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TikTok As A New Employee Training Manual?

January 25, 2021

by:

Joe Patti

Daniel Pink made a tweet today that I immediately bookmarked so I could go back to it.

Good question to ask yourself on a Monday morning, whatever your position or role (and even if you're a one-person band).

WWYRD?

What would your replacement do?https://t.co/tyDjLs2X5h

— Daniel Pink (@DanielPink) January 25, 2021

I hadn’t noticed at the time that this was year-end summary type article that reviewed the best advice entrepreneurs had given in 2020. There are a lot of interesting bits of insights covered here, some of which are more applicable to arts organizations than others.

The “What Would Your Replacement Do?” question referenced in Pink’s tweet was one of those with broad application. It refers to a mental exercise Upstart co-founder Dave Girouard would use to keep himself from getting too complacent:

…what would happen if tomorrow my board got together and fired me,” says Girouard….And if they bring her in and she starts at Upstart — what would she do differently than what I’m doing? I think about that for a while, and then I tell myself, ‘Why the hell aren’t you doing those things?’ It’s just this weird game I play to get myself to recognize that while I’m doing some things okay, I can be lulled into a place of feeling good about myself when I’m probably not doing some other things very well.”

The first bit of advice on the list caught my eye because it was a list of 40 questions to ask on interviews. The list is obviously written for the commercial sector and pretty heavily geared for start-ups there were still quite a number that would easily suit non-profit arts.

Things like: “What’s something that would only happen here but wouldn’t at other organizations?”, “When you’ve done your best work here, what about the culture has enabled you to do that?”, “What would 1:1’s be like with my direct manager? What types of topics would we discuss?”, “What is the title of the most senior underrepresented person at the company?”

“If I asked your investors what they’re worried about, what would they say?” –this one caught my attention because I immediately thought to replace “investors” with “board” which got me thinking about how well the organization might be communicating issues with the board and if the board was paying attention.

An article about Job To Be Done (JTBD) also caught my attention based on the statement: “People don’t simply buy products or services, they ‘hire’ them to make progress in specific circumstances.” This is often the case with people and arts and cultural experiences. People value the experiences across multiple dimensions.

Sunita Mohanty, who was interviewed for the article said she often uses the following prompt in relation to product development.

Which she says translates into the following: “Peloton JTBD: When I need an option to workout, but I can’t go to my favorite studio, help me to get a convenient and inspiring indoor workout, so I can feel my best for myself and my family.”

Off the top of my head, the way this might translate for an arts situation might be: “When I am seeking opportunities to spend time connecting with my family and friends, but I have trouble identifying places we feel completely welcomed, help us see ourselves and our stories so we feel acknowledged and valued in the broader community.

There is a lot of really valuable advice about hiring, evaluation, office culture, and diversity and inclusion listed in the article. As tempted as I am to cover them all, I don’t want to make this post super long. Many of the ideas intersect with other posts I have made or other articles that are out there.

But one idea that never came to my attention before was use of asynchronous video tools as a form of communication and new hire training.

In the early days of building Drift, I was using WhatsApp all the time. It was easy to record and send videos quickly. And so I started to communicate to my senior leadership team mostly asynchronously through video and audio messages,” says Cancel. “If we have a problem, we’d make a quick video on what we sucked at, how we fixed it, the results, and what we learned.
[…]
But Cancel has also noticed other benefits. “It allowed me to really think through what I was saying, versus just getting in a room with someone or having a back and forth in text messaging or a phone call,” he says. “It was the sharing aspect that really made it an effective tool for us — all of a sudden we had old videos on different topics that we could share with people who were starting their journey at Drift in their onboarding process…getting everyone focused, and helping folks understand why we were making decisions, giving us an ability to be transparent in a way that we couldn’t before.”

Given that so many people feel comfortable making videos of every little move they make, this struck me as a pretty viable practice in arts organizations and one that might even inform creative works.

