Ben Cameron's Field Letter
Written May 15, 2006
Dear Friends,
I’m coming into home plate here at TCG and finding it a bittersweet experience to say the least. So many notes of congratulations and good wishes—I’m truly touched and a bit overwhelmed!
Last month’s Field Letter excited some response from many of you. At a recent meeting in San Jose, the question of the “broken” 501(c)(3) was raised again, this time with a bit more nuance. The participants generally agreed that the model had been wildly successful by some standards and that the challenge for the future was perhaps less in replacing the model than in finding more flexible alternatives. In our field, for example, we all remember the Solo Performer Category at the NEA—a category which was eliminated by Congressional mandate on the heels of the NEA Four controversy. While that category had funded a broad range of performers—from mimes to monologists—it had also funded noted puppeteers, many of whom essentially produced company work with those funds without ever incorporating as not-for-profit entities—a viable alternative to formal not-for-profit structure. Collectives of artists have occasionally banded together to pool resources and share space without similar incorporation. Might we look back at what we’re trying to insure that gives rise to the rules of incorporation? Especially in the early stages of organizational life, if we can prove we meet standards of fiduciary responsibility (through an audit, perhaps), that we adhere to budgets, etc., might we forego the formation of a board at that stage? Don’t get me wrong—I love boards, as you know, and I think they are critical in the long term for their counsel, their insight, their ability to be key advocates, their role as lead donors and more. But in the earliest stages of an organization—particularly if the organization has no aspirations to longevity but is doing wonderfully creative and important work—is there value in expending time and energy on board formation? Might this energy be used in other ways? Indeed, might a more optimal and useful board be formed at a later stage, when the quality of the work is known and the value of the organization a bit clearer? How might that work be supported? As some participants noted, the 501(c)(3) model has worked wonderfully for some communities but less well for others. What alternatives might there be to create a fuller landscape of organizations? All in all, a fascinating set of discussions.
Issues around transition have been foremost in my mind this past month. I have noted that this moment of my departure has been predicted for quite some time and the TCG board and I have been in discussion for, well, years in preparation. First and foremost was our need to consider whether TCG needs to even continue in this climate—and our sense of the field, our own aggressive goals for the future and our belief about the role we can play all led us to affirm our desire, our need to continue. But with the mantra in many funding organizations about the necessity of succession plans, I thought it might be worthwhile to spend time in this Field Letter sharing what I’m finding personally about this moment. But before I do, a note of caution—I am not a founder, nor am I an artist, both of which may bring different considerations to bear. Additionally, every situation may well have unique dynamics that should be considered. This is not intended to be prescriptive but instead openly reflective. With that said…
Question #1: How Much Time Should Separate an Announcement Of Departure and the Departure Itself?
At TCG, the board and I began discussion of my departure before I even entertained other job possibilities. For me, giving ample notice—even while uncertain about my own future—was an important step in insuring some security for the organization. After an initial period of some denial, the board accepted that indeed I would go and began to consider key logistical issues.
At the beginning of our discussion, the issue of notice was critical to both sides. Once I formally decided to go, how much time should separate the decision from my departure? A matter of days? Weeks? Months? A year? We’ve all probably seen the range. For my own part, I’ve been especially aware of departures at theatres where extensive public notice has been given—sometimes a year or more. The thinking behind such long transition periods has always been for good reasons—we want to minimize organizational trauma, we don’t want to weaken our relationship with our stakeholders, we want to engage in a thoughtful search, we want to honor the departing leader properly, we want to overlap the two leaders, etc.—all responsible and understandable motives.
And yet, what I have often seen surrounding this extended departure model is a host of problems. Staffs tend to have greater emotional resilience than we often credit them with having—after an initial flush of sadness (in the best of circumstances) at the news of the departure, they become quickly ready to move on. The desire for new leadership is, of course, critical, and the anxiety behind it real, but with the passage of time, the need to follow the directives of the outgoing leader is less clear. More and more decisions need to be made that the outgoing leader will not have to live with; more and more ongoing funders move to a “wait and see” attitude that may delay increases in funding, if not funding altogether. The strongest of the staff are quickly willing and ready to step up and take on more responsibility; the less-certain find the unknowns of the future are additional incentive to begin looking elsewhere for employment. And in cases where leaders actually overlap out of a desire to insure continuity and ease transitional pains, the overlap can invite a host of complications, from the mundane to the philosophical. On the most mundane level, who takes the leader’s office—the outgoing or the incoming? (And there is symbolic power in that decision.) When there are differences of opinion on the table, whom does the staff heed? Having both leaders in house simultaneously can provoke a sense of divided loyalty in staff and board—the incoming leader will be the one to lead in the future—and indeed, strong ties with him/her need to be cultivated immediately—but who leads now? Disagreeing with the outgoing leader can feel disloyal, unappreciative, even traitorous; to disagree with the incoming leader can feel short-sighted and mutinous. And these feelings can be provoked by tiny decisions as well as by the more critical ones.
