What can business learn from theatre? part two: attitude

I started writing this on the way to the last gig of the tour I did as the technical manager for the Northern Youth Dance Company (how good are they? National Ballet Magazine said “This company reminds me of the point of Dance”!). For me it’s something of a paying hobby these days but I’ve just had the privilege of working with some of the best people around (indeed my dancer-daughter insists I should be paying them.) These folks do it day in, day out, 14 hours a day for 49 weeks a year, 6 days a week for the amount per day that most of us would charge our ‘normal’ clients for an hour’s work. So why do they do it? Attitude.

Theatre technicians might grumble, they will complain: they’ll sulk, grouse, bitch and behave like children…. but when the Stage Manager says “I want it now.” S/he means exactly ‘now’ and exactly ‘now’ is when he gets it. No messing, no excuses.

Ask yourself this question, how often do you hear of a major IT contract being late and/or over-budget? I stopped listening to that kind of report a long time ago, just accepting it as part of everyday life. And yet cast your mind back to when the stage show of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” started. For one performance (in the previews only!) there was a safety issue so the car couldn’t fly and it was headline news. No one had to negotiate with the staff to work through the night to mend it. No one even asked them to. It was simply a matter of pride and expectation to them that the problem would be solved in time for rehearsals the next morning. It was. Not a single instruction was given and not a single extra penny was paid.

That’s attitude.

And that’s what business can learn from theatre. I suspect that, as many of us here are self employed, it’s something we are more familiar with than our corporately employed cousins but even so there’s the temptation to miss a deadline if things get on top of us (I’ve done it myself when my wife was in hospital.) The deadlines of theatre are absolute: they cannot be compromised and audiences do not forgive. Ever.

The expectations are higher (perhaps because deadlines are so fixed and public) – and maybe that’s the real thing we can learn…..

Anyone got any thoughts?