Expect a Miracle

Art, Community, and the Entrepreneurial Spirit

I am often moved to write when I've been part of a collaborative theatre project.  This time, it has taken me a bit longer to put pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard.  This time, I was part of something that was extraordinary in ways that I could have never anticipated or imagined.  A very dear friend told me that he believes that we should go through life "expecting a miracle".  That is what happened this winter on The 1776 Project.

This time, a group of wonderfully talented and dedicated people came together and created something magical, something that moved a community and created real meaning for the people who experienced the performance.  Many people have asked me how I pulled it off?  How did I bring this disparate group of people together and create such magic?

Well, I expected a miracle.  I have spent a good portion of my business career working at early-stage companies for some wonderful entrepreneurs.  I learned from them what it is to believe in a vision and assemble a team to make it happen.  I learned from them about not giving up even when confronted with obstacles and bumps. And there were definitely bumps.  There were people who dropped out, who couldn't stay with the project.  There were actors who were sick and actors that missed rehearsals. There were the normal challenges with the design team.  Mercifully, there were no significant weather challenges which was it's own miracle since we are in Vermont and the show opened at the end of March.  All in all, we weathered all of the small storms and managed to get a cast of 26 humans along with a crew of 12 to stay on their feet through a three-week run.

Expect a miracle.  In this particular project, our goals were very ambitious.  We set out to spur a conversation in the community and to engage with kids and adults around the very important issues in the play.  We invited local politicians and thought leaders to participate in talk-backs after every show. And our audiences stayed for the conversation.  The feedback from patrons has been extraordinary.  They went home and re-read books about our Founding Fathers.  They engaged with their families and friends in meaningful discussions about civics, and race and what it means to be an American.  The story is not all peaches and cream.  There were real compromises that were made in order to birth this great country. And everyone involved in the project explored that part of the story very thoughtfully.

We essentially built something from nothing.  We had no company, we had no team, we had no real support at the outset.  But we had an idea that we believed in.  We were able to convince some very generous funders to support our vision.  We began to talk about the idea and everywhere we went, people would nod and begin to get excited.  While many of the people who came out to audition and to work on the production were known to me, many were not.  There is a long list of people who simply appeared and got on board.  That's what happens when you expect a miracle.
It would have been so easy to say- whoa, this is going to be way too hard.  Who will do all of this work? Who will we get to play these very challenging roles?  Are there enough accomplished actors and singers to make this happen?  If we're planning to do community outreach, who's going to do THAT work?   And how are we going to assemble a group of musicians for the pit?  Who's going to run our spotlights and our soundboard?  But we started recruiting a team, and as the energy grew, the team grew.  When we began marketing the show, the word of mouth started to spread.  As the actors became more confident in the quality of the show, they began to spread the word with enthusiasm.  And then when our audiences left the theatre, they told their friends. The word spread.  Miracles do that. We sold out 8 out of 10 performances.  And we built something really special.  Sadly these pop-up communities are a bit ephemeral.  Actors often mourn when a show is over.  The cast and crew become like family and it's hard to replace that when it's over.

The 1776 Project is now behind us.  The gratitude that I feel knows no bounds.  And now we turn our sights to the next project.  It'll have something to do with talking to each other and with celebrating our unique stories.  And yup.. you guessed it.  Once again, we'll start out expecting a miracle.

Lessons a Theatre Director Taught Me About Leadership

Apart from spending time with family and friends, there are two areas of my life where I spend the most time and energy. The first is my work and the second is the theater.  Like many dedicated theatre folks, I manage to find the time and energy to be part of productions several times a year, whilst still keeping my busy and demanding job.  One thing is for sure and that is that it's not easy to balance both.  But midway through our run for La Cage Aux Folles at the Emerson Umbrella in Concord, MA, I reflected on the experience and most importantly the lessons that I learned from our director.

This was no small production.  The sets, the elaborate costumes, the wigs, the make-up, the orchestration, the choreography,  all made for a very complex and challenging scene backstage.  There were wigs flying, fast costume changes, dancers hurling shoes in every direction.  There were prosceniums turning,  shimmery curtains opening and closing,  and sets moving.  It was all a bit head-spinning.

It's not all that different from the company I worked for at the time.  In my company, there were different departments doing their thing, priorities shifting, customers surfacing with questions and feedback, employees needing to work through issues and find solutions.  The backstage scene at the theatre is more intense and more concentrated, but there are days when things felt pretty darn chaotic at work as well.  I have worked with a number of CEO's and colleagues along the way in my career and have observed very different styles to get results.  Being a leader in a company is a lot like being a director for a production.  You have a group of people (hopefully talented people) who need to come together to work hard and achieve results.  In the case of a play, they need to mount a production and invite an audience to share in the experience. In the case of a company, the work and rewards are on-going.  There may be sprints along the way or big product launches, but the team needs to collaborate to achieve great things.

There are some very simple principles that I observed during this production, all guided by a very gifted director.  Here are the lessons he re-affirmed for me:

1.  Have a plan
2.  Set a vision and articulate it well
3.  Be kind
4.  Push hard for the results you want to see
5. Value every person's contributions
6.  Do it with love

HA! you say.  The "L" word.  Where does that fit in the workplace?  I'll get to that in a minute. First a bit about the first 5 on the list.  Our director came to the first rehearsal with a very clear plan, not only of the rehearsal schedule all the way up to opening night, but also his vision for the production and the time we would spend together.  He brought photos and imagery, he articulated some themes that were important to him in telling the story of the play.  He set a very clear vision whilst still expressing his expectation that everyone would bring their own ideas and vision to the process.  It was at once inclusive and inspiring.

He was incredibly kind and supportive of every single person involved with the production.  This is not necessarily the norm.  Tensions often run high in a production that needs to get mounted in a short period of time.  Maybe it was having a clear vision and plan that allowed him to stay calm and not get too impatient as we all worked to learn our part. And he pushed for sure.  He did it very nicely but he pushed us hard and set a very high bar.  The cast in this production were all very talented and experienced so everyone knew they had a job to do and put their heads down to do it.  But there was no doubt that the cast wanted to make him and at the rest of the production team happy.  He pushed hard and we pushed to deliver the results he was looking for.  Sound familiar?

When have you been in a company or part of a team who works hard because they don't want to disappoint their colleagues?   In the best companies and among the most successful teams, people are intrinsically motivated to work hard and to be there for each other.  It's one of the great joys of being part of a high functioning team.

And finally, what about the "L" word.  I don't use this word in a sappy, sentimental way.  I use it to express the times when we are seeing the very best in each other.  When we do not come with judgment but with a joyful anticipation of the goodness that we will find in each other.  Our director wrote a long email to the cast and crew shortly before we opened and it was really kind of a love letter.  He expressed something about every single person in the show that honored them and their unique gifts and contribution to the production.  It was impossible not to feel valued and to be inspired to do our very best work.

I  have often been heard at work saying that  "I love my team."  I have found that when a team, either at a company or in a play, can truly appreciate each other for our unique gifts, then the best work happens.  I have a sign on the whiteboard in my office, with a nod to Seth Godin, that says-  "Where is your art?  What are your gifts?"

So thank you Peyton Pugmire.  I am honoring you by name here so that when you get famous someday and are receiving some fabulous award, I can say I spotted your extraordinary talent early on.  Here's to leading with love.