2024 Book Review
Books for Arts Administrators
This year was about growth. It’s always about growth — professionally and personally for sure — and this year was about growth in my business as well. I said in an Offstage Mic podcast episode a few months ago that when I first started my business almost six years ago, I originally planned to be a solopreneur forever. And then sometime late last year, that all changed for me…I started dreaming bigger. And I realized that to achieve those newfound goals, it meant growing and scaling the business — and simultaneously removing myself from the day-to-day operations of it.
Fast forward to today, and we’re now a team of 10 who’ve served over 300 paying clients this year, plus thousands more in free online trainings, keynote talks across the U.S. and abroad, a podcast and new articles, and my book that published this year. To everyone who’s interacted with any of those offerings, just wow and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your role in changing the narrative for classical music, or whichever artistic discipline you serve.
Experts say we tend to overestimate how much we can do in a day or a week even, but really underestimate how much we can accomplish in a year. That proved true this year. In addition to the milestones above, in these last 12 months I also had the honor of advising on a new software product to help arts organizations better track their patron retention efforts based on my Long Haul Model, traveled for 31 book tour stops around the U.S. and Europe, and of course, as usual, I also read a lot over the last year as well.
Which brings us to one more thing this year marks: a total of 82 books reviewed since I started doing these annual review posts eight years ago. If you’re new to my book reviews, every December I share a year-end roundup of all the business-type books I consumed, specifically connecting the material to our role as arts leaders. Below you’ll see nine new titles I made my way through this year, in chronological order, with a few sentences of what each is about, why I picked it up in the first place, and how it applies to our work in the performing arts.
Our responsibility to our art and communities — and the revenue goals attached to those responsibilities — are only getting bigger, but every year, a new list of experts (e.g. authors) offer a lot to guide us. I hope these titles help you professionally just as they did me, and I hope the year ahead is filled with learning and growth. Here’s to celebrating all this past year brought, and celebrating even more what lies ahead.
And may the books we read inform and empower us along the way to change the narrative at our cultural institutions and achieve that needed growth. The challenges we face in our sector depend on it.
“Experts say we tend to overestimate how much we can do in a day or a week even, but really underestimate how much we can accomplish in a year.”
Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things
Adam Grant
Adam Grant is no stranger to my annual book reviews (I wrote about some of his other books in 2022 and 2021), so I was eager to start the year with his latest title. As an organizational psychologist and researcher, he offers several new bits of wisdom flipped on its conventional head, as he tends to do. This time, he shares why group brainstorming isn’t always the best approach to generating ideas, why the corporate ladder should be replaced by a lattice system (reminds me of the horizontal work I wrote about in my own book, as well as in this past article), and why the best candidates for a role may be the ones that have overcome some form of adversity in their life. But my ultimate favorite takeaway — and perhaps the most applicable to arts leaders — from Grant’s latest work is the chapter on how best to align a team around a mission. It’s not enough to have a mission or common goal; more effective in galvanizing a group to achieve is when people believe they need one another to succeed, a lesson for all facets of an artistic institution any day.
Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity
Claudia Dale Goldin
I first learned of Claudia Goldin when she won the Nobel Prize in Economics last year for her research on the gender pay gap and the history of women in the labor market. So when I learned she also wrote a book on those very topics, I was immediately sold. This book is packed with data, research, and history, which sounds about right for a Nobel Prize winner, but what sets this work apart is how Goldin weaves it all together. In this volume, she paints the most comprehensive picture I’ve ever seen of how and exactly when the gender gap in careers began, how the issue has evolved over the years for better (and in some ways for worse), why it persists today despite so much campaigning to bring awareness to said issue, and what’s key in resolving it. Hint: it’s not just “don’t discriminate and pay fair wages,” which of course would be great for working women everywhere…but the reality is Goldin’s research gives a path forward that’s not so reliant on merely hoping others in traditional positions of power wake up and do better. The arts obviously aren’t the only industry grappling with historical gender inequity in their hiring and compensation practices, and Goldin shares how exactly to course correct systemically.
How to Grow Your Small Business: A 6-Step Plan to Help Your Business Take Off
Donald Miller
So many people reach out to me asking to help them develop a business plan for their new or young ensemble, theatre, chamber group, fill-in-the-blank arts org. If you’re in that camp, Donald Miller provides a nice roadmap. In short, what Miller writes is it’s less about your industry or genre or the product or service you produce, and more about how you build a machine to execute (i.e. produce and sell) those products or services. An arts organization is no different than organizations in other sectors in that regard: the more we can systemize and operationalize what we do on the administrative side, the more we enable our artistic product to thrive with ample funding. While arts organizations do differ from the technical definition of a small business in that we are not for-profit entities, the rest of what Miller covers tracks for me. First, he focuses a lot on crafting a mission statement with clear objectives, not fluff. Second, he is exceptionally clear on how to focus financial priorities and not have too many product lines or offerings. And third, he insists on defining measurable results while defining your “brand script” — all deliverables I can get on board with any day, no matter how long a given organization has been around.
Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect
Will Guidara
Two worlds of mine collided in this book. First, I’m lowkey obsessed with fine dining. I always use the Michelin Guide app wherever I travel, follow lots of local foodie accounts, binge-watch The Bear, and am captivated by the service and experience of the meal as much as the meal itself. I didn’t even realize at first that author Will Guidara is a co-producer and writer on The Bear until I saw Richie reading it after his character’s change of heart on having streak-free forks. Instead, I picked up the book because of the second obsession of mine (which is actually my first if we’re going chronologically): learning what works in other industries and applying to our work in the arts.
I wrote a lot about customer experience in my own book, and I firmly believe that the more orchestras and performing arts organizations can create an experience for our guests that’s welcoming, unpretentious, and breaking down preconceived notions of what a symphony orchestra experience can be, the more we’ll build loyalty and reverse the startling audience churn rates in our sector (seriously, watch that fork speech if you want to be inspired). Guidara had the idea to serve our customers “like every day is the Suber Bowl” figured out and mastered over a decade ago, culminating in the restaurant he managed winning 3 Michelin stars and the award for World’s Best Restaurant. The accolades aren’t about the food alone — all 50 of the top restaurants in the world have exceptional, world-class cuisine — but Guidara’s restaurant won because of how they optimized the customer experience, created a “marriage of equals between kitchen and dining room,” (tell me someone reading sees the parallels to a marriage of equals between the on stage and off stage talent…I mean, they literally call the dining room folks front of house sometimes), and delivered “unreasonable” hospitality for their customers (which also allowed them to continue charging a premium, by the way). I’m fascinated by the lessons here and can’t wait to apply some of them to the next orchestra I serve.
Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business
Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters
This past year, I made big strides working toward a very specific goal: removing myself from the daily operations of my business. To do that is not only an exercise in letting go, but in building out the team, and in trusting that others can deliver great work while stewarding not just my business’s brand, but my personal brand as well. Wickman’s treatise gives lessons and advice on how hundreds if not thousands of entrepreneurs have navigated this very path. From parsing out the functions that are designated for the “founder/visionary” role versus what’s required of everyone else on the team, to the power of 90-day organizational objectives, to implementing what Wickman calls “Level 10 Meetings” for the senior leadership team, I’ve seen the benefits as I continue to bring his frameworks to my own organization, and also recommend many of them for any chief executive at any major artistic institution.
Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
Dan Ariely
This was the most fun book of the year to read by far; I can never get enough of behavioral science, and I gobbled this up like it was an easy beach read (honestly, it probably was what I read on vacation). Duke University professor Dan Ariely synthesizes years of studies directly applicable to orchestras and performing arts organizations on topics like pricing (how to anchor a price so customers accept the range you’re presenting them), the role of free (hint: do not do full concerts for free, but there is incredible power in offering a value-add for free), and why romantic relationships really do hold-up as a metaphor for much of behavioral economics (that whole asking a first time attendee to donate is akin to asking to get married after the first date actually really does track). But my favorite topic of all was on reinforcing preferences (my notes on that section literally say “SO RELEVANT FOR AN ORCHESTRA” …in bold and all caps and everything). In short, the science says that instead of upselling our new attendees or first-time subscribers, the more effective play is to simply work on reinforcing the customer preference that’s already-been established, e.g. just invite the customer to repeat their existing behavior of buying a ticket or renewing that subscription package, and the relationship will develop — and become more lucrative — for years to come. If you’ve followed my work for just about any amount of time, that should sound familiar, and it’s always good to understand the behavioral science behind it.
Launch: How to Sell Almost Anything Online, Build a Business You Love, and Live the Life of Your Dreams
Jeff Walker
What I’ve learned over the years is that selling online courses and programs like the ones I offer in my business is in many ways much more difficult than selling orchestra concerts. This is because whereas humans have deep needs for awe-inspiring experiences, entertainment, community and connection (what we get to offer at orchestras and arts organizations all the time), by comparison, literally no one is lying in bed awake at night just hoping they can buy an online program. And while my team and I work really hard to ensure our offerings solve problems in the sector, deliver exceptional teaching, and inspire you to do your best work…selling that is a different ball of wax than all my years selling tickets, period.
