No one working in the Arts has failed to cheer the fresh air blowing in the window in the wake of the #MeToo movement but there is also a ripple of disquiet about what’s NOT being said about the atmosphere that has allowed abusive environments to flourish and the broader subject of abuse and bullying in the sector.
Continue reading
In the not-for-profit and arts world I believe we set ourselves up to be uniquely vulnerable to the pitfalls of ethical systems based on utilitarianism. This is the ethical system in which the “good of the many” always outweighs the “good of the few”, a system that becomes challenged when the means are not ethical in and of themselves. In not-for-profit workplaces we think about “Ends” all the time. Right on the top of all our literature and websites we spell out the “Mission”. We are focused and passionate about the mission of our organizations, whether it is feeding the hungry, housing the homeless or assuring the survival of a classical orchestra.
Into all this passion and energy for achieving worthy goals comes a number of roadblocks that can make us, as non-profit staff and managers, feel that government funders, sponsors, regulatory bodies, are treating us unfairly, stacking the deck against the success of our organization to achieve our mission. Those challenges include: the preference for funding projects and program costs, over needed support for core operations; shifting priorities and programs from governments and foundation funders; narrow program objectives that don’t match the needs of the communities we serve. And some days we feel like if we hear the word “innovation” one more time, we’ll scream. We twist our programs pretzel shaped to try to qualify for those innovation grants when, really, we think that the way we have always done things is probably pretty soundly based on best practices.
Whether we bend the truth a little bit in our funding application to make our planned activity seem like a better fit, or we move expenses in accounting lines to shift expense from administration to program and marketing, we are embarked on a slippery slope. Tensions mount in organizations when doing whatever it takes to get or keep funding pushes staff members beyond their comfort levels.
These are not victimless crimes. Public dollars, the reputations and health of workers, the continuation of programs and services that the public counts on are jeopardized when organizations foster a culture of unethical expediency. Staff members feel helpless in organizations where they are not just asked but required to do unethical things: back-date mail machines to send in applications after funding deadlines, forge a signature because someone is unavailable, spend all their time working on one project that they are not funded to work on and neglect the work they are funded to do (a common way of shifting funds from one program to the other surreptitiously), directly shift funds from one program to another without the funder’s knowledge, invent statistics, report fundraising costs of a special event fundraiser as a “program” cost, report expenses of one project as the expenses of another, double and triple raise project revenues for one pet project while reporting a reasonable budget in each request, over-spending ridiculously on one area. . . all things that have been sanctioned in organizations I have worked for in the past. Yet there is little over-sight of non-profits and whistle-blowers at the staff level often have their careers ruined while they sometimes see the non-profit manager who forced the questionable or outright disgraceful practices be backed up by non-profit boards and even to be recognized with national awards.
Adequate funding of basic operations of non-profits that are operating effectively in the public good will stop the need to fudge program costs to cover operations.
I could say that Boards should stop propping up corrupt leaders but . . . that’s not going to happen. The “friends of X” board is alive and well everywhere. I have come to the conclusion that there needs to be tougher regulatory bodies at the provincial and federal level that will investigate allegations of mismanagement of publicly funded non-profits. Working with very well-managed and ethical non-profits has given me perspective on the insidious harm that unethical non-profits do to workers, funders and programs.
Founder’s syndrome occurs when a founder of an organization is not able to transition leadership style as the organization matures and grows. The founder continues to operate in the same manner as he/she did in founding the organization, seeking to personally manage every aspect of a growing organization.
The strong entrepreneurial personality that developed a new organization may be unskilled at or unwilling to delegate. The tireless worker that was willing to pull all-nighters to get in last-minute grant applications may be unable to schedule work or effectively manage their time. The genius that came up with spontaneous project ideas may not be willing to work on long-range plans or within budget guidelines. All of the affects of founder’s syndrome results in limiting the growth and effectiveness of organizations and often creates toxic environments for workers, artists, clients.
We naturally see more of this in smaller organizations because it is such a strong factor in limiting growth. It is more prevalent in the non-profit sector because while for-profit organizations can be affected by founder’s syndrome, market forces exert limiting pressures on poor leadership. The for-profit company that cannot grow and change often fails while others are forced to change their ways or leadership to remain competitive. By contrast non-profits are less subject to market forces and may have difficulty discerning reasons for organizational stagnation or failures. Non-profits are governed by unpaid community volunteers who may feel unable to pass judgment on the workings of an organization that is outside their area of expertise and where evaluation may be more qualitative than quantitative. Volunteer Board Members customarily spend little or no time observing the day-to-day workings of the organization. They may also be friends of the Founder and so not impartial. They may have been convinced by the Founder that any inquiries about management is “meddling”. Staff and volunteers in the arts and non-profits tend to be very high-minded and mission-driven. This results sometimes in a willingness to tolerate a sick work environment in a mis-guided idea that it is “for the good of the cause”.
