#5: How to Build a Culture of Iteration and Innovation at an Arts Organization
How to build an arts organization culture that embraces continual improvement, design thinking, iteration, and innovation—especially when we feel so much pressure to make everything we do an overnight success with no room for failure.
Then, Aubrey addresses a job seeker’s question about what to do when there’s something about their work history they don’t want to come up in an interview.
TRANSCRIPT
Hey, everyone. As I'm recording this, I am getting ready to head to Yosemite for a weekend of hiking and relaxing and just getting off the grid a little bit. I'll try to post some photos on Instagram if you follow me. We'll see. There's not a lot of cell phone reception out there, so it's, you know, one of those forced disconnect moments, which I'm ready for that I think. This is a time to relax in a breakaway, but it's also a big goal. So if anybody's been following me for awhile, you may remember in 2019. I broke my femur in a ski accident. They kept calling it a traumatic event. I was like, oh, it's not traumatic. I'll be walking again soon.
No, it was, I now know it was so, it was one of those things. Rush to surgery. Couldn't walk for weeks, physical therapy and I worked really hard and right before I had the accident that was in March. Right before I had the accident I had. Registered for the Half Dome permit lottery. If anybody's a big hiker you may be aware of this, but Half Dome is one of the most popular hikes.
Maybe in the country. I don't know. It's probably definitely the most popular Yosemite, so much so that they now regulate how many people can do it with these permits. And you have to enter this lottery system, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So I had entered it when a lottery opened in March. Fast forward, a couple of weeks broke the leg skiing. Then fast forward a couple more weeks, they released the people who won the lottery. And sure enough, I had gotten in for August of that same year. And so I remember going to physical therapy saying, this is my recovery goal. I want to do this hike. It's like a, I think a 14 mile hike or something like that. A lot of elevation gain. So it's strenuous and so for a couple months of recovery, once I was starting to walk again and.
You know, try to build back muscle and things like that. My physical therapist was really trying to work with me on that. And then as August of 2019 got closer, one day I go to PT and he says, Aubrey, I got to tell you. I don't think you should do this hike. I just don't think you will be ready. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
I am, I'm doing this. And he was like, no, you need to listen to me. I think you're going to do permanent damage to your body. If you try to do this. Okay, fine. Anybody who knows me knows this was not good news. I don't like being told I can't do something right, but okay. He was, he was serious, so, all right, 2019, it didn't happen.
When to Yosemite did some other hikes, it was gorgeous, glorious, all those things, but I feel like I have unfinished business is the point. So I'm going with my brother and some friends and we are going because we won the permit lottery again. And so we get to go on this hike. So we'll see. I can tell that, physically I've come so far since 2019, I am in so much better shape and have worked really hard for that. I'm excited, but I'm also a little nervous and combine all those things with just beautiful nature and the national parks never disappoint. They're always just so, so stunningly beautiful. So put all that together and I'm, I'm excited to get away, a little nervous as I said, but that's the plan. So as I'm recording this, I'm getting ready to head out and do that. So feeling pretty good.
All right, let's get into it today. We are talking about two really different questions in this episode. The first is about the Kaizen method. And if you are not familiar with that, that's okay. I was not either before this question came in, so it was an opportunity for me to do some research, really learn about this. And I learned a lot and it turns out I love it. So we're going to talk about that in just a moment. And then at the very end, I have a question from a job seeker who had.
That's an interesting question that even though her scenario was pretty specific, the response and how to handle her concern is very broad in my opinion. So. I'm dropping that in for you all too. Take a listen. And with that, I think let's get to it.
[00:03:56] Aubrey Bergauer: I'm Aubrey Bergauer, and welcome to my podcast. If we haven't met, I'm known in the arts world for being customer centric, data obsessed, and for growing revenue. The arts are my vehicle to make the change I want to see in this world, like creating places of belonging, pursuing gender and racial equality, developing high performing teams and leaders, and leveraging technology to elevate our work.
In this show, I'm answering your questions on how to build the vibrant future we know is possible, both for our institutions and for ourselves as offstage administrators and leaders. To submit a question, send a voice recording to hello@aubreybergauer.com.
