Last night I heard that the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra seemed to be in trouble, including the sudden cancellation of the summer season. I figured I could go to the news to do more research – or I could simply consult my cousin Scott Chamberlain’s blog, Mask of the Flower Prince, to get at least some insight. He has two posts available, the first of which starts out with:
What on earth is the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s management thinking?
As you all know, I’ve weighed in on my share of classical music labor disputes over the years. I was, obviously, deeply involved in the Minnesota Orchestra’s lockout… and over that year-and-a-half disaster, I pretty much saw it all. I had hoped that the lessons learned in Minneapolis would keep organizations from going down a similar path, but alas that was not to be the case. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, MET Opera, San Diego Opera, and too many other ensembles decided to take a similar path of trying to impose brutal new business models on their organizations in the name of “fiscal responsibility” or “sustainability.” And similar to what happened in Minnesota, they got burned as a result.
And now the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) management has taken up this misbegotten fight. And they did so with gusto; they chose to preemptively cancel the entire summer season, which had only been announced just five weeks ago. More surprisingly, they did so days after the announcement that Maryland’s General Assembly had promised $3.2 million to stabilize the BSO’s finances while all sides worked to build a comprehensive, shared plan to rebuild the organization’s fiscal health.
Based on decades of work as an arts administrator, board member, board president of an arts organization, and a classical performer myself, let me say unequivocally that the BSO’s decision is a disaster. Well, “disaster” hardly covers it—one could argue that it’s a hot mess of a train wreck careening toward a wheel-less bus parked next to a red-flag factory.
In his second post, he draws parallels with the decline and demise of that restaurant juggernaut, Howard Johnson’s:
So what happened? Why did such a successful company go by the wayside?
Well, there was a change in leadership. The eponymous founder, with his devotion to customer service, exceptional quality, and the highest standards, gave way to a new generation of leadership under his son Howard B. Johnson that adopted a new cost-savings strategy as the guiding principal of the company. The new management also embraced a new way of thinking that suggested the customer wouldn’t be able to discern the difference between a great product and a pretty good product.
At a talk I attended a few years back, [book author] Carbone (who worked briefly with HoJo in the 1970s) recalled what happened next. He suggested that one specific change the new regime instituted—the change from a signature 4-ply napkin to a much more modest 2-ply napkin—encapsulated both the thinking behind the new strategy and its unfortunate consequences.
The idea behind this change seemed fairly straightforward: since the napkins were hardly central to the customers’ experiences, they offered a harmless way to save money by cutting corners where no one would notice.
This change, unfortunately, represented the tip of the iceberg. Satisfied at the money saved, the management fully embraced this new culture of cost-cutting, hunting down savings wherever possible. The length of drinking straws was shortened. The number of ice cream flavors was reduced. Cheaper ingredients were used in the restaurants and smaller portion were mandated. Cleaning schedules were reduced, employee training reduced, and building maintenance was reduced.
And so HoJo’s, as it was known, lost the essence of what made it a memorable place to go. Management ate the goose, and there were no more golden eggs.
I might only add that BSO is not only selling musical performances, but also something that is a mixture of trust, prestige, a shared story, access to the past … and I have to wonder if BSO management understands that.
But go read what Scott has written, he’s an excellent communicator and has the relevant experience to go along with it.
