Hiring 102: Breaking the Code on Ageism (We’re on to You.)
You don’t have to be Alan Turing to break the HR “can’t-ask-how-old-you-are” code:
“How is your energy level?” = “Are you a geezer?”
…Correct response: “I run 26 marathons daily.”
“What were you doing before 2001?” = “What were you doing before I turned 10?”
…Correct response: “I’m 35 years old with 30 years’ experience.”
“When did you graduate college?” = “I’m checking my arithmetic to determine your age.”
…Correct response: “When I was 22.”
“How flexible are you?” = “Is your mind as ossified as a petrified fossil?”
…Correct response: “I’m currently holding the phone with my pinkie toe while simultaneously writing Iraq’s new constitution.”
Seriously, though, hiring managers: according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers 45–64 stayed twice as long as those 25–34 — so those under 40 are a much higher risk of leaving you high and dry.
So stop it.
Dream Job…and My Title Would Be Chief Dream Merchant
What I want:
An arts charity that makes my community better.
Value to the community:
Safety. Knowledge. Personal Power. Issue solutions.
Artistic Tools:
Provocation. Entertainment. Populism. Progressiveness. Mischief.
Other Tools:
Educational residencies in both art and topic.
Partners:
Every other charity, educational institution, or NGO with similar values.
Differentiation:
50-50 split on revenues with partners. Partners open their mailing lists to help themselves financially through ticket sales.
Quantifiable outcomes:
The measured outcomes of the partners. Quantity of classes, students, and schools participating.
Non-quantifiable outcomes:
Populist results defeat the arts’ elitist reputation. The needs of the charities are filled.
Initial budget:
Enough so that all artists receive at least $15/hour (in 2014 dollars) and no full-time hourly rate is more than 4x anyone else’s.
Impact:
Arts moves people to action. Thorny issues seen can never be unseen. Life is better.
Sustainability is Neither Reaching for Relevance nor Selling Out. It’s More Important than That.
The art of sustainability in arts charities is akin to performing a balance beam routine on a Ginsu knife. You can sacrifice mission for dollars or dollars for mission, but even if you maintain a perfect balance, there will still be substantial blood on both sides.
We talk way too much about relevance in the arts. The tag in the back of the shirt is relevant for a description of content and washing instructions, but the design of the shirt can reveal personal characteristics of the wearer. Let’s aim higher. How about “integral”?
Integral arts charities are those that are so entwined with other charities that they become essential to the health of the community. “Integral” obviates this useless discussion of relevance and moves us to the more useful question:
How do the arts make communities thrive?
Nonprofit Management Counter-Intuition: Every Now and Then, You Have to Fire Yourself
Every now and then, fire yourself. Then interview yourself for your job. Would you get it? What attributes would best suit you for it? (Do you even want it?)
Don’t schedule a meeting for one entire week each quarter. Stop being “too busy.” Find your value as a resource (rather than as a boss).
Take down all the cubicle and office doors. Then, every morning, say hello to each human you see before you walk into your door-free office.
Eliminate devil’s advocacy (unless you’re the Pope). Disagreement without responsibility hinders your organization’s progress.
Teach your staff your job. Let them do it when you’re on vacation.
Take all your vacation days. No contact. Don’t ruin it by doubling your workload upon returning.
Make sure your full-time salary is less than 6x the full-time salary of anyone else.
Stepping in Moral Quicksand: When a Horrible Person/Company Gives to Your Nonprofit
I was going to write about all the charities to which Donald Sterling donated.
I was going to ask if the standards of the organization should stand up against the horror of the donor.
After all, UCLA gave back $3 million of Sterling’s money.
Then I was going to ask about donations from companies that peddle “evil” – tobacco, liquor, oil, etc.
But then I thought about individual donors’ morals. Not just unethical oligarchs like Henry Ford, Rupert Murdoch, John D. MacArthur, or even Sterling. What about all the philanthropists whose fortunes were built on a million broken backs? Or a few? Or one? And I thought about my experiences with morally corrupt donors.