[004:39] Ricardo: Hi Aubrey. It's Ricardo from a stay amazing movement, stay amazing show. And I wanted to leave you a message to see if you might want to do an episode on the Kaizen. Process. Which is a Japanese word, meaning constant improvement. It seemed like maybe something that the arts community can use as well. So hopefully you could do something on that. Okay. I'll be doing well.
[00:05:00] Aubrey Bergauer: All right. Hey Ricardo, thanks for the question. So good to hear from you. Kaizen method. So I did some studying up on this. And you're right. Ricardo, the arts community can absolutely use this as well. As you said, Kaizen is a Japanese word about continuous improvement, which to me is synonymous with iteration.
And iteration is something I've become known for; it's something I'm very dogmatic about. I believe in I'm about progress, not perfection. How do we do that? We iterate on it. How do we constantly get better as teams, organizations and individuals? Well, we do something. Measure our success evaluate. Do it again next time, hopefully a little better. So one document I saw on this says the Kaizen philosophy challenges, the statement of that's just the way we do things. And I love this so much because so much in the arts really is about the way we do things or the way it's always been done. And there are reasons for that, and there's a lot of history and tradition behind that. So I don't think there's necessarily any mal-intent behind that, but challenging the statement of that's just the way we do things.
Man, speaking my language. So I love this iteration. I think this matches also perfectly with the flywheel, anybody who listened to the last episode, I was talking about the flywheel of how do we spin up momentum over time. There's not one strategy alone that will bring our audiences back that will grow our donor base as the way we need. So anybody hearing this, wanting to know more and hasn't listened to the previous episode, please.
Do that cause there's a lot there, but all this is to say yes, the Kaizen method completely matches with everything we were talking about, just last week or two weeks ago. So too often, another way to say all of this, I think is too often at arts and culture organizations. We want success right away.
Of course we want new ideas to be successful, but it's almost like the pressure is too high on ourselves. And we do that to ourselves. And there are some reasons for that. There are definitely projects where we feel like we have to demonstrate revenue growth right away. For example, grant reports. Grant reports must be framed as a success if you want a chance to get that funding again, there are a few exceptions, so I'm painting with a pretty broad brush here, but this is a real problem with the way grants are awarded evaluated in general. And so that's one reason or one driver for this pressure of, we must have success. We must demonstrate revenue growth right away. And not always allow for this idea of iteration or out of the gate of, yeah, we did. So a few things. Right. And we're happy with that, but also we also see, items 1, 2, 3, 4, and five, where we know we can do it better next time. So let's give ourselves that chance to do it. Okay. Grant reports, that's one driver of that kind of pressure.
Sometimes it comes from our boards. I'll be clear. This is not universally true. But sometimes our boards only want to hear success instead of. This is a trial. This is an experiment. Sometimes I have to also be clear on this. Sometimes that's on us. I've had to get much better as a leader. And how do I frame things for the boards I work with? And if I frame it out of the gate, as this is a trial, we're doing this for three months as a test, we're doing this for this season with a subset of our audience, as a test, we're running this ad.
As a trial, as an experiment. So I've learned I have to get better at framing it that way. And when I do that, that does allow for a little bit more of this idea and culture of iteration. But anyways, sometimes boards only want to hear about success instead of trials experiments, or to hear the bad news. That's not great either. We have to be willing to have those conversations. So I think some of that comes from corporate culture, you know, every quarter corporations, especially publicly traded corporations have to deliver earnings reports, things like that. And their pressure is greater than ours to deliver results, success, success, success. Cause if not, the stock price goes down. The answer to shareholders.
You know, there's a lot of that corporate culture that's then sometimes it's just built into how our board members operate and think. So it goes back to how do we frame it? How do we work together with. These important people. So those are a few reasons why I think we have this sort of MO of it's always done this way or MO if we must demonstrate success out of the gate right away on projects.
You know, so those are barriers to change. Those are things we can work on and overcome. I will also say as much as I like iteration, believe in progress, not perfection. There are some things that do need to be pretty perfect. And I'm very bullish on these things. So let's talk about this. One, public facing materials.
No spelling errors. Every once in a while, an email goes out with a spelling error. Okay. Fine. The world keeps turning. You know, these things happen, but by and large public facing materials, We need to have a process where we have eyeballs on it and it routes to the right people. And we catch these things. It's not on one person to be perfect. It's a team effort here to be doing that. Okay. That goes really to internal processes, but public facing materials point is need to be pretty perfect.
