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Managers? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Theatre Managers!

September 1, 2008

by:

Joe Patti

In my last entry I mentioned that I would make suggestions for those who might replicate planning exercise I went through at Performing Arts Center Eastside. You might notice I don’t say I will have suggestions on how to improve the experience. I think it is too early in the process to suggest improvements and as I am about discuss, what did happen exceeded my expectations.

As I was preparing for my trip to Bellevue, WA, my biggest concern was about how the participation of the Emerging Leadership Institute group would be received. There was no real precedent for anyone to base their expectations on. The Bellevue community had been planning this facility since 1988 and even if the majority of the board had only become involved in when the non-profit entity was formed in 2002, that is six years investment in planning and fund raising. How would they feel having a group of people making recommendations after only spending a weekend learning about their organization?

The same with the architects. They have a great record for designing splendid performing arts centers (check out the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.) Would they resent us if we started criticizing their design? With all the information available to people via the Internet these days, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that someone might have fancied themselves an amateur architect and rubbed the building designers the wrong way.

These concerns didn’t keep me awake at night and they really weren’t on my mind by the time we started examining the building design. There was a time during our presentation that I realized that not only were things going a lot better than I anticipated, but there was an unspoken positive, encouraging vibe in the room. Frankly, I was almost giddy with the idea that the process had gone so well because it bodes well for our future and the prospects for replicating this in other places.

Knowing that this might not always be so, I started to think about what things an arts organization could do to ensure things went smoothly if they tried to initiate a similar program. (Other than hiring all those involved at Bellevue, of course!) Probably the best option would be taking a proactive stance and brief all the constituents about what to expect and suggest how to participate most effectively. I have no idea if the people at PACE did any prep with the architects or board members. A comment John Haynes made at dinner made me suspect he hadn’t which speaks well for the open mindedness of these groups. John and Dana didn’t formally do any of the things I am about to suggest with the Emerging Leadership group except provide comfortable surroundings.

So yes, the first suggestion is comfortable working environment with an organized itinerary and breaks scheduled at suitable intervals.

Preparing stakeholders like board members and architects to prepare in a session with a group of advisers can be tough. They can be assured that none of the final decisions are vested in the advising group. Yet you have to go into the exercise intending to value the feedback you receive otherwise you are just wasting everyone’s time. This certainly means you have to be prepared to consider what you might perceive as negative. As people who have just joined the project and aren’t familiar with the intent of every design element they may indeed offend you with what they perceive to be an innocuous comment.

So local constituents should be encouraged to value what is being suggested, try to perceive the basic motivation for advice and respond with a question to clarify that motivation. “So your concern about our plan to have the noon sun fall upon our founder’s bust on her birthday is that it limits the windows, and therefore, natural light in the lobby and creates a dark, unwelcoming atmosphere?” Certainly the board and architects have every right to expect people to back up criticisms with constructive suggestions. Given that the advising group may have only been around for a few days and are not familiar with all options, an answer that they don’t know what a solution might be also has to be respected. This doesn’t mean the concern isn’t warranted and bears additional thought and consideration.

For their part, the advising visitors should probably assume a generally neutral stance. They shouldn’t be looking to evaluate if their facilities and organizational plan is superior or inferior to that of their hosts. We have all met and probably grimaced at the person whose every suggestion is prefaced by “where I used to work, we…” While they have certainly been invited because of their prior experience, that experience isn’t going to define the new organization. Likewise, while improvements a new organization is effecting can lead to a better experience back at the home organization, there are only so many resources available. Again, you can’t define one organization in the exact terms of another.

Nothing I am suggesting here is terribly groundbreaking. They are all based on standard suggestions for listening and responding in meetings. Additional tips for preparing groups to meet could certainly be found in books and magazine articles. Probably the most important suggestion is not to make value judgments about any aspect of the project — “That’s stupid; “The building looks like a warped artichoke” (which I heard about this place); “You are an idiot and clearly have no sense or experience in these matters,” etc., If anything is going to generate resistance and resentment, it is statements in this vein.

