The sad, I has it. Today at our regularly scheduled staff meeting our Executive Director announced a hiring freeze and concern over 'the market'. I'm still processing everything we discussed this morning. This is my way of thinking some things out.
Bear with me.
What does this mean?
I am my department and, thus, am responsible for the majority of earned income for the organization. This hiring freeze means that I can not hire a new assistant (my previous assistant did not make it past her 90-day probation period). As such, I will not be able to focus on growing earned income and developing new avenues of revenue for the company. I will not be able to do sales calls and travel the state touting what the company has to offer in arts-in-education initiatives.
It also means that our new position for an Education Director will also be reduced to part-time. Therefore, the company will not be able to grow and expand in it's capacity to build, monitor and evaluate arts-in-education experiences for children and teachers through out the state in the form of long and short-term residencies. It severely diminishes our Foundation grants if we can not properly document and asses our impact of such projects.
Projects and initiatives will be reassigned back to the original staff members, put on hold or canceled.
What is the impact of not having an assistant for the organization as a whole?
We are already a small company and as such all of our jobs interact on an intimate level. What person X does will almost more greatly affect person Y. Therefore, we must all rely heavily that person X and Y are supplying us with the information we need. For example, I need detailed information to accurately report our service hours and programming in the state of Virginia. I am only as good as the information I receive. If it is flawed so are our final reports. That can also affect income from Foundation grants.
My capacity to overlap in Foundation driven projects as well as earned income puts me in the unique position of needing to know everything we're doing - then who, what, when, where, why and how. Not to mention being able to provide those things, as needed, on a project by project basis or as a whole. My hands are in a lot of pies, which makes it hard not to think globally about the organization and it's 'trajectory'.
I'm concerned about my own Burn-Out.
It's hard for all of us though, we're such a small organization that we all need to know about... everything and don't have the time to explain or plan properly.
How's this gonna work?
TC is probably the best boss I've ever had in my life. We have a lunch meeting tomorrow over sushi to discuss strategy. Having a boss like him during the 'hard times' makes a difference.
1) He listens. He knows this is not an easy job. He wants to help me find new way to bring more earned income to the company. He works hard with us all to develop new avenues for the company to grow and expand.
2) He cares. He knows he's got a good team and that by taking steps now to avoid a deficit at the end of the year he's securing our jobs and doing what he can to make things work for us in the best way possible.
3) He trusts. He knows that his team are professionals working towards a common goal and by allowing us to do our jobs, we then do our best for him. This allows him the time to work with the BOD and focus on the most important issues for our company. It is very important that an Executive Director not micromanage as they then find themselves, often, focusing on the wrong problem or the wrong solution.
4) He inspires. By allowing his team to be productive members of this organization he has our 'buy in' and he makes sure to keep us in the loop as much as he can. It can be a struggle to keep up with as much as he's doing. His dedication and faith in the organization's mission and his team inspires us all.
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