ARTS LEADERSHIP A RESOURCE FOR CHIEF EXECUTIVES
AUTUMN 2018
Review
GETTING REAL ABOUT
Your People
Arts Leadership Review
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trgarts.com LetsTalk@trgarts.com US: 719.686.0165 UK: 020 7438 2040
Photo: Rosalie O’Connor
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ARTS LEADERSHIP REVIEW AUTUMN 2018
// FEATURES
// DEPARTMENTS
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Welcome Jill Robinson
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Executive Interview: Invest in Your Staff & Get Caught in Richard Rose’s Spiderweb Eric Nelson
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Results Roundup: Barter Theatre
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Arts Leadership Book Club Fred Reichheld’s The Ultimate Question
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Metrics that Matter
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Leadership Lessons Dan Bates
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Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities
Getting Real About Your People David Seals
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The Elements of Successful Leadership Keri Mesropov
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Reasons to Be Cheerful About GDPR David Brownlee
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It’s Not the Business Model that is Broken Vincent VanVleet
Arts Leadership Review
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Jill Robinson President and CEO
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Arts Leadership Review
// WELCOME
“Data doesn’t do. People do.” I say that all of the time at TRG Arts. Internally, with our clients, or whenever it fits... and it fits a lot. I’ve learned this critical lesson over more than 20 years of consulting and running my own business. People lead and motivate; they make organizational visions happen. They make artistic decisions and develop organizational strategy. People use CRM (or other data systems) and reason their way through the myriad of reports provided in them. They talk to your visitors, your ticket buyers, subscribers, and donors. They represent your business and your mission. They’re the ones helping to get results. Or not. Do you ever wonder if your organization has the right people, organized and working in the right ways? Or if you’re leading them effectively…? I do. I think leaders must wrestle with these questions regularly. Our organizations aren’t static, neither are our people. As leaders we need to regularly re-adjust our frame of reference toward an ever-changing future of needs. My observation is that in arts and culture we don’t spend enough time investing in and thinking about our people. This Autumn issue of Arts Leadership Review is about people, and the lessons we’ve learned at TRG Arts about the role that they play in the sustainable management and growth of arts and cultural institutions. Throughout this issue, you’ll find articles and experts describing variations on this “people” theme. On page 12, Keri Mesropov, Vice President of Client Services, shares from our consulting practice The Elements of Successful Leadership. These elements will help you be reminded about the things we see as required for arts and cultural leaders today.
(I’d argue they’re required in any business; certainly, they apply to mine). Vincent VanVleet, the Managing Director at Phoenix Theatre, contributes his thoughts on this same theme but broadens it to the organizational level on It’s Not the Business Model that is Broken. In April, I hosted the inaugural Arts Leadership Book Club with Gillian Tett’s book The Silo Effect with nearly 40 arts leaders from Australia, the UK, Canada, and the US. Reading the book reminded us how important it is to get people to work together beyond their silos. Rearrange the furniture, metaphorically or literally, so that people bump into each other and interact! For more information about the book club, go to trgarts.com/ artsleadership and be sure to register for our next meeting on November 8. Eric Nelson’s interview with Barter Theatre’s Producing Artistic Director Richard Rose on page 8 goes in to more depth on silos. As TRG’s new Client Engagement Officer, Eric obsesses about growing loyalty and revenue for our clients. Rose is an iconic leader who believes strongly that silos are a killer. His organizational chart is completely matrix-ed (aptly named, The Spiderweb) and Rose believes it’s critical to the company’s success. Finally, TRG Director of Client Development David Seals is Getting Real About Your People. He’ll share what we hear about your star performers and what keeps you up at night about those who should likely move on. Check it out on page 6. You and the people you surround yourself with do critically important work in your communities. Be sure you’re investing enough time in yourself and them. Like any other investment, you’ll be able to measure the return in performance, innovation, and more. Remember: data doesn’t do, people do. Get in touch at jsrobinson@trgarts.com to find a time to have a conversation with me about your people.
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GETTING REAL ABOUT
Your People David Seals Director of Client Development
Every person on your team is growing daily in one of two directions: adding to or detracting from the work. As the chief executive, it’s illuminating to ask yourself two honest questions: 6
1. 2.
Visualize your star performer, the one you can count on when it matters. What characteristics define
them? What affect do they have on the organization? On the people around them?
Visualize your lowest performing employee. What characteristics define them? What affect do they have on the organization? On the people around them? Great chief executives not only ask these questions regularly, they do something with the answers. What to do is rarely simple and never easy, yet the cost of doing nothing (for both high and low-performing employees) is staggering. So how do you proceed?