For all of these reasons, I have always been inclined to a relatively short time between announcement and departure. Certainly my time in corporate America had made me witness to the “clean out your desk today” phenomenon—the dismissal with no notice or the departure with little notice (days or, at most, weeks). And as painful as these things were to see, I did learn to appreciate that logic. Apart from the issue of minimizing future competition and luring clients away (which are real in those circles while not really relevant for us), I learned to appreciate the advantages of clean and rapid breaks—clarity of decision making for the staff, the level of professional development achieved as they step up to new roles, the avoidance of any sense of suspension that can overtake an organization that may feel the need to relay new initiatives or activities, pending the arrival of a new leader. No one I know has ever said, “I wish my departure had taken longer,” and in almost every case, a deep sigh of relief has been breathed when the departing leader is out the door. (A sigh often on all sides.)
I am the first to appreciate that my confidence in opting for a relatively quick departure is a reflection of the strength of our staff. Acutely aware of the death of my mentor, Indiana Repertory Theatre artistic director Tom Haas (who was struck by a car and died of complications roughly a month later), I have always tried to look at TCG and ask whether the organization would be imperiled should something terrible befall me. I have always thought I would have failed TCG should it be in too delicate a condition to be endangered by my departure. It’s part of the reason that, during my vacations, I have always said that I will not check in for messages, that I am unreachable other than in the most dire of emergencies (read death, fire, etc., here)—a periodic inaccessibility that not only makes my vacation more relaxing for me but serves doubly as a subtle self-reminder of my own dispensability and as an indirect means of professional development for staff. I’ve always deeply believed that, if we were clear in our values, our mission and our priorities—if they indeed permeated the organization as I believe they must in any healthy group—there was no decision that the staff could not reach without me. I would support any decision reached if it were consonant with those values, mission and priorities—and a decision reached at odds with those would be an indicator of deep organizational dysfunction. In a sense, vacations for me became a de facto part of succession planning.
I am so, so proud of our staff and honored by their continuing work with us. I have absolutely no doubt that TCG will run smoothly and strongly in the months to come. For all of the reasons mentioned, my first response to the board around the issue of notice was a two-week period between announcement and departure—a request that was met with ashen faces and mild coronaries at the board table. Their request back to me for six months was, for me, too long and, I thought, potentially damaging to the organization. Ultimately, however, we mutually began to realize that the real issues that we needed to confront centered around solidifying relationships rather than simply on reaching accord about an arbitrary time frame—that, whenever I decided to go, we needed to give ourselves a last full board meeting. (Indeed, I could never imagine simply walking out the door without one last time together.) I needed the opportunity to communicate with our funders and help them understand this moment. I needed to see as many of our National Council for the American Theatre members as possible. And, depending on the moment in the year, potentially I needed to say farewell at a last conference, if indeed that time were in reach. When I decided to accept the opportunity extended to me by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in March, I realized that all of these things could be accomplished within three months—that the 90-day time frame, including our May board meeting and the early June National Conference gave me ample opportunity to meet all of these objectives. It gave significant enough time for me to help meeting planners find replacements for me for meetings where I was scheduled to speak in the fall or later. And given the summer months beyond—months in which so many of you are taking vacations, in which our meetings are well in control, and in which none of those critical board or Council groups meet, there was little value in staying beyond the conference itself. For all of these reasons, we announced my departure date as June 06, and I have hopes that the board, after the initial shock of the announcement, is on board with this timing. The issue at heart, however, was getting the necessary work completed within the shortest time frame possible.
I am not frightened for TCG’s sake by a period of interim leadership. A seven month gap separated my arrival from my predecessor’s departure, and in some fields, leaders are now actually arguing for the benefits of an interim director as a valuable strategy—a change agent that helps prepare the ground for a new full-time leader. I know that, with such a strong board and staff, TCG is well positioned to move forward with interim leadership even as it conducts an appropriate search. Speaking of which…
Question #2: What Would Be My Role In a Search?
