Ron Spigelman left a comment about a remark made in a story I linked to in my last entry. I was going to respond in a comment of my own, but the more I thought, the more my thoughts were turning into an entry.

The remark he took exception to was made by an opera student performing for elementary school kids who said “Hopefully, by performing for children, it will be a learning experience and I can take that away to perform for discerning critics.”

When I first read the story, I thought it was an unfortunate thing to say because of what it implied about children and their ability to make judgements about opera. And it played into the sterotype (perhaps deserved) that opera people are snobs. Children are discerning. They just use different criteria than adults. (See telling an important story vs. tattling, 3rd para. last week entry.)

The remark also reminded me immediately of an episode of the Bravo channel’s Top Chef show. One episode the chefs were told that they were going to prepare food for some of the most discerning eaters around–kids at a Boys and Girls Club. (The host used essentially those terms which is why I immediately made the connection with the CNN article.) The chefs were split into two teams and told they would be preparing competing dishes using monkfish.

Monkfish is not the most attractive looking fish as you can see from the preceding link. The producers of the show played on that by bringing one out, showing the kids and telling them this was what they were about to eat. As you might imagine, there was a resounding “EWWWWWWWWWW.”

The chefs thought about what presentation might be most appealing to the children. One team came up with “monkey dogs,” pureed monkfish given hot dog shapes and the other turned the fish into nuggets. As I recall, one of the teams colored their applesauce purple to make it appealing to the kids.

What put one team over the top was that they went out and interacted with the kids while they were eating. Only one member of the other team did while his teammates hung back viewing the interaction as pandering to the kids. One of them even commented something to the effect that she wouldn’t do the monkfish interpretive dance.

I admit there might have been a little pandering and politicking for the votes they needed for the win on the part of the one team. But chatting with the kids also served to help them get past the fact they were eating an ugly looking fish. In the same manner, arts organizations can help patrons get past awkward situations via interactions that answer questions and allay concerns.

Heck, as much as I don’t know about opera, I would rather attend a performance than to be asked to pick out an appropriate wine for a meal. A restaurant with an empathetic and patient sommelier is gonna see a lot of me.

Arts opportunities for school kids isn’t just important because it may create a situation where 30 years down the road they may walk in our doors. Kids are willing to talk a whole lot more about what their experience and what they do and don’t understand than adults are. In 30 years they will not only be comfortable going to events, they will be comfortable asking questions about things they don’t understand–If someone talked to them when they were young and encouraged them to do so.

I don’t remember exactly who the group was, but I once had a touring childrens’ theatre company come through a place I worked that did a great job with the Q & A session after the show. Performers like these folks get the same questions every show they do: “How come he was so mean?,” “I liked the feathers on your costume,” “What’s Your Name?” “How old are you?” “How do you remember all those lines?”

I stepped in during the last performance they were doing and a 10-12 year old girl mentioned she liked that one of the characters showed signs of turning over a new leaf at the end of the show. The company could have thanked her for the comment and moved on. Instead, one of the actors asked her why it was important to her that he looked like he might change after all the terrible things he had done. The discussion between them started to move into the topics of redemption and forgiveness.

The play was about bullying so I can see why the message that bullies can change their behavior and their victims should be forgiving might be important. What really impressed me was that the girl was asked why that bit of the plot was important to her and that she was given the power to direct the dialogue and state her views on how the world should be rather than the actors coming out with a blanket statement that it is important to forgive and bullies should try to change.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize why I was impressed by the interaction until afer they left so I never got a chance to ask if they always lead discussions in that manner or if it was a happy coincidence. I prefer to think it was planned, of course, and that they would have tackled whatever topic the girl felt was important.

Granted, it takes a skilled person to interact well with young people. While they are willing to discuss their views readily enough, getting them to do so without sounding condescending can be difficult. Just as the chefs had to find a way to prepare monkfish differently for kids than adults, artists have to figure out the best way to approach kids. Revising your approach doesn’t necessarily mean you are pandering or dumbing down your product. You can color applesauce purple and it isn’t any less nutritious and if you leave the cinnamon and sugar out, coloring it purple isn’t going to make it taste any better.

On the flip side, the questions kids and teenagers ask and the comments they make can provide insight into the general areas adults may have difficulty understanding but aren’t asking about.

I read an interesting article from The New Yorker this weekend courtesy of Arts and Letters Daily. At the time it was only of personal interest to me, but as it banged around my brain I realized it obviously had an application to customer and personnel relations as well.