My suggestions assume everyone is arriving at the meeting with the best intentions but with the possibility of things going awry. If there hasn’t been buy-in from all involved parties or one party is seeks to use the exercise as leverage over another, obviously there are deeper problems than can be solved by good meeting preparation.

Leadership, Management Philosophy, Terms and Ideas

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Audience Theory

August 27, 2008

by:

Joe Patti

As wonderful an opportunity it was to influence staff workplaces, those of us in the PACE advisory group still understood that the success of the building would be in how comfortable audiences were interacting with the space. When I was preparing to travel to Bellevue, I was mindful of Andrew Taylor’s observations wandering around the streets of Denver at the National Performing Arts Conference that

“block after block of glass or stone walls at the street level, many of them without a door (at least an open one) for hundreds of feet at a time. As a result, there are very few people populating the street, stopping to talk with each other, people watching, lingering, and realizing they’re in an urban streetscape of diversity and energy.”

I approached the facility design with the intention of insuring the building appeared engaging to foot traffic since there are quite a few residential complexes being constructed nearby.

The importance of physical design was actually reinforced for me as we walked to the meeting with the architects. About four-five blocks from the future PACE site, we passed a small area next to the sidewalk with hedges and benches. There was a sign noting that the area was open for public use. I would have never known that because of the way the hedges and a short set of ascending stairs lent it a sense of being private property. Because of this they had to essentially grant people permission to enter.

But to back up a little…. I had mentioned earlier that Alan Brown made a presentation on the value of live performance. Obviously, it is in relation to the audience’s experience that his thoughts are most applicable. It wasn’t until after his presentation that I realized how significant a moment in the design process it had been. The architects and project manager had never really had these ideas addressed in connection with their work before and so were pretty attentive and taking notes. The same was true for a couple board members who were present.

Of the concepts he covered, a number of them caught my attention. The first was his suggestion that interactive experience the Nintendo Wii offers predicts one day being able to virtually perform with Pilobolus. Since he is the first person I have met who has advanced this idea since I began promoting it in 2004, he instantly endeared himself to me.

He also addressed the situation where people were waiting longer and longer to buy their tickets. He spoke of a focus group where he basically discovered young people were afraid to buy a ticket until the last minute because committing to one option closed the door on all the other possibilities. I wondered if this was an element of Generation Y’s problem with decision making.

He said he asked them to describe what they would envision as a perfect jazz club. They said it would be a coffee house during the day but a bar at night with a separate room where those who wanted to be full immersed in the music could go. However, there would also be an anteroom where people could talk with friends and still listen to the music and still another anteroom where people could interact with friends more and listen less.

It seems like a tall order to design a building to provide this experience. However the impression I took away from what Brown had to say was that people at every age really desire an experience at an intermediate stage between listening to a recording and fully attending a formal concert. He described this as a place to drop in and hang out and get more information. One suggestion he made which he certainly did not represent as encompassing all possibilities was having kiosks in the lobby where one could try all sorts of new music. (I imagined something like the listening stations in record stores.) Having a DJ mixing in an area surrounded by comfortable lobby furniture.

Alan Brown’s presentation had a tangible effect on the discussions that followed. The building design already allowed for many of the activities he mentioned so conversations revolved around the possibilities. This is fortunate because if Brown is right, there might be an increased necessity of having such a space as venue for value added benefits. Acknowledging that there are some people who are voracious for an educative experience, Alan Brown proposed that while arts organizations gave education away for free as part of their mission, he suspected people would pay a premium for a private, executive briefing on events.

I have read and heard suggestions that were related to the core idea behind this. There are some complexities to this that I haven’t fully considered so I don’t quite know what I think about this. I suspect for some communities and organizations, he is right on the money with this idea.

As you might imagine from the thought the PACE administration put into the staff work areas, there had been some investment into the design of the public areas as well. As I already mentioned, the layout lends itself to sponsoring some of the programs and features Alan Brown suggested. Some other notable concepts they had were arranging the ticket office so one’s experience was more akin to interacting with a concierge than a reinforced security checkpoint. They have also looked into situating the restrooms so that the lines at intermission don’t become the half time show.

