I first heard about Quentin's illness walking back to the office from lunch with a theatre colleague in March of this year. Quentin Easter was the co-founder - with Stanley Williams, his partner in life and in art - of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre company, one of the leading African American theatre companies. Over the course of 30 years, these two men brought the African American experience onstage, mounting over 100 productions, with performances by such luminaries as Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Danny Glover, and Ntozake Shange. It was never easy, and the Hansberry was widely regarded as one of the most tenacious arts organizations in the region, as it survived an endless series of obstacles, including a declining African American population in the City and multiple changes in location.
The term "opposites attract" was coined especially for Quentin Easter and Stanley Williams. Quentin was known for his warm smile, his affable nature and his quiet generosity. He was a tireless and gently persuasive advocate for his theatre and for black cultural groups throughout the region. Stanley, also a strong advocate for African American theatre, was a notorious firebrand. His style was mercurial. He could be charming and witty or angrily confrontational, hectoring media representatives for more coverage and banning at least one critic from his theatre. Stanley also directed and co-produced many of the plays produced at the Hansberry.
With Easter's support, Williams single-mindedly pursued his vision of seeing that black theatre had its own place in the downtown theatre district. The Company had been homeless since it lost its 300-seat downtown theatre to the Academy of Art University in 2007, and in Spring 2010 Easter had just negotiated a lease to take over the 729-seat Post Street Theatre; moving plans were in the works.
So walking back from lunch, back in March, I was sorry to hear that Quentin was ill. Then, in April, came this blog post from the Hansberry Board:
Recently, it became necessary for Stanley E. Williams and Quentin Easter, the Founding Directors of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre (LHT), to be hospitalized. They are recovering at home - estimated at a minimum of six weeks, and will be on very limited work schedules during this time.
To help the Directors during their recuperation, Management Staff will oversee day-to-day operations. Though LHT will not cease business operations, the company will have to postpone the remainder of the 2009-2010 Season.
Our plan is to reschedule the remaining productions of the current Season. Ticket holders have been contacted. Additionally, in this current circumstance, LHT is not in a position to move forward to complete the lease for the 450 Post Street space.
To offset the loss of revenue and to support business operations, the Board of Directors and Friends of the Theatre have set an immediate fundraising goal of $125,000. To date, we have succeeded in raising $70,000.
Then, on April 30, the San Francisco Chronicle reported: "Quentin Easter, co-founder and executive director of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, died Wednesday of cancer in San Francisco." The Bay Area arts community went into shocked mourning. In June, Theatre Bay Area, the local theatre service organization, produced a memorial event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. "Celebrating the Life & Work of Quentin Easter: A Tribute to Benefit Lorraine Hansberry Theatre" was hosted by Belva Davis and featured speeches and performances by a broad range of local artists and other notables.
One of the speakers was Stanley Williams himself, who received a thunderous standing ovation as he was helped to the podium. He looked frail and weak, he was recuperating from an operation, but his voice was unchanged: strong, earnest, passionate. He spoke briefly; he was grateful for everything that everyone had done; then he was guided off the stage.
The melancholy of that gala evening lingered for weeks. How would the company survive without Quentin, and with Stanley so debilitated? A fundraising campaign ensued, then another. Then, on July 6, came this blog posting on the Hansberry website:
Stanley E. Williams, the founding Artistic Director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, died on July 2, 2010. He was 60 years old.
Stanley died just nine weeks after Quentin. Robert Hurwitt wrote in the Chronicle: "The untimely deaths of Stanley E. Williams and Quentin Easter, coming so close together, have left the Bay Area's arts community uncertain about the future of the theater they founded in 1981 and had led ever since. While Williams and Easter had made their Lorraine Hansberry Theatre the most highly regarded African American theater company in the state, they never built the kind of company infrastructure that would ensure it could continue without them."
The company's board of directors vowed to keep the Hansberry alive. "The theater will continue," says board President Albert Dixon. "These guys dedicated their lives to this theater, which to me is the jewel in the crown of theater in San Francisco. We are determined to make sure that their legacy does not end." The board had already hired a new acting general manager, attorney Kate Stoia, a few days before Williams' death. With Stoia in place to take on Easter's managerial duties, the board has undertaken a national search for a new artistic director to assume Williams' role. "We're financially sound," Dixon says, "and we are prepared to move forward."
Time will tell how the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre manages this extraordinary transition, but nonprofits should take heed. This is indeed the worst "worst case scenario," but how vulnerable is your agency to such a catastrophic event? Planning for leadership sustainability can ameliorate the turmoil created by a transition. In fact, not only are most of the problems surrounding succession preventable, many of the steps to improve leadership sustainability are pretty easy and inexpensive. And yet, in a survey of nonprofit executive directors and board chairs about leadership sustainability planning, conducted by Olive Grove Consulting in Spring 2010, a whopping 85% reported that they did not have a written leadership sustainability plan in place.
