been copied from a closely associated sister organization and there were portions that really did not apply to our activities. Advances in technology made other portions unnecessary.

To be fair, it is likely a group starting from scratch would include rules dealing with anticipated situations in their bylaws that proved to be extraneous. Time and experience is about the only thing that will reveal this to be the case which is why it is helpful to periodically review bylaws.

The other bit of information I wanted to draw attention to was a entry on The Nonprofiteer noting the availability of BoardSource videos on “the ten responsibilities of nonprofit Board members.” She also links back to her earlier entry on the Board Member’s Bill of Rights which bears reading.

Admittedly, the entry I link to is from February. I hadn’t the time to review the BoardSource videos until now. The video’s short, episodic structure make them faster to review than I thought. The way I see it though, many boards have likely taken a hiatus over the summer due to a lack of enough members to establish a quorum. This is probably an advantageous time for me to urge people to revisit the NonProfiteer’s entry to review the materials in preparation for an increase in board activity.

Will Artists Save The Motor City?

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NPR had a story on All Things Considered yesterday about people moving to Detroit lured by dirt cheap property costs and a belief in the potential the city has. (Listen to the story rather reading the text which doesn’t accurately reflect the audio.) Among those interviewed are a small group of artists hoping to establish a little colony that “are interested in working on houses but also interested in working in social ways. Be a part of the neighborhood themselves..”

It will be interesting to see if they bring vibrancy to part of the city…and resist being displaced by any gentrification they may inspire.

I haven’t really seen it as part of my career path, but I always thought if I had an opportunity like this and the resources to pull it off, I would buy up buildings or warehouses and turn them into spaces artists could practice their craft. Even though I am in the performing arts, I never really considered opening a performance space. I think I would have rehearsal spaces for theatre, dance and music as well as studios for visual artists. A good situation would also allow me to get an apartment building so that visual artists could be in residence a few months while they created and then move on. With other artists around, they might find inspiration and collaboration in the people and environment without actually having to move permanently.

While Detroit offers this sort of opportunity, I wonder if I have the energy to make something like this happen. I live a fairly spartan existence so the prospect of living in the back while renovating the front doesn’t bother me. I just don’t know if I can be a one man renovation squad for the time it would take to get things to a place where the project could start paying for the next phase. That is assuming enough artists move to Detroit interested in utilizing the spaces.

But as I said, since I never really saw this as part of my career path, I haven’t invested much thought in how I might accomplish it. The idea has mostly been idle speculation born of visiting many towns and cities that seemed to lack good rehearsal facilities for the individual/small group artists.

I figure it is worthwhile posting the idea here on the chance it inspires someone to explore doing it in their own town, say Detroit.

Bean Counter Hero For A Few Days

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As the guy controlling the budget, I often have to either say no or ask people to scale back their plans. Therefore, it gives me great joy when I am in the position of telling artists that they are limiting themselves and need to think bigger. I had that opportunity about a month ago when I was discussing the site specific performance we are developing with a local performance group for next Spring. One of the artistic directors was telling me a board member was encouraging her to limit the action of the show around the theatre building.

My whole intention in approaching her about a site specific work was to get away from the building and exploit the potential in other nearby locations. Also, given that the show is about celebrity and achieving that status is divorced from formal performance settings these days thanks to our ability to record and distribute events from practically anywhere, it seemed counter intuitive to have everything happen in the theatre environs.

Given that we are about nine months out from the performance, I told her I felt it was premature to start eliminating some nearby locations that ignited both our imaginations. It felt great to be telling someone to keep dreaming about a performance.

I did feel a little bad for the nameless board member I was contradicting. Perhaps this person has made valuable suggestions in the past, but for a little while in my mind I was relegating them to the clueless board member bin. While I was feeling the hero, I was envisioning this faceless person as the stereotypical board member who valued the product, but didn’t quite understand the process of the organization which he/she served.

I didn’t think it is was particularly fair that board members end up playing that role in so many organizations. And let me be clear, since I was envisioning a theoretical board member, I certainly can’t say this is the case at all with the board of our partner organization. Let me also say that I realize this little fantasy is not only unfair to the anonymous board member, but likely short lived since the time will come soon enough when I will begin tugging on the reins and conform to the parsimonious administrator stereotype. Allow me this short time in the sun, eh?

There have been many discussions about how board members do it to themselves by not involving themselves enough. It is also true that organizations work to marginalize involvement so that the board is little more than a rubber stamp for their activities and then stays out of the way.

It seems this might be another argument for arts people not the subscribe to the notion that you have to be poor and suffer to be true to your art. In the nascent stages of some arts organizations, boards are comprised of fellow artists who understand and are invested in the work. At a certain point, it becomes clear that if the organization is to expand, it will require people of influence and means. If financial success were frowned upon less in the arts world, there would be less of a need to choose between those who get it and those who got it because they wouldn’t seem so mutually exclusive.

Merging Administrative Functions

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On occasion I cite consolidation of administrative functions as a method by which arts organizations in a community can cut costs by cooperating with one another. However, if pressed, I would have to admit that I wasn’t aware of any examples of such a thing working in practice.

So I was extremely pleased to see that the Nonprofit Law Blog has been running a series on this very subject. They cite four options that can be pursued, “an administrative collaboration, administrative consolidation, MSO (Management Service Organization), or external service provider.” The most recent entry gave an impression the series was finished but it hadn’t covered external service providers. If it does continue, I will post an update link here.

The first entry, Administrative Consolidations and Management Service Organizations covers those structures and outlines what situations they work best in.

The second entry, Joining Forces in the Back Office – Administrative Collaboration and Consolidation, talks about the collaboration and consolidation formats and presents some case studies. This is also the entry in which they define the different structures.

“According to La Piana Associates, Inc., an administrative collaboration is an informal, not necessarily enduring, arrangement to share services or expertise while each organization retains its individual decision-making power; an administrative consolidation is a more formal agreement that involves shared decision making (without changing the corporate structure) and the sharing of specific functions; an MSO is a newly created organization for the purpose of integrating administrative functions; and an external service providerinvolves the outsourcing of certain administrative elements.”

One thing I found interesting about the case study presenting in this entry was that the organization, Chattanooga Museums Collaboration achieved things you might expect- cut costs, leveraged their purchasing power, improved productivity and increased unearned income through joint fund raising activities. But the partnership also made them more competitive in the larger business landscape.

“Although the “immediate reaction is that it’s the smaller guys who are getting the benefit,” Kret corrects this misconception stating that through CMC, the Tennessee Aquarium benefits as well by generating revenue from typically nonrevenue places like accounting, increasing retention by offering key employees a higher level of compensation, and offering their employees a much more rewarding and challenging work environment.”

The third entry, Joining Forces in the Back Office – Management Service Organizations, contained a case study of an MSO formed by five social service organizations which now serves 13 groups. While MSOs are separate organizations formed to provide these services, unlike commercial payroll and human resource companies, MSOs are formed for the benefit of specific entities.

The MSO in the case study, MACC CommonWealth, has an auditor appointed by multiple boards. If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, you will want to read the case study which acknowledges that serving the interests of multiple boards and CEOs is potentially fraught with peril. So far, it seems to be working.

The most recent entry notes there are many successful collaborations among non-profits across the country. The main thrust of the entry are observations of why a cooperative effort funded by the The Lodestar Foundation, was unsuccessful.

The Lodestar Foundation provides grants for collaborative efforts and their website can give you a sense of the scope of the efforts being made in this direction.

