What On Earth Is Going On At Philadelphia?

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On Tuesday, July 13th, a big blue banner link on the home page at the Philadelphia Orchestra entitled “Securing The Future, Negotiations Update” appeared.  This was quite a surprise to see since it’s customary for both sides involved in a contract negotiation to have a press blackout.

According to a representative from the AFM Symphonic Services division, there’s nothing legally preventing the management from posting something like this on the web site.  Technically, they own it so they get to decide what goes up.

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Mixed Messages From Philadelphia

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Let’s try an exercise in understanding today; we’re going to walk a mile in another man’s shoes. Imagine:

  • You’re a middle manager at a fictional company we’ll call Widget-Tech. Widget-Tech is a business with under 100 employees and has recently had a couple of bad years.
  • The big bosses at Widget-Tech have put together a long term financial plan designed to save the company and make them profitable again. Part of that plan calls for cutting operational expenses by 10 percent and so step 1 in that process is a reduction in the employee workforce by 10 percent.
  • The positions cut are mostly entry level jobs and a handful of middle managers, but luckily for you your job is still safe (for the moment).
  • Shortly after those staff reductions, the big bosses announce step 2 in the plan: everyone has to take a mandatory unpaid “vacation”.
  • Just when you thought you had things figured out (the big bosses must have some sort of mental handicap) step 3 begins: senior managers and big bosses get 3-4 percent raises.

What message do you think the big bosses are sending everyone? Would you feel motivated? What kind shape do you think company morale is in?

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Unemployed In San Antonio

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There has been some good news coming out of the San Antonio Symphony administrative offices lately, such as the announcement last month that they will resume making music on September 17th, 2004 and the securing of a sponsor for some of their children’s concerts. Unfortunately, that’s about all of the good news so far.  Since filing for bankruptcy last May, the orchestra went dark for the 2003-2004 season and stopped paying …

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All That’s Fascinating About Classical Music

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I’m going to indulge myself today and go a little off topic. I’m not going to talk about management issues or any current industry events.  Instead I’m just going to write about a concert I recently attended.  I don’t want to write a critique of the performance, so I won’t.  What I want to do is simply tell you a story. It was this past July 2nd and I was set …

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Reader Response: Keeping Me Accurate

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Before I left for vacation, I posted a few articles (here and here) about the San Francisco Symphony’s outreach program that was produced and aired by PBS.  In the second article I called PBS member station “affiliates” and I wondered why they didn’t choose to broadcast the Keeping Score program.  Thankfully, one of Adaptistration’s readers wrote in to correct my nomenclature and clarify how some of the programming at PBS works.  …

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