Succession - the "S" word - is a scary notion for nonprofits, but Olive Grove believes that planning for leadership change and resilience doesn't have to be so daunting. Our goal is to normalize the conversation and we are committing this year to getting the word out that this is important and very possible for EVERY nonprofit. Even without much time or a huge financial commitment, every organization can do some basic things to make progress and help ensure their mission delivery won't suffer when transitions happen.
In our next newsletter we will highlight one simple solution nonprofits can put in place to help manage their risk in founder transitions, especially tragic and sudden leadership gaps such as this one.
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Passing the Baton: A Success Story
By Dave Viotti - Olive Grove Consultant
Emily Hall's piece in the July newsletter describes an impending wave of executive transitions and how to prepare for it. Executive transitions are a lot like relay races. Knowing how to "pass the baton" effectively to a successor is crucial to finishing the race. Watch a 4x100 sprint relay and you'll see how risky transitions can be. It's not enough to have great athletes. Winning also requires the right pace, coordination and teamwork.
The sector is littered with dropped batons, but there are success stories to learn from too. One nonprofit I work with managed their recent executive transition successfully. The organization nearly folded a few years ago from a failed transition of its executive director of several decades to a new leader. "Founder's Syndrome" and a lack of transition planning were factors in the successor's decision to leave after only four months. The board was determined to get it right the next go round.
A board member with executive experience agreed to step in and serve as CEO to help stabilize the organization. He and the board made succession planning a priority at the outset. The CEO agreed to stay for at least two years and made a commitment to help find and mentor a successor. Early in his tenure, the CEO and board identified a potential successor from the staff. The CEO hired a consultant to conduct a skills assessment and develop an executive coaching plan for this individual. Progress on the plan was monitored by the CEO and reported to the board periodically. At the two-year mark, the CEO informed the board that he was ready to move on. The CEO and board revisited the succession plan and agreed that the internal candidate was the ideal choice.
The CEO agreed to say on for another six months to help with the transition. The incoming CEO was engaged in the planning process and transition plans were announced to the staff and other stakeholders. The outgoing CEO retained his executive role for three months until the end of the fiscal year. He stayed on for three more months after that as an advisor to the new CEO and board. The incoming CEO shadowed the outgoing CEO in meetings with key stakeholders and other management functions. They traveled together and met jointly with board members and key donors to make introductions and to answer questions about the transition plan.
Closer to the transition date, the outgoing CEO had the incoming CEO take on a more active role in conducting staff meetings, managing board presentations and building the budget. At the last board meeting a few days before the transition, the two leaders jointly presented the budget and operating plan for the new fiscal year that they'd worked on together. Finally, on the transition day, the board issued a press release, welcoming in the new leader and recognizing the contributions of the former leader. All of these actions were done to foster a genuine sense of collaboration, transparency and stability.
The role for the outgoing CEO after the transition was also clearly defined. He became an individual contributor, focusing mainly on fundraising projects, and was "on call" to provide advice to the new CEO. To give the new CEO enough space to establish his own identity as the organization's leader, the outgoing CEO worked remotely and only came into the office a couple days a week. He dialed into staff meetings and met with the new CEO once a week in person to check in.
Adopting a less visible profile achieved three things: (1) it helped the outgoing CEO "let go" of day-to-day management; (2) it mitigated confusion from staff about who was in charge; and (3) it built greater trust with the new CEO who saw his predecessor as an "on call" resource who wasn't looking over his shoulder everyday. Once the transition period was complete, the outgoing CEO joined the advisory board. This gave him an identity to stay connected to the organization in an on-going support role, without interfering with the day-to-day management decisions of his successor.
Today, the organization is stable and already working on the next succession plan. Succession planning is now part of the culture and is being done at all levels on the staff and board. The situation and players in this story are unique, but there are many lessons applicable to any organization. This organization was successful because the board and CEO recognized up front that transition is inevitable. They accepted that reality and addressed it jointly and proactively. The interim role of the CEO also provided a crucial bridge from the founder to new leadership. Another factor that was core to their success was the partnership between the board and outgoing CEO and the outgoing CEO and his successor. All parties put the organization's interests first and were committed to passing the baton in an orderly way. Because of that coordination and teamwork, they're still in the race and will be for years to come.
Over the next year we will continue this series, highlighting client success stories, lessons learned, and easy tools for you to consider. If you have a great resource or story to share, please let us know by emailing it to Mona at mona@olivegroveconsulting.com.