Malcolm Gladwell writes a review of Why? by Charles Tilly which “sets out to make sense of our reasons for giving reasons.” According to the book, much of what we say to others depends on our relationship with them and the intent behind our statement. Many times what harms our relationships with others is the use of formula responses rather than telling our story.

An example Gladwell uses is a child telling his mother that his brother has taken a toy. The mother uses the formula response “Don’t Be A Tattletale.” However, Gladwell points out, mom doesn’t hesitate to “tattle” to dad about their son’s behavior. Nor would she tell her husband not to tattle if he complained about someone at the office. If the son tells his story to a friend, it is accepted and indeed might strengthen his relationship with his friend in their continuing dislike of the evil brother.

Gladwell also cites an example Charles Tilly gives in relation to marriages.

The husband who uses a story to explain his unhappiness to his wife-“Ever since I got my new job, I feel like I’ve just been so busy that I haven’t had time for us”-is attempting to salvage the relationship. But when he wants out of the marriage, he’ll say, “It’s not you, it’s me.” He switches to a convention.

Like the mother who doesn’t deny that her son has been wronged but just wants to bring an end to the interaction, use of convention can erode a relationship with patrons and organization personnel. A box office clerk who tells a ticketholder that they can’t exchange or refund the ticket because “it is policy” is an example of harmful use of rote. Of course an expansive explanation might not be constructive either if your reason for the policy is “if we let you do it, everyone else will want to do it too.” Trying to elicit sympathy by explaining that your poor venue doesn’t have the resources to process both sales and exchanges for everyone will probably just result in a conspiratorial “don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone” or a plea to make a singular exception.

There probably isn’t a generally useful and constructive story to tell customers when refusing to exchange tickets. Tilly’s book points out though that you won’t use the same story or social convention with everyone. We all know the no refunds or exchanges rule isn’t absolute when it comes to long time subscribers or big donors and other people with whom we have established a relationship. In fact, when it comes to ticket refunds, it is the ticket holder, not the organization that is most often using stories to gain empathy from a shared experience– death in the family, mechanical failure or perhaps weather related complications.

The workplace offers even more opportunities for employing harmful conventions. Mantras of there being no budget for a project (often belied by senior people having things implemented), implication that you are a prole and aren’t smart enough to understand and use of buzzwords/phrases like “paradigm,” “synergy” and “work smarter, not harder” can have an alienating effect. These are pretty obvious examples so the challenge is to be aware of what subtler things are creeping into your everyday use.

Though it sounds like it, I am not specifically championing political correctness and being nicer to your audience members. There are plenty of other books and articles you can read on those subjects. In fact, if you read the article, you will note that telling your story can be far more manipulative than spouting stock phrases.

What I am attempting to be a proponent of, (along with using your story powers for good), is showing the sincere attempt to maintain/repair your relationships with your constituents. Practice open book management. Involve staff in decisions and in helping to create the organizational story. Instead of trying to get funding by mentioning how the arts improve math and science scores, find stories that illustrate this fact or other improvements to one’s life that the arts bring. Someone once told me “people don’t give money to organizations, they give money to people.” Yeah, its a rote convention, but it is applicable in this case because donors are more apt to give to people they trust and can believe will use their money well.

Until this moment I failed to make the connection, but a great example of the potency of stories can be found today on Adaptistration. Drew points out that there has been a lot of conversation on some of his recent entries well past the posting date. Two of the entries he cites (and an earlier one here with a long discussion that he didn’t) are all from his Take A Friend to the Orchestra series. I have been reading his blog for a long time and have never seen so many comments on entries, much less on such a concentration of entries as on the TAFTO ones. I really think this is simply because the entries told stories with which people could identify and then spurred discussion and debate. The conversations would have probably been longer if the entry appeared on a discussion board rather than a blog, the format of which is not terribly conducive to prolonged debate.

The third entry Drew cited today was not related to TAFTO but rather executive compensation. Normally, it might not be the topic of lengthy discussion except that it revisited the fairly well-known (among orchestra people and Adaptistration readers), long discussed topic of former Philadelphia Orchestra Executive Director Joe Kluger and his slightly controversial salary along with some contemplation of what his successor will/should be paid. Kluger’s resignation was announced a year ago. Yet, the story is apparently fresh and powerful in people’s minds and will provide a lens through which to view the Philadelphia Orchestra under the tenure of his replacement.