If Music City gave up

[garfield]

I suspect Stu's point is that a great director/CEO/boss/leader makes sure the job gets done when it has to get done. Period. If that means installing enough staff & volunteers to get the job done, great. If that means the CEO gets dirty sometimes to make sure the job gets done, great.

As with many things on the internet, I get posters' need to argue semantics, hence your "so if he has a bad back and/or the strength of a weakling and can't physically help blah blah blah." But I'd like to think we're all intelligent enough to see the actual point to the argument Stu was making, which is if a leader sits back and waits for others to do a job (even if those other people are struggling/failing at doing their own job), chances are that organization will struggle to survive, let alone thrive. Obviously in a perfect world a drum corps Executive Director is afforded the luxury of installing more-than-competent staffers & volunteers so everything runs amazing. But in reality, especially for newer organizations, that isn't always the case and the director has to get his hands dirty doing grunt work in order for their organization to survive.

I'm not sure we're referencing the same time-frame. Maybe same with Stu. Once the corps is up and running then the ED can pitch in, hang around, do a task. But, if his staff isn't deep enough then he's wasting time doing those other tasks and not solving the primary problem. Before the leader sits back and waits for anything he'd better have a deep organization in place, with alternates who are willing to step in if a key person leaves for whatever reason. The leader should absolutely wait for others to a job if that job was assigned to them, and to do so confirms or validates his business model. Even if the "people machine" is running smoothly there are tons of jobs that only he can do and that his staff cannot. Those are the things he should spend his time on. And if he has time to wander down to practice or drive a bus he certainly should take the opportunity. But his primary function is assigning all things possible to others, except those things that no one else can do.

I used to think that arranging financing was the single most-important function to a drum corps, but the older I get the more I realize that the luxury of money isn't useful at all if there's not the personnel structure in place to use it wisely and efficiently. That's the ED's primary function in operational functions.

Now if that director continues to struggle finding the right staff & volunteers, I 100% understand why he would say "enough's enough - I'm done with all of this work" and step down and/or fold the organization. But the director who sits back and does nothing while work piles up, waiting for others to get the job done, is a director who either won't last long or whose organization won't survive.

(also, FWIW, the director who continually does all of the dirty work on top of his logistical & financial responsibilities will likely get burned out quick)

I would suggest that finding, and keeping, staff and volunteers immensely-more important than taking action when the work piles up. I think an ED who jumps in to solve a short-term issue is admirable, but one who spends his time putting out fires that others should be handling is ignoring the base problem. That will certainly lead to failure of the organization.

[garfield]

The situations I am referring to have nothing at all to do letting the troops make decisions and learn from their successes and failures. Did you not read my true-life experience example while I was working on the loading dock at Walmart? That was, is, the type of situation I am speaking of; not 'micro-managing' decisions.

Again I am not talking about corporate structure and the chain of command of defining what needs to be done; I am talking about chipping in 'when needed'. So, again using my true-life Sam Walton experience as an example; You contend that Sam should have never been in that truck in the first place, he should have been in his office, and he should have 'not' chipped in to help us when he saw we were short handed, thus I would never have had the pleasure of 'learning to lead' through is willingness to serve where needed.

A few questions for ya: 1) Do you mean Crown and BD 'now' or Crown and BD when the corps were starting out?; 2) Are you saying that, if needed, Kevin Smith, Jim Coats, and David Gibbs today 'would not' follow the example of Sam Walton and 'not' chip in to do some grunt work if the needed situation presented itself? and 3) Are you saying that Smith, Coats, and Gibbs should thus consider themselves as Directors above doing such tasks if needed and direct the corps by staying in their respective offices?

All of this can be answered with "Yes", I think the ED should "get involved" in the operational functions when, and if, he has the time to voluntarily take part - like Walton in your story.

The CEO of my old company, AGEdwards, had his own parking space in the garage right next to the private elevator that took him up to the executive offices. But, every morning, sun or snow, he'd walk out of the parking garage and enter through the front door just so he could say good morning to the receptionist. When I joined his company - which I specifically chose because of its culture - I was at risk of losing a $20million client who suddenly got cold feet about moving with me. The first day I was at AGE. I was one of almost 7,000 advisors in the company, but I picked up the phone and called Ben Edwards. He answered his own phone. He knew that I'd just joined. When I described my problem and asked for his help and guidance, he asked for my client's name and phone number. He called immediately, although I waited a couple of days before doing anything. When I called the client, he said "Man, when you bring out the big guns, you mean the big ones. Come by and get the paperwork to transfer". Turns out that Ben talked with Henry for more than an hour, talked about their histories, their families, and their hobbies. When I later flew Henry to St. Louis to visit the home office, Ben insisted on taking both of us to dinner. He spent his whole day doing those things as well as running a fabulous business for himself, his advisors, and our clients. I get the interaction with Mr. Walton you're talking about. Instead of eating in the executive lunch room when he wasn't traveling, he'd spend a couple of surprise days serving food in the employee cafeteria, because he got to see everyone.

He was that way from the day he took over for his father, but the business of getting the right people in the right positions that he could trust to give him the time to be that personable was always his priority.

