A few weeks back, my MBA program hosted fellow blogger Drew McManus for a mock orchestra negotiation exercise. The idea was for the students to play professional symphony musicians working on a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with Drew, who played the management of a fictious symphony. Drew went on quite a bit about the experience. Although, as with real-life multi-party negotiations, his perspective of the process is one of many.
The set-up was a CBA process between professional musicians and orchestra management, in which the background and budget documents were horribly incomplete, inaccurate, and perhaps even intentionally vague. These errors were part of the simulation, of course, building on Drew’s experience with the quality and clarity of financial and organizational information provided by management to musicians.
These errors and inconsistencies were fairly quickly exposed by the mock musician team, who then refused to make a counter offer. They suggested that there was no meaningful basis upon which they could negotiate, and only evidence to the contrary that any mutual decision would be effectively managed. Drew mentioned that real-world musicians would always make a counter-offer, and that the bargaining process required them to do so. The mock negotiating team stood their ground, determined that no negotiation was possible with a management that was at least incompetent and at most intentionally deceitful.
A lively exchange ensued, but the negotiations never continued.
Of course, much of this tension and disdain was built into the simulation, to give students the flavor of the experience from the artist’s side of the table. In many cases, musicians are certainly met with incomplete or inaccurate information during negotiations. And in many cases, the operating needs of both sides require that they negotiate anyway to keep paychecks and concerts flowing, even though both sides know they are ignoring the larger problems.
But I came away from the exercise struck by two things:
- That collective bargaining within professional orchestras is among the most depressing and structurally fraught processes of any cultural endeavor. And that those orchestras that manage it successfully (and there certainly are many) do so despite the structure rather than because of it.
- That the common bias — particularly in the symphony world — that management and musicians are on opposite sides of that bargaining conversation is both destructive and untrue (although I’ll admit it’s a persistent myth). There is tension between the preferred strategies and tangible outcomes, to be sure, but the ultimate goal seems quite the same: vitality, sustainability, excellence, and expression.
I know that all of this is easy for me to say. I’m not a professional orchestral musician, nor am I an orchestra administrator. Fair enough. But if the simulation experienced by my students was even marginally close to reality (and I’m assured by several that it’s not unusual), very few of these passionate, creative, and insightful students will decide that it’s worth the grief.
Verdery says
So the “orchestra” was disbanded and the musicians thrown out of work?
Andrea Helm says
Exactly. Or if I could restate the above comment, the “musicians” themselves decided to walk away from the already-established (though unsatisfactory) orchestra framework in favor of creating a new performance group. It sounds like these students were confident that they could establish an administration and a patron base, and plan/rehearse/market/perform a new season with less hardship than that caused by negotiating a new contract. That’s a tremendous job, especially if they plan to keep their music-making at an acceptably high level.
tom reel says
As a professional Musician who has participated directly in numerous negotiations (including one strike), I am glad to know that some education of future practitioners of our art form in related issues (arts advocacy, negotiations & business, etc.) is beginning to get some attention.
Every negotiation will include some common ground between the parties and some areas of more tension (including such obvious issues as the expense of compensating the workers). However to say that such tension exists “particularly in the symphony world,” betrays a strangely restricted world view. Such tension is normal and need not be “destructive.” It is certainly ubiquitous in almost all business – both for profit and non-profit.
Here’s to more education on related subjects! And also to less whining (from all sides) about a process that can be navigated successfully when practitioners are more educated and less biased.
Jodi says
I am intrigued by so many things in these many blog strings – but I’d like to move beyond whatever “attitudes” may have been attributed to these students, and talk about what they did.
Shouldn’t we embrace that they so quickly realized how broken the system is, and that they, as young people who are incredibly passionate about the arts, felt that an organization that functions in such a way is NOT SERVING the art form at all?
Why are we not talking more about the fact that they immediately jumped to a “new model” of music-making – one that didn’t involve the traditional channels. These are students – they are bright and intelligent and attempting to forge new paths. I agree with everyone that it’s good these students were “exposed” to how badly things are run in many orchestras sometimes, but I think stopping there does them a disservice. We should also celebrate that they very quickly realized how awful the situation is, and instead of perpetuating it, they looked for a new way to approach the situation. They tried to innovate and challenge the status quo.
Was it unrealistic? Maybe, especially in the context of a “mock negotiation.” But that’s why it’s an academic setting. Isn’t the more valuable lesson that they realized if they want to work in a fulfilling, challenging, just environment, they may need to do more than become an executive director?
Drew McManus says
For the benefit of Andrew’s readers, he and I have exchanged some good comments that further define points raised in this issue: http://www.artsjournal.com/adaptistration/archives/2006/11/the_professor_s.html#comments
Jodi: I’m not entirely certain that what the students proposed to do by forming their own ensemble was particularly new or involved nontraditional channels (although I admit I’m not entirely certain what you are referring to in the last point).
There wasn’t much discussion at the time about how they would go about establishing their own ensemble but we did talk briefly (or as Andrew observed “a lively exchange ensued”) about what some consider alternative forms of governance.
My observation is that in the end, ensembles such as Colorado, New Orleans, etc. still create institutions which hire managers to perform the same tasks they would in any other organization. As such, I don’t see those ensembles as being particularly unusual when compared to their peers.
Nevertheless, I think you’re right on target with the idea that the session was conducted in an academic setting, therefore, allowing increased freedom to explore issues through the lens of historical precedent as well as future prognostication. In and of itself, that makes the exercise worthwhile.
I think Tom Reel (a veteran voice in these matters) makes some excellent points as well and I also think Andrew explains more about what he means with regard to the contention issue in his response to my post at Adaptistration.