Emily Chan who wrote the series on Nonprofit Law Blog cites a number of studies and books on the subject so the entries themselves provide a good starting place for exploring the possibilities offered by one of these avenues.

More Roused Passion

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Well I am pleased to learn that my “best of” revival of my April 2005 entry about Neill Roan’s handling of the antisemitism in Bach’s St. John’s Passion has moved Neill to repost the talk he had given on the subject. If you were intrigued by the coverage I gave the incident in my entry, you will likely find it worth your while to read the entire thing. It is really an excellent study in engaging your audience amid controversy.

“Don’t Let Them Use Your Passion Against You”

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I always enjoy reading Adam Thurman’s work on Mission Paradox. Recently he posted “An Open Letter to Arts Administrators.” As an arts administrator, I felt obligated to disseminate it a bit. It contains advice that, even if you have heard it before, bears hearing again to remind you of a few things. (It’s also mirrored on Arts Blog. You may find the comments there worth reading.)

The section that particularly resonated with me was:

3. Don’t let them use your passion against you. Consider this:

Imagine you were a lawyer. What if I told you that there were some law firms (not all, but absolutely some) that didn’t get a damn about their employees? What if I told you that some firms were designed to bring in people and get as much out of them as possible before they burned out?

Would you believe me?

Of course you would. Hell, because it’s the legal profession you would expect such behavior.

Here’s da rub:

Some arts organizations are the exact same way.

Just because the end product is art and not a legal brief doesn’t mean the place automatically values their employees. Just because the place is a non-profit doesn’t automatically make it a nice place to work.

But here’s the really messed up part. At some of those arts orgs, if you complain that the hours are unreasonable, or the pay is low, or your input isn’t valued . . . they imply that your commitment to the “cause” is low. They convince you that if you really were passionate about your work, you would put up with the sub par conditions.

Don’t fall for it. It’s a trap. Remember point 1, it doesn’t have to be like that . . . you deserve better.

Been there and done that. I am ashamed to say that I am pretty sure I tacitly supported the “your commitment to the ’cause’ is low” message against other people in at least one place I worked even as I resented working under those conditions. I imagine I enjoyed the approval of my willingness to suffer for the cause and in the absence of any real remuneration, sought more praise by pressuring other people to toe the line. Though I have also declined contract renewals in places with poor work environments, too.

I was encouraged by the memory of two studies I read and blogged on last year, one by Building Movement and another commissioned by the Myer Foundation which showed that the new generation of leaders seek a greater balance between work and personal life and aren’t buying the idea that suffering is proportional to commitment.

What may be the downside for many non-profit organizations is that the leadership, recalling that they sacrificed and brought the company into being by force of will, are reluctant to groom these new leaders because of a perceived lack of commitment on the would-be protege’s part. One desirable benefit can be that the replacement won’t perpetuate a stressful environment. A board expecting the miracles of the last executive director might not make that easy.

Still More Impact of the Economy

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I listened in on another Arts Presenters conference call on the impact of the economy last week. The panel consisted of:

Ken Foster, Executive Director, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Nicole Borrelli Hearn, Manager, Artists and Attractions, Opus 3 Artists
Sandra L. Gibson, President and CEO, Association of Performing Arts Presenters
Maurine Knighton, Senior Vice-President, Program and Nonprofit Investment, Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone

There were many sentiments and examples I had heard in earlier calls so I wasn’t as assiduous about recording them. The basic themes of the call were doing more with less and preventing worries about the current situation from infecting your organization and colleagues.

Doing More With Less discussions weren’t all dire. Ken Foster talked about how his organization was de-emphasizing number of events in a season in favor of exploring extending artists’ stays and having them involved with more while they were around. Nicole Borrelli Hearn spoke of Daniel Bernard Roumain’s New Clef Coalition where Roumain is writing a new work for youth orchestras. Orchestras can buy at a reasonable rate as a commissioning partner and then they will own the piece forever. Roumain gets a residency with the youth orchestra. (Which is really another win for the orchestra.)

There were less positive observations under this subject area. Opus3 has encountered a widespread trend of groups inquiring about cancellations which resulted in a lot of renegotiation. Commenter, Mr. MOJO, told stories of not being able to even give away extra performances to presenters who either were not interested or no longer had the staff to support it.

An observation was made, confirmed by Ken Foster as Yerba Buena’s new approach, that some presenters were scheduling two separate seasons, Fall and Spring. The Spring portion would only transpire if the economy and Fall performances enabled it. This is making performers nervous because they don’t know how to plan or if they can/should keep their company active and creating new works. Foster said committing 18 months out is making less and less sense. He acknowledges that it is a challenging situation artists who are motivated to get their works seen and that presenters’ business practices shouldn’t get in the way of that.

Now I listened to that portion of the recording a few times and I had to wonder if Foster wasn’t suggesting artists do what they have to do and perhaps find a conduit for expression that circumvents the current system.

A comment Foster made was that when times get tough, presenters’ default response is to ask for a fee reduction. I actually made a similar observation in regard to audiences dissatisfaction with a show and defaulting to asking for their money back. If you have driven to a theatre having paid for dinner and a babysitter, is getting your money back really going to make you happy? In the same sense, if you have invested resources into promoting an event, will cancellations make anyone happy? My suggestion at the time, like Foster’s now, was to seek alternatives. Audiences/Artists may provide suggested solutions that may not have occurred to you.

With that mention of minimizing negative feelings, I will segue into the second general topic- don’t let anxiety infect your organization. Foster notes he has a lot of people from the financial sector on his board and many of them project the catastrophe they are facing on to the arts organization. It takes a lot of work and projecting competence and confidence to keep such fears from taking over.

He points out that arts professionals spread negativity as well. When you are surrounded by people who don’t quite understand the business of the arts and what it is you do, there is a great temptation to commiserate when you meet someone who actually has the capacity of empathize. Talking at length about how much stuff sucks brings the whole room down. Foster isn’t saying one should gloss over reality, but he mentions he has an executive coach who is not involved in the industry with whom he can safely talk about these issues and receive guidance without demoralizing anyone.

Collective Action Report For NPAC 2008

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Last week Andrew Taylor posted an entry about the release of a report for which his students were involved collecting information at and about last summer’s National Performing Arts Convention. The report examines the capacity for the arts disciplines to engage in collective action.

As you might imagine, I found much of it very interesting. If you don’t have the time to read the whole thing, mores the pity. It is worth jumping to page 59 of the Acrobat document. The following 20 some pages have ideas for collective action on many fronts that came out of the brain storming round tables. These are not the same ideas voted as top priority items by the attendees and may represent fresh directions for you and others to embrace at national, regional and local levels.

One aspect of the convention attendees felt was lacking was a clear sense of who was going to follow up and pursue these priorities. What will likely be helpful at the next convention is if people show up to talk about their attempts to implement some of these priorities at different levels.

Plea To The Reader
If you don’t think you will read the report, at least consider reading the rest of this entry. I often include fair sized quotes that jump out at me from reports and studies because I know people don’t feel they have the time to catch up on all the reading they think they should be doing. Part of the mission of this blog is to present some concepts that perhaps you can think about during your commute if no other time presents itself. Not everything may seem that significant to you, and that’s fair. This report contained a lot of meaty observations including some things I suspected but have rarely heard discussed. So please, read on…

Boundaries
The report began by tackling a basic question–what constitutes the performing arts? In answer to the question, “When you think and talk about the ‘performing arts’ in your region, which of the following organizations do you include in your thinking?” over 50% provided answers that were “arts-focused and primarily organized as tax-exempt. Alternate venues and commercial enterprises were identified by fewer people as part of the performing arts—yet still showed up in significant numbers.”

