Not a failure to Launch, but a failure to Lunch!…except in Hawaii…

Vitriol, court actions and labor disputes abound in the orchestra world.  Every situation is complicated, different and/or unique in many ways.  There is one constant that links them all and that is a failure to communicate directly.  Unscrambled eggs anyone…….

On our site, Adaptistration and on many over the last year we have written about disputes and financial hardships at several orchestras such as  Columbus, Jacksonville, Bellevue, Shreveport and more recently Wisconsin, Peoria, Grand Rapids and Phoenix.  Looking back at all of them it is apparent that a lack of communication and the continued lack of communication is at the heart of many of the problems, and potentially even now with some of these situations seemingly hopeless, communication could still be the pathway to a viable way forward.

Listing some of the ways have to communicate in this day and age: email, phone, fax, twitter, facebook, video conference, phone conference….sitting across the table from one another, there is plenty of way, but not a lot of will!

What’s confusing to me is that groups will continually fall into the trap of using the print media to communicate.  It might seem obvious to do it this way, politicians do to get their message out and to get endorsed.  There is a big difference however between political parties and an Orchestra.  The political parties are on different sides, in an Orchestra everyone is supposed to be on the same side.  The audience for the politicians are deciding between several parties, the audience for the orchestra have all already decided that they’re all …FOR THE ORCHESTRA PARTY!  The cardinal sin in any negotiation in my view is to go to the press early on when there are serious disagreements, because it wont solve problems, it will only sell papers and make the problems worse.  I am not anti press, but they’re a business and primarily an information tool, not a communication tool.  It’s easy to think that dragging all the vitriol into the public eye is akin to shining sunlight on the situation.  That’s a false assertion because a newspaper will then control the narrative, what is actually reported and they also decide the context of any statement made.  In other words, it’s not sunlight that they are shining,  but a spot light that reveals only what they want to reveal.  Their interest is to sell papers, advertising and to get web hits, not to solve problems.  Journalists are not mediators, they are journalists!  A classic example was revealed to me by an orchestra committee members from one of the above orchestras  (he asked not be named….see I’m not in the press so I wont) who told me that a paper’s article came out on the web in the morning with an extended quote by him.  By the mid afternoon the article was “updated”, his quote was shortened and placed in a completely different context that spun it more negatively.  That isn’t sunlight, that is sunburn! Whilst I don’t believe like some might that the mainstream press is malicious by design, they wont however complain if a juicy vitriolic dispute keeps going!

It pains me to highlight the negativity but look at these two examples from Peoria, and from Phoenix.   The groups are in similarly divided  situations and they have almost polar opposite disputes.  The comments at the bottom of the articles  especially from Phoenix are getting out of hand and are becoming personal making a bad situation worse.  It doesn’t matter in this case who is right or wronged, justified or unjustified, it needs to stop now or audiences/donors/sponsors will run for the exit!  If that happens and the orchestra is lost then everyone was wrong!  There needs to be a call for a media blackout so they can get back to the table to face each other, communicate in person and then only release joint or jointly approved statements (even if there is disagreement).  Being unified in the statements released then does allow for the organization to be communicative in a positive way through the press.

There is no courage in conviction if it is not followed up with action.  A public will give an organization time if they know they are face to face working on a resolution and a continued commitment for the cause, which is also THEIR CAUSE.   Metaphorically I am talking about the difference between diplomacy and military action, the former builds bridges, the latter destroys them!  The aim is to get to the middle (some will have longer journeys to the middle than others) and to find a place to reset and start over….behind closed doors!  It might be painful but less so than the alternative….

There never was a good war or a bad peace – Benjamin Franklin

The word resolve has a positive ring, but a resolution is not always positive, but is in essence an agreement which can even be to disagree but to move forward together nonetheless.  One example of how it can work is at the Honolulu Symphony.  They were and still are positively heroic in their approach to a tough situation, an example for all of us.  This article came out in in December 2007 and opened with this ominous quote:

The staff and musicians of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra are continuing to work and play this holiday season, despite the fact that their employer can’t afford to pay them.

For most of the article it focused on the dark times that might be ahead, but then this:

The big difference between this latest episode of financial turbulence at the HSO and others is that the decades-long atmosphere of rancor and mistrust between musicians and management (going back to, and before, a bitter strike that caused the cancellation of the orchestra’s entire 1993-94 season) is gone.

“We believe they have a plan and we believe they trust us and we trust them,” bassoonist Paul Barrett, chairman of the musicians’ orchestra committee, told KGMB, “[and] that we’re not being blamed this time, which is wonderful.”

And which is why they’re continuing to play, even without getting paid.

They were all on the same side, trusted each other and came to an agreement to move forward.  Fast forward to September 2008 and this article that begins:

Management and musicians with the Honolulu Symphony yesterday announced a new collective bargaining agreement that will result in a 12.5 percent pay increase over three years.

and this quote:

Symphony board chairman Jeffrey Minter attributed the organization’s “newfound vitality” to the musicians’ loyalty to the community.

This would not have happened if it were not for the communication and unity the previous December.   So, a happy ending?  Not so fast! March 22nd 2009 and in this article the musicians speak up on the current situation:

The Honolulu Symphony hasn’t paid its musicians of six weeks in back pay. On Saturday, for the first time, the musicians came forward and spoke to KHNL/K5 News about this tough situation.

Oh no, is this like the 2nd act of Sondheim’s Into the Woods, when the Fairy Tale goes horribly awry?  Actually just the opposite, a quote from Timpanist Steve Dinion:

“For all of us obviously it’s been really difficult not having regular paychecks all the time, of course it’s hard to pay bills, but both the musicians and the staff are really inspired by what we’re doing here,” he said.

Towards the end of last year, these musicians were told they weren’t getting paid for six weeks because of funding issues.

“We were very concerned, this is a scary time in general for lots of people having hard times right now, but we appreciate the fact there was open communication,” Dinion said.

Wait..did he just say and the staff and communication? There is no doubt in my mind there were and will be some tough moments in their meetings, but they are all going through this together and working hard to come up with solutions and a way forward.  The morale seems high, which is also important and directly relates to the openness between them.

Their message in the press is that they are unified and with that message they are showing all of us a way forward.   Negotiations are a creative process and this quote from Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way) says it well:

The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.