Sailing and Leading

There is probably no more obnoxious class of citizen, taken end for end, than the returning vacationist. ~Robert Benchley

That said, I had a simply marvelous vacation, resplendent with hiking, rafting, and horseback riding in the Tetons, then a week of blissful hard work aboard the 40’ Island Sun, prowling the Abacos in the northeastern Bahamas. Thanks to Alan, my captain, from his highly inept, yet hard working first mate!

While the sailing metaphors are overused to illustrate lessons about leadership—it was surprising to me how potent I found the experience, especially just coming off the Community Arts Education Leadership Institute a few weeks before. CAELI was a five-day immersion into the quandaries and questions of leadership with 25 highly committed individuals from arts education organizations from across the US.

Our purpose with CAELI, and with all we do here at Partners in Performance is to help leaders build adaptive, resilient, mission-driven organizations. It is here that I found the sailing parallels so helpful. To remain afloat and arrive anywhere near the original destination, the sailor must remain attentive to the three forces that are continually acting on her craft, and her course…the current, the wind, and the tide. While the Gulfstream may dominate, the Atlantic has 32 surface currents. While there are prevailing winds—easterlies for the Abacos, gusts appear out of no place, either sporadic or sustained, sometimes appearing as ugly squalls accompanied by a downpour. In leading organizations, we deal with forces just as powerful and just as dynamic…shifting financial realities, changing demographics, fickle funders, etc.

In my work, I find most organizations and their leadership are clear about vision and knows what kind of world they want to create, where they want to take the organization. And they are resilient enough to remain committed to the vision no matter what. This is one of the real under-recognized assets of our field. Highly visionary leaders!

Most of these leaders also know how they would like to get there, and therein lies the problem. We’ve trained leaders to decide the steps required to get there, then to remain committed to what the plan calls for (Plan the work, work the plan.). All in spite of the ever-changing reality, the continuous shape shifting.

The wise sailor never remains committed to a course in spite of the changing winds, currents, or tides; but adjusts the course in line with those changing forces. Tacking is not just a way of coping, but a way of assuring progress is made toward the destination.

We must unlearn our reliance on strategic planning, predicting what will happen and setting the course; and learn, and help our leaders learn that changing the course, continually revising the strategy, perpetually reinventing and always innovating are the essential tools of adaptive leadership.

Leaders and Legacy

The New York Times Sunday magazine article, Can Modern Dance Be Preserved, by Arthur Lubow poses fascinating questions about the reasons for, approaches to, and integrity of preserving the choreography of modern dance pioneers such as Merce Cunningham, Pina Bausch and others. Both Cunningham and Bausch passed away in 2009.

I am interested in this, as for the second time, we are engaged with the Dance Heritage Coalition in developing a vision and strategy for preserving and accessing America’s dance legacy. Thanks to DHC, significant steps in documentation, preservation, education, and access have been taken over the past decade in response to the findings of the National Dance Heritage Leadership Forum that we facilitated in 1998-2000. Technology, funding, and the economy are all dynamic environments. Therefore dancers, choreographers and their companies, funders, and policy folks must all remain engaged in developing frameworks, tools, and agreements that assure issues of legacy are addressed intentionally and with great care. DHC is to be commended in this regard.

Yet, legacy goes well beyond artistic output. What lessons are learned over these fascinating careers that span decades, even centuries?  What did these pioneers learn about organizing in ways that support artistic impulse and intuition? For example Merce founded his company at Black Mountain College, a short-lived, yet furiously lively paragon of artistic creativity—where Buckminster Fuller built his first geodesic dome and William Burroughs published the first chapter of Naked Lunch. How might this inform how we develop supportive environments for artists? What lessons did they take from confronting the major challenges of their career? How did they manage the moments of no money, the vagaries of fickle philanthropy, and the misguided advice of well meaning managers?

And it’s not just choreographers from whom we should be learning. In the last 12 or so months we have lost some really important individuals in the field. What lessons about organizational effectiveness and impact did Paul Baker take with him as founder and long time leader of the Dallas Theatre Center; or Peter Donnelly from his forty-plus years at the helm of the Seattle Rep? Through his journey from Columbia University, to jail and torture in Brazil, to exile in Argentina, what helpful warnings about protecting free expression did Augusto Boal have to tell us? The indefatigable Gerald Arpino led the Joffrey from New York to Chicago and from financial ruin to prominence. What did he have to say to aspiring leaders about stamina, conflict, conviction, and grace?

It’s one thing to read their obituaries and then later, their biographies. It’s yet another to have their voices, their lessons, their insights and wisdom to draw on—forever. We need to capture and put to better use what our best and brightest have learned from their phenomenal leadership adventures, as it will certainly assist us on our own solitary expeditions.