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When Honesty Is Better Than Doing Your Best

January 4, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

Back in September, Seth Godin wrote a short post on the idea of doing one’s best.

It’s a pretty easy way to let ourselves (or someone else) off the hook. “Hey, you did your best.”

[…]

By defining “our best” as the thing we did when we merely put a lot of effort into a task, I fear we’re letting ourselves off the hook.

[…]

It’s entirely possible that it’s not worth the commitment or the risk or the fear to go that far along in creating something that’s actually our best. But when we make that compromise, we should own it. “It’s not worth doing my best” is actually more honest and powerful than failing while being sort of focused.

Since it is the beginning of the new year, a time of making resolutions to do better, I thought it was an appropriate time to call attention to this idea.

(By the way, what does it say that I took a short post about doing your best and abridged it further, thereby lowering expectations of the reader’s attention span?)

I chose this post of Godin’s and edited it as I did because I wanted to focus on the sincerity inherent in being realistic rather than being idealistically aspirational.

There is already a lot of idealism in the non-profit arts, especially when it comes to creation, and there is nothing wrong with that. If there is, I am among the chief offenders.

There is also a lot of idealism in non-profit arts organization mission statements that promise to offer the “highest quality, best-in-class, world-class, superior” etc., product or experience.

In the face of declining donations and revenue generating attendance, groups often don’t have the resources to provide the highest quality product and experience. Instead of making a resolution for the new year to strive for some nebulous standard of excellence†, I think it is worth engaging in a little self-examination along the lines Godin suggests and acknowledge where you are not providing the best.

For example, are you offering the very best events your budget will allow, even though that means there will only be four events a year? Or are you making compromises so that you can offer a wider variety of experiences over the course of 8 events?

Is your staff trying to do more with less or have you scaled back services due to budget constraints?

An honest assessment of this situation rather than continuing to mouth platitudes about offering the highest quality interactions may help you better understand the implications of these trade offs. If you can say, yes we decided it wasn’t worth keeping the office open as many hours six days a week, you take responsibility for choosing not to serve a segment of your community or at least choosing a course that makes it difficult for some to receive service.

While it can be disappointing to face the areas in which you are falling short, it is a more constructive approach than claiming you are at a loss to know why attendance is falling or a demographic of the community is failing to engage with you. You can better address these issues if you have a good sense of the causes behind them.

†If you have a well-defined plan for achieving excellence with criteria, milestones and resources dedicated to achieving it, by all means go for it!

Advocacy, Audience Relations, Leadership, Management Philosophy, State of the Arts

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What Does It Take To Do Your Job?

December 30, 2015

by:

Joe Patti

So here we are on the crux of a new year. People start toying with the idea of changing their lives and perhaps their careers.

What would you tell someone who wanted to enter your career about your job?

Yes, in many disciplines supply outstrips demand and there may not be a lot of respect for artists so the first thing many people would say is either have a high tolerance for disappointment and poverty or find some other line.

At the same time, one of the reasons why there isn’t a lot of respect for artists is that people don’t understand what the job requires. People in the arts industry aren’t particularly adept at talking about their career path. The general public really only perceives instant successes when someone emerges on the scene and not the 10 years of mistakes and experimentation.

That said, when you think about the answers to the following, think of it in terms of minimum qualifications for anyone, not the qualifications you hold.

What educational background is required/expected?
Where are good places to get that education?

What kind of experience is required/expected?
Where are good places to get that experience?

Where are the jobs? Who does the hiring?

Will there be jobs in this field in 5 years? 15 years?
Should I be pursuing skills in those areas instead or concurrently with skills for today’s jobs?

What are the “big names” in the field?
Who are the people I should be using as role models if they aren’t the same people or are not suited to my goals.

What personal characteristics are needed for success in this field?
Include mental, emotional and spiritual if necessary. Does one need to work well in a team
or tolerate long periods of working alone in a studio under their own motivation?

