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In Search of Silver Bullets
To those of you loyal readers who have been checking here occasionally to see if I’ve posted something new, thank you. Anyone who has looked here recently knows that I haven’t been writing much here at all. The words “total neglect” come to mind.
I apologize for my inattention. I’ll stop there. As Henry Ford said, “Never complain. Never explain.” It’s good advice and certainly I should take it more often.
Like everybody else in this business, I’ve just finished a mind-numbing stream of conferences. Talk about deja vu all over again. Anybody who thinks that Americans don’t recycle doesn’t attend arts conferences. I’ve concluded that one of the greatest penalties of aging is that one is forced to hear the same ideas repeatedly.
I remember hearing this observation twenty years ago from the “dinosaurs” of yesterday. I’d be sitting there experiencing streams of brilliance and revelations, when one of the old farts in the room would raise a hand to observe that the current electric topic had surfaced during the Paleolithic era. My reaction? I resented the old fart who made the observation.
I was hungry for new ideas, better solutions, sharper insights. I wouldn’t admit it but I was in search of silver bullets. Why choose the slogging grind uphill when there might be a quick fix available? The last thing I wanted to hear from some elder was pessimism, no matter how nuanced or sugar-coated it might have been.
I was like Ronald Reagan in that I believed that with all the horse manure in the room, there must be a pony somewhere. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no big Reagan fan, but I absolutely admire the man’s redoubtable optimism. While smarter, more experienced observers/leaders suffered seemingly inevitable slides into frustrated cynicism, Reagan remained sunny and happy. It was part of his charm and key to his effectiveness. Americans hunger for optimism. We could not survive on a hope-free diet. As a people, we are aspirers. Nowhere is this truer than in the creative sector. Innovation equals better equals possibility equals hope equals - well you get the idea.
In that spirit of optimism, innovation, and hope, I am happy to tell you right here that there is, indeed, a silver bullet. There is an approach to advancement and sustainability that works. But let me warn you that it is not fashionable; it does not glow with the sheen of the new or seduce with the taut figure of the savior knight. It smacks of hard work, long hours, rigorous focus, and disciplined application. Worse, it is not a single action – like the crafting of an irresistible email blast.
Arts organizations that are interested in creating sustainability must reinvent their relationship with their audiences. This requires abandoning a transactional paradigm defined by market-and-sell strategies for an ownership paradigm that is defined by understand-and-involve strategies. While this sounds simple, it isn’t.
I’m not talking about dressing up transactional strategy in new clothes. This is a makeover that must be done from the inside out. It must be accomplished from the DNA up. We can use transactionally defined tools to measure progress, but we mustn’t let the tools shape the work – and this has happened all too often. As a Japanese management sage once observed, if all you have is a hammer, then the whole world looks like a nail. Well, if all you have is a sales report, then the whole world looks like a transaction. That’s the problem. Most of us have very few tools; what we need are better tools with smarter uses. One of the most important, if not the most important, actions that arts professionals must take is to learn to pay attention differently.
In my work as a consultant I’m delighted to find clients that are paying attention at all. Most organizations I encounter have no idea what’s really going on with respect to the performance dimensions that drive sustainability. What they know about is what generally accepted accounting practices tell them. Most organizations pay a lot of attention to money and almost no attention to community, audience, or how they behave. It will be nearly impossible for them to reinvent their relationship to their audience because they have no relationship to their audience.
What they have is a relationship to their budget – to their tool. Forgive the biblical reference here, but there’s a lot of truth in sacred texts. The love of money is the root of all evil. It is also the root of all ineffectiveness when it comes to building sustainable arts organizations. With too many organizations, the tool has defined focus and the most widely accepted, utilized, and understood tool is the budget. Believe me, there are far more important tools.
Why is it that we do not know that robust financial performance is a consequence of creating value? Value is not a consequence; it is a driver. The current business model in the arts is fundamentally all about renting value. It is human nature to want to own it, not rent it. Facilitating ownership requires a deeper, more thoughtful, and interactive dynamic than does a transactionally oriented strategy.
