Are Three Legs Appropriate? Or Even Sufficient? Part II

Institutional Alignment

I do believe that in some organizations the participants are coming to understand that they are all part of one large organization centered around a symphony orchestra, whereas in other organizations the various constituencies still view themselves as separate units with adversarial interests. This is most visibly true when looking at the musician-employer relationship, but can also be seen in some organizations in the relationships among the three “legs of the stool.” I have certainly known of managers who consciously minimized the flow of information to their board leadership, feeling that they (the managers) were more knowledgeable and that the more they kept the board out of their hair, the easier their lives would be. Similarly, there have certainly been struggles for control and power between managers and music directors.

It is hard to see how keeping these separate “turfs,” and excluding the professional musicians from serious roles in governance, can lead to healthy organizations. It seems evident on the face of it that involving everyone in governance in a meaningful and responsible way could only result in a more unified organizational effort, in greater institutional alignment. And the more work I do with orchestras of all sizes in America, the more I observe that lack of institutional alignment is an obstacle to progress.I know that “institutional alignment” is a favorite buzzword of organizational consultants and some foundation grant-givers. But the overuse of a term cannot be permitted to take away from its merit or value. The fact is that the various stakeholders in an organization must be in alignment if that organization is to achieve its maximum potential. In the case of orchestras, that potential can be artistic or financial (the two are inextricably intertwined anyhow), but it will surely not be fully realized as long as major misalignments exist.

I personally believe that there is no more important an issue facing orchestras today. The nature of orchestras is changing faster than most of us can absorb.While some musicians may believe that there is the same potential of untapped fundraising resources that existed in the 1950s, the truth is that funding sources are far closer to being maximized, and even tapped out, than most of us want to admit. Additionally, some funding sources are pushing orchestras into change that is probably healthy, in terms of serving wider and more economically and ethnically diverse audiences. These changes are going to require a different view of the very missions of orchestras, and an examination of the job of being an orchestra musician.

I don’t think we can face these issues intelligently and with wide organizational trust if musicians, who constitute the major professional group in our organizations, and whose jobs are so affected by the outcome, are excluded from the discussion. Without such involvement, how can we expect musicians to better understand and share with staff and board people the “truth” I earlier mentioned about increasing constraints on fundraising? Generations of mutual mistrust and even outright antagonism are going to have to be put aside, and people are going to have to come together to thoroughly reexamine the historic patterns of organizational behavior. The good news is that this is beginning to happen, both at the local level with some orchestral organizations, and at the national level with organizations such as the Symphony Orchestra Institute. I have been active in the Institute from its beginning because it was specifically addressing this issue, and starting a national dialogue on the subject of orchestral organization and governance. In some way, the national dialogue that has been started needs to be heated up. At the same time, leaders of orchestral organizations need to work inside their own organizations toward the goal of full participation on the part of all constituencies. We must, at both local and national levels, shake up conventional thinking sufficiently so as to change the fundamental concepts on which managements, boards, and musicians currently base much of their behavior.

Factoring in Artistic Direction

Is it possible for an important artistic organization to exercise artistic leadership with an evenly balanced structure, or does artistic leadership require that primacy be given to the artistic director? And, in today’s larger orchestras, is it possible for these factors to be in balance, given the long absences of the music director?

This is not a new subject. Many in the orchestra field have discussed it among themselves for years.But, interestingly, for the most part our orchestra organizations behave, or appear to behave, as if nothing has changed from the days when the music director was omnipresent and all-powerful. Musicians resist having anyone but the music director make artistic decisions, and then complain that music directors are not around enough to do so. Boards look for fundraising and community speaking skills in the chief executives that they hire, saying such things as, “The conductor is there to set artistic policy; we want a manager to run the business.”

The problem is, of course, that the business is the art, and the art is the business. They are not only not separate, they are inextricably intertwined. There is no fiscal decision that doesn’t affect the artistic product, and no artistic decision that lacks fiscal implications. I may get in trouble with some of my conductor friends for some of the things I am about to say, but I believe that they need saying. Is there any other business in the world that would put major institutional responsibility and authority in the hands of a person who is not a full-time and exclusive employee of that organization? Conductors give between 35 and 50 percent of their professional time to the institution that gives them a title (the rest is spent guest conducting, or perhaps having similar authority at a second organization), and yet it is assumed that this conductor is totally responsible for institutional direction and quality. There is an unspoken truth out there, one known by managers but only articulated when they’re fairly sure no one but another manager is listening: not all conductors have the success of their institutions as their top personal goals or priorities.They actually think even more seriously about their careers than they do their institutions.