Arts Leadership Review
Star Performers: Growth or Burnout?
Consider this: In 2011, I served on the Americans for the Arts Emerging Leader Council with 14 peers thought to represent the field’s future. Only eight of them still work in the arts. Fifty-seven percent. That path is all too common. Energetic, excited employees join our marketing and fundraising teams, bringing with them new ideas, connections to new communities, and the latest thinking from their university experience or previous job. They work enthusiastically, driven by the mission and a desire to make an impact. After years of swimming over their head with no training or (worse) having their ideas drowned in a sea of We-Already-Tried-Thats, they give up and let the waters take them under. They strike out for another arts organization or leave the field entirely.
organization. Under-performing employees likely aren’t even happy themselves, let alone their effect on the coworkers who pick up the slack.
Poor Leaders permit low-performers to plod along with no feedback, little ac-
countability and a belief that the status quo will never change. If they do let an employee go, they mask it in layoffs or “eliminated positions.”
Good Leaders identify low-performers, curtail negativity, and hold the employee to reaching basic goals.
Poor Leaders squelch star performers in hierarchical bureaucracy.
Great Leaders motivate low-performers and provide concrete feedback on the deficient areas, training and support to address those
Good Leaders recognize
deficiencies, clear metrics on whether those deficiencies
have been met, and then make outcome-based decisions
star performers and allow them the space to thrive.
Great Leaders cultivate star performers with a ferocity that both grows their raw tal-
ent and their opportunity within the organization. They make
it hard for star performers to leave because they’re stimulated, empowered, and rewarded (yes, financially too.) After all,
where else would they find such an amazing work culture as the one you built?
A word about salaries: you must consider opportunity cost. A quick internet search for “cost of employee turnover” reveals a plethora of calculators to help you quantify the cost of turnover. It’s staggering—and more so for high performing employees who exit. At the end of the day, would raising a star performer’s salary by the cost of replacing them be the smarter business choice?
Low Performers: Change or Status Quo?
You’ve got them, and you know it. In fact, everyone else in the organization also knows it. You can cultivate them or you can let them go, but doing nothing breeds a culture of mediocrity and resentment that will poison your
about the employee’s future.
It Starts and Ends with You
I recently attended a session at the Theatre Communications Group conference on the ways in which bias creeps subtly into the workplace. It’s important for leaders to evaluate how their own bias might be affecting their definitions of employee success, as well as who they have promoted or entrusted with increasing responsibility. A leader’s preferred personal working style can’t be divorced from their own cultural background, and great leaders will evaluate this thoughtfully as they build their teams. Your organizational culture is your own creation. Regardless of your predecessor, your organizational history or your board composition, you build the look and feel of your team by how you lead today. Your team wants clarity and leadership. If you commit to accountability and reward results, if you bolster your teams by investment in training, if you commit both to joy and to hard work, you’ll craft a culture of mutual respect and hard work that keeps employees for a long time.
For more on this topic, listen to Jill Robinson’s guest appearance on Capacity Interactive’s podcast, CI to Eye | Our People Crisis in the Arts, soundcloud.com/capacity-interactive/jill-robinson.
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Executive Interview:
Invest in Your Staff & Get Caught in Richard Rose’s Spiderweb
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Arts Leadership Review
// EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW
Eric Nelson Client Engagement Officer
“We invest in Barter and our employees. They grow as we grow. We plan for our staff to blossom.” - Richard Rose, Barter Theatre Data and analytics are important, but they don’t make the work happen. It is the staff who implement plans, build relationships, and deliver results. All too often, our industry finds it difficult to invest in the personal and professional development of staff. This has led to the common wisdom that “to grow, I’ve got to go” in order to gain more responsibility and salary. This lack of corporate ladder has huge ramifications. Staff turnover is expensive. Luckily there are leaders in our industry who are investing in growing loyalty and engagement for both patrons and staff. I am thrilled to write this inaugural column, which will appear in each Arts Leadership Review, profiling an innovative leader in our field. For this issue, I had the pleasure of talking with Producing Artistic Director of Barter Theatre in Virginia, Richard Rose. Richard, who has led Barter for more than 26 years, has created a special place where staff members are engaged and empowered. He has applied a unique organizational structure that fosters creative risk-taking resulting in a thriving arts organization including employee growth. When asked how he does it, Richard said, “It all starts with listening. We listen to our employees about their dreams, thoughts, and visions.” To create this environment Richard uses an organizational structure called The Spiderweb. It was invented for organizations that need to function in a world of consistent and rapid change; much like the way arts organizations experience each season due to the variety of programming. The Spiderweb was purposely designed to get rid of the bureaucratic layers that slow people down and kill creativity. A spiderweb, by design, relies on multiple lines in multiple directions to create support. Barter’s spiderweb works in a similar