Founders alone cannot create an organization with Founder’s Syndrome. It takes a step-by-step, person by person tacit agreement to cede power to the Founder by Board Members who should be providing governance to the organization. It also requires funders, volunteers, staff, colleagues and other stakeholders to decide to continue to support the sick organization or to leave silently. Over the years it there may be numerous loud and clear signals that there is something terribly wrong in the organization but no effective action is taken to address the problem or to provide help to the Founder to assist them in developing a more effective leadership style before they stifle or bring ruin to the organization they founded.
1. There’s a “friends of the founder” Board of Directors. The founder has recruited the Board of Directors him or herself (normal in the initial stage of an organization) and the Board has never taken over authority for recruiting new members themselves based on the needs of the organization. Board members are vetted by the founder and Board Members that try to counter the Founder’s wishes are quickly ejected. The Board sees their role as supporting the work of the founder rather than stewardship of the organization’s Mission and sound governance of the organization’s work and resources.
2. Decision-making within the organization is all controlled by the founder. Staff either don’t know what’s going on or plans suddenly get de-railed by a decision of the founder. Ideas that come from elsewhere than the Founder don’t go very far. Staff become discouraged about offering innovative ideas, stop being pro-active and may even be afraid of the founder.
3. Organizational information such as newsletters and brochures contain a lot of information about the founder: personal letters from the founder to supporters, news of the founder’s awards, achievements, pet projects. Board members and staff seem oddly uninformed about the details of project plans, budgets, and any results or evaluation. Staff cannot articulate processes, statistics or evaluation methods.
4. The founder often talks about “my vision, my program, my goals” rather than “our goals”. When asked about rationale for methods it is not unusual to hear, “we have always done X” or “I believe it is best to do Y”. There is no process for new ideas and methods to be introduced.
5. There is a resistance to any changes that might create a real or perceived loss of control, e.g. a founder that is uncomfortable with technology will resist the implementation of a user-friendly website that a staff member might be able to create and manage because she/he will feel unable to control the content.
6. Information hording can occur because information is power. The more threatened a founder is by a staff member, the less likely the founder will be in sharing information with that staff member.
1. If the Founder recognizes the problem, get them help through professional leadership counselling.
2. If the Founder does not recognize the problem you’ll need buy-in from more than one organizational level to effect change. Without support from Board, Staff, and Funders you will not be likely to succeed. Staff driven efforts alone result in Board backed firings that can ruin careers and even the health of staff members summarily dismissed for the efforts to alert the Board to the dysfunction. Board-driven change processes that lack staff and funder buy-in can result in funding cuts, and/or sabotage at the staff level and ultimately Board fatigue, resignations, replacements. Funder led calls for reform without organizational support can result in financial hits for the organization but no real change. The organization will find new funding partners or fail, but will be unlikely to effect real change to suit a funder unless there is recognition of a problem.
1. Recognize that you are in a very challenging environment and you may not be able to effect change. Go easy on yourself.
2. Consider your options and prepare your exit strategy even before it’s necessary.
3. It is unwise to try to effect change in the organization unless there is a Board initiated effort for organizational change.
4. If you elect to stay in the organization focus on small goals or achievements within your area of responsibility with minimal opportunities for friction with the Founder.
5. If you choose to whistle-blow, be prepared for a very difficult time and possibly lasting career damage. It might be personally advantageous to simply resign.
6. Work within the non-profit sector to promote awareness of this problem and protections for workers.
The first in a small series on the management art of effective delegation.
When you talk to unhappy employees and ask them what is wrong with their jobs or their relationship with managers, the leading issue is usually poor delegation techniques. In the arts and non-profits we are often working as managers having no business training in supervisory management and as employees we are working with bosses who may be wonderful in their fields but don’t know the first thing about managing people.
Why do so many managers fear and avoid delegation?
Let’s look hard at this fear:
When you feel these fears coming on (and we all have them as managers) remember the gains that will come to you as an effective delegator. You will develop happy, productive employees who not only think for themselves but regard you as an effective mentor and supervisor, someone they can go to for advice without fearing their project will be yanked away from them. You will be enhancing your own reputation and chance of advancement. You’ll free up time for your own innovative, non-routine tasks which require your unique expertise.