Lest your take away from those responses is that there was a sense of exclusivity to people’s definition of the performing arts. The report notes that the subject of what constituted the boundaries of the performing arts community was frequently debated and discussed.

Internal Divisions
But heck with those perceived to be on the outside of the performing arts boundaries. There was plenty to contend with over the perceived differences between the disciplines clearly defined as being part of the performing arts.

“Despite the common ground of the nonprofit arts leaders attending the Denver convention, our team observed frequent and obvious disconnects between the language and culture of each discipline. The dress and demeanor of the different service organization membership was a continual point of discussion in
our evening debriefing sessions, and were often heard used as shorthand by one discipline to describe another (“take time to talk to the suits,” said one theater leader to a TCG convening, when referring to symphony professionals). Some of the difference was in rites and rituals: from the morning sing-alongs of Chorus America to the jackets and ties of League members, to the frequent and genuine hugs among Dance/USA members, to the casual and collegial atmosphere of TCG sessions.

Other differences, which manifested in more subtle ways, shed light on the deep underlying assumptions and values held by the respective disciplines. The team noticed, for example, that the word “professional” was perceived in a variety of ways in mixed-discipline caucus sessions. For many participants, “professional” staff and leadership was an indicator of high-quality arts organizations, and an obvious goal for any arts institutions. Several members of Chorus America, however, bristled at the presumption that professional staff was a metric of artistic quality, as they held deep pride in their organizations, which were run by volunteers.

The observation team also saw many sessions peppered with misunderstandings and different interpretations of words and concepts that are fundamental to a collective action effort. Most of these went unnoticed by the group, and unresolved by facilitators of caucus sessions….Catalysts note the need for basic fluency in the business models and challenges of other disciplines. Says one leader, “….I talk a lot with the heads of other performing arts organizations here [from other disciplines], and it’s all right, but oftentimes when we talk I’m spending the whole time explaining the whole story so they can understand. As opposed to sitting with somebody who’s in a different community, you can start the sentence and oftentimes that person can finish your sentence for you.”

Expectation of Cross-Disciplinary Learning
That said, the report notes many went to the conference with the intent of learning about other disciplines and cultivating cross-disciplinary relationships. People were eager to learn about best practices and common challenges from other disciplines. “A full 86 percent believed that the problems and opportunities faced by a small dance company are shared more with a small theater company than with a large dance company.”

Respect to Trust
The next step toward collective action, according to the report’s author’s, is to go from respecting the other guy to trusting them.

“A full 81 and 82 percent of respondents believed leaders in the nonprofit performing arts respect each other at the national and regional/city level respectively. A lesser majority, 56 and 60 percent, believed that such leaders trust each other at the national and regional/city level. This distinction between respect and trust reinforces the distinction between acting for individual and organizational interests, and acting for the benefit of the larger community.”

Things Not Often Discussed
Two of the areas covered in the report that especially struck me were some frank discussions about diversity and the perceived role of government. Everyone talks about the need to diversify audiences and performers. In fact, most funders are interested in collecting information about racial, geographic and economic diversity of audiences and performers. What emerged in the discussion wasn’t as idealistic.

“Diversity was the most polarizing priority in the AmericaSpeaks process, and the issue for which there is the most disconnect in language and priorities….Some flatly stated that they did not think diversity was a priority, and others noted that people in their organizations may claim to support diversity, but don’t really mean it. Many noted ambiguity in defining diversity: that diversity “means different things to different people—there is no common agenda for inclusion.”

This was revealed in the stark differences in responses ranging from the claim that minority arts groups don’t have to make any efforts at white inclusion (“Why is it that primarily Caucasian-based groups look to ‘diversify’ their audiences while minority-based groups do not?”), to people who thought diversity meant “Getting minorities to see the importance of what we do.” Still others rejected the audience development perspective and saw the need for more systemic change. Said one respondent, “most of our organizations are not ready—we want to talk about it, but we are not prepared to become ‘diverse’ and accept the changes that may follow.” Some acknowledged that there were challenges in terms of comfort zones. Some noted that tying funding to diversity or pursuing diversity and losing money on such efforts might be counterproductive…

Respondents were more concerned with what they saw as others’ failure to address or understand diversity than with their own ability to effectively address the issue. As such, many did not envision opportunities for progress although they agreed that progress is needed.”

Community Engagement Approach
While some people may not be prepared to actively engage in addressing diversity in their organization, I was encouraged by the comments of one person who wasn’t talking about diversity per se. He/She did seem to embody the mindset of an organization that could achieve diversity without actively pursuing it.

“One leader notes, “That’s been one thing that we’ve been most proud of. Our whole organization takes this community engagement approach. It’s not outreach. Outreach doesn’t take into consideration who you are, what your background is, what your context is, or why people should care. That’s the fault of the old outreach concept, is saying you should come hear us, maybe we’ll come to you so you’ll come hear us. That’s missing the point, saying, ‘Where do we connect?’”

Government’s Role
In relation to the role of government (my emphasis)..

“In one intriguing disconnect, respondents in the post-convention survey hope for future NPAC connections to include elected officials from local (57 percent), state (64 percent), and national (70 percent) government. Yet not one believe such officials would influence if and how they might take action on the selected agenda items. The disconnect suggests, as we will later discuss,
that while participants see elected officials as potential focus of advocacy and engagement, they do not see them as a source of insight and knowledge—even though these actors drive the decision and governing systems that inform local policy. They are eager to talk to elected officials, but not inclined to listen

…Interestingly, some constituents with relatively greater perceived power also had relatively lower perceived knowledge of the field and its challenges (political leaders at federal, state, and local levels, for example.

From my point of view, there is a whole lot to be addressed. Quite honestly, I think this almost sums up the attitude arts organizations have toward most sources of funding. There is an eagerness to talk to funders and make your case but not a lot of willingness to have them involved in your business. Except for foundations with an arts focus, those representing funding sources don’t understand the field too well because of a desire to keep them on the fringes.

Some Tunes I Have Sung Before
There were a couple topics the report touched upon that I have addressed quite a few times in the past so I won’t get into them at length.

Lack of Knowledge
One observation that was made of convention attendees was how little knowledge people had about available resources and about how laws and policy affected those resources. The report notes that a lot of time was spent discussing how helpful it would be if some source would provide resources when in fact that very situation existed.

“These indicators suggest a systematic issue around knowledge dissemination in the field. Arts leaders either lack time or incentive to discover and use existing knowledge resources, or effective knowledge dissemination mechanisms do not exist to get this information out.”

Lack of Sleep
Which goes hand in hand with the fact most arts professionals are already over worked and may not be a wits end about how to participate in collective action.

“We have a lot of passionate and highly productive people that all tend to over-extend themselves as it is ‘for the love of their art.’ I think it is difficult for many of these same people then to prioritize what they may have to stop doing in order to thoughtfully and actively participate in this ‘national dialogue’.”

Lack of Succession
Finally, there is the issue of emerging leadership. According to the report, 79% of respondents to pre-convention surveys were worried a little to alot about identifying new blood and succession planning. At the convention however, “it was striking how little conversation focused on the discovery and development of future leaders, and the skills and abilities they might require. There were a few specific sessions that touched on the topic, but the issue received little traction or attention elsewhere.”

I imagine it comes as no surprise that the performing arts sector has quite a few issues to address. You need not have attended the convention to come to that conclusion. But since the report notes that one of the major historical hurdles to collective action has been that the various disciplines don’t sit down and talk to each other, the fact they did so and produced quite a few pages of ideas for collective action likely represents a valuable first step.