I have always felt—and continue to feel—that I should not be a member of the search committee or participate in a search. If I have done my job with the board well, they have a sense of my value to the organization—as well as my shortcomings—and what they need in a leader. If we have done our annual evaluations appropriately, they understand the dimensions of my work. And certainly, I should always be available to explain those things more, to help them understand my work as fully as I possibly can.
Yet I know from my place as a candidate in other searches, the paramount consideration in a search moment should be an environment conducive to absolute candor. Any candidate for my job is likely to see things differently, to have differences of opinion, to find fault with things I have done. Such a candidate should have the optimal opportunity to express these views in an uncensored and candid way. The committee too should feel the absolute freedom to question and challenge in a way that may indicate some dissatisfaction with my work. None of that can happen if I am in the room—indeed, the chance for it to happen is even mitigated if I have been overly involved in the creation of the very job description and process themselves.
What I can do during the search—and which I am happy to do—is to be a resource to any candidate on the short list. I am more than happy to have full conversations—private conversations—with any finalist candidate, sharing my perceptions and experience. And while I don’t presume that my successor will find such an offer useful, I am happy of course to continue to be a resource in conversation at my successor’s request. But more than that feels, quite frankly, wrong to me.
At all of these steps, I am trying to cling to what I have needed as a candidate and what I have needed as the successor. I am eternally grateful that my predecessors in my roles—whether at the NEA (where I followed the inspiring Jessica Andrews) or here at TCG (where my predecessors were the extraordinary men Peter Zeisler and John Sullivan)—stood as counsel to me should I need it but gave me the latitude to find my own way. I always felt their support but never their disapprobation, and while I am quite sure they often bit their tongues until they bled, none of them ever called unsolicited to take me to task nor tried to undermine me with the field. Their generosity in this regard has inspired me, I hope, to do the same for my successors in the various places I have left and TCG will be no exception in this regard.
Question #3: What Will the Search Process Look Like?
This has, indeed, been the question that has consumed the Succession Committee, chaired by the superb Ben Moore of Seattle Repertory Theatre. This committee, which is NOT the search committee, has been charged with understanding the architecture of a search and transition. Their work to date, including time with expert Fred Miller, has reinforced the importance of absolute deep understanding among the board of mission, values and priorities—an understanding that may lead to redefinition at times but that should ideally produce deeper, renewed commitment. Nothing has been more gratifying to me than Mr. Miller’s assessment of our board as ready and unified in this regard, months ahead of the schedule typically necessary for other groups that he has witnessed. I have always believed that a good search firm is worth every penny and I’m delighted that our board is in the process of soliciting and reviewing firm proposals to this end.
The board will, of course, decide on the process and, with the consultant, craft a job description. I have been happy to share the job description that brought me to TCG, which was a fairly loose one and which I think reflected a wonderful approach. The description included a fairly extensive description of TCG, including the challenges we faced and our relationship with the field. And certainly there was language about the role of executive director as a CEO-figure, a need to speak for the organization and a fairly rich list of desired attributes dealing with vision, facilitation skills, listening ability, perception and more, even while recognizing that no one candidate was likely to be able to fill the entire list. But otherwise, the specifics were few and far between—an openness that I found quite liberating. Precisely because the description was not overly defined, there was little sense that we had to twist ourselves into pretzels to fit the job profile. Instead, all of the finalists were able to come before the committee and essentially say, “Here is what I make of this moment involving TCG and the field. Here are my perceptions of the future, my potential vision for the future of the organization, my strengths—and my weaknesses, and in sum what I would bring to the organization.” We were allowed to dream, to invest, to imagine. I know that other candidates had very different visions of TCG and its role, each of which could have produced a very different but quite vibrant and important group. And given this approach, the search itself became a process of inquiry and learning for the board itself.
Once selected, I felt that I was coming into my role with no secret agenda—I had not tried to present myself as something I was not or tried to convince them that I was the perfect fit for a predetermined role. Having shared my weaknesses with them, I entered with the board’s support to do some restructuring to the senior team to complement my own deficiencies—a restructuring that led me to revive the role of deputy director that had been eliminated at an earlier point and to hire Joan Channick. (As I have repeatedly said, it was Joan’s hire that was the most critical decision that I made during my time here and that has been the single biggest factor in any success that we may have enjoyed during my tenure.) Whatever else this board may do, I hope they too enter the search with this spirit of discovery, candor and education and that they afford my successor the same generosity in structural decision making.