Consider this scenario that is acted out in workplaces every day:
You need to leave on time for once because of family plans. It’s busy at work and your boss says, “Well I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been the sort of person who doesn’t watch the clock at work because I prefer to just get the work done”. It stings because your self-image has always been that of a hard-worker but there is nothing in the current situation or workplace that motivates you to stay late. What has changed? Is it you? Is it the job?
Getting to understand your own values helps to answer with confidence about the balance you have between commitments to work and to other parts of your life and what you need in order to give more time to work. As a manager, knowing your employees values helps you negotiate for the flexibility and extra effort you may need for a project.
Understanding what are core expectations for your position is the starting point. While you might have regular work hours, some contracts have language that requires a flexible schedule or extra hours in peak periods. It is only when we are asked to exceed the language in our agreement that we need to consider where our boundaries lie. While we like to give ourselves labels like “dedicated”, healthy individuals have limits about the amount and type of work they are willing to do on their own time and the conditions under which they find it reasonable to put in extra hours. If you don’t know your own priorities you could find yourself agreeing to work you’ll resent or saying “no” to an opportunity that might be congruent with your goals. Neither of these outcomes is good for you or the workplace.
What motivates you to take work home, put in hours over the weekend, or stay late to finish a project? For me I know that I will volunteer to work on projects that involve learning new skills that are congruent with my goals and interests. I’ll also burn the midnight oil for a project that I’m given ownership of that I can add to my resume folder in future. Affirmation goes a long way with me also. Even if there is nothing in it for me, I’ll do extras when I feel appreciated.
As a manager, you need to know what your employees value and use that understanding to motivate appropriately. This is a part of values-based management.
When organizations are thinking about staffing an arts position on a tight budget, they often cast the position as an “entry-level” position because of the parttime nature, low salary, lack of job security and no-benefits nature of the position. Sometimes this judgement is made without consideration of the demands of the job description. In some cases the position IS a great fit for a newly graduated student. In other cases, although few hours are demanded, the skill set needed is varied and requires on-the-job experience for success.
If an organization needs experienced grantwriting, financial management/budgeting, and arts marketing savey, they are unlikely to find that in an entry level staff person. It takes a few years of working in an effective team setting to learn these highly specialized skills. A great fit for such an organization may be an arts worker at the other end of the spectrum, easing into retirement or exiting full time arts administration in order to work on their own artistic or entrepreneurial projects.
You know you are SUPPOSED to market your arts organization with Social Media, but the messages are confusing. What will work to reach your audience? Who shares what? Where?
No one is better placed to answer these questions than the people behind the “Share This” applet, that is most used to link social networking applications (for example post a link from a blog post to Twitter). Their articles and charts are invaluable in deciding which applications you should be focusing on in disseminating your message.
The Value of Sharing: Social Engagement
Posted using ShareThis
Yesterday I was reading a post by Jodi Schoenbrun Carter on Michael Kaiser’s “Arts in Crisis” program that is a follow-up to his book, “The Art of the Turnaround”. I agree one-hundred percent with the sentiment that Kaiser has great ideas, but they are hardly original ideas to most experienced arts managers. You’d be hard-pressed to find any who didn’t agree with him, hadn’t advocated his main principals to their Boards and hadn’t gone away shaking their heads in dismay as Boards failed to listen.
Kaiser says that the quality of art matters, be bold, be brave be revolutionary. Know your Mission and stay on Mission, and spend the money it takes to do it right and market it correctly. You cannot save your way to financial health. He says that the arts are remarkably efficiently run and do not have a spending problem, the arts instead have a revenue problem. Nor can arts organizations win by compromising the art by trying to vie with popular entertainment biz by watering down their season with pop and shlock. Any pickup at the box office will be equalled by loss of donations and funder support.
It makes me tired –as it did Jodi– to hear this touted as new advice. The question in my mind is, “why does arts management common-sense so often fail to be implemented?” And the answer, I believe, is that there is a flaw in a structure which gives governance of our cultural assets to mostly untrained groups of volunteers, with little or no oversight or accountability. I have seen Boards do amazing things from time to time–saving and revitalizing arts organizations. But too often competent arts managers stagger and fail under the weight of dysfunctional boards that– while perhaps composed of well-educated and competent individuals— cannot seem as a group to acquire the knowledge or retain the organizational memory to plan well for their organization’s success, or to carry good plans forward into future years of implementation.
