Book time to think!

For theatre people crisis management is easy. It is technically what we do for a living. Production is one series of crisis management after another – even on the best of shows. We are often doing more than one show at once so we are constantly juggling crisis and topics. This makes strategic thinking and long term vision very difficult to manage. So in addition to breaking down department barriers – here is a radical thought – book time to think each week or every other week. I can hear many people saying - we are all so busy and the strategic planning process is for those useless board retreats. Well actually, we are so busy because we don't take the time to think and so we create more crisis to deal with and the board retreats are useless because strategic planning should be a constant in our process not something we think about once a year. Now I am not talking about strategic plans being those long documents that no one reads. I am talking about thinking strategically and having long term vision. Your key team (Board leadership, MD, AD, department head – whatever this means to your organizations) need to meet regularly to address this!

This means know the values of your organization and occasionally reviewing your programming to make sure it is aligned with the values.

It means mission assessment – note that values were before mission.

This means measuring the impact your organization is making.

This means thinking about the scale of your organization and if what is to scale and what needs to be expanded.

This means thinking about new models – for funding and programming - and addressing core issues that need to be resolved.

And, as a leader, I recommend you take one hour a day (start with a half-hour if you have to) – this is the most difficult of them all – to read, think, write or whatever you need to do to get away from the day to day, to get away from the crisis and THINK. Since every theatre person I know is working from the minute they wake up and check their blackberry in the morning until the read the performance report late at night, it really isnt' much to ask that you take a full hour. It may mean while you eat your lunch at your desk you look at www.playbill.com, www.broadwaystar.com, read an article at www.hbr.com or read someone's blog! It may mean you go walk a few blocks or around the parking lot. Your work, leadership, and organization will be the better for it.