Business Models, Leadership, Management Philosophy, Working In The Arts

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You Say Capt. Kirk Was Unqualified? That’s What Made Him A Leader.

January 20, 2021

by:

Joe Patti

In December Seth Godin made two posts titled Creativity Is An Act of Leadership. The second of the two added (Redux).

I am a little leery of the trend in articles which label leaders as doing constructive things and managers being dedicated to the status quo. It smacks of the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Not to mention, there are so many articles with these lists, you would be hard pressed to keep track of what you are supposed to be doing lest to backslide into managerial morass. I prefer to think of the qualities attributed to leaders as things one should aspire to so you don’t get caught in a destructive cycle of self-recrimination if you occasionally want to spend time not reinventing the wheel.

That said, these are some of the things in Godin’s posts I liked. It resonates with work environments at artist organizations, especially as many move toward a more shared governance dynamic. Though there are still plenty of places with structured tiers of authority.

Leadership is voluntary. It’s voluntary to lead and it’s voluntary to follow.

When you have power and authority, it’s tempting to manage instead. Managers get what they got yesterday, but faster and cheaper. Managers use authority to enforce behavior.

But leadership involves acting as if. Leaders paint a picture of the future and encourage us to go there with them.

Which is what anyone who makes change through creative work is doing.

[…]

For too long, we’ve been confused about the true nature of leadership. It’s not about authority at all. It’s the brave work of inventing the future.

The second post is similar, but it focuses more on the theme of how leadership is like creativity in that you are constantly pushing into uncharted territory. The idea of leaders being those who stretch beyond their qualifications is intriguing. At the same time, the sentiment has long been enshrined in the opening narration of Star Trek episodes about going where no one has gone before.

If you feel like an impostor, it might be because you’re comparing yourself to a manager. We want managers and craftspeople to know precisely the steps that are involved in their work, and we want them to do it flawlessly.

Leaders, on the other hand, can never be qualified, because they’ve never done this before.

And creators — creators that don’t have a fancy job or aren’t given the label of “leader” — the same thing is true for them.

You don’t need a permit or a badge or a title to be a creative. You simply need to care enough to do creative work.

[…]

The next time you’re stuck being creative, perhaps it pays to substitute the word ‘leader’. And yes, the next time you’re stuck being a leader, perhaps it makes sense to use the word ‘creator’ instead.

creativity, Leadership, Working In The Arts

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Going Corporate

January 19, 2021

by:

Joe Patti

Drew McManus came out with a really strong entry in his Shop Talk podcast today. He talks about transitioning from a non-profit arts career to a commercial career with guests Marc van Bree and Ceci Dadisman, who shifted from orchestra/opera to companies which handle e-commerce shipping and real estate, respectively.

Some of what they say is a little hard to hear. Van Bree and Dadisman talk about the lack of investment/mentoring in employee skill and professional development in non-profits and the low tolerance/preoccupation with failure and mistakes. While this can definitely be attributable to lack of resources and the recording could support a plea to funders to allow money to be used in this area, the guests suggest there are fundamental practices non-profits are failing at that no expensive CRM can fix.

While he was reluctant to use the word “regret,” van Bree said he wonders how much further along in his career he would be if he had started in the commercial sector rather than non-profit.

As the conversation moves on the guests, acknowledge that a corporate environment can be extremely toxic and pretty callous, especially when it comes time to “right-sizing” the employee base. Van Bree makes the observation that work culture follows results, not the other way around. Ping-pong tables and free beer won’t yield great results, but great results can create a positive work culture that doesn’t need ping pong tables to feel fulfilling–a situation which is not exclusive to either commercial or non-profit environment.

The conversation turns toward the difference between an entity focused on creating value vs. generating profits. In the commercial world the latter can manifest in a company whose focus is to look so good on paper they get bought out. Things can go to hell quickly if the company isn’t bought out–and can go to hell immediately after the buy out when that impetus is removed.