I’m sinking.
Help.
You Gotta Live in the House You Live in
Hypothetical: Strategically speaking, what would your charity do if money were not an issue at all?
The answer to this question is significant. Because if it begins with anything but “we’d do exactly what we’re doing now,” then it’s likely that either you or your mission have to go.
I live in a 1950s house. Typical low ceilings. Small, utilitarian rooms. If I had all the money in the world to renovate it, I’d enhance its 1950s nature, not build 4 additional stories to get a Puget Sound view and in doing so, ruin the house’s charm.
Same with charities, arts or otherwise. You created a mission for a reason…there was a need. A societal wrong to be righted. If you want to accomplish something other than your organization’s mission, go do it.
Just do it somewhere else.
Jack and Jill: Why Smart Nonprofits Search for Interim Leadership
Executive Director Jack resigns.
Jack leads the committee to replace himself. The committee selects Jill.
Jill is not Jack.
Jill discovers too late that she been enlisted to follow Jack’s path rather than set her own.
After a year, not only is Jill unhappy, but trustees and employees resign.
After a second year, Jill resigns. Or is fired.
The reeling company hires Fred – who is neither Jack nor Jill.
Uneasy lies the head that breaks a crown.
Succession planning needn’t require permanence. It might be best to hire an interim leader from outside the organization (not a board member) while the permanent search is carefully executed.
Every organizational leader’s legacy ends the day the leader leaves. Which means it is never a good idea to have the outgoing director have a say on a permanent successor.
Personality, Talent, Intellect, Experience, Spirit, Passion, and the Ability to Inspire. Good Qualities for You but Intimidating as Hell to Insecure Leaders
I have a friend (not me) who is a sensational grant writer. She’s brilliant (Ivy League educated), inspirational (magnetic personality), talented (great references), and people genuinely like her.
She’s also ethical, sensible, positive, quite attractive, and a snappy dresser.
And without a job.
Lately, when she meets with prospective employers, they are impressed by her prowess, references, and samples. Sadly, they don’t hire her. It’s plausible that insecure bosses-to-be fear she is more impressive than they are and look elsewhere.
Look, if you’re in greater Seattle and need a hell of a grant writer for a full-time gig, contact me and I’ll forward your info to her. But if you’re unstable enough just to want someone inferior to you (even if your grants are being denied) because “anyone can write a grant,” then you deserve your results.
Charity-Nonprofit. Tomato-Tomahto? Potato-Potahto? Not so much.
Charity as defined by the OED. Helping those in need.
Nonprofit as defined by the OED. Having to do with the financial aspects of a company and specifically designated in definition 2 as being separate from a charity.
Nonprofit organization as defined by the United States. Makes possible some companies to be tax-exempt if they participate in specified exempt purposes: charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals.
Charity as defined by the United States. Key words: “the poor, distressed, or underprivileged,” “religion,” “education,” “science,” “public buildings, monuments, or works,” “the burdens of government,” “neighborhood tensions,” “prejudice and discrimination,” “human and civil rights,” and “community deterioration and juvenile delinquency.”
I’d rather run a charity than a nonprofit, wouldn’t you?
More importantly, do you?
Even Endowments Don’t Want You to Have an Endowment
Went to a foundation’s financial conference a few years back. Before the economy went south.
The COO of the foundation said (a direct quote), “If you’re not pulling 20% of your annual budget from your endowment roll-off, then you probably shouldn’t have an endowment.”
And now, the math:
Assuming the annual payment is 5%, your endowment would have to outnumber your annual budget by a ratio of 4-1.
Endowments are not reserve funds. They are not liquid. They have little to do with an organization’s stability. Often, the endowment campaign is successful, but the organization teeters on bankruptcy in vast oceans of red ink.
Endowments do not prove an organization’s worth, nor does it assure its future. Although, I suppose, it does offer a bankrupt organization the chance to pay off its bills before closing for good. So there’s that.
Seen on a sweatshirt while walking around Green Lake: “Change is good. You go first.”
