The Four P’s: Performers, Programming, Patrons, and Policy

Leading a dance organization requires a constant awareness of what I think of as the four P’s: performers, programming, patrons, and policy. Each plays a different role in the health of an organization, but none can operate successfully for very long without the others.

The balance among them is delicate. In the arts, it can be tempting to allow whichever need is most immediate to become the most important. A production demands attention, a dancer needs support, ticket sales require a response, or an organizational issue requires a new policy. Executive leadership, however, has to see beyond the urgency of any single moment and understand how decisions affecting one part of the organization ultimately affect the others.

At Ballet Arkansas, the people most important to me are our dancers and staff. I hold a tremendous responsibility to support them, lift them up, believe in their abilities, and create an environment in which their talent has the opportunity to flourish. That responsibility also requires recognizing what they need to be successful, not only artistically, but professionally.

Supporting people does not mean that every decision will be easy or that every individual preference can be accommodated. Leadership sometimes requires difficult decisions. But even difficult decisions should originate from a desire to make the organization and its people stronger. Artists and staff should be able to work within an organization where expectations are understandable, resources are used thoughtfully, communication has purpose, and talent is given the structure necessary to succeed.

That brings us to the second P: programming. Programming is where much of an arts organization's identity becomes visible. It communicates who we are, what we value artistically, what we are willing to explore, and where we believe the art form can go. For dancers, programming creates the opportunity to grow, to be challenged, and to experience different choreographic voices and artistic demands. For the institution, it creates identity and relevance.

But programming cannot exist in a vacuum. There is always a tension in the arts between what we want to produce and what an organization can reasonably sustain. The most ambitious artistic idea in the world still has to encounter budgets, personnel, production capacity, schedules, venues, audiences, and organizational priorities. That does not mean ambition should be diminished. It means ambition has to be supported by a structure capable of carrying it. Great programming should stretch an organization without continually breaking it.

The third P is the patron, and I believe this is an area in which arts organizations sometimes struggle unnecessarily. Listening to patrons does not mean surrendering artistic decision-making to an audience. It does not mean that the most familiar title should always win or that artistic risk should disappear because something new may be harder to sell. It means recognizing that the audience is part of the artistic equation.

We should want to understand what moves people, what excites them, what makes them purchase a ticket, what makes them return, what they tell their friends about, and sometimes what causes them to disengage. That information should not control artistic leadership, but neither should it be ignored.

Patrons tell us something about the market in which our mission is operating.

For me, there is an important difference between being audience-led and being audience-aware. An arts organization should have an artistic point of view, but it should also understand the people it is asking to experience, support, and invest in that point of view. The most successful relationship is not one in which the organization simply gives audiences what they already know they want. It is one in which enough trust exists that an organization can invite audiences somewhere new and they are willing to come along.

Then there is the fourth P, which is perhaps the least exciting to discuss but one of the most important to get right: policy. Policy is what allows the other three P's to operate with consistency.

There are really two levels of policy within an arts organization, and understanding the distinction between them is important. There is operational policy, developed and administered by executive leadership and staff, and there is organizational or governance policy, established appropriately at the board level.

Staff policy translates the realities of operating an organization into consistent expectations and practices. It can govern how we work, communicate, schedule, manage resources, interact with one another, serve patrons, protect employees, maintain facilities, administer programs, and respond when circumstances change.

Good operational policy should not exist simply because someone once decided a rule was necessary. It should solve a problem, create clarity, protect people or the institution, establish consistency, or make the organization function more effectively.

That distinction is important to me because policy can either enable talented people or encumber them.

When policies accumulate without being examined, organizations can become places where people spend enormous amounts of energy navigating systems that no longer serve their original purpose. Policy should create enough structure that people understand the environment in which they work while leaving enough room for talented professionals to actually exercise their abilities.

At the board level, policy serves a different purpose. The board establishes the broader governance framework within which the organization operates. It addresses matters of fiduciary responsibility, executive authority, financial oversight, ethics, organizational accountability, risk, governance practice, and other responsibilities appropriately belonging to the institution's governing body. That separation matters.

The board should not be writing the employee's daily procedure manual, just as staff should not independently determine the limits of the board's fiduciary responsibilities. Strong organizations understand where those responsibilities sit and ensure that policy at both levels supports the same mission and strategic direction. And this is where the four P's begin to connect.

Policy should support the performers and staff by creating a professional environment in which expectations are clear, decisions are consistent, people are treated appropriately, and talent can thrive. Policy should support programming by establishing responsible financial, operational, artistic, and organizational parameters within which ambition can occur. Policy should support the patron by helping create consistent standards for communication, accessibility, service, safety, stewardship, and the overall experience of engaging with the organization. Most importantly, policy should support the mission rather than become a substitute for it.

An organization can become so consumed with protecting its procedures that it eventually forgets what those procedures were designed to protect. Policies should evolve as organizations evolve. Some should become stronger. Others should change. Some may eventually need to disappear entirely. The question should always be whether the policy continues to help the organization and its people accomplish what they are there to accomplish.

That is also why these four P's cannot be managed independently.

A programming decision affects performers. A performer decision can affect programming. Programming affects patrons. Patron behavior affects revenue. Revenue affects what can be invested in people and programming. Policy affects all three by determining how the organization makes decisions, establishes expectations, allocates authority, and responds when competing needs emerge.

Executive leadership sits at the intersection of those relationships. For me, that is one of the great responsibilities of leading an arts organization. I have an obligation to the people who come to work every day and give their talent to Ballet Arkansas. I have an obligation to ensure that what we put onstage is worthy of that talent and advances the artistic identity of the institution. I have an obligation to listen to the patrons and communities who choose to experience and support that work. And I have an obligation to help create policies and systems that make all of it sustainable.

The four will not always agree. There will be moments when what is best for the programming creates additional demands on the organization. There will be moments when the needs of artists require us to reconsider how something has traditionally been done. There will be moments when patrons tell us something we may not particularly want to hear. There will be moments when an existing policy no longer makes sense for the organization we have become.

Leadership is not avoiding those tensions. It is balancing them thoughtfully.

For me, the objective remains relatively simple: support the people, build programming worthy of their talent, listen to the patrons who make that work meaningful, and create policies that allow all three to succeed.

When those four elements remain in balance, policy does not restrict artistry, patrons do not dictate it, programming does not exhaust the people creating it, and performers are not separated from the realities of the organization supporting their work.

Instead, each strengthens the others.

That is when an arts organization begins to operate not simply as a collection of performances, employees, policies, and audiences, but as an institution with the capacity to sustain its people, serve its community, and continually move its mission forward.