What physical characteristics are needed for success in this field?
Are there are any people who have achieved success without those characteristics? (dancer’s body, pianist’s fingers, etc)

What are common misconceptions about this job/field and what it takes to be successful?

Any other questions you would suggest? Any answers you want to offer that may run counter to common expectations?

Art(ist) Education, Working In The Arts

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Practical Aspect of Grail Quests

December 29, 2015

by:

Joe Patti

Some years ago I wrote a “road less taken” entry encouraging people not to measure their worth against the progress others have made by quoting a passage from Joseph Campbell recounting a story about the start of the Holy Grail quest:

‘They thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group. Each entered the forest at the point that he himself had chosen, where it was darkest, and there was no way or path.’

“No way or path! Because where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path.”

Much of what I said in that entry stands, but there is the practical side of me that says such idealism is all well and good, but hacking a new path through the forest is tough work. Who is doing the hacking? Has someone been hired to help? Who is paying, feeding and sheltering them? How are they supporting themselves?

Are villagers following them, donating to support their holy endeavor or are they scoffing at them for blazing a trail to places no one in the community is particularly interested in traveling?

Grail quests are fine when it comes to the individual but get increasingly complicated the more people you start to get involved.

The one advantage non-profit arts organizations have over the grail seekers is that there was only one goal for the latter to pursue. Arts organizations can choose from many grails and myriad paths to tread that others have not.

The lessons of my initial post still stand, however. When a quest is lead by a committee, it is easy to get bogged down with discussions about changing the focus of the quest and taking what appears to be an easier, well traveled, path given the wear and tear of the last few years on people and equipment and what supplies remain.

It is easy to be distracted (and almost seduced) by false representations of success if you don’t have people to keep you on track.

State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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Resolve To Be More Respected in 2016

December 28, 2015

by:

Joe Patti

As I was looking back in my archives for some content to post about, I came across Dan Gioia’s 2007 commencement address at Stanford.

He acknowledges there had been a little controversy about his choice as commencement speaker due to his lack of celebrity.

If you weren’t aware he was the chair of the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003-2009, you may have proven his point.

He notes that at one time, public figures came from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines.

Fifty years ago, I suspect that along with Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Sandy Koufax, most Americans could have named, at the very least, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, Georgia O’Keeffe, Leonard Bernstein, Leontyne Price, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Not to mention scientists and thinkers like Linus Pauling, Jonas Salk, Rachel Carson, Margaret Mead, and especially Dr. Alfred Kinsey.

[…]

The same was even true of literature. I first encountered Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, Lillian Hellman, and James Baldwin on general interest TV shows. All of these people were famous to the average American—because the culture considered them important.

Gioia doesn’t entirely blame the fickle nature of the media and general public:

Most American artists, intellectuals, and academics have lost their ability to converse with the rest of society. We have become wonderfully expert in talking to one another, but we have become almost invisible and inaudible in the general culture.

It started me thinking that perhaps things have improved marginally since 2007 given that astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson has developed a profile as a public figure.

Now as we move into 2016, I was thinking that between the current thought that artists need to embrace more entrepreneurial practices and the fact that control of media and communication channels are so decentralized, it may be possible for a wider array of artists and intellectuals to realize success investing more effort increase their profile.

It may not necessarily be “themselves” that they need to put forth

Dali may have received recognition for his talent as a visual artist, but he also cultivated DALI! as a separate persona from Salvador Dali.

Similarly, there is the Lady Gaga who wears skirt steaks as a skirt who is slightly different from the Lady Gaga that sings Sinatra and duets with Tony Bennett who is different from Stefani Germanotta.

Granted, sustaining those persona takes a lot of will, energy and time and not everyone is interested in that. Nor do they necessarily need to.

For 2016 it will be enough to resolve to raise your personal profile among those who live around you. Raise awareness among those who don’t know you, let those who do, know you better.

State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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