I don't think we disagree on the personality, Stu. We've both had the experience to understand the "engaging" leader we're describing. They each had deep organizations that they'd spent considerable time grooming. And don't forget paying, too. The task is made much more difficult when only altruism or glory, and not money, are the motivators.

[Stu]

Garfield: We agree on most everything. My posting was mainly in response to Drumcorpsfever untill you began to your "What about a CEO with a bad back" banter. YES, there should be corporate hierarchy structure; YES, there should be competent people making decisions within that hierarchy; YES the ED should pretty much let things be ran in each sub category level by the particular manager of that category and not 'micro-manage'; YES, to all of that and even more. But that is not what I was referring to when speaking of a) verification that things are getting accomplished, and b) showing that you are not above servitude when a needed situation arises. Please follow me here: I have not a clue what Sam Walton did after he helped us unload that truck. For I all I know he may have went in and chewed out the store manager for not taking care of the situation. What I do know is that he saw us grunt workers struggling short handed and he willingly jumped in and helped out where he saw an immediate need. He did not make decisions for the dock crew leader; h*** he even took direction 'from' the crew leader. But what he did, the multi-millionaire owner of that corporation, by providing a service in an immediate situation, showing us that he was not 'above' anything, THAT has stayed with me my entire life; and THAT is what Drumcorpsfever said that a CEO should 'not' do.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Stu

[garfield]

Following up on what Stu said, it's difficult to know how those directors managed their corps back in the day. History gets revised with time, if it's even available. However, we do know that Bill Cook personally drove the bus (or truck, I forget which) when it became necessary. If you mean today, well of course those corps have enough personnel resources that they can afford to be off site. Unless you're bringing more to the table than most drum corps start-ups, you won't have that luxury.

Fixed that. And what "more" are you speaking of? Money? People? Again, I think the financial challenges are not as important (not that they aren't important) as the personnel challenges. I have, or can get, enough money to field a corps - that's not the hard part. The tough thing is to get the maximum number of people to buy into the vision and promise to stick it out to the end, and not just the end of the season. Whatever time frame is the first benchmark test, the initial staff must commit to staying through to the end. To find that group is the ED's most significant challenge, IMO.

I remember learning in college about a study of leadership personalities in which the researchers studied proven successful managers from various fields and various sized organizations. The takeaway was that there is no leader personality. They were all very different people. But they did all have one trait in common; a high degree of gregariousness and the appearance of caring about each person they dealt with. The manager of a bra manufacturer that had become famous for extremely few defects was the extreme in this; he actually cried regularly about any personal/home life issues his employees had, right down to the lowest employee. The employees interviewed seemed to find this highly annoying (not surprisingly). But they produced few defects.

I know dozens of business leaders with successful organizations and they are, in fact, all very different people. But they all demonstrate a caring for all those working for them that endears him to the staff, not ingratiates himself on them.

Watching Kevin Smith interact with his staff and crew for three years when he was in town for our show proved to me that he is one of those personalities. And he took a personal liking to the _kid and adopted him as his "assistant" each year they were here; I could tell they both loved it. I'm absolutely sure that Dave Gibbs cares passionately about is staff and kids - although he was not at our show with BD, you could easily see it in his staff. My understanding is that Dave actually travels very little on tour (that's not confirmed from his mouth to my ears). But both directors, IMO, exhibit the key ability to choose - and keep - staff for long periods of time. Obtaining, and not squandering, that commitment from staff has got to be the ED's primary function. Even money can come second, IMO, but that's still the ED's responsibility as well (and specifically not the board's).

Edited September 8, 2013 by garfield

[Stu]

Even money can come second, IMO, but that's still the ED's responsibility as well (and specifically not the board's).

Aren't Boards for corps like Cadets, Crown, and Cavaliers (three c's, funny) anyway, aren't they finally figuring out that one person 'cannot' successfully accomplish both running the corporation and securing funding; so they are splitting responsibility between the Executive Director being in charge of Administration and a Development Director being in charge of funding.

[Pete Freedman]

Fixed that. And what "more" are you speaking of? Money? People? Again, I think the financial challenges are not as important (not that they aren't important) as the personnel challenges. I have, or can get, enough money to field a corps - that's not the hard part. The tough thing is to get the maximum number of people to buy into the vision and promise to stick it out to the end, and not just the end of the season. Whatever time frame is the first benchmark test, the initial staff must commit to staying through to the end. To find that group is the ED's most significant challenge, IMO.

Yes. I guess here's my hypothesis: With the exception of the "top corps", all drum corps are woefully lacking in staff, such that the director has to do a lot of day-to-day work throughout the corps.

I don't know whether this is true, but finding that out is critical, along with where the "top corps" line is. Is it the top 3? 7? 12? WC?

If your vision requires a deep staff, as you put it, then you have to know whether that ever happens at the corps level you'll be entering in. If not, you'll have to find an unprecedented way (for drum corps) to achieve it.

If you really can raise the scratch, you could hire a Managing Director. Bill Cook wasn't actually the director. He hired the director. He was more a producer type role (that's my sense). Maybe it's time for drum corps to have producers; every other show business has them. "Fundraiser" indeed. The money guy is the boss!