That's our brand. That's what we're putting out in the world. Performances. Must be great. I don't know if I'll call it perfect, but that's subjective too with art. Right. But also how do we get to that place? Because rehearsals are a form of iteration. I think rehearsals are a great example of the Kaizen method and many ways. That's why we rehearse. That's why we start, stop, work out the transitions work out the balance, all these things that then when we do perform it is great as our excellent musician, so often show up and deliver again and again and again. Okay. Performances must be great. Website. Website. Oh, y'all. Here I am on the soap box on this one. Again, website needs to be working properly. Website must display, correct prices and information. This is non-negotiable.
Why am I on the soapbox? Because I see these errors all the time. Just the other day I was going to. An arts organization and I had a friend buying tickets. That person messaged me. This is somebody who is brilliantly intelligent, in my opinion. And it starts messaging me saying, why can't I buy a ticket on mobile? I'm like, well you can. And this person's like, no, this is really challenging. I'm having issues navigating the site and on and on and on. Why is it so damn hard? This person ended up finishing their ticket purchase on desktop.
Most people don't go to that trouble. This person did because they were going with a group of friends and. You know, they had extra incentive to do that. Most people, the data shows when there's friction, they drop off. So everybody who asks me for low-hanging fruit fixing the website is low-hanging fruit. Okay.
Website needs to be working properly, needs to be maybe not perfect, but pretty perfect. I think that's true. If we want to grow audiences and make money. Okay. Can we still iterate on our website? Yes, a hundred percent. Should we still be testing things, trial AB testing, absolutely a hundred percent. So maybe these things go hand in hand is what I'm trying to say. Kaizen method and making sure things that are public facing are at a pretty high standard. Okay. Outside of those public facing guide rails.
We'll do better on the whole to adopt this mentality of iteration. Again, it's test measure. Try it again. To give some specific examples. I'll use website again, AB test components on a page, this image or that image. There's more and more talk about, do we put the image of the orchestra or the soloist, or can we put images of our audience? If you're not sure? I know my opinion, if you're not sure, test it. See what gets more click-throughs to the purchase path. Right. Very easy way. That's what I mean, test, measure.
Evaluate. Iterate. Form fields at checkout. The data shows, the more information we ask for the more people drop off. So I know this is very, very difficult for our development and fundraising teams to hear. What you want to name, email. And credit card number. That's it. Yeah, the data shows that's going to convert more people, but try it.
Can we AB test it if you can't AB test it and don't have that ability, run at one month with all the existing field to check out name, address, state check this box. If you want that, tell us about this. How'd you hear about us? You know, whatever all those form fields are, run it a month. That way.
Next month. Strip all that off, run it that way. See which. Version has higher conversion rates all the way through. See, these are easy tests we can run. So adds another example, different copy the Facebook ad tool and by Facebook, I mean, Instagram as well. Is more and more sophisticated all the time. You put different versions of the copy in there. It'll optimize which one works best for you. Different versions of the photo. You could totally do two different versions of the postcard. Same thing.
I trust those images, tests that copy don't have too many variables at once. I'll say that as well.
You know, it's not a good test. If we don't have a control and an experimental. Group. So make sure that we can identify what the change is. So that we know how to evaluate the results. That's important. What else? Appeal letter, same thing. I've done that before. Can we have two versions of the appeal letter? I don't mean segmentation. I do believe in segmentation, but within. You know, if we have a version going to our lapse donors, for example, and we're not sure. Who should the letter be written by who's the signer or we're not sure what language we want to use. AB test it and run two versions of the letter. That's fine. Split the group in half measure the conversion rates. So I think with all of this, this Kaizen method, iteration, a mentality. I think the devil is in the details for sure. Usually. Within any given project we have at an arts organization. There are so many little variables. I think this is why iteration. There's so much room for this. We have so many little variables in everything we do. Little things.
This call to action. The way we describe that program or that piece of music, or that guest artist, or that staged director or those costumes or. That formatting, even that design. It's not just marketing. It's true for our education materials as well. It's true for our job descriptions. Who's ever thought of AB testing a job description. I don't know. I'm just making that up right now, but there's a lot to be said on how to improve those descriptions. For example, I just was learning LinkedIn data that says job descriptions that have a remote or flexible work component get, I think the stat was 2.6 times more applicants. Well I know everybody's hiring right now. People are reaching out all the time. Aubrey, can you recommend somebody for this job or that job?