If public funds were invested in building a bridge, and the bridge collapsed, people would ask questions, folks would be held accountable, fault would be found and those at fault would pay real costs. I wonder why we are prepared to invest dollars in arts organizations (and non-profits in general) and yet feel we don’t have the right to hold Boards accountable?
I think it was David Parsons, the Music Officer at the Ontario Arts Council who said to me that while he used to think of arts organizations as going through processes of recovery that would end in a stable state that would remain indefinitely, he now believed that most arts organizations were constantly going through cycles of invention and re-invention if they did not wish to devolve and die.
I agree. Arts organizations that depend upon their founding energy and original creative mission as the only continuing energy in their engine will eventually meet the law of entropy and run down, engine sputtering and eventually failing.
What makes for a resilient arts organization that can recover from challenges and find new momentum?
I think of organizations as having some similarities to mechanical engines. They are propelled by the forces of varying numbers of cylinders and work at peak performance when all cylinders are firing with equal force. They can limp along when one weakens, if the opposite/complimentary cylinder is strong. Certain configurations of failures cause the engine to seize up and fail dramatically, while others just cause slow oil leaks that take years to grind the engine to a halt. In no small part I am drawing my analogy from the classic, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” , a book that talks about how the attention to the small details of systems, ensure that the whole runs trouble-free.
What propels a healthy arts organization?
ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP: It all has to start with the Art.
Artistic Visioning is not something that gets done when the organization has some down time, or as a make-work project funded by OAC’s COMPASS program or Canada Council’s Flying Squad (as is too often the attitude in organizations already in trouble). If there isn’t an Artistic reason for your organization to exist, then quit, get out of the way, give up, fold, you are wasting the audience’s time and scarce resources. There are scores of artists and artists collectives out there filled with creative projects crying out for funding so, “I don’t know, we’ve been presenting concerts for 37 years so we are just trying to keep on doing what we’ve done for those years” just isn’t going to be a compelling battle cry for anyone. If you are parched with thirst for real art, go back to the well, consult with arts visionaries and re-connect with an inspiration to carry you forward again. If your artistic leadership is not inspiring your musicians, your actors, your company, then you have a problem. You are not going to solve that problem by band-aid solutions (programming committees, artistic guidelines, etc.) although those things might help in the short-term. You need to find out what the obstacles (if any) are to the artistic process, help the leader(s) re-charge their batteries, and be prepared to replace the vision or abandon the organization. There is no point to an arts organization without an artistic voice. Does this mean you must be professional? Absolutely not. An arts organization can have at its core a mission to empower and present local amateurs, artistic creation of children and youth.
When do you know when there is a problem in Artistic Leadership?
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS: Art has a purpose and that purpose is how it is transformative in the lives and culture of our practicing artists and the community that the arts organization serves. Finding the balance between artistic vision, serving the community and working transformative magic within the community is the ongoing role of community engagement that the arts organization must undertake as a constant. Communities change constantly and so arts organizations must change also in order to serve new constituency and/or move programs and services to areas craving their programming. A mentor of mine was fond of saying “if people don’t want to come, you can’t stop them”.
Think of two scenarios for a family that has recently arrived in a community. In the first the family gets a brochure for a subscription series to the local orchestra. One child has had an orchestra ensemble visit their school and brought home a study guide. The family saw the orchestra playing in the park during the summer, and mom attended a program at the library on music appreciation led by the orchestra’s artistic director. In the second scenario, the family gets a brochure out of the blue and has never heard of the orchestra. Which brochure will go straight in the re-cycle bin and which one will get a second look?
In two organizations that I worked in during times of economic problems for (respectively) an orchestra and an opera company, their communities were alarmed and outraged at any thought that the organizations would fail. Individuals, corporations, area businesses and civic politicians helped to find ways to restore the organizations to financial health. It is interesting to note that neither communities were terribly wealthy nor noted for culture. But in yet another organization I served in, the organization had decided to pare its programming down to cut all community outreach, made an alienating name change, and disenfranchised community participation … all in the same year. Recovery of community trust was a huge challenge for that organization despite its existence in a privileged community.
ENGAGED BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Without #1 Clear Artistic Vision and #2 Community Engagement, an organization will find it difficult to recruit and motivate a volunteer board.
