We wrapped up Evil Dead: The Musical this weekend. I am sad. I miss rehearsal every night. I miss singing and dancing. I miss wondering if that is water in the makeup, or whether Zach’s drool was a bit too enthusiastic. Part of why I decided to start acting was the suspicion that it would be good for me socially and emotionally. I couldn’t have been more right.
The amazing thing about the experience was how quickly we created a feeling of community, shared goals, and closeness. We were all working together on a project much larger than any of us could possibly have done alone. Most people on the project were under 25 (and many were still in college). No one had any formal training in teamwork or group dynamics. No one was using models from Leadership 101, or Good to Great, or … or, frankly, any of the 80,000 business titles that purport to teach people to work together.
And yet, the production demonstrated teamwork that most businesses would kill to have. How could a student theater group on a shoestring budget with no education or background in training or group process pull this off? It really gives me pause.
Perhaps good teamwork isn’t a matter of training. Perhaps there’s something structural that can produce teamwork, simply by its very nature.
I’m intrigued, and I don’t know the answer. What makes the teamwork “just happen” when flesh-eating zombies are involved, when it takes pushing, shoving, pulling, tearing, and training to do the same thing when soul-eating corporations are involved? What do you think?
I couldn’t agree more. I always say that the best preparation I ever had for the workforce was the work I did in my high school theatre. You learn to collaborate, deal with egos, deadlines, budgets, and all the other realities of business – particularly startups and entrepreneurial work.
I remember our tech director, a guy from the Washington Opera, telling me, “Don’t ask too many questions upfront. Try figuring it out first. Then if you have to, come back.” No advice has ever served me better.
For me, it has to do with the self selecting nature of the group. Everyone working on the production was doing so voluntarily, and because they desired to be there. Recognizing that fact in each other, consciously or not, immediately forms an unspoken bond of similar interests and shared goals.
It also helps that the production is something you work on for only a few hours at a stretch (other than prod week) so there is more opportunity to recharge your enthusiasm between sessions.
Having worked in the performing arts for 15 years from storefront community theatre to several major performing arts organizations, I would agree that the teamwork aspect of smaller theaters is quite remarkable. I have found that as the organizations get larger, however, the teamwork quotient (as it were) gets smaller. I suspect it is due to the nature of burocracy and administration that is required to run any business (i.e. once theatre becomes a business that needs to survive in order to keep employees paid, the pressure shifts from artistic pressure to economic perssure). The best arts organizations manage that balance and continue to move forward. The earlier comment on self-selection seems true, though shouldn’t that be the case in business as well? Ideally the majority of employees (and certainly the stakeholders) should be doing what they do becasue they want to and believe in it (I don’t think that should only be the realm of entrepreneurs).
Your Twitter question was which is smarter? Being on the arts side, I would venture to say that most arts organizations could use MUCH more business thinking, while it seems you believe businesses should have more arts-style thinking. It has always been my stance that non-profit doesn’t mean No Profit, it just means your board of directors isn’t paid and all the money goes back into the organization and not into an owner’s pocket. Too many artists belive they do not have to have good business practices to survive, and that creates a strain on everyone since they rely on grants and donations that could be better utilized by better run organizations.
I guess the short answer (too late) is that it seems the grass in always greener on the other side, and if we could acknowedge what the other side does better and learn from it, we could all make a living and enjoy it as well.
Thomas, I think there’s certainly room for learning on both sides. I have been considering doing some special Get-It-Done Guy workshops for people in the performing arts. I wonder if a business basics would be useful…?
I think business can learn a lot from the performing arts. (A good book on this subject in a theatre context btw is “Artful Making” by Robert Austin, HBS professor). Having worked as a jazz musician, I would say that the jazzcode creates offers powerful lessons for business — especially as things accellerate and become more complex.
A lot of what goes on in jazz is about creating presence. The best musicians are great because of their ability to “get” the context and to “shape” the context simultaneously. In order to do so we all need an strong “voice” and headroom — the opposite of being “fully utilized.” Great musicians create the headroom required to listen by a) mastering their instrument and the idiom (a function of simplifying what they play and having internalized how they play their instrument), b) feeling safe (trusting yourself, trusting your team) and c) being fully engaged (being able to experiment, receiving ackowledgement, and having an important function in the ensemble).
What is amazing with jazz is that our delivery must fit extreme requirements in terms of time, pitch and contextual fit. Yet, nobody ever tells a musicians how to play their instrument.
Being able to improvise together requires a limited number of voices interacting at any given time. Usually not more than three-four.
I think business changes fundamentally when you are forced to work live (i.e. you can´t afford or are not in a position to stop and correct). It requires us to focus less on precision (doing things right – management) and more on accuracy (doing the right things – leadership).