So many people hiring right now. Well, maybe try that in your next job description. If that's true. If you have a remote or a flexible work component, see, do you get more applicants? Okay. That's an easy way to AB test that. Okay.
This is true for our program book, our program notes. I'm not saying we have to AB test a program book necessarily, but we can do it one way or the usual way. You know this month and then next month, maybe we try it a little different. Maybe we've presented the program notes slightly differently, or use bullet points instead of long form prose. Let's just see, do we get any feedback?
These are very Low bar test. We can do.
And this is what I mean. So many little details. Let's just see how these things go. And that's why we need to iterate for a long time, because you test a little detail here. You tweak a little detail there. Over time you start making. A lot of little change adds up to some really big dents and how, where moving things forward. And I think that's what I love about it. Donor events, same thing. Do the debrief. See what we got to do different next time. I feel like a lot of teams do that. We'll have the debrief, but then what I have noticed is the rub is then when it's time to do the event again,
Especially things like galas or big fundraising events where you do one of those a year, usually. Very rarely do I see the discipline to dig up the notes from last time before we start planning the next event. So that's the other half of it. Yes. We can have these debriefs and do the measuring testing, evaluating, but then when it's time to do it again,
Yeah, we got to go back to that and say, okay. Oh, right. That was an issue. Oh, right. That was a little bit of, there were some issues at check-in there. We got to fix that this time. Okay. What do we do for that? We need to train our volunteers better or whatever. So, okay.
Flow and content to board meetings. That's the last one popping into my brain right now. Yeah, we can totally test different flow and content of board meetings for sure. Okay. The good news is the nature of all of these things is cyclical. At every arts organization, we have seasons, especially if we're performing arts organizations, we have seasons.
We do it again next year, sometimes multiple times in a year, depending on the project or the program. Next month's donor event. Next week's concert, right? So the cyclical nature of our work allows us to have this mentality have this Kaizen method approach. Non performing arts organization. So visual arts, visitor based cultural institutions, it's the next exhibit opening, those kinds of things. Right? So again, very cyclical.
This is good news for us in terms of adopting this kind of approach.
So all this is to say, this is not rocket science, but it is a process. And that is the whole idea of the flywheel. I'm kind of. Coming full circle. Punny. All right. The idea of the flywheel is that as it is methodical, it is consistent. And I love this Jim Collins quote. He was the one who coined the term flywheel the first person to use it as a business term. Now it's used by all kinds of brand's and. Management consultants and business gurus, but he was the first and he said, quote, the signature of mediocrity in a company is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency. So I think that this idea of we improve our quality with small, incremental steps, incremental improvements, working toward being more efficient standardizing process where there isn't or processes erratic or inconsistent. Those things I think really do help us become less inconsistent, more consistent in what we do. And I also want to say process is not a bad word. Process. Here's what we need to be working toward: process should create efficiency, not red tape. So that's the barometer. If we're adding a process, like I said, something that needs to be proofed by multiple people before it goes out the door so that the public facing version.
Pretty perfect in terms of being error-free okay. We need a process for that. Again, all for efficiency. Who doesn't have eyes on this piece, but actually would be a good help, like another department or another person somewhere else who sees it, with fresh eyes for the first time. Or a whole different direction here. What can we automate? Oh, this is a big one for organizations. What can we automate? There's so many tools available now, is there a tool to help us do that? Too often- and I'm guilty of this too. Believe me, but too often, we default to that feels like a lot of work, or I hear this a lot only the big organizations could do that, which is so funny because even the big organizations then go to, Ooh, that feels like a lot of work again.
And I am here to tell you that is not defacto true. I've seen it. And I've seen. Different organizations of all sizes say, oh, you know what? There is a tool for that. Yes. There's a tool that wasn't available even a few years ago that is now that can help us.