way. Employees are given easy pathways for collaboration and the ability to pull in the needed resources. This creates a productive and satisfied staff. When describing his role in Barter’s spiderweb, Richard explained, “My job is to monitor communication and make sure people are collaborating. I care for the web and repair it when needed.” He continued, “Organizational structures matter. Our spiderweb is the reason why people stay here for a long time. They can get things done and they can get satisfaction.” Richard also reinforced the need for clarity within the structure saying, “I make sure the vision is understood and everyone knows the goals.” Richard does acknowledge that the structure can be a tough sell, especially to someone who is risk adverse and interested in controlling power: “Young people get it immediately. It makes complete sense to them. Whenever I show it to a business person or new Board Member, they look at me like I am from another planet. But soon they experience how effective it is and embrace it.” And, it delivers results. The structure trains the staff to be entrepreneurial. At Barter, audiences, staff, and programming have grown. “We have one of the largest Actors’ Equity Association work weeks within Actors’ Equity and League of Resident Theatres (LORT). For a theater that is a LORT D theater in coal country of rural Virginia (and Appalachia) – that is amazing. We have also grown while most theaters have fallen back. We are always trying things. We believe at Barter that you have to fail in order to succeed. You have to learn from what doesn’t work,” Richard went on to say. When Richard tells people about Barter’s spiderweb, they often say, “I want your structure.” He acknowledges some leaders are afraid to implement it: “You have to be confident in yourself that you have the power whenever you need it. But you don’t want to exercise that unless it is absolutely necessary.” “The key is that you want to guide, coach, and build consensus. You want to get everybody moving in the same direction. It’s no different than directing a show. And, that is a vulnerable position. Most people in leadership are unwilling to be vulnerable. They are afraid they will get overthrown, dethroned and afraid they will make mistakes. What stops it, is old-school thinking,” explained Richard.
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Board of Trustees
THE BARTER FOUNDATION, INCORPORATED The Spiderweb for Barter Theatre was purposely designed to get rid of bureaucratic layers that slow people down and kill creativity. A spiderweb, by design, relies on multiple lines in multiple directions to create support. This simplified version of Barter’s Spiderweb subtly acknowledges more overt and direct connections between areas of the organization through the heavier yellow lines while also indicating the equally important, yet less overt and indirect, connections through the black lines. Employees are given easy pathways for collaboration and the ability to pull in the needed resources.
Mission Statement
Advancement
Senior Advancement Officer
Administration
Managing Director
Producing Artistic Director Associate Director
Marketing
Education
Associate Director
Production
Sales & Service
Though it is not a magic bullet. Richard agreed that our industry’s challenge with providing a robust staff ladder to climb is a real concern. “It’s a valid issue and one that cannot always be solved. At Barter we think long-term when we hire someone. We often create positions for them as they grow. We have purposely grown our organization, so we can invest in our employees. We take a long view when we hire someone. We keep in mind the position they will move into one day. That way they get training and exposure along the way to set them up for that long view position,” described Richard. He reiterated how much Barter’s values its staff, saying “People are important. How you treat them is important. Nothing is better than your people. If you don’t have people, you have nothing.” Richard further described how invested in people Barter is: “We may be the only theater that has 401K and full paid, 100%, healthcare for our full-time employees. We
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provide healthcare to our part-time employees as well. We pay the corresponding percentage of their part-time towards healthcare. If they work 20 hours a week, we will pay 50% of their healthcare.” He continued, “People realize when you care for them. We also have a Silver Lining Fund where employees can contribute. Any employee can request Silver Lining Funds when they have a difficult situation for which they need financial assistance.” Richard summed it all up by saying, “To really change your culture, you need to change your structure. And, lead by your own example. You must continually work at it. It’s like working on a good marriage. Yes, you are going to have dysfunctionality, but you need to keep the communication lines open. Reach out to Eric at LetsTalk@trgarts.com to discuss ways in which TRG Arts can help you invest in your people.
Arts Leadership Review
Results Roundup:
BARTER THEATRE
Barter Theatre’s hard work is illustrated through their results. Over the 2016 and 2017 Seasons:
Since engaging TRG Arts in October 2015, Barter Theatre has diligently worked to shift their internal culture from a mindset focused on transactions to a holistic approach rooted in patron loyalty. This organizational-wide cultural shift included rethinking their subscription program, using data to inform their decision-making process, and restructuring their annual fund levels and benefits to be more patron loyalty-centric.
• Incremental patron-generated revenue grew by $1.9 million (even though patron-generated revenue was flat for the previous three seasons.) • Paid admissions increased by 14%.
