Building a Bridge of Communication - What's Up?

Collaborative communication across the entire organization is the one thing that all arts organizations must practice every day. The performing arts are by nature collaborative.

You could never put on a show without performers, musicians, lighting designers, stagehands, audio engineers, costumers, etc. However, it takes a conscientious leader constantly communicating for that collaboration to be successful...for things to run smoothly.

The show does not go on unless everyone knows what’s going on!

To be a successful arts leader you must be conscientious about communicating with all areas of your operations on a daily basis. This includes not only your department heads, administrative staff, box office attendants, front of house and development staff but those in the facilities department and the technical and artistic areas as well. Each of these areas are unique, as well as critical, to the smooth operations of an arts organization. They each have employees that are doing different, but necessary, jobs and they do not usually interface with each other on a daily basis. It is the role of an arts leader to be the bridge of communication to all these areas.

I suggest that EVERY time you come across some "new information" say to yourself "who needs to know this?". For example, if you find out a major donor has just won a prestigious community award make sure not only the development staff knows but your box office staff, house manager, artistic director, ushers, performers, etc. know so if they happen to interact with that donor they can congratulate them. If your organization just received a new grant, let everyone in the organization know and explain what the impact will be! And conversely, if there is some negative news about to come out in the press about the organization, let everyone know ahead of time what happened and how it will be handled.

- emails and text allow arts leaders to instantly stay in touch with everyone in their organization! Don’t ever miss an opportunity to communicate! Everyone wants to be in the know!