Does The Audience Serve The Community?

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Performing arts organizations are very much aware that they are increasingly at a disadvantage offering entertainment in a single location at set times in an environment when it can be obtained on demand, paused and continued. This weekend I really started wondering if we are ceding too much ground without a fight. Today, Artjournal.com happened to link to a piece on The Guardian website by Mark Ravenhill where he expressed something akin to my thoughts.

“But on one subject there does seem to be an almost universal consensus, and that is that you – the reader, the listener – are bored, most of the time. Look at any contemporary guide to making art, or working in the media, and the assumption is that an audience’s natural state is one of restless ennui. Our job as writers is to provide a sort of espresso shot. Grab them quickly, grab them hard – otherwise they will change channels or walk away.”

What I was thinking this weekend is that while we always talk about arts organizations needing to better serve their communities. We often hear how we have to change our processes and our thinking to acknowledge the changing expectations of our audiences. This is absolutely correct. We need to evaluate the ten thousand things we do every day in the context of shifting expectations.

But I got to wondering. Are our audience members serving their community very well? Don’t they have a responsibility to the larger group and are we complicit in letting them get away with shirking it?

This weekend we presented our annual dance festival where invited groups of students and professional companies perform short pieces. I have sort of resigned myself to the fact people are going to walk in at 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 minutes into the show. I think that perhaps I have started ceding too much in the way of lowered expectations to our audience.

We do close the box office 30-45 minutes after the show has started when it appears the trickle has finally abated. We still end up turning 10-15 people away who don’t have tickets but admitting that many or more who do. You know, the people carrying the pieces of paper with the time emblazoned across them who should therefore know things started 75 minutes ago?

Over the last decade or so I have trying to shift away from the disapproving figure looking at his watch noting just how late people are. It used to be that you ended up watching television monitors or wandering around the lobby if you missed the last late seating interval. Recently, I have begun to wonder if the kinder, gentler, forgiving approach in hopes of making the attendance experience of a dwindling audience feel more welcome may be counterproductive in the long term.

What really annoys me isn’t so much the late arrivals but the early departures from events after friends have performed. I have addressed this in the past. When there are children involved either as audience members or performers, the message this conveys is that the arts have no value outside of an acquaintance’s involvement in them. For older people, it further socializes the idea that the live experience is disposable.

The dance pieces this weekend weren’t lengthy or based on some abstract concept. Each group had about seven to nine minutes to perform so if you didn’t like what you saw, it was over shortly. The first piece of the night was a satire of ballet. Even if you don’t know enough about ballet to get some of the jokes, a lot of it was just physical comedy. I can think of a number of reasons why people might choose not to attend in the first place, but once one is in the theatre, it was fairly clear one need not be an initiate to enjoy the performance.

Lest you think I am attributing poor intentions to people who had other motivations for leaving, a few groups told us outright they were leaving because their friend was done dancing. (The same thing happens with our choral concerts.)

Getting back to the idea of the individual’s responsibility. Attending a live performance constitutes a relationship. It is a relationship between you, the audience and more importantly, the performers. This is the case even with those you don’t know personally. These performers can only be at a specific place at a time which dictates some of the constraints of the performance. Even though you seem to be one of possibly a very large group in the audience, how you conduct yourself has a definite impact.

This is the message the arts need to convey. Not in an explicit lecture, but in the subtext of what we communicate be it in person or via the technological tools we employ. Last week I was musing about what back to basics value the arts can embody. I am starting to think maybe it is personal relationships.

People are beginning to become disenchanted with a situation where they have 10,000 Facebook friends, but no one to bring them chicken soup when they are sick. While we have grown tolerant of it, I’ll bet people would prefer not to be placed on pause while someone answers their cellphone or displaced by a texted conversation.

Half the battle can be won by heeding the advice we have been receiving for years–provide places and opportunities for people to socialize. In some respects that is the easy part because it just involves money for renovations, furniture and staffing.

The other part of the equation is communicating the values of responsibilities to the community without preaching. It is a fine line between encouraging people to arrive promptly and remain, and adopting policies which make them feel like they are being punished for breaking the rules. For those with little experience in attending performances, it may sound contradictory to tell them not to feel inhibited about expressing approval for a wonderful performance even though people are glaring at them but that they should heed the glares when they start screaming and whistling as their friend appears on stage. One calls attention to an excellent performance, the other calls attention to you and your relationship with an individual.

Printing guidelines in programs and on your website counts on people taking the time to review them. Also, at first glance they appear to be the hidebound list of rules which intimidate some from attending in the first place. Curtain speeches can be more personable but….is preaching the the choir of prompt people.

Surely, something should be said otherwise you miss the opportunity to reinforce the value of the experience you are offering. The repercussions of not doing so might not be immediate but manifest in the next generation (or absence thereof). If you stay positive, you can be explicit and thank people for valuing the experience of live performance unmediated and insulated by technology. You welcome the opportunity to discuss the performance in person with the audience in the lobby or coffee shop after the show. And if they need time to digest the experience, you would love to read their comments on the organization’s web forum later.

Interacting with the late comers/early departers in a constructive way is tough. They already know they are breaking a convention and are prepared for any conversation, including directions to the restrooms, to be instilled with some degree of disapproval or scolding. The one approach that comes to mind leaves a lot of opportunity for patronizing tones to creep in.

My thought is that the ushers in the lobby be gracious and say he/she will escort the late comers in since it can be difficult to get ones bearings in the dark. While awaiting an appropriate break in the action, the group lingers near photos of the performers. I haven’t worked out the gist of the conversation yet because everything I think of can easily slide into the wrong tone. Essentially using the photos to give a face to the performers, the discussion touches on how long the rehearsals were and how much concentration is needed to perform before a live audience. How much the late comers will hopefully enjoy the performance and how important their approval is to the performers.

As you might surmise, the subtext is about how the performers and audience interact. While the artists are professional and will give their 110% performance regardless of audience size or reaction, things are likely to go to 125%+ for a good audience. I don’t want the performers to be vague and distant in those people’s minds, especially if their seats are indeed far from the stage. I want the late comers to feel a connection between themselves and the performers, seek them out on stage, realize the importance of their presence and hopefully, of their responsibilities, relative to those assembled in the facility.

The opportunity to actually see and interact with performers at some juncture contributes to this goal. I have made plenty of other entries about aloof artists and administrators so I won’t get into those aspects of the experience.

I am going to continue to think on the whole idea of reminding people they have a responsibility to the community rather than believing we need to passively accept shifting expectations. I would like to hear other people’s thoughts on this matter. Remember, I am not suggesting this stance be adopted to rationalize not changing. I merely propose that faced with millions of people Twittering everywhere they go, it doesn’t automatically follow that we need to accede to the expectation of Twittering being permitted during performances.

I am also intrigued by the idea of the arts embodying the values of personal contact and would be interested in seeing if anyone has any thoughts along these lines. I think much can be accomplished if we avoid declarative statements like You should/shouldn’t, must/mustn’t… Something as simple as, “(Discipline), It’s All About Contact” on a poster and ten thousand images can immediately be plugged in below the caption and a campaign begins.

Heading To Other Shores

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I was pleased when Ron Spigelman over at Sticks and Drones chose to start Take A Friend to the Orchestra Month by acknowledging the poise with which the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra musicians and administration were conducting business in tough economic times in contrast with the tensions other classical music organizations were facing. Granted with their pay six weeks in arrears, the moral victory didn’t go very far in putting food on the Honolulu musician’s tables or paying their mortgages, but at least they had the consolation that someone noticed and appreciated their approach to the situation.