Our advice seemed to be viewed as insightful and even viable within the overall plan and budget. I am demurring on many of the details because so much is undecided at this stage in the game and I don’t want to create any unwarranted expectations about the ultimate result. Participating in the process was very exciting and engaging. While our status as outsiders lent some weight to our observations, Alan Brown’s occasional, but well timed comments lent some reinforcement.

Believe it or not after all this writing, I still have some additional observations to make! My next entry will have some really basic suggestions for those who might want to replicate this exercise.

(Details of this entry have been altered since the original posting to comply with confidentially agreements)

Arts in an Age of Technology, Audience Relations, Leadership, Management Philosophy, State of the Arts, Terms and Ideas

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If You Build It, They Will Work

August 26, 2008

by:

Joe Patti

To continue in more detail from yesterday’s entry, one of the things about the PACE construction project was the consideration of workspace that had gone into the planning. It was the first area we were asked to assess. One of the problems with the office space in a lot of performing arts facilities is that they are almost inserted as an after thought into the design. Ticket offices especially seem to get the short shrift especially in light of the fact they are the location where 90% of interaction with the public transpires. You want to improve customer service? Try knocking out a few walls and giving the ticket office personnel some room to work!

The placement of staff in relation to each other is an important consideration. A gentleman from Iowa whose offices were inundated by the floods earlier this spring/summer talked about how the dynamics of staff interactions had changed since their temporary quarters forced them to all work on the same floor. He noted what an impact a single set of stairs, or lack thereof, can make.

Much of the conversation was general covering the theoretical needs of each department based on people’s experiences at their home institutions. Some positions need privacy to discuss details. Some need secure storage for personal and financial information. Some, like graphic designers, need to have access to natural light and perhaps control the lighting in their space. The question arose, since you can’t put all the department heads and their support staffs in one place, is it theoretically better to have the department head near the executive director or near his/her staff?

This would be especially true for marketing. If the organization operates under the philosophy that marketing is the job of everyone in the organization, they should have prominent placement in the facility. In a presenting organization it was also felt that the programming person should be in close proximity to keep lines of communication open regarding the viability of promoting different artists. The counter argument to this was that creative types, including the marketing director, tended to thrive in less formal environments than existed near executive offices. Ultimately, the consensus from the marketing people in the group was that they would suffer the neckties if it facilitated the marketing department’s activities.

My stints in marketing departments seem much more straitlaced by comparison. I feel deprived. This was one of the places where the direct value of participation in the project to professional development started to coalesce. At conferences we talk about how to attract audiences to our theatres. What we don’t get a chance to share is how we have arranged our work environment to enhance interactions among staff members.

An observation that continued to be mentioned was that whatever arrangements and organizational culture emerged in the first few years would become the founding precedent for the next 40 years. It can’t be easy for the people at PACE to make these decisions with the awareness of the possible repercussions lingering at the edge of their thoughts.

Some details of this entry have been changed since original posting to comply with confidentiality agreements.

Leadership, Management Philosophy

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Why Haven’t We Ever Done This?

August 25, 2008

by:

Joe Patti

I spent the weekend in the Seattle area participating as a lead partner in the very first stages of a pilot program where emerging arts leaders provide input on the construction of Performing Arts Center-Eastside (PACE) in Bellevue, WA. I had noted my participation in an earlier entry if you would like a little more information.

I intend to spend the next few entries reflecting on the experience. However, since everyone hopes this program can be replicated for future construction, I am going to summarize the major activities in today’s entry. Anyone considering using the process during their own construction or major renovation project will have an easy reference to the basic outline.

I want to acknowledge and give a lot of credit for the creation of the program to PACE Associate Director, Dana Kernich. She brought the whole concept to Executive Director, John Haynes and then did a lot of the organizational work to make it happen. When I was advocating more professional development opportunities for the alumni of APAP’s Emerging Leadership Institute, this program barely hovered at the edge of my mind as something that might be possible.

