Changing Your Chorus from Within

Choruses face a multitude of challenges in today’s dynamic arts environment. Although many of these challenges emanate from outside the organization, others emerge from within. On the surface, these internal challenges may seem to be caused by factors such as the characteristics of singers, financial needs, or fear of change. But often there is a less obvious underlying cause.

Consider the following scenarios:

Scenario #1: The music director of a small community chorus decides he wants to perform pieces that require more singers. He holds auditions and quickly doubles the size of the chorus with an influx of younger members. While the group is now able to perform the pieces, a rift quickly develops between some long-standing members and the new singers.

The most important source of culture is the organization's founder. He or she is responsible for setting the original vision, bringing in the first members, and deciding how the organization will be run.

The new singers, the long-timers say, are self-centered and focused too much on things other than the chorus. The young singers counter that the older ones are too set in their ways and are not open to new methods of rehearsing and performing music. Some older singers leave the group, some younger ones are disaffected, and the entire expansion is deemed a failure.

Scenario #2: At a board retreat, the trustees, music director, and executive director of an independent, volunteer symphonic chorus discuss and agree that the group needs to increase revenues. As part of their effort to boost ticket sales, the board decides to require all singers to purchase 10 tickets for each concert to sell to their friends and family. The singers do not take ownership of the purchase plan, refusing to sell tickets, and the board, not having any enforcement mechanism, backs down.

Scenario #3: The music director of a mid-sized chorus wants to improve the overall artistic quality of the ensemble. Over a period of years, she lobbies the board to change from a non-auditioned to an auditioned chorus. The board, concerned about the potential turnover and disenfranchisement of the singers, solicits feedback and receives a steady stream of opposition to the initiative from the current singers. The singers’ position is that the chorus is just fine and that auditions demean the contributions of the current members.

In each of these three scenarios, the chorus faces some sort of problem. On the surface, the problems appear to be very different, but the underlying cause of all three problems might be the same—a misalignment of the chorus’s culture with the change implemented.

So what is organizational culture and how does it affect the success of organizational change? What can choruses, their members, boards, and artistic leaders do to make sure that the changes they propose are in alignment with their culture, and how can they use culture to the organization’s advantage?

What Is Organizational Culture?

Organizational culture is one of those phenomena that people seem to intuitively understand but have a hard time explaining and defining. For the purposes of this article, organizational culture is defined as: Shared meanings, beliefs, values, and assumptions that guide and are reinforced by organizational behavior. Smaller organizations may have a single culture while larger more complex organizations might have one main culture and several sub-cultures.

A popular model of organizational culture by Edgar Schein identifies three levels:

Basic assumptions: These assumptions lie at the core of culture. They are the common understandings among the members about the purpose of the organization, the way things are done, and why. These assumptions are not directly observable and may be difficult to identify and define. For a chorus, an example would be when everyone knows and agrees that the chorus is a small, volunteer group that exists to perform Baroque music.

Espoused values: These values are the expressed beliefs about what the organization believes in, what it should be doing, and what it hopes to accomplish. These values are usually represented in mission statements, goals, objectives, and operating procedures. For a chorus, an example would be a mission statement such as: “The chorus is dedicated to the performance of Baroque music.”

Artifacts: These are the observable manifestations of the culture. They are tangible and measurable and include logos, attire, repertoire, documents, and physical layout. Artifacts are fairly easy to observe and measure but may have multiple causes, only one of which is culture. For our Baroque chorus, examples would be that the chorus performs only Baroque music, dresses in period attire, and does not pay its members for rehearsals or performances.

Organizational culture is important because it creates and reinforces certain values and norms, and, importantly, suppresses non-conforming, contradictory values and manifestations. In particular, culture provides meaning about the organization and its purpose to members; guides internal decisionmaking, structuring, and planning; and creates the conditions for adaptation to changing environments.

In the example of the Baroque chorus, the culture provides meaning and understanding to members: "We are in a Baroque chorus and as such that is the type of music, performances, venues, and audiences we can expect.” Culture guides the decisionmaking and planning: “We are going to perform these pieces that will require this level of fundraising.” And finally, culture creates the conditions for adaptation: “Our concertgoers are changing and so we need to try new ways of attracting them rather than changing who we are and what we do.”

Sources of Culture

Given the model above, it is clear that there are multiple levels of culture and that at its core – the basic assumptions – it is deeply ingrained and strongly held by its members. Research backs this up, finding that organizational culture is a relatively stable and long-lived phenomenon that is fairly resistant to change while simultaneously being very important to the organization and its success. Thus, understanding its origins is important for an organization trying to change.

There are three basic sources of organizational culture. First, the broader societal culture in which the organization exists has an impact. Traditionally, societal culture has been synonymous with national culture, and has a substantial impact on its members, structure, and how it is run.

For example, individuals in countries that are higher in individualism prefer a more loosely-connected organization where self-reliance is rewarded. Those in collectivistic societies generally take a group-oriented perspective, preferring more tight-knit, interrelated organizations.

A second source of culture is the type of organization. While there is a great deal of variation between organizations, nonprofits tend to be more similar to each other and generally different than governmental or business organizations.It is far easier to keep an organizational culture in alignment with sympathetic changes than it is to get it back into alignment after conflict has arisen.

For example, most choirs have two CEOs, as it were—someone in charge of the artistic side and someone managing the organization. This results in shared leadership and responsibilities that are reflected in the organization’s structure, communication patterns, and goals.

Finally, and perhaps the most important source of culture, is the organization’s founder. The person who starts the organization plays an important role in the establishment of its culture. He or she is responsible for setting the original vision, bringing in the first members, and deciding how the organization will be run.