Innovation is annoying. Instigation is even worse. I ought to know. I’ve been accused of both.
But when companies are stagnant (or failing), staying put is not an option.
Innovators and instigators can be difficult. Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford are/were not particularly “easy” people. Nor were César Chávez or Copernicus. Nor were many women who broke through glass ceilings.
Too often when things aren’t working, managers paralyze themselves by thinking without forensic analysis. For them, all they believe they need to do is to keep doing what they’re doing.
“We tried change,” they’ll tell you. “It didn’t work. All we have to do is work harder.”
Forensic analysis matters. The great leaders know that and use it to their competitive advantage. They may also consider change agency to be annoying – but also rewarding.
“I Wanna!” The Fatal Game of Power About Nonprofit Arts. Ages infantile and up.
How to play:
Players select their tokens to start play. Each token designates their role in nonprofit art.
Marionette: Performing Artists/Designers
Blob of Clay: Writers/Composers/Visual Artists
Pawn: All technical/administrative/volunteer personnel (one token represents all)
Change Purse: Audience
Louis Vuitton Pocketbook: Donor/Funder
Fake Louis Vuitton Pocketbook: Development Director
Hammer: Trustee
Bent nail: Managing/Executive Director
Telescope looking up: Artistic Director/Curator
Microscope looking down: General Manager/CFO
Bloody leech: Critic/Journalist
Sorry: designated tokens for marketing/pr directors were deleted in the last budget cycle.
All players spin the Great Glass Wheel Of Art simultaneously in all directions and yell, “I Wanna!” The Wheel comes off its bearings; breaks into millions of pieces. Players move tokens anyplace in the room that feels most advantageous, regardless of the playing board or other players.
End of game:
Chaos. All players proclaim victory. None actually win.
U-Better, U-Better, UBIT
Watching arts nonprofits seek funding in unusual ways leads to same old/new discussions on Unrelated Business Income Tax.
Taking a group of donors for a London theatre tour (even if all the finances are handled by an independent agent)…UBIT, you betcha.
The percentage of time spent in London at a lecture about your company’s particular brand of theatre…OK.
Selling t-shirts with just the logo of your natural history museum…UBIT, you betcha.
Selling t-shirts with dinosaurs on them at your natural history museum…OK.
Leasing part of your building to a separate business…UBIT, you betcha.
Items sold at a gift shop with a separate public entrance…UBIT off more than you can chew.
Items sold at a gift shop only accessible to ticket-buyers…UBIT only items not related to the tax-exempt purpose of the organization.
UBIT. Not just another 4-letter acronym.
Nonprofit hiring… Consensus…check. Fairness…check. Zombie interviewers…GRAXAGHZ.
Employees are your biggest asset as an organization. Nonprofit employees hold greater importance. Relationship-building through positive, passionate human interaction are better portents to success than technological advances.
And yet, too often the hiring process – especially in communities seeking “consensus” or “fairness” – has devolved into “Interviews in Zombieland.”
“Consensus” is not unanimity. “Fairness” is irrelevant when you’re seeking great people.
The group interview is quickly disintegrating. Every person takes turns reading pre-designed, pre-printed questions in the dullest drones imaginable. Your staff turns into a cast of Zombies in a badly-written, badly-acted play, and everyone uses the same dull inflection to every candidate.
And then, invariably, zombie staff members complain about the candidates’ dullness.
Nonprofit leaders: is your hiring process as undead as your results? And are zombie interviews the best way to show off your organization?
The black ten goes on the red Jack, Jack
The worst thing you can say is “I’m too busy.”
There are reasons, remedies, and repercussions available here and here and here.
Therefore:
If someone you know calls, call them back. Don’t write. Call. Today.
If someone you know writes, write them back. Or call. Today.
If you have an appointment with someone, do not text them a “crazy busy” excuse in the hopes they’ll go away. Meet. You said you would. Passive aggressiveness is still aggression…and it’s repugnant.
Be fifteen minutes early. Honoring time is the ultimate respect.
