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Artistic Ability Is As Much A Birthright As Language Ability

March 15, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

Jason Gots, editor and creative producer over at Big Think recently wrote about “The Upside of Amateurism.” He is troubled by the perception that so much value is being placed on expertise that it is stifling curiosity and creativity, a concern shared by many in the arts, business and education world, among others.

…I fear that the present day is a place/time where expertise is so valued and specialties so specialized that people are shamed out of experimentation and curiosity, the only two impulses other than love that (as far as I’m concerned) make life worth living. In the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin could be a printer, fiction writer, inventor, scientist, and statesman and end up a hero of the age. Today he’d be an eccentric dilettante with branding problems.

Let’s take the example of music. The Japanese educator Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998), creator of the world-famous Suzuki method of music instruction, believed that we do violence to children when we teach them that music is a “gift” you’re either born with or not. We ought to be teaching music, he believed, the same way we teach language — as a birthright.

[…]

But we don’t teach kids to worry about whether or not they’re “talented” in their native language. Or to give it up by adulthood if they haven’t yet won a scholarship. Yet how many adults do you know who play, sing, or write music on a regular basis? If it’s more than a handful, you and your friends are a cultural anomaly. And that’s a real shame, isn’t it?

I have often heard about the Suzuki Method, but I really wasn’t aware of the philosophy before reading this article.

When Gots pointed out that we don’t worry about whether kids are talented in their native language, (grammar and spelling criticisms on social media notwithstanding), it immediately reminded me of Stephen McCraine’s “Be Friends With Failure” webcomic I wrote about a few years ago.

In one of the panels of that comic, McCraine says we don’t tell kids to give up if they don’t master language immediately so we shouldn’t tell ourselves to give up if we don’t master some artistic form within a short time.

I was also reminded of Jaime Bennett’s TEDx talk where he notes that we easily identify ourselves as tennis players and golfers, but not as having artistic talent.

“why we can so easily see ourselves on a continuum with Serena Williams and Tiger Woods, but we don’t think anything we do has anything in common with Sandy Duncan.”

This all ties back to the general effort by organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to disseminate a message that everyone has the capacity to be creative. In the case of the NEA, one of the steps they have taken toward this is widening the definition and scope of what constitutes participation in an artistic experience.

To a degree, the idea there is too much focus on expertise ties into the Hewlett Foundation study I wrote about yesterday that reported there was a concern that the professionalization of the arts management field may be narrowing access to those jobs.

Art(ist) Education, General Musings, Working In The Arts

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Arts Leaders Plan To Be Buried With Their Desks

March 14, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

Today the Hewlett Foundation released the results of a study on a question I have regularly written about over the last 7-8 years– When will non-profit executives retire so the younger generation can move into those leadership roles?

As before, the answer given by the report, Moving Arts Leadership Forward, was: Not any time soon despite all the predictions that mass retirements were upon us.

However, a ray of hope comes in the form of a qualification that hasn’t appeared before (my emphasis)

Sixty percent expected to remain in the paid workforce at least until the age of seventy, and eight percent said they did not expect to ever stop working for pay. Most late-career leaders are Baby Boomers, and the field can expect a durable Boomer presence through at least 2034, when the youngest Boomers will turn seventy. However, these late-career leaders weren’t looking to continue in the same positions indefinitely. Many were looking for capstone projects or positions and wanted to work in ways “where they are less in charge and have more flexibility and less responsibility

That bit of news made me wonder if this desire may have been part of the decision by the executive director of Forecast Public Art to step down after 38 years to take on the role of Director of Community Services for the organization.

The research report mentions that while it was once a concern about whether there were enough qualified people to replace the anticipated mass retirement, now there is a concern about whether enough early and mid-career professionals will patiently wait for executives to retire or if they will move to find careers in other areas beside the arts.

I should mention an important difference between this research report and ones I had previously cited. Where the others encompassed the non-profit field in general, this one specifically focuses on non-profit arts. Rather than trying to make general assumptions about what was likely to happen in the arts based on what was occurring in the non-profit field as a whole, we can get a more accurate picture from the responses of arts professionals.

One of the recent issues that seems to be specific to the arts is the term “emerging leader.” There has been a fair bit of discussion and a little controversy over the term because it has tended to be associated with age rather than career stage. As the report notes:

However, our data also found that the categories tend to associate age with career development needs, which does not reflect the realities of nonprofit arts leaders. And, late-career leaders can feel excluded by the terms, hindering the development of cross-generational connections that are vital to the health of the field.