This fact has serious implications. In many American orchestras, music directors are given total authority to engage guest conductors and artists. If anyone believes that all of these music directors welcome highly successful up-and-comers to their podiums, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. The truth is that many smaller orchestras see guest conductors who “trade” invitations with their music director. The final irony of this behavior is that when one of these music directors leaves (voluntarily or otherwise), the organization is not in a good position to choose a successor, because they haven’t seen one viable candidate. In the larger orchestras, where perhaps the music directors are at more secure stages of their careers, those music directors often exercise their prerogative based on non-musical factors as well. And even if they don’t, they are certainly not in a position to make the best choices because conductors rarely take the opportunity to see other conductors work.Think about it—conductors conduct! That’s what they do. But when they are rehearsing and performing, they are not going to someone else’s concerts. The secure music director actually does understand this, and takes advice from others (in and outside of the orchestra’s management), and works with the management in arriving at decisions. But there are many conductors who will not open themselves up to the views of others, despite their own limited pools of knowledge.

I use the above example because I think it is the most blatant and easiest about which to be specific. But it is only one example of one area in which we contractually give music directors authority and responsibility that may not square with the actual natures of their jobs. We must undertake a serious examination of the role of our music directors, and our communities’ expectations of them. Historically, it has almost been a cliché of orchestra administration that the management’s job was to be sure the music director got credit for everything good that happened artistically. What has happened is that by carrying forward behavior and responsibilities from the time when conductors were, in fact, truly in charge of the orchestras, we now have a situation where authority and responsibility are given to a degree no longer commensurate with the actual involvement of the music director in our institutions. And, to make matters worse, we have built the institution around the public figure of the music director, so that we set up certain expectations.

I have often spoken to angry donors or potential donors who are upset that the music director doesn’t do the children’s concerts, without regard as to whether those are likely to be the best kind of children’s concerts. As orchestras take on more and more in community and education programs, we need to stop being apologetic for the fact that the music director might have nothing to do with those programs. We cannot expect music directors to be great conductors of a huge range of orchestral literature from Mozart to Boulez and everything in between, highly skilled community speakers, great fundraisers, and knowledgeable thinkers on issues of sociological importance, all while being less than full-time employees.

I am not suggesting removing the music director from the leadership role that he or she must continue to have in today’s symphony organization. But I am suggesting that it is time for a redefinition of what the job involves and what it does not—what it can be and what it cannot be. And it is time to stop pretending that it is more than it really is. It is time for a dialogue that includes musicians, trustees, managers, and conductors to reexamine the roles of all the constituencies of the orchestral organization in artistic matters. Is it not possible for management and musicians to participate in some artistic decisions, even artistic personnel decisions, instead of leaving these solely to music directors who might not be present more than half the year, and whose personal interactions with musicians might not always make then the best candidates to deal with personnel and human resource issues? Should the role of choosing guest conductors be one shared by the music director? And if so, with whom? Isn’t there a significant role for orchestra musicians in that process? It seems ironic that in the typical modern orchestra, there is virtually no responsibility and authority in the hands of the professional musicians who are there virtually year-round and probably for the rest of their professional lives, while there is excessive authority and responsibility in the hands of a halftime employee who is far more likely to leave the organization well before most musicians do.

By the way, it is equally fair to ask if managers always have the interests of the orchestral organization as their prime concern. Aren’t they also on “career paths”? Of course they are, but, in fact, music directors are generally judged by the quality of their concerts, whereas managers are judged by the successes of their orchestra organizations. Acting in the interest of the organization tends to be more in the direction of self-interest for a manager than it might be for a music director. Still, it is, of course, appropriate for the other constituencies in the organization to be certain that the manager is acting with the best interests of the organization in mind. When managers don’t perform (which, sadly, is more frequently than one might wish), the issue is generally not whether their good will is misdirected.It is usually either a matter of technical competence or a lack of the ability to lead a group of diverse people toward consensus.