To date, Barter Theatre has yielded a
956% return-on-investment from their work with TRG Arts and increased their overall patron revenue by 34%.
PATRON REVENUE & ADMISSIONS
INCREMENTAL PATRON-GENERATED REVENUE
$6,000,000
160,000
$6,000,000
140,000
$5,000,000
$5,000,000
Admissions
$4,000,000 $3,000,000
$4,000,000
100,000 80,000
$3,000,000
Revenue
120,000
60,000
$2,000,000
$2,000,000
40,000 $1,000,000
20,000
$1,000,000
$0 2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Baseline Patron-Generated Revenue
2011
2012
Ticket Revenue
2013
2014
2015
2016
Annual Fund Revenue
2017
Paid Admissions
Additional Patron-Generated Revenue over Baseline
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April 2018 Executive Summit attendees at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, CO.
THE ELEMENTS OF
SUCCESSFUL LEADERSHIP Keri Mesropov Vice President, Client Services
For 23 years, TRG Arts has been in the business of helping the arts transform sustainability. We regularly evaluate the reasons why particular organizations achieve extraordinary results at an incredible pace. In every case, data has served as a lantern that has clearly illuminated where to focus and what to change to achieve superior results. But the leaders of these organizations know exemplary results rely on their own stead fast attention in five core areas:
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Arts Leadership Review
Organizational Prowess To lead and operate around the premise that a team works collaboratively on behalf of your organization versus on independent goals. This focus breeds a culture of collaboration and with that comes efficiency and buzz-worthy service. Systems through which to do this must also be in place, trained on, and insisted upon.
Trust With trust comes ease, fearlessness, and lightning speed. When we trust the people we lead, things get done right and well. True leaders talk about their feelings of trust constantly. These leaders communicate with regularity and transparency.
The Right People Loyalty Inviting, through data-driven strategies, all patrons to become more loyal to our arts and cultural institutions is the only business model that will create sustainability for your organization. The data proves this true every time. Everyone in the organization can have an impact in fostering this, together. Are they? And, what about internal loyalty? Are our people loyal to our organization? To you as leaders? This has a direct impact on results.
Belief Do you, executive leader, believe in the art you put on stage or in the halls of your museum? Do you believe in your team members and their ability to lead the institution forward with rigor? Your regular demonstration of belief (or disbelief ) shines through on your annual bottom line and how you are viewed by your people.
The best leaders invest their time and attention in their people, as much as the art. All too often, organizations believe they must take what they can get for the low salaries they offer. The hiring processes are brief and professional development opportunities are few and far between. The net result: mediocrity is often accepted and a belief that developing the right people is unobtainable. Great leaders understand that having the right people on their team will move mountains. And, they reject staff turnover because the data proves the cost of it is unsustainable.
Want truly remarkable, celebrate-able results? It starts, continues, and ends with you. Your insistence that these five areas be critical values will create the environment in which anything is possible. Believe it.
Want more leadership conversations? Learn more about TRG’s Executive Summits on page 23.
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// ART S L E ADE R S H IP B OOK C L U B with Jil l Ro b in s o n
Arts Leadership Book Club
Designed with the “learning or curious” executive leader in mind, TRG’s Arts Leadership Book Club is an opportunity for executives from around the world to come together and discuss issues and ideas that can have a positive impact on arts and cultural organizations.
W I T H J I L L RO B I N S O N
The Arts Leadership Book Club in November will focus its conversation on Fred Reichheld’s The Ultimate Question. Deemed “the high priest of loyalty” by The Economist, Reichheld and his book focuses on how businesses, across industries, can institutionalize the Net Promoter Score to generate sustainable growth. This August, Jill Robinson interviewed Reichheld at his home on Cape Cod where they spoke about how the Net Promoter Score is more than just a score, and how it applies to arts and cultural institutions. Follow @TRGArts on Twitter to read excerpts of that conversation prior to the November book club.
Thursday November 8, 2018
9 am PST | 12 pm EST | 5 pm GMT
Register today!
trgar ts.com/ar ts l ea d ersh ip
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Arts Leadership Review
R E A S O N S TO B E CHEERFUL ABOUT
GDPR
The prospect of a further tightening of regulations regarding the use of customer data across the UK and EU could have seemed like a disaster to a data-driven consultancy like TRG Arts. Some of the initial ill-informed panic and scare stories in the arts sector around the implications of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force in May 2018, certainly caught our attention. It is also fair to say there remains a lack of clarity around some of the implications of how GDPR will play out. However, the more we researched what the regulations meant in practice and got to understand the key principles behind them, the more this appeared to be a sensible step in improving practice, and in building and maintaining trust with customers. In the context of recent global scandals regarding data privacy, there are lessons that could and should be learned by the leaders of TRG Arts clients around the world. For me, the biggest reason to be cheerful about the implementation of GDPR was pushing customer data up the list of organizational priorities. Over the last twelve months, chief executives and boards of not-for-profits have been forced to think hard about their organization’s current practices regarding customer data. This has helped them understand how critical to business it is to have a clean and comprehensive database. In addition, it has also shone a light on how successful (or otherwise) their organization has been in collecting customer contact data and getting permissions to use it.
