Monthly Archives: July 2010

Summer vacation in the great state of Utah has come to an end. Bummer. It was hard to leave.

It’s been over a week of mountain waterfalls, desert hikes, delicious burger joints in blightsville … pretty rad overall. When I’m in parts of the world like this, I get a little outta-whack about theater things. Art is so important to so many people I know; I talk about theater at length with everyone; I think about it constantly. Then I’m suddenly in a place where it’s so rare–and seemingly irrelevant–it’s jarring. And something of a relief, actually, to remember that there are more important things in life than arguing about art.

Gets me thinking. Theater is generally not something an American living in our great stretches of wilderness or tiny towns thinks about at all, or is even exposed to, aside from an occasional community theater. The “professional American theatre” virtually does not exist outside of the few lit-up spots on the map–perhaps there’s some mileage in spending less energy spreading the gospel and going so far as to get more insular.

Being rare isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just makes what we do more special, more interesting and bizarre. Theater is democratic, but I’m starting to wonder if it truly is “for everyone” (I’ve said this countless times in earlier years). It certainly can be, but not everyone is going to respond to live theater, just as not everyone responds to visual art. This is perhaps venturing into NEA-haters land, so I’ll address that right now: I cannot stress how tired I am of hearing why the NEA should be dissolved. No, Libertarians et al, not everyone in the country likes art. Too bad. I don’t drive or have children, and yet I happily pay taxes for our schools and roads, not to mention wars I don’t approve of etc etc, because that is how a developed nation stays developed. Not only is federal arts funding essential to our nation’s mental and financial health, the dollar amount of the NEA’s appropriation is a freakin’ joke, so why get upset in the first place?

Anyway, trying to convince everybody that our industry is “accessible” might be a waste of breath and marketing money, because it isn’t. Let’s be more accessible to people who are and are trying to come through the door.  If we can understand and streamline what we do, we’ll have tighter, more manageable and longer-lasting ships, and instead of spending all of our energy trying to coax “non-theatregoers” to our house, we can make better theater for the people who love us now, in more clever and efficient ways.

Moving right along. Good to Great Chapter 2 is all about leadership, specifically “Level 5 Leadership,” the research team’s definition of the most highly evolved leader possible. I often find myself cringing at “leadership” advice because so many business manuals present it in the form of irrelevant checklists or cute platitudes; once again, Good to Great has won me over with its detached observations and scientific reasoning. In fact, Collins was opposed to focusing on the executives in the study at all, but there were too many consistencies among the good-to-great CEOs for the team to ignore.

For reference, the hierarchy is:

Level 1: Highly Capable Individual
Level 2: Contributing Team Member
Level 3: Competent Manager
Level 4: Effective Leader
Level 5: Level 5 Executive

This chapter is simply about the common qualities of the CEOs that headed each of the eleven good-to-great companies. It’s not about the CEOs’ day-to-day management skills, abilities to “unleash motivation,” their poise and presence, or even ethics. It’s about their personalities. In this case, leadership and management are two different things: management can be learned, leaders are born that way. Moreover, Collins points out the danger of the “leadership” obsession and misconception that seems to be running rampant in forums and classes everywhere:

To use an analogy, the “Leadership is the answer to everything” perspective is the modern equivalent of the “God is the answer to everything” perspective that held back our scientific understanding of the physical world in the Dark Ages. In the 1500s, people ascribed all events they didn’t understand to God. Why did the crops fail? God did it … What holds the planets in place? God. … Similarly, every time we attribute everything to “Leadership,” we’re no different from people in the 1500s. We’re simply admitting our ignorance.

Since we’re being all scientific here, the simple formula for a Level 5 = Humility + Will. An L-5 is defined as one who “builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.” Like Abe Lincoln!

L-5s are not necessarily shy–in fact they’re fearless–but all eleven good-to-great CEOs exhibited a humble nature, graciousness, modesty, diligence, and perseverance, to name a few modifiers. Collins tells stories of how Darwin Smith, the CEO who turned Kimberly-Clark into the leading consumer paper products company in the world, never moved from his Wisconsin farm or bought expensive suits; Ken Iverson, CEO of steel giant Nucor, who also never moved from his small house and carport despite revitalizing a multi-billion dollar company; and Colman Mockler, Gillette’s champion CEO, who did his own home repairs and never worked more than 40 hours per week in order to be with his family. Collins goes on to say that:

Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It’s not that Level 5 leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious–but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.

So it’s not about the flashy, celebrity leaders. In fact, the jazzy leaders brought in by the board to be the saviors of the comparison companies were unable to let go of their egos, put talented people around them, or create smart and unselfish succession plans. In turn, the companies failed and ceased to be independent operations.

If this is true–if Collins’ findings are scientific fact as he believes they are–what does it mean for us? I’m having trouble thinking of a perfect example of an L-5 theater leader, perhaps because of the fact that 1) our leaders are often the founders of their companies, making it hard to look at the company objectively and 2) they are artistic directors. They have to be outgoing and in the limelight because they are working artists, many of whom are freelance directors.

I wonder if the L-5 leadership analogy falls on the managing directors … no wait, I think it actually might. Most theaters operate in a unique way–it’s a dual leadership, which is kind of ideal. Our companies make art, so in order to not suck, we need artists to run them. Then you need a second someone to organize, help make decisions and keep the books straight–and as Collins points out, a company is not made successful by its primary leader alone. Perhaps a right brain and a left brain working together make the perfect leadership/management head. As long as the partnership is good, this setup works. On the other hand, maybe artistic directors should strive to take on more subdued roles? Maybe their companies would be better served if they stayed in town more often, took smaller salaries, or forfeited the joy of stardom to someone else.

It’s hard to say for sure. Every company is different, and theater companies can’t be directly compared to for-profit corporations, but maybe there are lessons to be learned by everyone here. At the very least, humility is something we all need to put into practice more often.

What do you think? Know any L-5 artistic directors or executive directors? Any L-5 managing directors? I wouldn’t mind writing a textbook about them.