In case you thought the whole relevancy and identity crisis was something new to the business then allow me to direct you to a video clip from a Steve Martin NBC special that aired 30 years ago (the donkey bit shows up at 2:20).
Humor
Editorial Cartoon: Age Of Executives
Not every generation gets to live during a period of major transition but everyone in the business today is lucky enough to witness what I like to call the dawn of the executives. For reasons I don’t remember (likely due to the gin being consumed during the conversation), a colleague and I were talking about the how the business has evolved over the past few decades.
Join The Dark Side
At nearly three quarters of a million views and more than 700 comments, you’ve probably seen the article from the 9/5/2011 edition of cracked.com by Lillian Marx titled 5 Bizarre Dark Sides to Modern Orchestras. Keep in mind cracked.com is a comedy site so don’t go into this thinking it’s an epilogue to a Foundation study.
Editorial Cartoon: Philly Style Cooperation
It seems that the interpretation of unity is more flexible than ever as Peter Dobrin’s article from the 8/17/2011 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the Philadelphia Orchestra Association (POA) musicians sent a letter to their board that formally rejects the orchestra’s recent strategic plan along with taking issue over how their supposed role has been publicly portrayed.
The Pen Is Mightier Than The Board
Denial is a crazy thing; particularly when it comes to crisis management. One tip on knowing when your organization might be taking the first step off of a very large cliff is when more stakeholders focus on insignificant items to the detriment of obvious, high priority tasks. For example, if your orchestra’s senior management team becomes so consumed with figuring out how to replace copier toner to the point of starting the institutional meeting to announce reorganization bankruptcy 25 minutes late, then you might have a problem (true story, but from years ago).