David Brownlee Director of International Strategy
The result has been that GDPR could be viewed as a catalyst for a major bout of “spring cleaning” at arts organizations all around the UK. Digital data is being moved to one safe place: great for security and great for ensuring a holistic approach to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems. This “spring cleaning” will hopefully improve the organization’s understanding of the multiple touch-points they have with their customers and improve the relevancy of the communications their customers receive from the organization. Should we need EU regulations to force us to tell our customers how we are using their personal data? Or, when there is so much concern about the evils of big data, should enlightened arts organizations all around the world be proactively telling their patrons how they care for it? Good practice is to be clear about the security of their information, what you are doing with it, and how you are sharing it. Smart leaders of cultural organizations outside of the EU should be looking at how they can use the principles of GDPR to guide a more robust approach to data management and security that will help grow the trust and loyalty of their customers. An investment of time and effort now will both reduce the risk of an embarrassing loss of your customer data, and help position your organization as a dependable beacon of good practice.
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It’s Not the Business Model T H AT I S B R O K E N Vincent VanVleet Managing Director, Phoenix Theatre
“There is much discussion recently of the non-profit arts business model being broken. Some even suggest it is dying. While many things about how organizations operate should be put to rest, I believe there is a growing insurrection to challenge the status quo of how our field can work.” A year ago, I sat through a presentation at a national theater conference and listened to a self-described “fixer” talk about why he’s “successful.” The fixer proclaimed, “I’m the guy you call when your non-profit arts organization is bleeding out. When I lop off the limb and put a tourniquet on it, I don’t feel bad. Yes, it puts people out of work, but they put themselves in that position in the first place.” It’s this mentality that Simon Sinek refers to in his book Leaders Eat Last when he puts forth the idea that sometime post-1980 the United States entered an era of “profits ahead of taking care of people.” I don’t personally subscribe to this kind of “leadership.” Quite the contrary, I think our work at Phoenix Theatre is the antidote to that philosophy. It is well known that companies with great cultures prepare their people for success and they win. Time and time again. Companies that prioritize money over people may soar for a while. However, the inevitable happens, and profitability slows down, silos develop, and decision-making moves from
Vincent VanVleet joined Phoenix Theatre 21 years ago as a young Actors’ Equity Association stage manager from Chicago. The theater had been in a steady decline for years and was deeply in debt with very little money in the bank. With artistic and operational leadership in chaos, a new Artistic Director came on board the following year. Ironically, his first show was How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. Vincent credits this tough initiation with teaching him the value of teamwork, commitment, and focus. Vincent rose through the ranks to Production Manager, General Manager, and finally Managing Director in 2010 – a promotion conferred by a panicked board following the depths of the 2008 economic collapse. He inherited three years of consistent missed revenue goals so his immediate focus was on improving ticket sales. Since 2010 and in consultation with TRG Arts, Phoenix Theatre has experienced unprecedented growth, with a 256% increase in single ticket sales, a 167% increase in ticket revenues, and a 94% increase in attendance.
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what’s best for the company to what’s best for “me.” Often the CEO is fired. The board then moves on to the next CEO who prioritizes profits over people, and the cycle starts again. Innovation comes from a healthy work environment. A work environment that puts its people first, inspires its employees to push themselves, invests in their wellbeing, and personal development. By doing this, the organization will grow with employees and alongside them. Smart leaders are the ones that know enough to know what they don’t know. They “hire up” to get the people who do know and clear the path for them to excel and succeed. They keep their eyes open for chances to promote from within. This allows the leader to spend their time framing out an exceptional culture and holding people to the values of that culture.
