They Told Me Not to Take that Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics, and the Transformation of Lincoln Center (45 page)

Maybe these issues are best addressed through imaginative use of technology or the analysis of big data. Maybe the keys to unlocking new value in organizations are fresh sources of revenue and novel productivity measures. Maybe gain-sharing breakthroughs in collective bargaining can offer a contribution to needed solutions. Or new ways to devise incentives that lead to breakthrough big ideas.

I do not know. What I am sure of is that brilliant young people can be found in more than Silicon Valley garages, investment firms, and consulting practices. Attracting bright minds to third-sector habitats and to the formidable problems found there, charging them to help devise solutions, offering needed resources and the freedom to wander intellectually, and then listening to what they formulate cannot help but create a new order of things. Blending the benefits of experienced hands with the unconventional approaches of the relatively uninitiated can lead to answering questions like those I have posed.

And I am certain of something else.

Unconstrained by petty partisan politics and the necessity for reelection every two, four, or six years, and uninhibited by the pressure to report quarterly financial results, this American third sector is free to invent, to create, and to innovate. Blessed by diversity in its institutional ranks, the sector offers plenty of room for experimentation, for thousands of flowers blooming, and for tackling some of this nation’s and the world’s most pressing challenges.

That is why the health of this realm of American life remains so important. It is why I took those jobs. It is why I wish for others the excitement, the pleasure, and the gratification of this form of professional or voluntary public service.

I always offered all benefactors, trustees, and volunteers four ironclad commitments in return for donations of consequence to Lincoln Center: give generously of your time, talent, and treasure, and you will be rewarded with a better night’s sleep, a longer life, an unobstructed pathway to heaven, and aisle seats when you get there.

Lincoln Center is hardly alone as a noble cause or worthy institution in being bold enough to offer such “guarantees.” My life in public service provided me with the chance to help others. To save lives.
Relieve pain. Educate. Elevate. Realize dreams. Help repair a broken world. Even transcend it through the medium of art.

No material reward, no worldly possession could possibly offer as much pleasure or satisfaction.

You can do far worse than to seek the job that some tell you not to take.

CHAPTER 14

The Leadership Lessons That Matter Most

                
Between the conception and the execution

                
Lies the shadow.

                    
—T. S. ELIOT

B
eing the CEO, or for that matter any kind of leader, entails placing a high priority on the identification and allocation of resources. The most precious of these is human talent. It follows that I have always conceived of my role as creating and sustaining an environment in which gifted employees can do their best work.

The Art of Employee Recruitment and Retention

Leaders must place a high value on attracting and keeping first-rate staff. I am always on the prowl, seeking energetic, intelligent, curious, and ambitious new employees who wish to achieve extraordinary results. I look for both solo actors and team players, recruits brimming with the confidence to go it alone if necessary and able to work with others productively, whenever desirable.

David Rubenstein observes that he has never encountered an outstanding performer in his professional life who worked from nine to five. Nor have I. The colleagues I value most are those who challenge
themselves. They seek constant improvement. They yearn to bridge the gap between Lincoln Center’s enormous promise and its current performance. When they leave the office, their work accompanies them, because little is more thrilling or gratifying than what they are up to professionally.

I have found that human resource departments and executive search firms can be helpful. They can prepare position descriptions, delineate roles and responsibilities, and usefully brief candidates. What they often do not handle well is drilling down on the content of the prior work of applicants and determining how, in fact, they really performed. What is the precise relevance of their experience to the situational setting and the culture of the hiring organization?

When filling important posts, do not completely delegate to others contacting key references. You know best the right questions to ask. You can pick up many clues and cues by attentive listening. Because the costs of a mistaken hire are so high and the benefits of a correct choice so valuable, your personal attention is imperative.

Be careful. Be methodical. Be deliberate. Sleep on your decision. It is no accident that the business sage Peter Drucker urged management to take time to reach key personnel decisions. Drucker rarely counseled delay. But on recruiting talent, he urged that one should not rush.

Just as it is far easier to retain a good existing customer than to acquire a new one, so it is far harder to recruit a star employee than to retain those already in your employ. Do not neglect them. Their morale, their sense of importance and self-worth, and their belief in having contributed to the success of the enterprise matter a great deal to whether they stay or take flight.

Pay close attention to the very valuable human assets in your midst. Your colleagues yearn for self-realization. They aspire to fully tap their potential. If training is needed, provide it. If mentoring is called for, supply it. Acknowledge good work, early and often, privately and publicly.

Identify high-potential employees in the organization who over time can succeed existing senior staff. Offer them custom-tailored advancement programs to supplement their existing skill set and to expose them to leadership challenges. Spend time with them. They will be flattered by the CEO’s attention, and you will learn much about the organization you lead from paying heed to the perspectives of middle management.

Besides, you will experience joy in witnessing those with whom you work blossom professionally. Fortifying staff and fostering their growth is a legacy that will endure. You deserve to take pride in it.