Unfortunately, things may be getting a little tougher for the symphony. The Honolulu Symphony announced yesterday that Executive Director Tom Gulick will step down when his three year contract expires on June 30. (Seems like it was just last year I was heralding his arrival.) Gulick has been credited with doing much to increase the financial support and income of the symphony. Whether he is leaving of his own accord or because the board decided he hasn’t done enough is unknown to me at this time. In any case, this leaves the symphony without executive leadership for a time and requires the expenditure of time and dwindling resources to search for another.

Though if you think about it, Honolulu’s composure might work to its benefit. If you are a potential executive director, you know just about any organization you join in this financial climate is likely to be in tenuous financial shape. Wouldn’t you be more inclined to interview with an organization which has proved it can resist the general trend toward acrimonious relations between administration/board and musicians? (Not that living in Hawaii doesn’t have its appeal as well.)

April Can Be A Lot Of Things Month

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So today is Arts Advocacy Day which provides a nice segue into April, the official Take A Friend To the Orchestra (TAFTO) month. If you are not already aware, TAFTO is the brainchild of Adaptistration blogger, Drew McManus who has been promoting the idea for about 4-5 years now. The people Drew has lined up this year to write on the subject of taking friends to the orchestra look very interesting.

The last few years have seen orchestra boards across the country seemingly making every effort to avoid having their musicians perform. If you have any inclination to go to an orchestra or even chamber performance resolving to attend a performance this month can play a small part in showing the classical music groups around the country that their organization has value to the community, even if you only attend occasionally. (Of course bringing 15 friends can play a much bigger part.)

Actually, April is a good time to resolve to attend an arts or cultural event. Places like Fargo, ND notwithstanding, the weather is getting better across the country so it is a fine opportunity to get out and attend performances and go to museums. If your community has First Friday gallery walks, this is weekend could be the time to step out, mingle with others and see some art.

I just heard my mayor on the radio last week saying he wished the First Friday activities downtown happened every Friday. It would be great if every mayor could encourage that level of activity. (I know he wasn’t entirely saying that to score political points because he chaired the committee of the National Council of Mayors that introduced four resolutions about cultivating arts activities across the country.) October is National Arts and Humanities Month so if you don’t feel your community has enough arts activities, maybe for you April can be Take A Friend to the City Council Meeting month where you get the ball rolling on some sort of event(s) for October.

Wheels Begin To Turn

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I had a really productive meeting today to plan a site specific performance on campus for next Spring. We have never done this sort of thing before so I am starting conversations as far in advance as I can so that I can uncover problems and answer questions early on.

About six weeks ago, I approached a woman about putting a performance together than would involve our students and perhaps people from the community at large. She was excited by the prospect right out of the gate. I think what piqued her interest even more was my vision of having other members of her group conduct workshops starting next fall whose work would feed into the Spring performance. For example, we will probably have workshops in mask making and mask work and stilt work and perhaps revisit the fabric climbing tissue workshops students participated in last fall. My hope was to have these workshops open to the general public as well as our students.

What I felt was most productive about today’s meeting was that I managed to get one of our professors to agree to involve his acting class in this project instead of creating the regular spring drama show for our lab theatre. When I proposed this idea to him, his only concern was that the project didn’t replace his class or displace him as the instructor. My vision was that he would spend his class periods as he usually does, except that he would be working with his students to prepare part of a larger piece.

The academic concerns answered, he was really energized by the whole vision that the lead artist and I laid out. By the end of the meeting, he had actually negotiated another slate of workshops for his students. Not that he is a person who craves control, but I was fairly impressed by how willing he was to cede control of a project he traditionally directs.

There are a few more people I need to bring on board and a million details to resolve in the next year. This is one of the projects I was thinking about when I wrote yesterday that were there special funding or tax breaks for employing 100% local creativity, I was confident at least one of our shows would qualify every year.

Also, even though I would have likely worked on generating this partnership regardless of whether it existed, I have been inspired by the Creative Campus project. I think our program is too small to qualify for participation, (though I just realized upon linking to it, that the program is open for another round of grant applications), but I am encouraged by the efforts of other campuses around the country who are attempting the same sort of things.

More Impact Of The Economy Conversation

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Yesterday, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters had a follow up to the conference call on the economy I listened in on in December. Given that there weren’t enough phone lines to accommodate all those who wanted to attend, this time they employed a webinar format so people could attend online. You either listen directly or download the web session.

The call is about 90 minutes long and many on the panel mention strategies and opportunities people can take. What caught my ear and interest were the approach to programming described by Marilyn Santarelli, Executive Director of the F. M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts. She talks about how she is re-negotiating payments to artists per Numa Saisselin’s suggestions in “Arts Presenting Is Dead.”

As Saisselin suggests, she goes to the artists and talks about their sales to date, their marketing efforts and are honest about their break even point. They asked that the artist share in the risk and lower their price. They proposed that after reaching the break even point, they would start to restore to the artist “dollar for dollar from the first dollar whatever discount you gave to us.” She found the artists that bought in to this option worked harder to help promote the show with more interviews, b-roll, etc. The alternative, she told them, was canceling the show.

It sounded as if they had only done this starting last December. I am curious to know if this inhibits her planning for her upcoming season as artists and agents worry that what they initially negotiate may not be final. Likewise, would they be more open to booking with someone who has a workable alternative to cancellation if things go poorly.

She also talked about their ticket sales strategy. Her organization is discounting early in the season and offering discounts to a wider variety of people including subscribers and sponsors. I am not sure, but it sounded as if they were expanding the groups of people who are eligible for discounts. As the season goes on, the prices will go up. She hopes if they message this approach correctly, people will buy early realizing they are getting a bargain. No mention of whether they were loosening their exchange policy for people who committed early. The Kirby Center has only implemented this on a few show so far and did so because 60% of their sales were happening in the last few weeks. I suspect that this approach will vary in success from community to community and some will still rather wait and see than to buy now and that the higher price closer to the date may prove a disincentive to those with many options.

These are just some of the strategies and opportunities being employed that are mentioned in the webinar. If you are eager for a little guidance, give it a listen.

Overhaul The Arts And Install New Standards

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Couple weeks back I mentioned I wanted to explore the idea of greater standards and training for administrators and board members Numa Saisselin floated in his “Arts Presenting Is Dead” piece. As one might imagine, from the number of times I have cited it, I was pleased to see Saisselin cite the Conversations With The Field study Neill Roan did for APAP which noted learning was not valued in the arts presenting field.

Saisselin feels that service organizations like APAP need to be more aggressive about identifying and contacting new entrants to the field and providing them with the basic information they will need even if the new presenter is not a member of their organization.

Just as the model of a modern presenting organization is shifting towards earned income, and on the fundraising side, earned income tactics, the model of a service organization should be shifting away from the all-access or no-access membership model, and towards an aggressive recruiting model that incorporates at least some free exchange of information.

While I agree that any organization/company/corporation is better served by actively engaging its constituencies, given the ease with which small groups can enter the field and operate on a limited basis, I am not sure how easy it might be find and identify these entities. I suppose they could start by looking through the records of where artists have recently performed in trade magazines and websites like Pollstar.

He likewise suggests that individuals avail themselves of free sources of information – “For example, Musical America, Celebrity Access and Billboard Magazine all publish free weekly newsletters by email. Countless fundraising, accounting and management firms publish their own newsletters, which often include lengthy and useful papers and articles.”