“As a leader, if you do that then you will never need to fire anyone again. Folks will excel and the ones that don’t, will know it’s not for them - that culture of accountability will send them packing on their own every time. I haven’t fired anyone in a decade.” I’ve come close, but culture ultimately wins and through that self-selection starts to occur. You learn to hire differently, to explain the culture, and filter for folks that won’t mesh well with it by being transparent with them in the interview process. Leaders get in the trenches and get their hands dirty. They don’t curate hypothetical situations from the executive office suite. The harder thing to do, the leadership thing to do, is to change the culture and keep the people. If people don’t like the new culture, they will go on their own. I know firsthand the gems that can be uncovered with a little bit of time and investment spent in this arena. Like many, our organization experienced a setback in 2008. But the effects have been longer lasting in our industry because we’ve not innovated our cultures. We went from “it’s not broken, don’t fix it” in pre-2008 to “it’s so broken it’s not fixable ever” in post 2008.
Photo credit (pgs. 16-18): Reg Madison Photography
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In the present day, “throw the entire non-profit arts model out” seems to be an emerging theme. Here are some of my favorite arts leader quotes I’ve heard over the past few years as context:
“This is just the way we do things” “20 years ago…” “We are too financially strapped to consider investing in new things. Let’s dig out first” “Our audience is dying and young people aren’t interested” “The board won’t let us make change” “If we just keep cutting, eventually things will even out”
I don’t believe that people are no longer interested in the arts. I think we stopped being relevant to their lives, and our field pretended it wasn’t happening. Stuck in our old ways of doing things, no one has been a disruptor. And yet, I have immense confidence there is a path forward for the field if we can just envision a different way of operating.
“I argue that we need to focus on leadership, and specifically leaders who excel at creating exceptional cultures. We must create organizations where everyone wants to work because we provide one of the best possible places to work. Let’s learn from other great leaders and institutions.” 18
I learned from TRG Arts about using Patrick Thean’s book Rhythm: How to Achieve Breakthrough Execution and Accelerate Growth to strategically plan. I try to live by Howard Buffet’s idea that non-profits have an oversized responsibility to make the world a better place, yet we often make excuses to pay our employees less: “we’re non-profit so we can’t pay what forprofits do.” Quite the contrary. Buffet contends that if we want the best people to solve the world’s greatest problems (and create the world’s greatest art), we should pay them more and we will be rewarded in both mission and results. In fact, I subscribe to an unconventional philosophy that I believe has been one of the keys to our high degree of success as an organization – I tend to manage to the employee rather than the position. Several times I have modified a job description, restructured the team, or created a new position to maximize the skill set of an employee. This resulted in industry-leading innovations in programmatic management and revenue generation. People have a need to connect and share experiences. It brings us closer together. It’s why we get out, go to restaurants and coffee shops, gardens and museums, and theaters.
“That is why I believe in our model: It is bent, not broken.” Want to talk to Vincent about his approach to leadership? Send us an email at LetsTalk@trgarts.com and we will connect you with him.
Arts Leadership Review
Here’s what I’ve learned about leadership and my roadmap that transformed Phoenix Theatre:
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Bite off a piece at a time. I can’t emphasize this enough, which is why I placed it at the top of this list. There will be intense pressure from many directions to try and solve everything at once. What I have found is great power in identifying the thing that will provide the biggest lift for your organization, and maintaining focus until it is achieved.
2
Put your audience ahead of everything else. Curate every aspect of their interactions and experiences from the first time they visit your website to the moment they enter the parking lot. Take control of all of it. Be intentional about those experiences that shape how patrons feel about your organization.
3
“Who are we doing this for” cannot be the last thought on your mind when engaging in artistic and loyalty/engagement planning. Have a plan that allows efficient development of one to one relationships with patrons. Talk to them where they are and earn their trust.
4
Think like an entrepreneur. Innovate. Invest in what matters even if the funds are not readily there. Inspire key stakeholders to join you in a big vision. Be bold!
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Use data to guide all your strategic decision making. Even when we thought data would tell us artistic risk is off the table, using it taught us quite the contrary. There is an audience for it, and they are passionate loyalists.
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Hire for the right reasons (namely executing the things above). I don’t hire employees for life, I hire with a “will you help me do/build this thing.” What you need may be short term or may be long term. Finding a team that can help take you where you want to go is critical. Invest in getting the behaviors right. Revenue will follow.
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Once you hire right, treat them like you treat your top donors. That includes letting them chew your ear off with candor when they are not happy with decisions you’ve made. Culture is critical to success. Candor leads to understanding, the right behaviors, and revenue.
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Give them the tools they need to be successful. Invest in the right systems, training, and coaching. And, get in there with them. Do it together. It will transform your leadership.
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Integrate your efforts. The more integrated the team is, the more efficient they become, the better the results, and fewer office politics result as everyone is rallied around the same cause.
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Programming matters in growing loyalty. Programmatic decision-making can’t happen in isolation. Regarding audience, ask yourself, “who does your organization have and who do you want?” Work with the artistic side. You want the same thing. The result will be happy audiences, loyalty, and more people experiencing your art form.