So what does a succession plan mean? It means, in sum, constant staff and board cultivation to insure absolute clarity around values, mission and purpose. It means thoughtfulness about the architecture of the search. It means earmarking resources for the search to be conducted without endangering the health of the organization. (And frankly, this is another advantage of a hiatus that separates me from my successor—the untapped portion of my salary will pay for my successor’s search and relocation.) And it means the orchestration of the departure of the leader in a time frame that solidifies the moment and maximizes the ongoing loyalty of key stakeholders in the quickest time frame possible.
None of my experience in this moment has challenged these assumptions for me and I am deeply, deeply grateful to the TCG staff and board for their thoughtfulness and their kindnesses to me in this moment. But what I am learning most is that, however much planning takes place, transition IS hard. People’s personalities reveal themselves boldly in this moment, often by the very questions they pose and the time frame in which they do it. People rapidly split into those most concerned about the organization and those most concerned about themselves; it becomes quite clear who is ready for you to be gone and who is not. (All of which comprises mixed blessings, with numerous surprises and delights and a few disappointments.) And when you’re moving towards future work as a funder, it becomes equally clear who is trying to work you for money and who is not.
More honestly, staying engaged requires a different, deeper energy. I hope you all know how deeply, deeply honored I have been to be here, how much this chapter has been the most meaningful of my life, how I deeply love this field and this organization and how much sadness I will take with me when I go. Yet once the decision to leave has been made, disengaging feels both self-protective and natural. Knowing I will not be here for the future can make it harder to stay focused on issues beyond my tenure. And especially since I am going towards a position that I think offers new opportunities, new challenges and new rewards—all of which I’m hungry to undertake—it is hard to keep those feelings about the future at bay. I absolutely believe I must keep a bright line between these chapters, both because of some real logistics in this moment involving TCG’s relationship with DDCF and because of larger philosophical beliefs I have about the integrity of both sides of the funding table. But there is a cost, emotionally and energetically, to this separation and increasingly I sense that we have accomplished all we needed to for me to say farewell in the healthiest moment. Only the National Conference remains for me in this regard and I deeply look forward to the richness of experience it will bring.
That’s the honest truth about this moment here and I offer these observations less because it is the way every search should be run than because I hope it will provoke important questions and self-reflection in any organization. I absolutely believe in the ongoing work necessary to keep an organization ready for this moment—whenever it may strike. I believe that every group should carefully assess time frames and roles and participants in the search. And I believe every successor should be afforded the latitude and room to find her/his own way in the least restrictive, most supportive environment. I find myself asking less about what I need than what my successor needs to make her/his arrival every bit as rewarding and rich as mine was for me.
On a quick side note, the May 2006 edition of Fast Company included a look at five sports executives and their efforts to win and retain fans. The Oakland Raiders director of multicultural initiatives (a reminder of Donna Walker-Kuhne’s mandate for having someone responsible for diversity in any organization serious about diversifying) spoke of creating an alternative-language website in Spanish and of broadcasting games in Navajo; the executive vice-president of the St. Paul Saints (one of my all time favorite teams) of the surrounding events that complement the baseball game and make the experience unforgettable—and irreverent; the move in NASCAR to use webcam and digital technology to put the fan in the driver seat; and the president of the NJ Nets of the All Access campaign to put fans directly in touch with athletes, including a Pancakes & Hoops program where fans breakfast with star players or the Ticket Influencer program where athletes attend parties at the home of single ticket buyers. These last ideas especially seem to me useful and instructive for us. Contact with artists still strikes me as the single best—and under-utilized—asset we have for developing audiences.
As always, the month was a rewarding one for meetings and travel, albeit less than usual as I stayed closer to home to be able to fulfill my Tony nominator duties—a lovely luncheon with the board at Westport Country Playhouse (CT); a wonderful morning in Washington, DC, with the League of Washington Theatres; La Jolla, CA, for the semi-annual LORT meeting, where I was especially touched by a roasting tribute; Pittsburgh, PA, for a quarterly Grantmakers in the Arts board meeting; San Jose, CA, for a summit of select arts leaders to discuss leadership, convened by the David and Lucille Packard Foundation; and the additional delight of seeing the Guthrie Theater’s Joe Dowling honored here in New York at the National Corporate Theatre Fund dinner.
Next month brings my departure and I hope to see as many of you as possible at the National Conference in Atlanta, June 8-10. In the meantime, I wish you, as always,
All the best,
Ben Cameron
Executive Director