In the report they use emerging leader to refer to people between the ages of 18 and 40, but in the future they say they will use different terms to delineate between people in early, mid and late career stages of leadership.

Another issue that emerged as fairly arts specific is the growing prevalence of arts management training programs over the last 20 years that have served to professionalize the sector. In the discussion of the consequences, they indirectly reference the ongoing conversation about who has the opportunity to participate in internships.

They also suggest that professionalization may lead to degree inflation that permeates most job descriptions, regardless of industry.

But professionalization of the sector has had unintended consequences. It creates an especially challenging environment for individuals with less formal education, raising questions about who has access and what resources are needed to realize a career in the arts today. Increased competition for positions of authority drives some early-career leaders to seek employment in sectors that offer more immediate opportunities for elevated responsibility, rapid career advancement, leadership status, and better pay. And increased professionalization, combined with a more crowded workforce, means that organizations can demand professional credentials for more mid-career positions, feeding the cycle of professionalization.

A concept I had not really seen discussed before was the necessity of mastering internally facing leadership and externally facing leadership.

“Internally facing” leadership includes the skills and knowledge that are needed to develop and align the resources (including people) within an organization to advance its goals. Professional development for internally facing leadership involves traditional opportunities, such as attending a conference dedicated to one’s field or bolstering one’s fundraising skills. “Externally facing” leadership extends beyond the walls of a single organization. It often focuses on field-level or cross-sector leadership, and embraces working for the good of something larger than one’s own organization.

What I found most appealing about this were the terms “field-level or cross-sector leadership” because I feel that this orientation will be important in helping arts organizations grow and develop.

The report notes that far from covetously grasping at their authority and historical practices, many executive leaders would like to create a more inclusive, cross-generational organizational culture. They “just lack models and the support for doing so.”

In an attempt to provide some useful guidance, starting around page 18 of the document, they make recommendations for moving toward more constructive organizational cultures which encompass everyone from foundations, boards and arts organization staff and leadership.

On page 21 they have a quiz to “help non-profit arts organizations identify and reflect upon the ways in which they currently practice leadership, and structure leadership opportunities across generations.” The quiz asks about adaptability, culture of learning, participation and decision making.

Following the quiz is a conversation guide to help with further reflection.

Leadership, Working In The Arts

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“If Only…” Only If You Are Committed

March 9, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

One of the most interesting This American Life shows that I have come across and have listened to a couple times is about an auto manufacturing plant that Toyota and GM built in partnership.

When Japanese cars were outselling American cars by a wide margin, people wanted to know why. What was it about the way the Japanese made their cars that made buying one preferable to American cars.

Toyota told GM everything holding nothing back. (from the episode transcript)

Frank Langfitt Schaefer says when he realized how much of the Japanese system happened off the factory floor, it answered something that had never quite made sense to him. Why had Toyota been so open with GM in showing its operations?

Ernie Schaefer You know, they never prohibited us from walking through the plant, understanding, even asking questions of some of their key people. You know, I’ve often puzzled over that– why they did that. And I think they recognized we were asking all the wrong questions.

We didn’t understand this bigger picture thing. All of our questions were focused on the floor, you know? The assembly plant. What’s happening on the line. That’s not the real issue. The issue is, how do you support that system with all the other functions that have to take place in the organization?

If you listen to the episode or read the transcript, you can learn about the exact details. The bottom line was that GM didn’t have the will to implement all the changes to their procedures and corporate culture that would allow them to replicate Toyota’s successes.

The same applies to any effort to effect change in any group, company or organization. The words “If only…” are often uttered implying if a simple change was made, everything else would fall into place. If only we hired/fired a person. If only we had a little more money or a different opportunity.

While a simple change often can change the entire dynamics, the will or natural inclination to reach a certain goal already has to be present. In organizations and groups where there is truly one bad apple souring things among others who are already making positive efforts, a single change may result in an immediate and significant improvement.

Otherwise, you can get rid of a person who is poisoning the work environment, but the environment isn’t going to get any better if there are still 10 other people making disparaging comments and undermining each other. Hiring a charismatic leader who has brought constructive change to other organizations isn’t going to be effective if the board or employees aren’t committed to following the leader’s plan for improvement.

Much like the This American Life episode, the solutions to many of our problems can be found in business journal articles, blog posts and conference sessions, no secrets withheld. Without the will to commit to the full range of changes necessary to implement them, those strategies, procedures and techniques aren’t your solutions.