A conductor passionate about the works of Bach and his contemporaries might found a group dedicated to their performance on period instruments. Such a mission would have a lasting and ongoing impact on the membership, performances, and structure of the organization.

Diagnosing and Aligning Culture

Numerous books and articles have been written on how to diagnose organizational culture. Techniques such as reviews of official documents, observation, interviews, and surveys can be used to help identify the assumptions, values, and artifacts that make up culture.

For a chorus, culture might be diagnosed by reviewing programs and organizational documents, sitting in on board meetings and rehearsals, interviewing staff, and surveying choristers. When the elements of the culture have been described, then the organization can turn to addressing strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities, challenges and problems.

Once an organization’s culture has been identified and described, the key to determining what challenges it faces in alignment. To what extent do the assumptions, values, and artifacts line up and support each other? Do the espoused values reflect the basic assumptions? Are the artifacts an appropriate manifestation of the assumptions and values? And do any proposed changes line up with all three levels?

Using the scenarios outlined previously, in each case there is some misalignment between one or more of the levels of culture and a change they tried to implement. For example, the small community chorus in Scenario #1 may have had a long history of being just that, small and community-based (assumptions). Their mission statement (values) and their approach to rehearsals, repertoire, and membership (artifacts) all reflected that history.

The culture was challenged by changing to a larger one that performs different kinds of music; the differing views and approaches of the newer singers contributed to misalignment of the values and artifacts, causing the clash.

For the non-auditioned mid-size chorus in Scenario #3, there is a misalignment between the assumptions and values (a volunteer organization with non-auditioned members) and the proposed requirement of auditions (values and artifacts).

Implementing Change

There are two broad approaches that could have been used when trying to implement the desired changes. First, they could have tried to change the organizational culture before changing the repertoire, fundraising, or audition procedures.

However, since culture is generally difficult to change, and the longer it has been around the harder it is to change, a better option would be to implement changes that are in alignment with their current culture.

It is far easier to keep an organizational culture in alignment with sympathetic changes than it is to get it back into alignment after conflict has arisen.

There are numerous models for how to go about changing organizations. One commonly used approach is called planned change, or a systematic effort to alter organizational systems and structures. In most models of planned change, one of the hallmarks is involvement of key decisionmakers and implementers. In a business setting, this might mean that the CEO or owner would need to involve both management and employees in the change process. Such involvement might range from simply being informed of the need for change all the way to fully involving them in the design, development, and implementation of any change effort.

In a chorus context, there are additional factors to consider. For example, many choruses might have artistic directors who have, or feel they should have, full and final say over matters such as selecting singers and choosing the repertoire. On other matters, such as a requirement that singers purchase tickets or decisions about whether to tour or not, singers might rightfully expect to have greater involvement. Therefore, choruses that want to undertake some change will need to decide what level of involvement is appropriate (and aligned) given the type of change and the individuals involved.

Keeping that in mind, and using the small, community chorus example, below are the steps for diagnosing and changing the organization that are aligned with its existing culture:

Identify the issue, challenge, opportunity, or problem: The music director of the small community chorus in Scenario #1 feels the need to expand in size and repertoire.

Identify change agents: Given the chorus’s community, volunteer nature, the current singers should be informed of the music director’s interest and their thoughts and feedback solicited prior to a decision. This does not mean that the singers have the final say, but that their voices will be heard. The board also needs to be involved in the discussion in case there are budgetary or other governance issues. This approach is in alignment with the organization’s culture.

Diagnosis: Is the underlying issue a decreasing audience, boredom of the singers and music director with the same old repertoire, competition from a new chorus, a recently created grant opportunity, or something else? Clearly diagnosing the problem will help direct the group towards a solution. Interviews with staff and board members, focus groups with audience members, and surveys of current singers could all be used to help diagnosis the issue.

Goals: Once the underlying issue, challenge, opportunity, or problem is identified, develop specific, desired objectives. In this case, the goal is to increase the size of the chorus through additional members such that it can perform new pieces. Once again, it is important that singers and key constituencies be involved to the greatest extent possible in developing the goals.

For example, involving singers, board members, and staff in discussions about identifying potential new members and strategies for integrating them into the chorus would help increase support and buy-in and keep the solution in alignment with the organization’s culture.

Implementation: Having obtained the buy-in of the current singers and board, and having thoughtfully planned for the influx of new members, the music director can audition and select new singers.

Evaluation and feedback: Once the new singers have been selected and the new repertoire is performed, the board members, music director, staff, and singers need to be involved in an ongoing assessment of the change both to make sure it met the desired objective but also that it did so without creating any additional problems or cultural misalignments.

Supporting Change

Everyone in the organization has a role to play when it comes to organizational change. Boards are responsible for the overarching direction of the organization. The administrative and artistic staffs are responsible for identifying issues, soliciting participation, developing solutions, and implementing the changes. Singers are responsible for participating in any information gathering, making the effort to understand the reasons and need for any changes, and either supporting the resulting changes or at least not blocking their implementation or effectiveness.

In the case where some individuals remain resistant to the change and refuse to go along, the chorus and its leadership will need to decide whether the change is important enough that it is worth the risk of losing those individuals.

Keep in mind two key aspects of organizational change. First, people are generally resistant to change and the best way to overcome that resistance is to involve them in the process of change. Second, culture is a powerful organizational phenomenon and it is easier to implement change within the context of that culture than it is to try and adapt the culture to fit the change.

It is possible to change culture, but it takes a great deal of effort and an extended period of time. If the problems facing the organization are truly caused by a dysfunctional culture, then changing it may be the only option (and that is a topic for another article). However, many challenges facing choruses are caused by a misalignment between various aspects of the organization and its culture. It is much easier to deal with the misalignment directly than it is to change the culture.

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This article is adapted from The Voice, Summer 2012.