He bemoans the dearth of arts management training programs in higher education but seems to acknowledge that many working professionals don’t have the time to return to school for training. Saisselin suggests a certification system similar to one developed by the International Association of Assembly Managers (IAAM). I took a look at their website and it seems to be a pretty rigorous set of requirements to obtain various certifications.

Arts service agencies might do well to consider developing something similar. They have the example of the IAAM program to use as a type of template given the overlap in a number of areas. They also have the benefit of being able to consult with the existing arts management programs about the training they provide. In turn they can suggest what college students should be taught if they want to be employed. While the colleges may not be able to host classes for the busy arts professionals, they might prove good regional testing sites on weekends.

The observation Saisselin made that most interested me because I hadn’t encountered it before was in regard to board training. He makes some common observations about how poorly board members understand and are educated as to their duties. Then he relates an anecdote about a time when he and a friend were considering leaving their jobs. The friend worked for a radio station and had a fairly constructive conversation with a supervisor who understood the desire to move on and discussed the pros and cons of doing so.

Saisselin’s board was hurt that he was considering moving on and while he stayed, the dynamics between the board and himself were strained.

“….the component that is pertinent to this discussion is this: my friend’s boss was straightforward in the way he dealt with this scenario, because he worked in the same field she did, and he understood first hand why she was thinking about making a move. My board, on the other hand, with no career experience of their own in the field, responded the only way that they could: emotionally.

There is a critical weakness at the executive level of the nonprofit arts field: board members join a company at the very top of the organizational chart, but more often than not they have little or no experience in the field themselves as working professionals. Experienced board members may have vast knowledge about being a board member, but there is no way for them to personally understand the issues that professional staff members must be concerned about on a daily basis, or when thinking about their own lives and career. A board member’s personal commitment may run deep, and a paid staff member’s personal commitment may run just as deep, but the motivations of each for being involved in an organization in the first place, and for sustaining that involvement, are very different.”

Now my perception is that appointments to for profit boards aren’t necessarily made with people in the same field. Though there may be more uniformity in the way boards of widget manufacturers and banks operate than one of them and a non-profit board. The whole practice of placing inexperienced people at the top of an organizational structure may actually be flawed regardless of industry.

An emotional reaction may not be something that non profit organizations can escape. A year ago I talked about how the high emotional satisfaction people experience working in the arts may inhibit their desire to improve themselves. Boards involved with non profits may be so invested in the organization’s cause, it might be difficult to favor a rational reaction over an emotional one.

Frankly, I think other employees are likely to feel betrayed by a fellow who is letting the cause down or, given the generally poor pay and working conditions, escaping. Board members are probably more likely to be uniformly hurt than seasoned colleagues but I don’t think all bosses will be as supportive as Saisselin’s friend’s.

Saisselin extends his idea of insuring quality to the industry as a whole citing the example of the regional accrediting bodies which set the standards for institutions of higher learning. I get a little nervous at this suggestion. I am all for increasing the quality of arts organizations. I don’t know if formal accreditation is the way to go. Such a process is incredibly time consuming and diverts a lot of resources. For colleges, loss of accreditation means, among other things, loss of access to funding sources. I would be afraid that arts organizations that do good work would lose out on grants and foundation support because they didn’t have the wherewithal to complete an accreditation process. One of the biggest complaints people have about charities is the high percentage of their donation that goes toward administrative overhead. Accreditation process has to be incredibly well thought out to avoid this situation.

All this being said, Saisselin mentions that the granting process constitutes a de facto peer review system but that it is a binary result. You are either funded or not.

Beyond funding an application, or not, and in some cases providing applicants with a written summary of the panel’s comments, there are no “next steps” to assist organizations that don’t measure up, and the field at large desperately needs to take those next steps to strengthen the field at large.

There is no avoiding the fact that meeting greater standards requires increased effort above what is already being done. And there is no guarantee that meeting those standards will lead to greater organizational success. It is painfully clear to many in the entertainment industry that high quality product doesn’t necessarily draw a larger audience.

If there is an industry wide push for higher standards it is certain there will be instances of greater efficiencies, more effective leadership, constructive partnerships and more united advocacy efforts. But none of it is guaranteed to happen to you the individual or to your organization. In fact, the obscene inefficiency of your company may be revealed in the course of this movement putting you out of a job.

So what is your motivation as a belabored arts professional to join an effort that provides no surety of things improving for you? Well, that is about the same promise you had when you made the decision to devote your life to the equally abstract concept of artistic excellence.

It Might Not Be Entirely Dead Yet

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The president of my consortium went to a Western Arts Federation meeting and returned with some materials for the membership to read. One of the more provocative pieces was written by Numa C. Saisselin, Executive Director at the Count Basie Theatre entitled “Arts Presenting Is Dead.” (Full disclosure, I once interviewed with Numa for a job at the Count Basie.) Unfortunately, the document isn’t online. I would have to make some inquiries to get permission to store it on my blog.

Numa’s basic premise about presenting being dead is that the practice of offering “serious work” like “theatre, dance, classical music, and maybe the occasional folk singer” and being successful focused on doing only that is no longer viable. What has eroded this situation are elements of which we are all generally aware: The low barriers to entry of the presenting field means there are more people doing it in the general vicinity; competition comes not only from other performing arts organizations, but sporting events, television, computers; costs are going up but earned income, drop in corporate support and other economic factors make it difficult for presenters to break even; organizations aren’t doing new things to attract new audiences; “every market is different, but by and large we all compete for the same programs” and “every market is different, but by and large we all employ the same generic marketing strategies.”

Saisselin does a good job tracing the direction things have been headed and giving concrete examples of how his organization has faced each of these essential areas. The way he has found success is to become more nimble in his programming focusing less on establishing a concrete season for people to subscribe to and more on taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves in the short term and then communicating these new developments with his mailing lists. While they take the long view on some things, he likens his approach to that of a concert promoter rather than the traditional definition of a presenter.

He notes this approach may not work, and should not work, for everyone given that every market is different. He also acknowledges that his organization has to ask granting entities to have faith in them since they don’t have a concrete idea about what they may do with the money at the time of application.

One of the benefits of his approach is that it allows him to take advantage of opportunities where an agent is offering an artist at a lower price in order to keep them busy between performances. Saisselin feels that presenters need to move even beyond this and educate themselves more about artistic fees rather than blindly accepting what is asked. There are databases of artists performances all over the country that can allow you to compare yourself to similar communities to get an idea of what attendance was like and what ticket price was charged.

Now I know none of this sounds terribly provocative. I included most of this narration so you could get a general idea where Saisselin was coming from. What I am told has quite a few people up in arms and calling him irresponsible for suggesting is that presenters be able to cancel a performer 30 days out.

If the artist can cancel a date on 30 days notice to take a more important gig on a TV show, a feature film, or in a Broadway production; or a more lucrative gig in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Reno or Tahoe; or in some cases for any reason, then the presenter should have the option of canceling on 30 days notice if ticket sales do not warrant proceeding. If the artist has the option of canceling to enhance their overall career or make more money, then the presenter should have the option of canceling if it’s going to lose money, or at least if it’s going to lose a lot of money.

From the artist’s and management’s perspective, not allowing presenters a cancellation option protects the artist from bad presenters. In other words, if the presenter does not do their job, the artist should not suffer, and that makes sense. But if the presenter does do its job, and tickets still do not sell, artists, agents and managers should accept at least a measure of responsibility. If we’re really all in this together, we should share the pain as well as the rewards.