Accountable for Results and Open to Improvement

With the possible exception of nature, nothing abhors a vacuum more than a nonprofit board of trustees. Unless trustees are deeply and properly engaged in the life of the organization, they are likely to act inappropriately and to undermine the effectiveness of the CEO. What do I mean by properly? The board of directors of established nonprofit institutions has several very important, indisputable roles to play.

It hires, determines the terms and benefits of compensation, and assesses the performance of the CEO. It judges whether or not proposed activities fall within the mission of the organization. It reviews and passes, with or without significant modification, an annual budget proposed by the staff. And it assesses risk to the institution: budgetary, managerial, and reputational.

In a well-functioning organization, the board pays attention to policy, not operations, to ensuring that the institution does the right things, while avoiding the temptation to tell staff how to do things right. At Lincoln Center, I drew up a set of objectives for the new fiscal year and sent them to my chairman for review and discussion. Our exchanges of views were substantive and serious, and once agreement was reached, a plan was presented to the executive committee of the board of directors for the considered reaction of its members.

This annual undertaking was designed to compel Lincoln Center’s key players to focus on what we wished to accomplish in the year ahead, and how I, as the president and CEO, would be held accountable for delivering the results projected in our annual forecast.

At the end of the fiscal year, the chairman then met with the executive committee in executive session, at which my performance was formally reviewed—no holds barred—without any staff present. Bruce Crawford, Frank Bennack, and Katherine Farley, my respective chairs, would listen carefully to the views of trustees and then offer their own assessment. Recommended compensation treatment would be aligned to the consensus appraisal.

After each such evaluation, the chairman would meet with me to report on feedback. I was always eager to learn of any performance or stylistic shortfalls, with a view toward improvement. Lincoln Center’s board of more than ninety members, including emeriti, is large and sprawling. Its agenda is ambitious and far-ranging. Its trustees are smart and experienced, and its stakeholders are many and varied, as are the constituents to be served. I looked forward to a frank evaluation, and if it wasn’t fully forthcoming, I was ready with questions like these:

       
•
  
Were there any trustees feeling marginal or relatively uninvolved whom we could activate to Lincoln Center’s advantage?

       
•
  
Were committee and board meetings properly balanced among staff reports, information dissemination, and policy discussion?

       
•
  
Did any ideas emerge for improving my relationship with Lincoln Center staff or with the resident artistic organizations or external constituencies like government officials, advocacy groups, and the media?

       
•
  
And what about us, chair and president? Are we communicating sufficiently? Should we adjust the number of face-to-face meetings, phone calls, or e-mails? Are we focused in our conversations on the right things, the subjects that only a chair and a CEO can address? Are we resisting the temptation to spend our time on tactics and implementation details better left to others?

My sincere openness to frank appraisals, not just once a year, but all of the time, helped to create an atmosphere of honesty and a free-flowing exchange of thoughts.

These executive committee sessions that reviewed my performance as a proxy for how well Lincoln Center was functioning were extremely well attended and animated. Central to them was a sound and healthy, mutually respectful relationship between the CEO and the chair of the board of directors. Fortunately my chairs understood the zone of trustee prerogatives and welcomed an energetic and capacious role for paid staff, first and foremost the CEO.

Stay Focused, Avoid Distractions

Intense focus leads to outstanding performance. Superior programming. Balanced and surplus budgets. Audience enthusiasm. And a positive reception among trustees, donors, and critics.

Undiluted concentration on work can go to extremes, I’ll confess.

Early in our marriage, my wife Elizabeth appeared one weekday evening at around midnight in my study, where I was toiling away on some important memoranda and correspondence for AT&T.

“Ren, excuse me for interrupting, but I have been working on next year’s calendar and need to enter some important dates.”

“Liz, do we have to do this now?”

“Oh, it will only take a moment. When is your mother’s birthday?”

“I don’t know.”

“Reynold Levy. You are forty years old. Surely you can tell me what month your mother was born in.”

“Liz, honestly, I don’t know.”

(Long pause.)

“To tell you the complete truth, Liz, Mom’s birthday is three weeks after [my sister] Joyce calls to say that it is coming and to discuss what we are going to do to celebrate.”

In other words, why clutter my mind (and lose focus) with what someone else will remind me of in a timely fashion anyway?

Here is another example. Remember that beat-up old Mercury I held on to until its last gasp? I was able to keep it limping along well past its natural life because of two car mechanics, brothers, Mark and Bruce. They owned and operated Riverdale Auto. These guys are the local version of the Tappet Brothers, who have been featured for decades on National Public Radio’s exceedingly popular program
Car Talk
.

Mark and Bruce love cars. They seemingly know everything about them. They also like most of their customers. And they are very curious about them. They fix whatever new car or jalopy you bring in, and charge you next to nothing for the privilege. So after about a year and a half of owning a four-door Honda, I brought it in for an oil change, a check on all of its fluids, and to have air put in its tires.