Seek Your Place In the Universe (Or At Least the Job Market)

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It’s never too early to start planning for the next conference I always say. Well, at least I have been saying it recently as a way to encourage some members of the Emerging Leadership Institute alumni to put their heads together to see how we can address some of the concerns we had last year in the upcoming conference this January.

A few of us had a conference call yesterday on the topic and will be pursuing some initiatives, some of which will make the conference experience more enjoyable for ELI alumni and new participants alike. So if you were thinking of applying for the program, it will be even more worth it next year than it was this past year! Watch the Arts Presenters Website for the opening of the application period.

One of the biggest issues that emerged during our discussions last year was the issue of succession planning. Many people felt they were being overlooked for grooming, if there was any concern about grooming anyone to begin with. Something I have heard mentioned since then is that there seems to be an unwillingness for people to stay with an organization long enough to even be considered for a leadership position, not to mention those who leave non-profit altogether for better pay.

I think we could get into a chicken-egg argument about the situation. Are people leaving because they don’t see any opportunity for advancement in the organization or are people not being given opportunities because the organization doesn’t want to invest time cultivating skills in someone who is only going to leave?

I am not sure what the answer is and I imagine different people and organizations have a variety of factors that motivate staying or going most strongly. In a discussion/interview with Jim Undercofler, now President and CEO of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Drew McManus addresses the desire to pursue a fast track career ladder and the salary arms races in the orchestra world. (Segment 5 contains the pertinent dialogue.)

Drew talks about how there exists a fairly clear predetermined path one should take if they want to be on a fast track to advancement in the orchestra world. The focus for administrators and musicians isn’t on what one has accomplished, but rather how prestigious the organization one is working for is and how to advance to the next stage.

At the same time, orchestras operate in constant fear of losing an administrator to a neighbor and end up paying salaries that may be out of proportion with the value they receive from the manager. Though he doesn’t give any specific examples, Drew suggests that orchestras to provide reasons other than money to reward administrators for staying and “building something spectacular.” I imagine these alternative rewards could be anything from additional training and education to use of timeshares.

The other thing that Drew and Mr. Undercofler allude to is the fact that not everyone thrives in every type of environment. Some people do better in smaller organizations or certain geographic locations and both the managers and boards of directors are ill served by chasing prestigious names over best fits.

Probably the bedrock upon which good succession planning is going to be based is managers learning what type of environments they best fit and boards of directors exploring what alternative benefits to money they can offer. Money has been the measure of value for jobs for so long, people really aren’t in the practice of being creative about employing alternative assets nor are job seekers practiced at considering or even suggesting those options.

King of Crossed Ts and Dotted Is (But Not Much Else)

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We are interviewing for a new staff position at work and have gotten a better batch of applicants than we have in the past. I think it might be in part due the fact that I rewrote the job description that was being printed up on some industry job sites to be easier to read than the 40 sentence sans paragraph breaks monstrosity that the computer software generates.

I still had to link to the monstrosity but I think my summary of the job and specific mention about what point in one’s career the position was suited made the process more welcoming and easier to understand. Given that the official job title, recategorized for reasons of “efficiency” some years ago, bears no hint of the performing arts, I am guessing my alterations helped catch the eye of people who might actually be qualified for the job.

Participating in this search process has illuminated some unpleasant facts about being a person looking for a new job.

Since I work for a state institution there are hoops people have to jump through that it wouldn’t occur to most search committees to erect. From the applications we received, I imagine that it didn’t occur to most of the candidates that they were supposed to explicitly jump through them. For example, one of the minimum qualifications (MQ) for the job is willingness to work nights and weekends. Most people in the performing arts would take it as a given that if they listed working on 30 performances annually on their resume, they were showing that they were willing to work nights and weekends.

Unfortunately, Human Resource people having no experience in the performing arts and even some committee members who do have the background look for specific reference to a willingness to work at these times before crediting that MQ.

One of the rules about resumes and cover letters is that they should tell a story about your experience. Naturally, the story you tell about yourself should be one that matches the requirements of the position. If you are highly educated and are applying for a position where you will be working with highly educated people, you may try to talk about your experience in a sophisticated manner. By this, I mean that you might reference how you were personally involved in the logistical arrangements necessary to transport equipment to various venues throughout the community before and immediately at the completion of an event.

You might feel this answers whether you can drive and are willing to work evenings and weekends. From the last 4-5 search committees I have served on, I hate to say that making awkward but explicit statements that you have a license and will work evenings and weekends may be best. Some of the committees I have been on haven’t be in my field or a state institution and I have spent more trying to convince people that all questions have been answered implicitly via the available information than I care to count.

In light of my experience on these search committees I wonder if I might have better served in my own job searches by writing, “I have a driver’s license; I work nights and weekends; I am detail oriented enough to transport the correct equipment for performances to remote venue we don’t own”, instead of trying to signal these things with the sort of example I used two paragraphs ago.

This sort of thing sounds hackneyed and grates against my pride in my writing ability. I wonder how many jobs I might have lost refusing to sacrifice the flow of my prose. (Which is not to say it can’t always use more work.)

I hate to say it, but search committees seem to use picayune points to disqualify applications because they don’t want to do the work of evaluating all of them. The more applications there are, the pickier people seem to get about things like Ph.Ds not listing where they went to high school.

The high school itself never emerges as a criteria for job selection. The person is eliminated because “if they can’t be bothered to fill in all the blanks, how good can they be?” Frankly, when faced with a form from an office supply store that asks what my high school major, minor and degree was and if I have a CDL license for a job that doesn’t require driving, I have to wonder if an employer can’t be bothered to create an application form that is pertinent to the position, how good a work environment can it be? (Happily, the form I had to fill out for my current job was both short and pertinent to the position.)