You know, do we need to have I who knew who else needs to have eyes on this before it goes out the door? Somebody was just telling me the story the other day of. Strad magazine. I don't mean to totally throw them under the bus. I think this was a while ago, but what I'm about to say, could happen to anybody, I think. They had released a cover and I think it was maybe a cellist on the cover and the image was flipped clearly because the cellist was bowing with the wrong hand. So. Clearly, that means a designer probably made that choice, but somebody who is a cellist didn't look at the photo already string player, didn't look at the photo before it was approved and went out the door. So that's what I mean, process matters processes to create efficiency, not to create bureaucracy or red tape or anything like that.
And there are ways to expedite these things to make it more efficient, not just feel encumbersome or feeling like more work. Sometimes it's work. That's worth it too. Okay. All this brings me to.
The last point, which is, I said this before, but the world keeps turning. The caveat to all this is when something isn't perfect. The good thing about our businesses. Nobody dies. I've said this before to plenty of teams. Nobody dies. You know, it's going to be okay. It's going to be fine. So here I am progress, not perfection. I say that all the time credit where credit's due, my Peloton instructor says that. So quoting my great Peloton instructors.
But I'll just add to that. I cannot stand when good things are good steps are criticized. So I think that is also why I like iteration. There are good things that organizations are doing, that teams are doing, that individuals are doing in their work. And.
Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Let's praise, those things that are the good and what we do, and then figure out how to build on that. I insist on measurable results. That is true for anybody who works with me. With past teams I've run And as a consultant. I insist on measurable results. I think that's part of all of this. It's not what feels good. It's, let's look at the data and let that be our guide. Data is our guide. I say that all the time.
Encouragement, empowerment. I just posted online the other day some research about praise is up to 30 times more effective than criticism when empowering and motivating employees. So let's have that environment where we do praise specifically what's good. And what's working.
Let's have a growth mindset that also to me feels very similar to this whole Kaizen method. Like we've never arrived. We are still working. We're still pushing and that's part of our DNA and we're happy for that because we know we've still got room to grow. That's true for all of us.
As a caveat, I'm not saying burnout and never rests. That's important to articulate. I think it's almost just the opposite. Like to be able to do this and have this kind of approach means we have to have no ego. No ego to have a growth mentality approach. Right. So. No ego, amigo, another Peloton quote.
Excellence means achieving a high standard and identifying how to make it even better next time. Those are my own words. I have this on a little note beside my desk. Excellence means achieving a high standard and identifying how to make it even better. Next time. We're great with that artistically. So we can do that more and more in our offstage administrative roles as well.
[00:23:13] Aubrey Bergauer: And so that, to me, all of this is a culture informed by the Kaizen method. I love that you were thinking about this Ricardo and including this in your work. Thanks for the question. I got to learn a little bit and it was pretty inspiring for me. So I appreciate that.
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[00:25:04] Aubrey Bergauer: Hey, everyone. For this next question, I'm pulling from a session I led recently where I was receiving a question that the scenario is specific to this individual, but the response is something that can be applied to all of us. This is a question about when applying for jobs and you have something you are. Either concerned about or something that you're worried might look a little amiss either in your work history or resume. What do you do about it? And. The answer I give, even though the question is specific to this individual's circumstance, the answer and the research behind it is broad. So I'm including that here to share with you all, because this is a category of question I'm asked somewhat often. So thought I would include it in case it's helpful.
With all of that said, I also am thinking because there is so much transition happening right now. Great reshuffle. A lot of organizations hiring. I already mentioned that earlier in the show. I'm thinking for a future episode, we only have a couple left, but I was thinking maybe I'll do an episode solely dedicated to jobs, whether that's as the employer, you're a hiring manager and you have questions, or as a candidate, you're looking and you have questions about the application process. So I just want to put that out there, if that feels helpful or interesting.
I've gotten a few questions I've received on that recently that I can drop in. And then if you all have anything else that you want specifically answered, please send me a voice recording to hello@AubreyBergauer.com. And like I said, I'm trying, I'm thinking I'll probably do that for episode seven or eight in this season one. And then we're done with season one. So with that, let's get to this question and then we'll wrap it up for today.
[00:26:56] Katrina: okay. So it's kind of two pronged, but for my specific context, my husband is active duty military, so we move every three to five years. So I guess my primary question is how do you prove your value proposition when it's a time bound period of employment? Is the interview an appropriate time to clarify something like that and get ahead of something like that?