Boards typically go through a development cycle as organizations grow. Take the example of a community theatre. At first the Board does eve
rything from hanging lights, sewing costumes, selling tickets and holding fundraisers. As staff is hired to take care of production and ticket sales, the Board becomes more engaged in fundraising and community liaison. As the organization is able to afford professional grantwriting and fund-development staff, the Board role will shift to stewardship and making connections to major sponsors and donors for staff to follow-up on.
Board Executive and Nominating Committees have to set clear expectations of Board Members and recruit appropriately. When Board Members expect to be part of a “doer” Board and find that the expectation is mainly fundraising and oversight, they may feel sidelined. When Board Members expect to set policy and direction only and join the Board of a small arts organization, they may be surprised or even offended to be asked to roll up their sleeves and help with the nitty gritty. It is important that Board Members understand that their role is to help fund resources, find resources for the artistic work of the organization and work in ways that support the artistic mission of the organization. I have seen Board Members who behaved as though the arts organization was there to provide opera singers for their private parties, buy services from their clients, and that staff should shelve all artistic production work to assist Board Members with the running of gala balls or golf tournaments. While we all have to work together in arts organizations to raise funds, pulling staffing from accomplishing the core Mission, in order to facillitate Board fundraising initiatives cannibalizes artistic resources and is not sustainable.
MANAGEMENT: The role of the arts manager is to take the artistic program and the resources supplied by Board & funders and to implement the program objectives. Through expert knowledge of the industry, the manager employs best practices, allocating resources as carefully as possible to achieve optimum results.
The manager that is both under-resourced and without a clear and well-ariticulated artistic mission & strong community connections is unlikely to be able to achieve good results. If the organization also is burdened with an unfocused, non-contributing Board, the manager alone will not have the power to turn the engine of the organization single-handedly. In order to write grants, appeal to foundations or seek sponsorships, the manager will need a compelling story to tell about artistic & community arts education plans and the support that exists in the community, demonstrated by results, photos, endorsements. She or he needs the community connections of an engaged Board to gain new funding and connect with local industrial and business leaders. If there is a lack of money for marketing artistic programs, the manager will need the Board’s community connection and legwork to promote artistic programs through grassroots initiatives.
Arts managers are there because they really love the arts and they have a tragic tendency to burn out as they try to prop up failing arts organizations.
WHY DO ORGANIZATIONS FAIL? We always hear of arts organizations failing for lack of money, but I have yet to see an organization fail purely from lack of money. An organization that has less money than is needed to fulfill all it’s programming has to be flexible enough to be responsive to the reality and scale back or make economies to live within its means and simultaneously work on seeking more funds. A healthy arts organization with a clear Mission, valued by the community, with an engaged Board and adequate staffing will survive financial setbacks.
When organizations insist on not changing despite annual deficits, money becomes an issue. When artistic mission is muddy, community connections are lost, fundraising becomes extremely difficult. When Board Members are unclear on their roles, unfocused and non-contributing and sometimes caught up in their own politics, an important driving force in the organization siezes up. When managers and staff are called upon to deliver/sell/find funds programs that have no coherence, artistic energy or community connections, it is no surprise that they fail.
As I conclude my three years with the Toronto Philharmonia, I am led to consider again the purpose of a live performing arts organization in this time of electronic media. Why have a professional orchestra performing in our community when we can listen to such great music on CD, on our televisions or via online podcasts?
Some will say that the social experience of sharing a live performance in a great hall is, in itself a reason to support our orchestras and chamber ensembles. I agree that it is one reason. But is it enough?
If we make our musical organizations simply museums for the display of works by composers long dead and gone, we have no one to blame but ourselves when other citizens find what we are doing irrelevant to their daily lives, or who feel that what we do can easily be replaced by electronic records of performances by a very few orchestras worldwide.
An art form is alive, growing, challenging our assumptions, involving us, and provoking debate or it is dying. Performing the best of music from the past should always be a part of what an orchestra does, but if it is not also encouraging students, new musicians, community artists, collaborating with living composers, creating opportunities for its own musicians to learn, grow, explore new collaborations then it is irrelevant to the artistic life of its own community. It is my view that this is at the core of the mission of any orchestra in today’s society, and not the after-thought, or add-on that so very many organizations regard the role of education and professional development.
Organizations that view contributions to music development, education and professional development as hoops they must jump through in order to succeed with funding applications are unlikely to priorize these activities. Unfortunately it is a common view. I would challenge them to put the musical life of their community at the core of their Mission and view concert presentation as but one way to contribute to that Mission.