Sports/Entertainment
Playing the part
How to create a culture of inclusiveness
By Mike Cottrill
Smart Business | August 2008
Page 1 of 2
Art Falco
President and CEO, PlayhouseSquare
First things first: It isn’t
about Art Falco.
If you think that you can get
Falco to talk about anything that
he’s done without him emphasizing how important his 275
full- and part-time employees
are at PlayhouseSquare, then
you don’t understand his style.
That’s because Falco, president
and CEO of PlayhouseSquare,
believes that the not-for-profit
performing arts center has a big
mission in the community, and involving his employees is the
only path to success. Instead of
thinking that only he has ideas
and that his people need to put
them to form, he makes an
effort to get out to his employees and hear their ideas. In
turn, those ideas become the
driving force that pushes
PlayhouseSquare’s growth and
the expansion of Cleveland’s
theater district.
Smart Business spoke with
Falco about why you need to
get ideas from everyone before
you make a plan and how letting people ask you questions
can help modify your company’s structure.
Listen to every idea. You have to
develop a vision, and develop
that vision not in isolation but
with your team, and then communicate that vision to the
employees as to why it’s important and how having everyone
on that team will benefit the
organization.
The challenge is communicating and having everyone feel
like they’re part of the decision.
So we will have retreats, and
most of the retreats are at the
senior level talking about concepts and directions, but it’s
only after the various departments have met to discuss those
concepts and directions.
We involve all the departments
to have their input into the planning process, and then those
ideas are brought to the senior
staff, and out of that will come a
direction, a goal, a vision or
whatever business opportunity
that we should pursue.
It’s not that every idea is going
to be taken. Many times, there
are suggestions that aren’t taken
because maybe that employee
didn’t have the proper perspective, that, yes, it may look like a
great idea on the surface, however, here is why it may not be
practical. But we listen to all of
them, and that’s the key.
Then they feel that their voice
is being heard, and it makes
them feel better about being part
of the organization, knowing that
they are a member of the team.
Get to know your people. More
successful organizations have to
have successful teams, and you
have to treat employees with
respect. You have to realize that
your employees, whether
they’re senior staff or at the
lower level, all have different
personalities and that you need
to treat those individuals
uniquely. There isn’t just one way to approach things; with
some employees there’s a different approach. And if you treat
employees with respect, and
you treat them the way you’d
like to be treated, you can get to
know each other.
I happen to be a person who
doesn’t stay in my office very
often, so I’m out talking to
employees and saying hello,
and those things created a culture of inclusiveness.
Then you have to know what
makes up a person, and you have
to realize that there are some
employees and some staff that
are risk-averse and some that
are very conservative and others
are on the other side of the spectrum, so when you’re having
conversations and discussions,
you have to take into account
where they’re coming from.