Obviously, I also need to acknowledge John Haynes for embracing the idea and committing resources to it. It was not a cheap undertaking. PACE flew 10 of us out, housed us and fed us (and it wasn’t at Sizzler though we would have been happy for it). Haynes told me he still saw it as extremely economical. He could have spent the same amount on a week long consultant visit but he was getting 10 consultants committing themselves to providing feedback for about 3 more years.

Haynes also observed that while consultants and architects are absolutely invaluable to the construction of facilities, once the job is done they move on to the next job and aren’t involved in the experience of inhabiting and working in the space the way arts professionals like ourselves are. In this respect was expense worthwhile. (Lest anyone think they will be ignored, there have been and will continue to be discussions with artists who have experienced performing in many spaces.)

The Process

We started out with a tour of the region so that we could get a sense of the physical environment in which the PAC would operate. Traffic isn’t getting any better in the region especially with the likes of Microsoft and Google expanding their physical presence. When we returned from our tour, John Haynes gave us a briefing on the history, audience demographics, vision and financial issues for the organization.

After that we participated in a panel discussion on the Regional Arts Ecology attended by the Executive Directors of the Bellevue Philharmonic, Kirkland Performing Arts Center, Seattle Theatre Group and 4Culture. This was a very interesting session to me on a number of levels. First, I appreciated the thorough job PACE was doing in educating us. But also, while 4Culture is a funding organization and Bellevue Philharmonic will find a place to perform in PACE, the other two could easily find themselves competing with PACE for audiences and artists. They might all end up competing for funding. Their observations and answers were great in terms of providing outside parties’ view of the environment in which PACE would operate.

That evening we had dinner with the facility architects, Pfeiffer Partners. This was more of an informal meeting than any type of presentation.

The next morning began our “work day” where we started to provide feedback in the context of what we had learned. It had already been clear to me how important PACE viewed our participation given all the people they arranged for us to meet including having the architects come up from Los Angeles. But what really impressed upon me just how innovative and important this pilot program might be was the fact Alan Brown of Wolf Brown was there. Apparently John Haynes had mentioned the project to him and he asked if he could be present and observe.

The day started out with Mr. Brown discussing Cultural Participation. This was derived from the research he had done for the Major University Presenters on Assessing the Intrinsic Impact of Live Performance. I had gotten the audio from a session he and the other researchers had conducted at the APAP convention but I was still jotting down lots of notes. Perhaps more importantly, some of PACE’s board members were present and doing the same. Again, I will expound on this in later entries.

Then the architects conducted a design charrette discussing their philosophy for the facility as well as noting the way they had dealt with challenges and benefits of the physical location. One of the most helpful things in the discussion was the models they brought. One allowed us to remove each floor piece by piece and another was large enough to stick our heads into to get a sense of things.

At this point, everyone except the 10 lead partners left the room and we engaged in a brainstorming session on the design. Haynes asked us to limit ourselves to three areas since there were so many directions we could go- Assess how the building functioned as a workplace, how it facilitated the patron experience and how the “machine” of the building worked (i.e. can a dumpster be rolled outside and not have to go through the lobby)

When the allotted time expired we presented our thoughts to the architects, members of the building committee, Dana and John. As you might imagine a great deal of discussion followed. However, our observations appeared to be valuable to all involved since one of the architects asked why no one had ever done this sort of thing before. (Thus the title of this entry.)

After things wrapped up we went out for dinner with Alan Brown and all flew out the next morning. As I noted in my earlier entry on the project, this weekend was just the first stride in a three year journey. It merely provided the context for conversations and exchanges of information channeled through a blog entries and emails over the next three years. My intent is to reflect upon the experience this week and across the next few years. Even with the strictures of the confidentiality agreement, there are enough general observations about the process I can make to be valuable to others.

Arts in an Age of Technology, Leadership, State of the Arts, Terms and Ideas

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