I harken back to my childhood growing up in the little mountain town of Cody, Wyoming. The Community Concert Association, which was run by a wonderful soprano banker’s wife named Gerri Allen, presented a season of performances every year at the Cody High School Auditorium (now the Wynona Thompson Auditorium). If you didn’t buy your season ticket early, you didn’t get to attend. There was never an empty seat - and I mean never. One year my mother didn’t get around to buying season tickets and I did everything possible to scrounge up a ticket to go. I had almost no luck. Thereafter, my mother gave me a season ticket for my birthday and I went every year to every performance until I left to go away to college.
I was pretty close to Mrs. Allen; I played guitar accompaniments to her recital singing at times. She was actually a fantastic singer, but she was also the spirit of ebullient culture. She didn’t give a hang about money; she cared about the town and the people who wanted to attend Community Concerts. The operation wasn’t particularly sophisticated in present-day terms, but because it was owned by the community as opposed to a building or an organization, it thrived. Community Concerts didn’t have a relationship with its audience; it WAS its audience. The ownership paradigm was congregational, not transactional. It sounds simple. It’s not.
Almost everything that defines the current cultural organizational context may be seen in transactional terms. If one looks carefully at brand touchpoints, experience touchpoints, facility design, organizational management processes, and management tools, the entire array of evidence points up something so pervasive as to be like the air we breathe. It is so ubiquitous as to be invisible to us. We do not adhere to it; we are defined by it. What’s worse, this array has defined what we will accept and understand as the “silver bullet” we seek. Solutions that are “hostile” to our frame of reference are rejected like the body rejects bacteria, even though we know that there are bacteria that are crucial to our health.
Back to my observation about mind-numbing conferences. I wish I could be more optimistic about incipient change. I’m not. The conference format is currently all about ideology and networking in the pursuit of self-interest. They have become a real-time social aggregation engine where interest in status has eclipsed interest in advancement. Change is glacial and where it happens, it is usually for the worse. There is a lot of talk about improvement but talk is cheap. Check the market.
Of course there are exceptions. There is the occasional brilliant and inspired moment. There are people with guts, perseverance, and intelligence in the field who are doing the really difficult work; but they remain buried in a lot of horse manure. Just like the pony.
It is my deepest hope that we as professionals who care deeply about art and what it offers to people will one day wake up and demand better. The field needs a stronger knowledge architecture. It needs better tools. More meaningful conversations. Gutsier leadership. Less self-promotion. We need less patience with underperforming people and organizations. It’s time to get moving.
Posted on January 31, 2008 07:38 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Hello Neill,
After many months, and for no particular reason, I just visited your blog and there, once more (as so many times since 1988), you are putting my thoughts into words! After 20 years of participating in at least 5 conferences per year, this year I only attended Chamber Music America and a regional conference as one of my clients was invited to showcase.
As you observe: “There are people with guts, perseverance, and intelligence in the field who are doing the really difficult work; but they remain buried in a lot of horse manure.” – Interestingly my move to a 160-acre farm :-) has actually provided me with an opportunity to get the necessary distance and calm to reclaim the energy required to be as “gutsy” as I was 20 years ago and be less patient with under-performing people and organizations. It’s indeed time to get moving. I have just cancelled my membership with WAA and am seriously evaluating others.
“We could not survive on a hope-free diet. As a people, we are aspirers. Nowhere is this truer than in the creative sector. Innovation equals better, equals possibility equals hope equals….” Indeed: “There is an approach to advancement and sustainability that works. But it is not fashionable; it does not glow with the sheen of the new or seduce with the taut figure of the savior knight. It smacks of hard work, long hours, rigorous focus, and disciplined application. Worse, it is not a single action – like the crafting of an irresistible email blast. As consultants let’s concentrate our efforts on and support of the people out there that have the guts and perseverance and intelligence so they will be empowered to once more: “BECOME its audience. The ownership paradigm will be congregational, not transactional”.
As always, with kindest regards
Gudrun