Near the end Drew asks what his guests felt they brought from the non-profit world that they wouldn’t have had otherwise. Both mentioned that having a broad skillset, both theoretical and practical, and vocabulary that allowed them to speak the language of other departments was something that their colleagues who had been on a more narrowly focused track didn’t possess. (Though Van Bree says knowing how to fix everything and being tempted into doing it may have gotten him in trouble a couple times.) Van Bree said that having to interact with so many different non-profit stakeholders from audience to board members provided him with a very broad range of social skills and savvy.

There is a lot of really poignant reflections and observations made so it is worth paying close attention as you watch/listen. Especially if you are a sci-fi/fantasy fan and understand the Star Trek and Lord of the Rings metaphors at the end which are particularly spot on.

One quibble I did have with the guests comments. After Van Bree wonders about his career path had he started in a commercial career, he suggests that had he gone into non-profits in his 60s after a commercial career it would have been an atypical career arc. I actually think it is all too frequent a path and may be the cause of some of the non-profit arts world’s current woes. So many times we see someone appointed to the top executive position of an arts organization having come from health care, energy sector or other corporate environment.

Dadisman and van Bree said they face some skepticism transitioning to commercial jobs about whether they had the capacity to work at that level, but there doesn’t seem to be the same barriers for people going straight to the executive suite of a non-profit without much prior experience in the field.

I am increasingly beginning to believe that may be adversely impacting the artistic missions of many organizations. While protecting monied interests from being offended has always been a factor, in these times when the importance of equity and inclusion has been brought front and center, I have observed two separate executives violate their most publicly stated core value about equity in the face of very mildly controversial content (i.e. akin to child perceiving parents divorce is their fault when the facts may be otherwise). Even when this lack of consistency has been pointed out, they stick to their decisions and then continue to publicly announce their core value about equity without any sense of irony. I feel like this comes from a very corporate focused cover your ass and keep repeating slogan mentality.

Business Models, Working In The Arts

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NEA Re-Opening Guide – You’re Not Alone

January 13, 2021

by:

Joe Patti

The National Endowment for the Arts has released their “Art of Reopening” guide. Looking through it, it doesn’t substantially differ from other re-opening guides about which I have written. In fact, it actually references many of them as additional resources that are available.

However, if you are just now getting to a place where you can start to think about reopening now that vaccine distribution has started, the NEA guide can be a good place to start your plans.

The bulk of the guide is a list of best practices supported by case study interviews conducted with arts organizations of various disciplines around the country. I am not going to quote extensively from the guide because I feel like I have written some of these topics to death by now. I did want to highlight the fact that the first lesson listed is to strengthen ties with your immediate community. While I have written that to death, I don’t feel anything is lost by repeating it until it people can’t remember a time it wasn’t a core tenet of their practice.

Another lesson learned I wanted to emphasize is:

The unexpected will continue to happen. Be transparent when it does. Adapting quickly to new circumstances and information, and communicating those lessons promptly and effectively to artists/staff, board members, donors, and the public will attract greater confidence in your endeavor.

One thing in the NEA guide you won’t find in any other guide is a survey of National Service Organizations (i.e. American Alliance of Museums, Association of Performing Arts Professionals, Association of Writers & Writing Programs, Dance/USA, Film Festival Alliance, League of American Orchestras, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, OPERA America, etc) about how their members were coping with the pandemic and what they were seeing.

You’ll find this in Appendix A. It can be worth reading to know you are not alone in the troubles you are facing.

For example:

NSOs also reported these key difficulties for members in reengaging with audiences or visitors:

◽Navigating local or state government reopening protocols (e.g., limitations on gatherings)
◽Securing union permissions
◽Audiences/visitors not following safety guidelines
◽Creating one-way flow in buildings not designed to accommodate routing
◽Cost of retrofitting and preparing safe venues for audiences
◽Accessibility issues that can result from reserved/advance ticketing policies

Arts Facilities, Audience Relations, Leadership, Marketing/PR, State of the Arts

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