He notes there is already an unofficial process one can follow to achieve this that generally ends up with the presenter paying 50% of the artist fee as a cancellation penalty. He suggests making it a formal part of contracts. While the presenter will still realize a loss, it won’t be a debilitating one

The presenter would be required to jump through some hoops to make such a request. When booking an artist, the presenter would have to submit a marketing plan, and satisfy management that the plan is reasonable, and has worked in the past. When making a cancellation request, the presenter would have to document that they had followed through on the marketing plan, without achieving the desired results…

…Artists would not be forced to play for half empty (or less) houses to collect their check, but in the event of a cancellation would still be fairly compensated for reserving the performance date. Agents and managers would be saved from having their artist develop a reputation as a box office loser, and would have the opportunity to revisit and revise their own strategies, perhaps getting their artist into smaller rooms, and building or rebuilding their artist’s career in another way. Presenters would be saved from throwing good money after bad when they already know a show is not selling.

He goes on to make some good points about improving standards for arts managers and boards of directors which I hope to address in later entries. For now I just wanted to float this idea. I am not quite sure how I feel about it. Assuming the practice moved in this direction either through active efforts of presenters or by default as tough economic times make the unspoken procedures into the standard, is it a direction we want to head?

It is easy to get angry at ever increasing fees and being left in the lurch by artists and talk about leveling the field in the abstract. There can be some unwanted repercussions though. I have been to the booking conferences and there the dynamic is one where the presenters have all the power. Artists and agents complain that presenters won’t acknowledge them or meet their eyes as they pass. I suppose if more people moved to act as promoters as Saisselin has, then fewer arrangements will be made at conferences and more will be made as a result of emails and YouTube videos. Not to imply artist cancellations for a better gig is revenge for the conference snub, but maybe it will be good if that uncomfortable vibe was removed from the equation.

My concern is that the money factor becomes a larger issue and emerging artists get further marginalized if 30 day cancellations become standard. Is an agent or manager really going to invest time in cultivating someone who is yielding them a percentage of 50% fee or are they going to go with the known quantity that dependably fills seats?

Certainly, the internet allows people to promote themselves fairly well so they don’t have to rely on an agent. For those like me who already get a constant stream of artist availability emails, more virtually unknowns adding themselves to the mix only makes things more difficult. As evil as agents may be made out to be, the good ones develop relationships with you that enable them to provide appropriate advice to presenters. Saisselin mentions his appreciation for an agent that invested years in a relationship with him before he actually booked an artist.

One road to success I can see is if the economy gets so bad that presenters turn their attention to seeking out low cost regional and local performers. Sasselin mentions how the record single went out of vogue only to come back again thanks to the iPod. Perhaps the impresario will make a return of sorts as people with theatre facilities turn their attention to cultivating the careers of regional artists as agents drop them.

Sasselin’s proposal is certainly something to consider in some form or another in order to relieve the pressure on presenters. I don’t think it can be applied in as straightforward a manner as he suggests.

**One thing that did occur to me as I was writing is that it would be great for the small touring artist if someone would create a piece of online software that integrated communications, scheduling and maps. That way a person could email, IM, etc about a gig, have the mapping feature tell them if it is actually reasonable to drive/fly that distance in the time allotted between gigs and then place it in a schedule they can access while on the road. Heck, if it could suggest flights, car rental places and hotels, that would be great too. (Except I imagine the top suggestions would be positioned there by paid advertising and may not be the most affordable for our struggling artist.)**

Fought The Board and The Board Won

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With Drew McManus’ post about Scorched Earth Governance today, I thought I would share my own tale of overbearing boards. My story isn’t as extreme as anything Drew mentioned but it does illustrate boards micromanaging, perhaps to the detriment of the organization. I haven’t told this story before out of respect for the Executive Director who had to continue working with the board. About three weeks ago, I noticed the ED position was being advertised and upon further checking discovered the ED had moved on to fresher fields.

When I write that decisions were made “perhaps to the detriment of the organization,” it is because this involves a job for which I was interviewing. Obviously I can’t make an objective judgment about whether the person who got the job was better for the position. This isn’t a disgruntled story about how poorly I was treated. It was only because the experience was so strange that I felt the need to record notes on it. I actually felt highly complimented and valued by the whole situation. It is the Executive Director who was probably came away with the worst of it.

A number of years back I had interviewed for a General Director position at an arts center. The position required that I handle a lot of the financial aspects of the center. It also required that I have a great deal of involvement in operations of an annual festival and troubleshoot problems that arose with classes and artist residencies. I would be the first person called in the middle of the night.

After the interview, I pretty much felt that I had won over the staff but wasn’t sure about the Executive Director or the Board. Eventually, I got a call from the Executive Director that said exactly that. Then he added that while he had gone into the interview looking for someone different, as he reviewed my application, read my blog and spoke to my references, he realized he had initially been looking for someone like himself when I was clearly the only candidate suited for the job.

So I was elated that my interview, my references and best of all, my blog had come together to make such a strong case for me –and that the guy I am going to be working for is thoughtful enough to examine and reevaluate his expectations.

As the Executive Director continued, the complicating factor emerged. The board wanted someone who was more of an accountant and had reservations about me. He called me so he could go into a meeting the next day with responses to their concerns and fight for me as top candidate. He felt that the board members who had called my references were twisting what the references said around to make unwarranted assumptions about me. They told him if he hired me, his fate would be connected with mine.

This had a quite a chilling effect on my enthusiasm. I mean, I was even more flattered than before that someone believed in me so much that he was willing to put his own employment on the line. As much as I wanted to believe that once on the job I would win the board over by exhibiting my excellence, I wasn’t terribly keen on having people rooting for me to fail before I started.

In the end though, he found that the power unilaterally hire a subordinate was taken out of his hands as the board insisted on the person who was predominantly an accountant. The ED said the whole situation cost him a great deal politically. I actually don’t know how much longer he lasted. It has been a few years so the recent job ad could well be to replace his replacement.

It was just a very strange situation. I had never heard of a board involving themselves so intimately in hiring a person who wouldn’t be answering to them. The position didn’t set organizational policy and direction, nor did it have the ability to act autonomously. The place already had a book keeper so proficiency in keeping accounts wasn’t a high priority. Assembling and interpreting financial statements was important but I had years of experience doing so at that point.

It is the Executive Director who bears responsibility for the staff that is hired. Unless they are incredibly negligent in monitoring and disciplining employees, the ED’s job shouldn’t necessarily be directly in jeopardy with every new hire.

I spoke privately with a few people about the whole situation. The general sentiment was that the board needed better instruction about what its role in the organization was. While a board generally makes decisions about new member recruitment rather than the executive director, the ED had a role to play in educating and steering the board in its development.

So often the concern is that a board is too disengaged, unaware of the activities of the organization and remiss in the exercise of its oversight and fiduciary responsibilities. This board seemed hyper-engaged, at least in relation to this particular function. I suspect my experience was not an aberration but rather a symptom of an unhealthy dynamic between the board and the executive director. Just as the executive director saw my skills as complementary to his, since this was a newly created position, I wonder if the board’s agenda was to fill in the places in which they felt the Executive Director was lacking.

Is This The First Step To Better A Structure?

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If you haven’t heard yet, Michael Kaiser, President of the Kennedy Center has decided to turn the Center’s resources, knowledge and expertise toward helping arts organizations around the country weather the current financial turmoil in a program called Arts in Crisis.