I do a lot of preaching here on the blog about what people should be doing better, but I don’t necessarily do them myself. I don’t see anything criminally inconsistent or hypocritical in that because I am clearly aware that some of those techniques are not suited for my current situation or is there the will to make them manifest.

It is all worth talking about because it raises awareness for other people and cultivates and evolves the general perspective about the arts. There are things that we weren’t ready to undertake in the past that we started to grow into.

General Musings, Leadership, Management Philosophy, New Initiatives, State of the Arts, Terms and Ideas, Working In The Arts

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Got Stagefright?

March 8, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

In the process of trying to convince people of the value of attending a live event, performing arts people will often cite the opportunity for chaos. They will say something along the lines of a recording will be the same every time, but in a live performance, anything can happen.

I wonder if this is really fair to the performers and crew that worked on the show because it essentially tells the audience they should be rooting, just a little, for something to go wrong.

It may seem relatively harmless, especially if you aren’t out there loudly proclaiming the certain death of the lion tamer or acrobat who operates without a net. There are a lot of performers out there who (mostly) quietly suffer from stage fright and even just a little hype can exacerbate their anxiety.

A book review in the New Yorker last August recounts some of the more famous/infamous instances of stage fright suffered by Daniel Day-Lewis, Laurence Olivier and Glenn Gould, among others. It talks about the different things that weigh on performer’s minds, no matter how hard they try, including whether they can live up to the legend that has been attached to them.

The audience rooting against them or judging them is among the anxieties they suffer:

Some performers displace this cruelty onto the audience. The pianist Charles Rosen believed that the spectators were out there waiting for the performer to slip up: “The silence of the audience is not that of a public that listens but of one that watches—like the dead hush that accompanies the unsteady movement of the tightrope walker poised over his perilous space.”

[…]

Baryshnikov believes that it is the feeling of obligation to the audience that triggers stagefright: “Suddenly the morality kicks in. These people bought a ticket to your show.”

The problem of stage fright may be more widespread than we are generally aware. In addition to silently coping with the problem, the New Yorker article notes that many artists use beta-blockers to help them deal with their fear. This is not without some controversy.

Some people said they resulted in “phoned in” performances. Some raised the ethical question, asking whether the use of beta-blockers by pianists was any different from the use of steroids by athletes. (There is an important distinction, though. Steroids add to the body, increasing muscle mass in order to improve performance. Beta-blockers remove something from the body—the flutist’s lip tremors, the cellist’s hand tremors—in order to permit the person to produce the kind of performance he has already shown himself capable of, outside the auditorium.)

This reminded me that Drew McManus had written about the issue of “performance enhancing drugs” for musicians a dozen years ago for The Partial Observer.

I briefly thought that a more constructive use of the “anything can happen” phrase might be to associate it with idea that you may see a breakthrough performance or a moment of inspiration and synchronicity that transcends the normal experience.

I quickly realized this approach may increase the anxiety for the audience. “Am I witnessing a transcendent moment? How do I really know? I wasn’t really bowled over, but maybe I missed it. I should probably join the standing ovation just to be sure, right?”

The truth is, live performance has the potential for witnessing some crises and participating in moments of transcendence. To ignore that these opportunities exist does a disservice to the experience. Regardless of whether these factors are mentioned, performers are still going to experience stage fright and audiences are still going to wonder if they are missing something everyone else seems to get.

Not to mention, these experiences aren’t unique to the performing arts. Athletes fear they will lose the edge that makes them great and many spectators find themselves unable to figure out what is going on or why anyone gets excited by the sport in the first place.

While it is generally acknowledged that the arts have to be sensitive to the barriers that may exist for audiences, the same isn’t really true for the performers.

In many other fields of employment there are coaches, counselors and human resource personnel available. Granted, many of these resources are less than perfect. A highly paid athlete is going to get a lot more support and guidance from the team’s infrastructure if they fall into rut than a fast food worker will from their company.

How many theater companies, dance companies and orchestras have a program in place to provide coaching for a performer who has lost their edge? (Actually, the dance company practice of having regular classes might count as that.) Or acknowledge that people might have debilitating stage fright, much less provide help for people who are experiencing it?

I am left wondering how prevalent it is since it isn’t often discussed. Given that seven people, (a fairly large number for that column), commenting on Drew’s Partial Observer admitted to using a drug to deal with anxiety, I suspect it is more prevalent than we imagine.

Advocacy, Art(ist) Education, Working In The Arts

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