[00:27:17] Aubrey Bergauer: Here's the research that's popping into my mind. This is from Adam Grant. This is on his Work Life podcast. So if you're a podcast person, you can look this up, but sometimes it is beneficial to be the first person to name the elephant in the room. So in this case, I would say that's the elephant in the room. Oh, she moves around a lot, regardless of why that is.
Okay. So sometimes it's helpful to name that first because it's sort of like when we were talking about poking holes in our own argument before somebody else can. It adds credibility, it shows, oh, they're not out to get me. They're not trying to trick me. They're not trying to pull the woo over my eyes.
So. If you name it first, but I would say, be able to work it in like, have a scripted , phrase of like somehow connected to your values or your impact. You name it. But then on the the second half of that breath is and here's why it's not an issue without being quite as on the nose.
So here's an example Adam Grant gives sharing about his own life experience. He tells a story of when he was. Young. I can't remember. He was barely a professor. So what does that put him, late twenties maybe? And he was giving a presentation. I can't even remember. It was very important. It was a room full of people, much more experienced than him, and he needed to win them over quickly. And he decided to take this approach of be the first person to name the elephant in the room. So instead of his typical beginning of the presentation, he goes right to. Sort of a joke, he says, Let me guess I can read your mind. Nobody here today thought they'd be getting a lecture from a 12 year old, right? And he says immediately the room was silent, but then there was a little bit of laughter and then it became a running joke for the rest of the day. And then when the evaluations came back on that presentation, there were comments like.
You know, I didn't expect to learn from a 12 year old, but I did learn a lot, so I'll take it. "or, another evaluation comment said something like, although he's junior in experience, he dealt with the content in a very interesting way. So anyways, he named the elephant in the room. It took that ammunition away from everybody else. It kind of lowered their barrier that they would have potentially built up in their mind. And they were able to receive the actual content of what he had to say without this, honestly, implicit bias. Right? So that's the idea, named the elephant in the room.
And here are the reasons why this works, this there's research behind this. An early experiment on this had to do with, there were some. Quiz show contestants. And in order for this quiz show too. Be received better by audiences. They were trying to figure out what to do to make the contestants likable. And the research began sort of as an accident. One day a contestant. Accidentally spilled coffee on themselves. And it spurred the idea of this. Producer who then went on to partner with somebody to actually research this, but spurred the idea of. Maybe this makes them more likable. Like they had compassion for that person in the moment.
And so that was the impetus for this research. So fast forward to the end and really the takeaway, the quantifiable takeaway was that.
Once you've established competence. This is important. So you're establishing your competence in an interview situation. And when you make a small mistake like spilling coffee on yourself, or in this case, the way the research bore out was if you name something about yourself that could be perceived as imperfect. Adam Grant was young at the time. You've moved around more than what some people might think as quote unquote, normal. You know, you name these things and what it does is it makes you more human and therefore that's what makes us more likable in these instances.
And I'll also say it's vulnerable, right. But to go there and to say something that could be perceived as vulnerable about ourselves. Is actually a strength and.
Then there's all kinds of other benefits of that. You are then displaying confidence because you've been able to reveal something about yourself. And it's interesting because when you've established your competence and then added this vulnerability confidence, humanity element, that then actually becomes a very strong combination. Especially in a setting where there's a power dynamic, like Adam Grant giving a presentation; like you in an interview situation. So that's the research that's coming to mind on all of this. I really hope it's helpful and I wish you all the best of luck.
That's all for today, folks. Thanks so much for listening, and keep up with more content like this by following me on LinkedIn, Instagram or Twitter @AubreyBergauer. And Definitely hit that follow button to subscribe to this podcast. And I have one more favor to ask: if you liked what you heard here, will you please leave a review and rating? I've learned it really does make a huge difference, and I'd be so grateful for your help and support in that. Thanks again. See you next time on The Offstage Mic.
(music fade in…can rolls production credits over music) The Offstage Mic was produced by me, Aubrey Bergauer, and made possible by Descript. I used to Descript to record, edit, set audio levels, and make the trailer as well as the video teasers on social media. I couldn't have done it without them. And I recommend any marketing team or individual creator should definitely use this tool too. Thanks again to Descript for making this project and many others I've done possible. This is a production of Changing the Narrative.