Even if we assume a greater role for musicians, there are still some fundamental questions that need to be addressed. If the central mission of our orchestras is artistic (and I think we should continue to assume that it is, despite other secondary missions), then should there not be one leader of the institution to whom the artistic matters most, and who is fully and solely employed by the organization? In the current “three-legged stool” model, the idea is that the music director is responsible for the artistic product, or result. The executive director is responsible for keeping the business going. And the board chairman presumably oversees both, and serves as the community’s “watchdog” over the public trust that is the organization. One doesn’t have to feel that this structure has failed miserably to wonder whether it could be improved.

Could the job of artistic direction be separated from that of the principal conductor? Isn’t there a basic flaw in stating, publicly and internally, that the person who bears the ultimate, final authority and responsibility for artistic quality is a person who is frequently absent from the city, and a person who rarely hears the orchestra perform under any other conductor? Should we explore the possibility of a director of artistic affairs (let’s not get hung up on the title, that’s just an example) who might even have the power to make personnel decisions, or at least recommendations, and who would be able to rule on a whole range of artistic-related issues that come up through the year? Could this be a player from the orchestra? Or could it be a directorate, made up of a group of players? Or is there, at least, a role in these matters for musicians?

Currently, these issues are sometimes handled ineffectively or inefficiently because the music director is not on the scene (in the largest orchestras), may not even have a feel for the community and the institution as a whole, and because fax, phone, and e-mail as true communications vehicles are imperfect.One cannot give full attention to a problem from across the country or across the ocean, and likewise one cannot implement artistic authority without a fulltime knowledge of the institution and how it works. The skills required to conduct a great concert are not, in fact, the same skills that imply a successful manager of artistic and personnel issues. There is hardly another profession in which employees, whether professionals or laborers, do not receive performance evaluations, but no conductor with whom I have ever discussed the issue has felt willing or able to perform such appraisals of their musicians. The result? No one ever tells a musician that he or she is doing a good job (especially if that person is not a principal player). Only when they do something wrong are they singled out. And we wonder why we have morale issues? This is but one of a number of issues a non-conducting artistic director could take responsibility for—issues that are seldom dealt with at all today.

I recognize that the ideas and thoughts outlined above need fleshing out.This is a case, though, in which I don’t believe any one person or organization can come up with the answers. What I do think has to happen is that the issues must arise for discussion, whether at managers’ meetings at various group levels, at American Symphony Orchestra League conferences, at AFM players’ conference meetings and within the Conductors’ Guild, and among local managers and the other constituencies in their orchestras. It has been somewhat “off limits” to raise these issues in a meaningful way, certainly in public forums, and the result is that the best minds with knowledge of the field and its history have yet to seriously discuss departures from the present pattern of music directors’ control of artistic matters.

The Role of the Board, and Its Relationship with Management

As we consider orchestral structure, what do we do about the fact that the titular head of our orchestras, the one person with the on-paper authority to actually hire and fire the other two “stool legs,” is in fact the person with the fewest professional qualifications for that power? No, I am not suggesting a revolution that would disempower the board chairman. But I am suggesting that we must have a recognition that these are complex organizations that are completely different from the corporate and/or social cultures from which most of our board leaders come, and that if they are going to exercise their leadership roles competently, they need some training. The American Symphony Orchestra League has begun to put its toes in these waters, if tenderly. But much more must be done, and the field must recognize the importance of professional development programs for board leaders. Clearly, steps can be taken on the local level too, but they will require managers of conviction and strength, and board leaders willing to examine fundamental tenets that may have been held in place for decades. It all goes back to developing an internal culture where the issue is not, “Who has the power?” but instead, “How do we all work together for the organizational good?”

Even if that training were available and utilized, we still need, in my view, a national discussion on the issues of power, authority, and responsibility in the modern orchestra. It used to be said, in simpler times, that the board raises money and sets policy, the management manages, the conductor conducts, and the musicians play. I’ve heard some people today still asserting this nice bromide. But it doesn’t work. First of all, fundraising cannot be the exclusive domain of boards, although it is still a primary responsibility for them. But orchestras have large development staffs because not all fundraising is volunteer-driven, and because even that which is needs not only staff support, but staff guidance. Someone has to set the framework for a board, help it determine appropriate goals, and address how those goals might be attained.