Stop being afraid that people will catch you playing Solitaire. We know you’re playing Solitaire. Everyone’s playing Solitaire of a kind. We’re not actually speaking with other people, seeking ideas and help, or evolving curiosity.
If we only express things we already know, then how do we grow?
Neither artists nor nonprofit arts organizations are entitled, they just act that way sometimes
Every kid wins trophies.
There are two possible takeaways from this fact:
a) Trophies don’t mean much; or
b) Every kid deserves trophies.
Or both.
If a), then the result is that external recognition must be useless. Which means:
1) We reward mediocrity.
2) We foster cynicism to greatness.
If b), then the result is that external recognition must be unrelenting. Which means:
3) We reward everything.
4) We foster entitlement to greatness.
I have rarely seen folks as entitled as those in the performing arts today, at least here in Seattle, the epicenter of externally-based self-esteem. I’ve known dozens of actors who have insisted that they’re too talented to audition. Dozens more of nonprofit arts organizations feeling too holy to follow a mission.
Consider: Oscar Isaac had to audition for the role of Llewyn Davis. It wasn’t handed to him.
Positive Signs in the Nonprofit Arts Community
Some nonprofit arts organizations are making new, better choices – and it’s working.
One theater company, eschewing the managing director template (part operations director, part fundraiser, part CPA), has chosen to split the duties. They’ve brought on a strategy director to handle outside duties (fundraising, speaking, lobbying) and strategic plan piloting. The operations and financial duties lie with the general manager.
One children’s arts company, eschewing the arts-revenue template (part production house, part arts education academy), produces in the same facility as several social service agencies. They incorporate the other nonprofits into everything they do, produce a specific style of performance art that speaks to the values of their ethnically, linguistically diverse neighborhood, and gauge success by how well all the nonprofits are bettering the lives of their constituents.
New prototypes. New measurements. New realizations. Excellent work.
One size fits one.
I recently worked with a nonprofit theater company to find ways to increase its revenue. The assignment was through a parent volunteer organization. There were a slew of rules dictated by that organization, mostly leading to lots of pre-printed worksheets.
This is a longstanding theatrical outfit that’s doing fine, but outside the current audience and tiny board, there is little chatter. That was the issue.
Even the mission statement only described their activities. It did not define their goals.
The best project would have been to aim higher, enhance internal branding, and take steps to build a fan base (instead of audience). But that advice wasn’t allowed.
It’s too bad. Each nonprofit is unique. Leaders are too often drawn to uninspired project management tools because they’re easy, and obviously worked at some time for some company somewhere.
Really bad ideas for nonprofit arts boards!
- Be the “idea” person. Provide valuable insight. Have employees carry out those ideas in addition to their jobs. Give continual feedback at every board meeting.
- Eschew fundraising. It’s begging for money. You don’t beg.
- Make sure that your annual gala is the organization’s primary activity… above all else.
- Play “Pick Your Favorite Line Item” at the board meeting where the budget is approved. Spend forty-five minutes on depreciation, for example.
- Bring in consultants. Find ones with a single patented technique that works for every organization.
- Build a hierarchy. Successful corporations build hierarchies.
- Do not read anything sent to you before attending meetings. You’re there as the “idea” person, remember?
- Ensure that the company’s activities define the mission, not the other way around. Make sure that the mission contains the words, “fiscal responsibility.”
For success, do the opposite.
Related articles
When HR was H
If you’ve applied for a job in the last eight years or so, you’ve sent your resume to a bot. The bot sends you a disingenuous message thanking you for your interest, scans your resume for certain keywords, and decides in a blink of an eye whether to advance your candidacy.
Then, silence.
Often, you’ll never hear from that potential employer. Or you’ll hear something months later, after the job has been awarded (even if you were never in the running). As a final insult, you may even receive a happy letter exclaiming the virtues of the person that the company hired.
HR used to be “Personnel” and was only part of large corporations. Then it became an industry. Now, people are overwhelmed with responses. Hence the bot.
It’s not that hard to be human.
Is it?
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