The 2nd Priority of an Artistic Director
This November, I’m launching a programme of Coaching and Training that guides aspiring Artistic Directors through everything they need to know from the moment they apply to the end of their first yet in the job, built around 7 priorities. I’ll be posting about one priority each day this week to give you a flavour of what we’ll cover in the Programme. Yesterday was Priority 1 - Preparation. Today is Priority 2 - Purpose.
Your artistic vision will be the cornerstone of your application and when you get the job, will be the expectation you’ll need to live up to. Articulating a clear, tangible and visual concept of what your version of the organisation looks like will be something you’ll find yourself doing on almost a daily basis in the first weeks and months of your tenure.
This vision will have to sustain you and your organisation through thick and thin. It needs to be inspiring, motivating and practically implementable. That means it needs to incorporate not just what you want to achieve, but how you’re going to do it and in what manner. So vision + mission + values. Most importantly of all, you need to ensure you’re enlisting your team, your artists, your stakeholders and your audience in a just cause - something worthy of their time, effort, money and attention. In other words, you need a Purpose so you can do these three key things:
Inspire with Vision: from your initial application through to your last day in the job, inspiring with vision is a central part of the gig. Mastering the cornerstones of public speaking - rapport, rhetoric, storytelling - will give you the confidence to capitalise on every opportunity to share your vision. Knowing how to capture people’s imagination with a clear, compelling and aspirational picture of the future your organisation exists to deliver is the key to enlisting and unifying your team, stakeholders, donors and collaborators towards a common endeavour - the ‘why’ they collectively strive towards.
Set goals: your vision is only going to succeed if you can translate it in to cascading, measurable and tangible goals that everyone in your company can own and contribute towards, keeping your teams motivated, effective and accountable. Using goals as priorities is the key to effective teamwork, efficient time management and to performance review. Goals give your vision focus and milestones to mark the way.
Empower contribution: in our working lives we want our unique contribution to be effective, productive and appreciated. We want to be used well and treated with respect. We want the chance to make a meaningful contribution to a just cause and be appropriately rewarded. Empowering this kind of contribution is a lifelong craft.
If you’d like to learn how to hone these three key Purpose skills and more, Sign Up now to my upcoming 7 Priorities Programme for Aspiring Artistic Directors. Tomorrow, Priority 3: People.