I should note again that I am not only referring to state institutions in these examples. There are a couple non-profit committees I have sat on that operated similarly. If a creative economy is indeed upon us, I have to think that the only way creativity is going to bloom in companies that use such rigid hiring criteria is going to emerge in spite of these practices. I understand that fear of lawsuits informs decisions to reduce subjectivity in the interview process. But it seems that some people use the structure to abdicate the responsibility to do a thorough job vetting the candidates and finding the best person to fill the position rather than the person best at filling out forms.

Going Down That Forest Path

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Being human, it is inevitable that we compare our experiences and progress with others. Whether it is in our personal and professional lives or measuring our organization against others in our community or region, the grass is always greener elsewhere in some respect even if you are on top.

Coveting another’s success will often move you to examine how they obtained fame, fortune, life of ease, etc., in the hopes of replicating the ends by duplicating the path they took.

Some times this works, but many times it does not. There is a story Joseph Campbell tells in a number of his works about King Arthur and his knight’s search for the Holy Grail that has stuck in my head for years. As they begin the quest for the grail, they come to a forest

“‘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.”

This always seemed like a potent bit of wisdom whether one is seeking personal enlightenment, examining one’s career path or running a business. Life is not like a marathon where the path is cleared and marked and progress is easy to measure and compare against others. It is more like that forest.

If you have ever pushed into a forest where a path is not, you often find to your surprise that once you are past the outer layer of entwined branches and brambles, the way through the forest is much clearer. Other times there is more of the same and a swamp to boot. Like the grail search, the distance, location and actual appearance of the goal is unknown.

It is hard to remember all this when you hear about the success others are having, the distance they are covering, the treasure they are finding. It is easy to think you should be using rope because the successful guys are using rope. But their forest passes over a mountain and yours is full with brambles where a machete is more useful. Even if your path takes you through a swamp where a rope might be helpful, you are going to use it in a different manner than those traversing mountains.

I use this lengthy metaphor to reinforce the advice I have issued before about carefully assessing technology tools rather than jumping on the bandwagon because everyone else seems to be doing so. The same goes with programming decisions, marketing plans, construction and pretty much every other choice you may have to make.

In the last few weeks I linked to a video where Malcolm Gladwell talked about how Prego overtook Ragu in the spaghetti sauce market when their research figured out that people’s general preference is for either regular, chunky or zesty/spicy sauce. Now you can walk into the store and have 20-30 choices of sauce from Prego alone. Ragu hired Prego’s researcher in an attempt to catch up and offers a similarly large variety of sauce.

Knowing that Prego met with success and knowing that Gladwell is considered a real smart, insightful guys these days, you may decide he is right and there is no one perfect product for everyone. But is offering a wide variety of arts experiences right for your organization? Is it even within its capacity to execute?

Inspiring stories of success can be great to hear but the strategies aren’t sure things for everyone. The now cliched phrase “If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we X” only proves that different people with different expertise and different resources were able to put a man on the moon.

And there have been very few attempts to follow that path since.

You’ll Put Me In Thumbscrews If I Donate More? Sure!

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The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently reported on some interesting research that has emerged about what motivates people’s giving.

Scholars have found that fund-raising appeals do best when they are crafted around a single gripping image, informing donors about big gifts that their peers have contributed helps expand giving, and holding an athletic marathon – or even a walk over smoldering coals – might do more to encourage donations than a picnic or gala ball.

A quick expansion on these findings and summary of the article- A single picture of an impoverished person was more effective in getting donations than the same picture with stats or a picture with two impoverished people. People who were told that another person gave a large gift just prior to them were more likely to give more, up to a point, than if they were not informed. People will pay more to do something strenuous for a cause than a pleasant activity. One person’s research actually found that people gave more after putting their hands in ice water.

So what are the implications for the arts? Well, first off I should issue the caveat one of the researchers gave, while physical discomfort may be effective for raising money to succor those who live uncomfortable lives, it may not motivate people “…to support an art museum or the Girl Scouts of the USA.” That is actually the next avenue of research in which some intend to pursue.

What the research does suggest is that donors like to have a personal connection with what ever they support. The article mentions penpal programs and an ability to socialize with the beneficiaries can be effective. I know some arts organizations engage in adopt an actor or dancer programs already so that is a possibility.

I remember reading a blog or article mentioning some negative aspects in to these programs though. I have a vague recollection that it had something to do with the performers feeling like commodities. You also run the risk of having some performers, (or pieces of art if a gallery tries this), being more prestigious than others. I know of an acting conservatory that encouraged donors to “adopt” their students and the elephant in the room was often that some sponsored students were in better roles than others or appeared on the more prestigious stage.

One thing in the realm of personal connections I found interesting was the idea that non-profits often underestimated how committed people might be if they lacked a personal connection to a cause.

“Rebecca Ratner, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Maryland at College Park, found that some charities expressed doubt that potential volunteers without a personal tie to the cause could be serious and committed.

“Don’t underestimate how much people care about your organization, even if they don’t have a personal connection to it,” she said.”

One of the things the researchers noted was that people like to spread their money out among a number of causes rather than invest it in fewer causes. They suggested giving people various ways to support a single cause in your organization may be a way to tap into this inclination.

“A donor who supports a single charity by sponsoring a child, paying for school supplies, and supporting advocacy may feel more satisfied than a supporter who gives the same amount to a single program within the organization…”

What seemed to be a core concern for all donors is that an entity in need was realizing the fullest benefit possible from their giving. People would rather have a program inefficiently use their money than to have it devoted to overhead like administration and marketing.