BUILDING CAPACITY/developing audiences
Q&A
Straight Talk: Nello McDaniel of Arts Action Research
Nello McDaniel, photo by Anne Ellen Geiger
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Arts Action Research (AAR) is an arts consulting and action research group founded and co-directed by Nello McDaniel and George Thorn. AAR is committed to discovering, understanding, and creating the systems, processes, vocabulary, and culture of a healthy arts community—one that is artistcentered, led and directed by arts professionals. Widely recognized for their groundbreaking work in redefining the role, relationships, and operation of arts organizations in today’s challenging arts environment, AAR is an extension of McDaniel and Thorn’s 15-year collaboration in arts management consulting. They have worked with hundreds of arts organizations of all disciplines, sizes, and situations, nationally and internationally. AAR’s clients range from the Arena Stage in Washington, DC and the Atlanta Ballet, to hundreds of small groups through arts service organizations such as the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, Theatre LA, and the Atlanta Dance Initiative. They have conducted action research projects for institutions such as the Kennedy Center, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.
PMP Director Matt Levy sat down with Nello McDaniel to discuss his consulting work with PMP constituents, now in its sixth year. Matt Levy: In your PMP consultancy, you typically work with music organizations over a two or three year period. I wonder if you could talk me through a cycle. How do you begin the process? Nello McDaniel: We always begin with what an organization is doing right and we allow that to inform the rest of their operations. In most cases, if participating organizations are doing anything right, it’s producing or presenting art. From the very outset, we try to find those areas where they have the greatest amount of confidence, and use that as a way to inform their relationships and approaches to problem-solving, how they make decisions and how they plan. Especially how they plan! The artistic process gives us a framework to move ahead. Usually the first cycle is getting to some depth of understanding about how each individual organization is working and what makes it unique. We ask each organiza-
tion not only to talk about what they do and how they do it, but to write about it in a form that they can share with their artistic and community partners. In a sense, they’re codifying their operations. I think that where a lot of this comes from, broadly speaking, a sense of “Gee, if I could just get this organization thing right, the way it’s supposed to be—the right kind of board, and right kind of marketing plan, with the right kind of staff, then we’d be just fine.” What they fail to understand is that there’s no model out there that’s going to address the very particular situation of any one group or organization at a given time. Organizations have to be adaptable; they have to be able to respond fast to changes that are coming at them. And here again, the artistic process is constantly in movement. No artist says and does exactly the same thing over and over and over again. For most artists, there’s a constant process of challenging and moving forward and taking those next steps. That’s the way the whole organization needs to function. What comes next? We really begin to focus on how this process translates to the way the organization operates. What kind of relationships do we need to forge to get the board that we really need, not just the board we’re supposed to have? What are the appropriate kinds of internal systems, especially given their work, what is the right kind of organizational equation, what kind of resources will really balance what we’re trying to do with what we’re able to do? How do we work within that balance so that the organization oper-
ates in a healthy, productive way, not over-extending, and not forcing themselves into a situation they can’t sustain? Can you talk more about the principle of using the organization’s artistic work to inform its managerial work? I mean, can’t an organization be great at its art but not be good at marketing or development, accounting, fundraising, and so forth? Can you always make connections between what seem to be very different skill sets? Well, I think that, much like the case with the artistic process, every project requires a certain amount of learning and new resources and access to new information, and sometimes new players or guests. Every organization absolutely needs an effective plan for generating contributed income, for developing audiences, some fundamental communications skills; all those things are needed, but should be positioned within the framework of how do we best position this work? How do we talk about this work to the community? Where does this particular project fit within the organization and field’s larger body of work? It’s a matter of finding the right kinds of tools and expertise and skills and putting those in the right place so that they really support the work and we don’t end up with the work inadvertently supporting the tools. There is this notion, and we’ve heard it over and over again for years, that if you could just find someone who was a really good business person and get them on board, they can learn the art, that’s easy. It’s exactly the opposite. What’s really challenging is understanding what the organization is really about: what do we really care about, what are we really trying to say, how are we trying to have impact? That’s the hard part. There are so many resources in the community in terms of how to acquire skills, how to outsource, how to find people to take on certain jobs and tasks on a short term basis. We want to avoid individuals coming to arts organizations heavy on skills and not nearly as deeply committed to the work. What kinds of issues do you address in the final phase of your work with organizations? We’re well into aspects of planning and especially some of the strategic and resource areas of planning. Planning is the centerpiece of everything we do. We’re really concentrating on how each organization is generating audiences and earning income, developing contributed income, and how they’re building the board and other human resources from the community. The emphasis on planning for us is a means to get from point to point. I think way too much planning ends up being a symbolic gesture, or is all about the ‘what we’re going to do’ instead of how we’re going to accomplish our goals. Whenever we complete our work with an organization, there’s a really clear sense of how they’re operating and how they can sustain themselves over a long period of time. If an organization can achieve a balanced operating equation, then they’ve achieved nirvana? I think for many organizations, that is as good as it gets. We’ve really shifted our focus so much towards organizations developing internal systems, acknowledging the fact that, except for the artists who are deeply dedicated to the work and provide the continuity, a lot of people come and go. Management staff and board members, there are a lot of partners that will come into the equation, hopefully contribute very fully, but then they do move on. So, I think that more and more, the emphasis in our planning areas is that there are clear systems and really clear communication about not just how we function, but about systems, so that when somebody leaves, we’re not replacing a system, we’re replacing somebody. What have you found to be the most common challenges that you’ve addressed with clients in Philadelphia? The confusion about board and professional relationships, and the lack of understanding that the professional leadership must lead and
direct and that we really need board members in an appropriate partnership role. There’s an awful lot of information being shoved at art professionals and boards that really misrepresents the relationship and very often creates conflict. There needs to be absolute collaboration and a strong working relationship between these partners. Historically, a great deal of what has been brought to arts organizations has come from other not-for-profit arenas that are really very different. I think that even now, we’re still working through an awful lot of theory, myth, and misconception about the roles and relationships of professional leadership and board leadership. So, the workings of a board in non-arts organizations have been imposed onto cultural organizations with the hope that it would help them to function in a more healthy fashion, but in reality, may cause dysfunction and undermine programming? Exactly. A common phrase we’re hearing a lot these days is “if you just get a board.” I mean, this is what’s often said to arts leadership, “Just get a board. Get some important people from the community and put together a board, the right structure, the right look, and then that will take care of everything you need.” Well, it’s magical thinking. It’s a notion that these symbolic gestures will result in all the support you need. In my view, the board’s role is not to make artistic decisions. Many organizations have struggled when arts professionals are really in a subservient role to the board, when the board takes on inappropriate leadership responsibility. It absolutely turns the organization on its head. How did you get into this field and come to your views? I got into this field as a dancer. I’m trained as a dancer. I worked for a very short time with a company in both artistic and administrative capacities. I’ve come to understand in a variety of jobs, working with the Reese Foundation, Western States Arts Foundation, four years with the National Endowment for the Arts, and in my collaboration with (Arts Action Research co-founder) George Thorne, that the most important lessons I’ve learned were indeed in the studio and what’s involved with making art, with producing art, with collaborating on art. So I have just really found my way into this arena, not so much with full intention. I just love doing the work and constantly being challenged and driven to understand more and more. It’s one of the great things about the work I do with music, dance, and theatre groups in Philadelphia. Everybody I meet with, they’re passionate, they have extraordinary ideas, and they’re deeply committed to what they’re doing. It keeps me going.
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