Where is the line between governing and managing? Is it always so clear? And even if it is, do we really want a structure that excludes the top professional managers from setting policy? Would any for-profit corporation run that way? I have worked, in some way, with the boards and managements of well over 50 American orchestras in the past 25 years, and I can say from firsthand experience that there is very great confusion over these issues on the part of many board leaders and many management professionals. Too often, boards overstep any boundaries of good managerial sense and spend hours debating with managers whether the color of the subscription brochure should be red or blue. And managers excuse their own failures in the development area by saying “my board didn’t do its job.” Neither of these situations is acceptable, and some kind of dialogue needs to come about to clarify lines of authority and responsibility.

A Look to the Future

In recent years, reports of a state of crisis in American orchestras have circulated, and they have been wrong. The fact is that American orchestras, in the aggregate, are financially as healthy as they have been at any time in history, and one can document that with any number of statistics. Work stoppages are no more frequent now than they have been at any time over the past three decades, and in fact the recent trend toward longer contracts might indicate an even healthier situation. One might then ask, why even think about change at a time when no crisis seems at hand? “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” long the rallying cry of those afraid of change, seems applicable here.

I have always looked at my own job as requiring me to catch things before they break, to prevent the breakage. Letting things break and only then fixing them seems an inefficient way to operate. Anyone who has spent time inside orchestra organizations cannot help but recognize the tensions, and the danger signs for the future. Outside pressures keep increasing for orchestras to serve wider and more diverse populations. Corporate, foundation, and government funding is getting harder to justify for organizations that seem to provide pleasure for a perceived, or real, upper class of society. And orchestras can no longer limit themselves to simply playing subscription concerts, along with a few children’s programs, in their main concert halls. This is not the place to argue the merits of these changes in direction, although I happen to believe in them. These changes are unavoidable realities, and require institutional alignment. True alignment means that all of the stakeholders believe in the same goals, recognize their roles in achieving those goals, and work toward those ends. It means the musicians, the music director, the staff, the board, and the volunteer organizations are all pulling in the same direction, recognizing that everyone makes contributions and has responsibilities. It doesn’t mean that there is never disagreement or even tension, but it does mean that there is general agreement on the big picture, and because of that, the tension and disagreements can be resolved, usually without pain.

Does the institutional structure exist in most orchestras that will allow for the most productive operation of the organization? I don’t believe that it does. Musicians too frequently see the management as the enemy; managers see musicians as obstacles to a smoothly running operation; board members want to know why the organization can’t earn a higher percentage of its budget, so there is less pressure for fundraising; volunteer groups feel that they have goals thrust upon them about which they had little to say; each party seems to feel that if only everyone thought as they did, things would be so much better and more efficient. Basic, fundamental questions don’t even get asked; assumptions don’t even get challenged. Is it true that the best-managed orchestra is one with the highest percentage of earned income? Many would answer “yes.” I would not. Not if that success was achieved at the expense of artistic quality and growth, perhaps by increasing successful pops concerts at the expense of more costly subscription classical concerts. This may ease the fundraising burden.But is easing the fundraising burden a mission-central objective? Not necessarily.Does the orchestra have the right music director for the community? Is the budget level the appropriate one? Just how big should this orchestra be? How many weeks should it play? Is the current mix of rehearsals and concerts the right mix? Is the mix of classics and pops the right mix? What kinds of community programs are appropriate? Should these be a normal part of the musicians’ job descriptions, or should they be paid as extra work? Should the job definition of being an orchestra musician be reexamined, perhaps to include such other components as education, community engagement, or even fundraising?

The purpose of the list of questions in the preceding paragraph is only to provoke thought. It is not meant to be anywhere near a complete list of questions that need to be asked. The real point is: every single one is a question I have heard raised at different orchestras with which I have worked. In virtually every case, there has been a different answer from each constituency, and no appropriate organizational structure in which those questions could be studied and answered in a way that brought the constituencies together. These questions either never get answered at all, or they get answered by the constituent group that has the power to answer them, and the rest simply go along. This does not lead to true institutional alignment, and it does not lead to the most effective and efficient operation of any organization. The amount of time orchestral organizations waste in dealing with frustration and anger is time that could surely be better spent.