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Have a framework to do all this in. Thean’s Rhythm is now ours but there were two previous iterations. A framework allows for accountability, which is key to moving the needle.
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Revenue is the byproduct of getting all the behaviors right. Focus there. Don’t be a “boss.” Be a leader and out in front with your team at all levels of the organization. Check your own behavior. It matters.
As arts and cultural institutions, I believe we are the solution to an increasingly virtual, synthetic space the planet is living and working in. We are still a place that the world around us gathers, live and in person, to have an actual experience, not a virtual one (even if there is a virtual component in your art form). This is our calling. The model can’t be broken. In fact, I contend we are only just beginning. As companies shrink or go out of business, the ones remaining have an oversized responsibility to take on. How are you setting yourself up to be successful so we can meet our future? It’s coming. Will you be ready?
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// METRICS THAT MATTER
21 only
%
of employees strongly agreed their performance was managed in a way that motivated them to do outstanding work. At TRG Arts, we believe healthy organizations empower their team members to create lasting change. Only your people can reach the people who will come to love your art. Invest in your people. Source: State of the American Workplace, Gallop, 2017
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Arts Leadership Review
// LEADERSHIP LESSONS
LEADERSHIP
LESSONS
FROM SINGAPORE
TRG Arts Fellow Dan Bates began his sabbatical by interning with Esplanade-Theatres on the Bay
Dan Bates Chief Executive, Sheffield Theatres
“Having the chance to have three months away from major work responsibilities is an exciting and daunting project.” When I discussed this with my board at the theater more than a year ago, we talked about the purpose of the sabbatical, what I might learn, and what I would bring back to Sheffield Theatres. As the start of the sabbatical came closer and I began the real preparation for being away, I also became focused on preparing our staff team to thrive while I was gone. The board was keen to appoint an interim Chief Executive while I was away and after an open process, Claire Murray, our Director of Communications and Fundraising, was appointed to this role. Then, we had to figure out how to make her successful. What did I expect of her while I was away? How would the entire team come together to help her do her day-to-day work while she was filling my shoes? There was so much to consider, and TRG was helpful not only supporting her in this process, but also, in integrating her into the executive-level counsel that they provide. My sabbatical began with a residency at the 15-year-old Esplanade in Singapore and has had a high impact on my thinking. The Esplanade is one of the busiest arts centers in the world, and Benson Puah, the CEO of Esplanade, is one of the most genuinely gifted leaders I’ve met. As I planned to join their team while still in Sheffield, I could see that the experience was going to be exceptional. I anticipated learning more about international partnerships and observing lots of good practice. But I was not ready for the complete access I had to the organization. The first thing that hit me (and it was hard to miss) was how deeply ingrained Esplanade-Theatres values are with the work that they do. The entire team, led by Benson, believes
that the arts make a difference to the Singaporean society. Seventy percent of their nearly 3,000 annual performances (across six venues) are free and are as important as any of the paid tickets work that they present. The team at Esplanade truly believe in making the arts accessible for everyone: they’re dedicated arts professionals who are also arts advocates. I found myself reflecting on the fact that in the UK we sometimes shy away from sharing our mission and values too widely—they might sit in our business plans or be hidden on our websites, but at the Esplanade it is very clear, upfront and very much part the team’s mantra. I think when I return we should have more of a sense of ownership of the mission and better describe publicly why we do what we do. The second thing I took away was a variety of management processes clearly structured to ensure that audiences and excellence are first. Every day Benson and his key managers meet at 9:00am (called the AM meeting) for 30 minutes to coordinate all events for the day and make sure everything goes according to plan. A significant amount of daily coordination needs to happen with so many events happening each day and in every corner of the building, these daily meetings do two things: 1) they save time with emails and other communication later in the day, and 2) they help Benson reinforce their values every day. The team behaves (and believe) as if they have a moral obligation to the audience. I once heard Benson say, “Our profit is not dollars, it’s in how much we help people.” I want to bring this simple process to Sheffield’s culture. We spend so much time planning our future, looking backwards and often at the expense of the activities of that day. The Esplanade team also has an unusually focused programming process that keeps the audience at the center of their thinking from the start. The programming team—almost 40 strong—are responsible for making ongoing programming decisions throughout the year. Each recommendation includes a description of who the program will attract and why it’s important to be part of the season as well as how it contributes to its aims. Programmers are
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is sponsor-named Keppel Nights), as well as their work in health and support for the older generation is just amazing. They do have great successes in attracting funds for this work with sponsors. Additionally, in June this year they hosted their first gala, right on the stage of their main theater.
