The Shock of the Obvious

Today I went to the final session of the Carnegie Corporation/Kennedy Center Arts Management Initiative.

I found it quite fascinating, although I think many people were annoyed by this one guy who kept raising his hand to ask questions.  (Okay I admit it, it was me.)

There was a tremendous amount covered, but if you know Michael Kaiser's spiel, none of it will be shocking.  Kaiser essentially urges arts organizations to plan exciting programming way in advance (five years), market their work aggressively, build a family of fans and supporters, and repeat.  He is adamant, sometimes to the point of controversy, that arts organizations undermine themselves when they chip away at programming and marketing to save money.

But today, I realized what is special about a leader like Michael Kaiser -- or Reynold Levy or Karen Hopkins, for that matter.

In each case, these people have two special qualities, each of which is rare in its own right.

The first is fearless imagination.  

It takes courage to be imaginative.  Right after we have a bold imaginative thought (I want to be the President of the United States, I want to get Paul McCartney to play at my benefit concert, I want to launch a $10 million fundraising campaign), most of us hear a little voice in our head that says: you are crazy.  You are not the kind of person/organization to which such grand and glorious things happen.  If you tell people this idea, they will laugh at you.  If you try this you will fail and be scorned.  

But the Michael Kaisers of the world don't hear that voice.  Or maybe they hear it and ignore it.

Because they seem to be relentlessly audacious.  They are constantly surprising us with the grandiosity of their plans.  International collaborations involving hundreds of people.  Productions that cost millions and transform spaces.  

And if you inquire about the origin of the ideas, you'll find they often start with  an almost childlike enthusiasm leading to the question: why not?

But that's just the first quality.

The second quality, when combined with the first, is devastatingly powerful.

They execute relentlessly.

Most of the world's imaginative ideas are voiced over drinks and dissipate with the buzz of the alcohol.

But Michael Kaiser, as you'll know if you hear him speak (and he speaks widely -- you can listen to him here) meets with his marketing and development vice presidents every day (I'm not sure if that includes weekends) beginning at 7 am.

And they keep talking -- about implementation and adjustment of plans -- all day long.  

The point isn't to hero-worship Michael Kaiser or the others, but to be candid about why many of us in the nonprofit world bemoan the difficulty of raising money and surviving.

In the spirit of that candor, we must admit that standard operating procedure is to program cautiously and then manage haphazardly.

We're not committing ourselves to outrageously bold ideas.  And we're not arriving at the office at 7 am to hammer out the endless details to pull it off.  

So of course life is hard.

(My emphasis on the early morning issue, by the way, is just to illustrate the intensity of the process -- the point is the relentless commitment to the management of small details, no matter when you start.)

I can't prove it, but I think if we could all become more like Michael and Reynold and Karen, whether as leaders of organizations or trustees or development directors, we would all have more success.  Because "the pie" would just get bigger as more people got excited about all the amazing new things going on in the nonprofit world.