The cleaning of a virus on my computer while I was writing my entry yesterday apparently prevented me from posting it. In some sense it was fortuitous because I was posting a follow up to an earlier entry on the Honolulu Symphony’s new management structure.
At the time, most of what I knew about the situation was unsubstantiated gossip so I didn’t want to post details. Regrettably, most of what I had heard was true according to an article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that came out today.
Due to some conflict on the board, the woman who was going to be the new CEO resigned along with at least one board member. The consultant who suggested the formation of the CEO position was apparently offered the interim president position but has declined.
This whole situation is really a shame. It appears as if the CEO appointee had begun to approach the position with quite a bit of zeal, especially considering it was an unpaid position.
I would have personally been interested to see how the position worked out. I had stated my misgivings in my earlier entry and they were shared by some of the other arts administrators with whom I discussed the developments in the story. But I can’t imagine that the consultant, who was once the executive director of the San Francisco Symphony, would have suggested a management structure with the obvious flaws I feared it might have. It would have been interesting to see if his solution was viable.
One aspect of the story I didn’t quite like was the implication that people were perhaps using their large donations to get their way. Yes, it is true that people who give 1 million dollars wield a great deal of influence and might often remind people of that fact when things don’t go their way.
However, there is no explicit evidence that they did so in this case. It seems unfair that their actions are modified by the amount of money gave (X, who gave $Y did…) while poorer folks just plain take action. It just implies they only based their decisions on money invested while everyone else is motivated by other myriad reasons.