I am very hopeful about this effort and I want to encourage people to participate either as a seeker of knowledge or as a mentor. Like many people, I have some reservations. My primary concern was if he and his staff were really equipped to do this. It seems like a big job. I haven’t really been impressed by ArtsManager.org which is also a service they offer. The discussion boards are barely trafficked, resource area doesn’t have much and job boards are completely empty. I can participate in more lively discussion on blogs and other forums without having to register. There are much better free job and resource sites.

On the other hand, Arts in Crisis effort might be closer to the Kennedy Center, and certainly Kaiser’s true competencies. There are few organizations in the country who have the resources and knowledge to act as brokers of knowledge in this manner. Frankly, if this is going to work Kaiser might do well to tap those other few organizations to get involved and provide guidance, resources and leadership in encouraging people to become mentors. This may mean that Arts in Crisis needs to leave the Kennedy Center’s direct control if another has the infrastructure to marry knowledge with need. The National Performing Arts Conference Conveners and Partners, for example, have databases full of arts professionals and have had more personal and direct contact with them than the Kennedy Center has.

My optimism and hope is that the current necessity is the mother of invention of a method of partnering, mentoring, information sharing and learning that arts and cultural institutions sorely need. If some strengthening network emerges out the road Michael Kaiser and the Kennedy Center have started upon, that will be great.

My concern is that for this to happen there is a lot of resistance to overcome. People might have fear of revealing weaknesses to local competitors or fear of mentoring a competitor only to have them use the good advice to eclipse them. It might be best to match up people who aren’t too far away to drive for site visits but distant enough not to be in direct competition.

There might be fear of helping another organization will mean neglecting your own. Or people might just not think they have anything to offer. One of my initial thoughts was that I wished I had the knowledge necessary to help–forgetting for a moment that I have contributed a respectable amount of constructive feedback for the PACE construction project.

The truth is, a lot of arts professionals with a great deal to offer may not have the first clue about how to effectively mentor and provide feedback to others in the industry. It will probably be important for the Arts in Crisis team to provide training videos and printed materials to assist in the process. My suspicion is that it may take a lot of poking and prodding from discipline service organizations and state/local arts councils to get people to imagine themselves as a mentor and download the materials.

As I said, the best of all possible worlds will be one where the industry emerges with greater strength and unity, confident and having proved they are a force to be acknowledged by governmental entities.

Going beyond that, the ideal would be for many organizations to form productive partnerships and then be able to go out and instruct others in their core competencies. One group might have developed a crackerjack presenting consortium, another might have a great method for developing and producing new works in partnership with higher education writing and performing arts programs, still another might have successfully leveraged their collective purchasing power to share legal, accounting and facilities services.

What will ultimately strengthen us is not depending on the expertise concentrated in a few central entities. It is going to be cultivating collective strengths
and having a system by which others can access the knowledge, even if it is as simple as having a list of the right people to call.

Letter to President Obama

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The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

There are many calling for you to create a cabinet level position for arts and culture. There are certainly many factors involved in such a decision. There is a necessity to exhibit how the country values arts and culture by providing leadership, but also revising the way we fund these disciplines. You may not be aware, but the section of the tax code under which many non-profit arts and culture organizations operate, 501 (c) (3), does not mention the arts and culture at all. Despite this, it is fortunate that the generosity of the American people, businesses, foundations and endowments flows to arts and cultural organizations under the auspices of this section of the tax code. Whether or not arts and culture find a greater representation within your administration, you can do a great service to the community by creating an improved, more focused way for the arts to acquire support.

For a sense of why the current method of funding the arts is in need of change, one might read John Kreilder’s “Leverage Lost The Nonprofit Arts in the Post-Ford Era.” In the third section of the piece, Kreilder notes that the theory employed by the Ford Foundation was that support they provided could be leveraged by stimulating donations from other sources. This same approach has been used by the National Endowment for the Arts, many state arts agencies and some private funders.

But as Kreilder notes:

“Any student of biological, physical or economic systems would immediately recognize the flaw in the logic of funding leverage, as it has been practiced not only in the arts, but also throughout the nonprofit sector. One of the fundamental tenets of systems studies is the “free lunch” principle: no system can depend on the unlimited growth of resources. The leveraged funding strategy of the Ford era can be likened to a chain letter, a Ponzi scheme, or any other pyramidal growth system. The initiators of chain letters and Ponzi schemes often claim that, for a small effort or investment, a virtually limitless return will be realized, and though initially this prophecy may appear to be feasible, inevitably all such arrangements must fail because resources are finite. In other words, there is no perpetual free lunch. Ultimately, funding leverage will become unsustainable.”

Five years ago the Independent Sector issued a statement calling on foundations and endowments to shift their focus to long term broad support of organizational core programs rather than the short term project support prevalent today. The Independent Sector felt this short term emphasis keeps non profit organizations focused on reinventing their programs to comply with narrow guidelines rather than investing their energy in building institutional capacity.

If your administration were able to provide leadership and incentives to encourage longer term, core support of non-profit organizations, it would be a boon for the entire sector. But for non-governmental funding of non-profits to thrive, there needs to be greater opportunities both in the way these entities can incorporate themselves as well as the mechanisms by which they can raise money. The origins of both these solutions will be found in the tax code.

One of the ways this might manifest is by providing increased options for the formation of non-profit entities. Among the possible processes by which a company might form could be as hybrids between the current 501 (c) (3) and for profit methods of incorporation. It might be necessary for such an entity to pay more taxes than a current non-profit but such arrangements will expand the avenues by which people can pursue serving myriad constituencies while facilitating opportunities for greater self-support.

As for diversifying the means for garnering support, Douglas K. Smith had an intriguing idea a few years back he termed, Dynamic Deductibility The piece he authored explains it in detail, but simply, a person would buy X amount worth of shares in an organization but doesn’t take a deduction until he sells the shares. If the share value goes up, he takes a bigger deduction than he would have had he donated directly. If not, he takes a smaller deduction.

The primary way this would differ from the stock market is a non-profit would get money every time the stock changed hands rather than the one time infusion a for-profit gets at its initial public offering. This option doesn’t exist as yet because there are no laws creating or governing such transactions. Certainly there is much to be considered in how the tax code and laws might be written to accommodate such an arrangement and guard against abuse. When I first read the article, I wondered if the activities of non-profits would be substantial enough to attract investment interest. Having since learned of the financial instruments in which people were investing that lead to the current financial crisis, I am convinced these organizations offer more than enough tangibility. Donors employing this avenue to support an organization realize returns in the form of both observing how the non-profit is able to serve its constituencies and tracking how the organization is valued via its shares.

My hope would be that smaller non-profit organizations who did not feel they could garner significant interest on their own, or even larger organizations looking to enhance their value, would come together to offer shares in partnership with one another. I am an arts person so my immediate vision is of visual and performing arts organizations cooperating to increase their shared value. It doesn’t take much effort, however, to also imagine social work and health care organizations working together to improve the value of their shares by improving the lives of the communities they serve.

I hope you have noticed, President Obama, that while our endowments and savings, small as they were already, have shrunk severely we in arts and culture have not asked for a bailout. Certainly it has been suggested. It is difficult not to want a portion of the billions of dollars being distributed. Yet the loudest cries right now aren’t for you to increase the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts, but rather to create a cabinet position. We don’t want a bailout as much as we want the esteem and respect of our government and our countrymen. We want to be better organized and educated so we can achieve and serve with greater efficiency.

What I ask is in the same vein. Assist us in becoming more viable and integral contributors to the economy, the national cultural and social identity.

Most respectfully,

Joseph Patti

Joe Patti's Musings on practical solutions for Arts Management

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Butts In The Seats by Joe Patti is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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