It is important to remember that while I am suggesting changes in organizational structure, the question of process is equally important. To put it simply, if the board and management were simply to dictate that, starting tomorrow, the structure will change and musicians will be significantly involved in board membership and in all governance issues, the results would probably be disastrous. The process of an institution arriving at a structural change, and the change itself resulting from that process, is every bit as important as the structural change itself. I have often counseled that the process of developing a long-range strategic plan for an orchestra might be more important than the plan that resulted, if that process helps to bring various constituencies together and into real alignment. What is truly needed is for orchestras, perhaps with the aid of professionals who specialize in organizational change, to develop sets of internal processes to bring about change. The success of the resultant structural shifts will be directly related to the success of the processes.

It is time for a high-level national dialogue about the way our orchestral organizations function, and it is a dialogue that cannot take place only among representatives from orchestral organizations. The orchestral field has been remarkably insular over time, with most of its professional practitioners feeling that only they truly understood the field. Outside advice has rarely been welcome, and is usually dismissed as inapplicable. In fact, specialists in organizational behavior could probably tell us a lot about the ways in which we have been operating, and could probably help us improve our institutions. Labor and management officials from the for-profit world, and administrators (along with faculty members and doctors) from the educational and medical worlds, could probably teach us a lot, if we were willing to listen. But even here we need to recognize that orchestras are more complex organizations than any of those, and thus only some of the techniques will logically transfer to our field. We would all have to put aside assumptions on which many of us have based our careers.

I know that when I speak with many of my colleagues in this field, the subjects of stress, burn-out, and angst come up with some frequency. I am sure that these elements play a role in the lives of all executives and administrators, but after lengthy conversations with major corporate CEOs who run worldwide multi-billion dollar corporations, I am convinced that the stress levels are higher in the orchestral world, and they are higher because of the lack of true institutional alignment. These stress levels do not apply simply to managers. We know from the recent Institute study, Stress and Job Satisfaction among Symphony Musicians, and from other studies, that there is great room for improvement in musicians’ levels of job satisfaction. Similarly, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and other individual organizations, have done studies that show high stress levels or dissatisfaction among volunteers.It is time for those of us who care about orchestras to admit that perhaps we are not doing things in the best possible way, and to examine alternatives. Are we willing to open our minds to completely new practices and behaviors? I certainly hope so.

Notes

1. Hart, Philip. 1973. Orpheus in the New World: The Symphony Orchestra as an American Cultural Institution—Its Past, Present, and Future. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

2. Hart, Orpheus, pp. 48-70.

3. Hart, Orpheus, p. 32.

4. Hart, Orpheus, pp. 40-44.

5. Hart, Orpheus, p. 71.

6. To show how dramatic this lack of consensus is, let me cite the following example. In recent negotiations, the musicians of the San Francisco Symphony expressed a desire that everyone in the entire organization symbolically be identified as being a part of the same team. The musicians requested that the governing and managing bodies stop referring to themselves as representing the “association” or “society” (“I’m the Chairman of the Board of the San Francisco Symphony Society.”). The musicians felt that this was a way of separating management from the musicians, and musicians from the organization. They felt that their organization would appear healthier if everyone was seen as working for or on behalf of the orchestra. Interestingly, this came after a long and painful strike. Conversely, in a negotiation at about the same time, the musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra demanded that management and board officials always separate themselves from the orchestra by using the word “association” when referring to themselves or their titles, or in press announcements. So, you would have a marketing director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, and a marketing director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association. I use this example not to praise one group or approach, or criticize another, only to point out the lack of direction and unity in thinking about this issue nationally among orchestra musicians.

7. By the way, the other parts of the cliché are that the board chair was to get credit for all good fiscal things that happened; the manager’s role was to take the blame for all things that went wrong. When I was first told this by a successful orchestra executive when I was new in the field, my response was, “That’s dumb. How can that do anything but build a lack of confidence in the management, which can hardly be in the interests of the institution?”

8. Breda, John, and Patrick Kulesa. 1999. Stress and Job Satisfaction among Symphony Musicians. Evanston, Illinois: Symphony Orchestra Institute.