Photo by Bryan van der Beek
responsible for all aspects of the program: from marketing allocations and sponsorship securement to ensuring artists have wonderful experiences – even meeting them at the airport and hosting their visit. They’ll truly have ownership and accountability for each program’s success. I like this approach and wonder what we can better do to integrate our artistic program considerations with what we know about audiences at Sheffield Theatres to get the best possible results. My fellowship with TRG Arts had me asking about and looking for examples of how the Esplanade valued patrons and patronage. I would say that as they have so many different audiences, programs and ‘hired’ or rental programs, they can’t think of audiences as separate “patron groups” as yet. But when I think of TRG best practices, the Esplanade team does manage seating inventory to maximize revenue, they have a membership program to create different relationships with their immense body of ticket buyers (but don’t have a subscription program), and they do absolutely plan with the audience in mind. What strikes me is that they also never sit still, are always revising and reviewing their offer, and are incredible at self-evaluation and improvement. Singapore has a different culture in giving than the UK – support for the Esplanades Programme for Schools (which
“When I look at the lessons we’re learning from TRG Arts in Sheffield about patron loyalty, I see the team at the Esplanade seeding a future that can only develop. And, I’m reminded about how important it is for us, at Sheffield Theatres, to really invest in the systems that grow and sustain our patron relationships.” More than anything, I want to thank Benson and his team – they gave me my own desk (!!) and so much access to their operations. It made me feel like I was really part of their team. From my vantage point, this was just another sign of the excellence that they value. It was a very special time for me, and I know that I’m incredibly grateful and lucky to have this opportunity. Interested in learning more about how Dan’s experience in Singapore influenced his leadership at Sheffield Theatres in the UK? Send us an email at LetsTalk@trgarts.com and we will connect you with him.
Sheffield Theatres Case Study:
GROWING TICK REVENUE AND ET ACCESSIBILITY
CASE STUDY Sheffield Theatres
Sheffield Theatres increases ticketing revenue while also lowering the price on thousands of tickets
Sheffield Theatres Case Study:
Growing Ticket Revenue and Accessibility Through a Capacity Building consultancy with TRG Arts, Sheffield Theatres set forth with the priorities of refreshing scale-of-house and pricing strategies, as well as growing membership, ticket sales, and donations. By implementing best practice approaches, Sheffield Theatres increased ticket yield by 14%, dropped the price on 10,000 tickets, and grew total membership by 35%.
Learn how: https://go.trgarts.com/SheffieldCaseStudy 1
Photo: Johan Persson
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Arts Leadership Review
Paris, France | September 26-28, 2018
SOLD OUT
Executive SUMMIT 2019
Colorado Springs, CO (US) | October 17-19, 2018
SOLD OUT
York, England | March 6-8, 2019 Colorado Springs, CO (US) | May 9-10, 2019 Colorado Springs, CO (US) | July 25-26, 2019 Vienna, Austria | September 25-27, 2019 Come together with chief executive arts leaders from around the world, to learn how to effectively lead your arts organization toward sustainable revenue growth. You’ll learn directly from TRG Arts consultants and clients about our approach, receive custom data analysis to benchmark your organization, and discuss what’s working for you in peer-to-peer conversations. Content is designed by TRG’s President & CEO Jill Robinson for the chief executive at large and mid-size cultural institutions. Class size is limited to 12 participants.
If you are the senior leader in your organization, request an invitation at LetsTalk@trgarts.com.
MARKETING & DEVELOPMENT BOOTCAMP:
AUGUST 22-23, 2019
Your marketing and development directors are responsible for stewarding every step of an arts patron’s journey—from the first ticket purchase to making a planned gift. Do they work together in a way that moves beyond lip service? Invest in these two pivotal staff members by sending them to Colorado where they’ll learn how to create a patron-centric culture, moving beyond “mine” and “yours” to “our patrons.” In this boot camp, arts loyalty experts will teach your marketing and development leaders how to optimize their relationship to get revenue and loyalty results. Over the course of the two-day workshop in Colorado Springs, they will have focused time to: • Learn more about each other’s personalities, strengths, and working style, optimizing trust and confidence. • Explore the latest best practices developing donor-ready patrons.
• Evaluate your organization’s primary efforts to date based on data.
• Find collaboration opportunities to build better patron relationships together. • Create a data-driven plan that the marketing and development leaders will bring back to you so that they can develop patron relationships all season long, specifically designed to bolster return-on-investment.
Registration is now open: https://go.trgarts.com/19MKTDEVBTCMP
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TRG Arts believes in the transformative power of arts and culture, and that positive and profound change in the business model of arts organizations can lead to artistic innovation and the ability to better inspire entire communities.
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