Enter Jeff Walker, who’s kind of the granddaddy of online business sales. This year, we used Walker’s recommended launch system he describes in this book for my Uplevel Coaching Program. In some ways, it worked. We had a big launch and filled our fourth cohort of participants from all kinds of arts organizations and artistic disciplines, and I’ve been so impressed with how this group has shown up and has been so dedicated to the work in the program. But by other measures, it wasn’t our most successful launch. We learned that we don’t have to be as aggressive or secretive on some of our sales tactics as Walker recommends. We learned via the data that people who consume my work (like you reading this article right now, anyone on my email list, and even followers on social media) are a really engaged audience. That’s a marketer’s dream, and I’m so grateful for that. So in the end, we learned some things, are able to take those learnings forward, will drop the parts that didn’t serve us (or you) well, and improve everything else. If I teach and even preach the value of iteration for organizations, this is definitely one we’ll continue iterating on next time. I’m glad for the framework and that we gave it a try, but this was not my favorite book this year.
Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work
Ruchika T. Malhotra
Remember that Harvard Business Review article a few years back that went viral on how we need to stop telling women they have imposter syndrome? Ruchika T. Malhotra co-authored that, and her book has been on my reading list since it came out last year. Here’s the truth: company culture at most artistic institutions needs improvement. And incorporating intentionally inclusive practices into our hiring and promotion processes, audition procedures, board makeup, and general office culture needs to be a strategic priority if our industry or internal cultures will ever truly evolve beyond their exclusive roots. I call it strategic because the revenue follows (inclusive math here). At a time when some companies are scaling back their DEI commitments, I believe the smarter move is to double down. Because a vibrant, inclusive future is not possible, even readily attainable — as well as the proven monetary benefits for the organization that come with it — thanks to research-backed guides like this. Thankfully, it’s not rocket science to create an inclusive culture — it’s not even near as hard as playing an instrument masterfully — but it does take intention…practice even. Because as Malhotra says, not unlike a great performance, “Inclusion doesn’t just happen; we have to work at it.”
Run It Like a Business: Strategies for Arts Organizations to Increase Audiences, Remain Relevant, and Multiply Money — Without Losing the Art
Aubrey Bergauer
Over the years, a lot of arts administrators and boards have asked me for a playbook, especially since coming out of the pandemic. One didn’t previously exist in our sector that I knew of, so I wrote one. It was featured in Publishers Weekly as a top business book pick this year, was a #1 Bestseller in multiple categories for months, and is already in its second printing. It’s the book I spent the most time with this year by far, and I’m so honored that it’s brought value to many arts leaders, boards, and artists. If you haven’t read it yet, I made it for you. To those who have, thank you for the support, for the nice reviews, for sharing it with others on your staffs and boards, and for making the success it’s seen possible.
Thus concludes this year’s book review, my eighth reading roundup post and my 60th article since I started publicly blogging in 2015! May next year be a year of growth (there’s that word again) for you and your organization, just as it was this year for me and mine. And of course, there’s a lot more to come. Cheers to what’s in store next.
See all past book reviews here.
Interested in case studies and data-backed strategies to grow revenue at your arts organization? Order my book, Run It Like a Business: Strategies to Increase Audiences, Remain Relevant, and Multiply Money — Without Losing the Art.
You’ll learn how to:
- Grow audiences and keep them coming back again
- Make our organizations more inclusive
- Get younger attendees in the seats and on the donor rolls
- Generate millions more dollars in revenue
- Continue to create the art we love — without the stress of figuring out how to afford it
Just because your arts organization is a non-profit, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t make money; it means the money the organization makes goes back to fund the mission — whether that’s music, visual arts, theatre, dance, or one of many other mediums that enrich our lives.
About the Author
Hailed as “the Steve Jobs of classical music” (Observer) and “Sheryl Sandberg of the symphony” (LA Review of Books), Aubrey Bergauer is known for her results-driven, customer-centric, data-obsessed pursuit of changing the narrative for the performing arts. A “dynamic administrator” with an “unquenchable drive for canny innovation” (San Francisco Chronicle), she’s held offstage roles managing millions in revenue at major institutions including the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As chief executive of the California Symphony, Bergauer propelled the organization to double the size of its audience and nearly quadruple the donor base.
Bergauer helps organizations and individuals transform from scarcity to opportunity, make money, and grow their base of fans and supporters. Her ability to cast and communicate vision moves large teams forward and brings stakeholders together, earning “a reputation for coming up with great ideas and then realizing them” (San Francisco Classical Voice). With a track record for strategically increasing revenue and relevance, leveraging digital content and technology, and prioritizing diversity and inclusion on stage and off, Bergauer sees a better way forward for classical music and knows how to achieve it.
Aubrey’s first book, Run It Like A Business, published in February 2024.
A graduate of Rice University, her work and leadership have been covered in the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Thrive Global, and Southwest Airlines magazines, and she is a frequent speaker spanning TEDx, Adobe’s Magento, universities, and industry conferences in the U.S. and abroad.
