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Essentials in
Board
Board Minutes January 2003 - Exhibit B
Keynote speech by Darryl Flinn
Updated: 2/17/2003 2:36:00 PM
THE SITUATION
Old friend President Roger, fellow Board members, District Presidents, special guests and staff, I am honored to be sharing a few minutes with you today about the things we sometimes love more than life itself, our music, our beloved Society, and this brotherhood we so cherish. The last time I addressed this high-powered group of leaders was just seven years ago today and my job was to say something smart enough to convince the Board to appoint me as the new Executive Director. What I tried to say to them then was, “Hire me . . . I know just how to balance the budget, to fix the barbershop style issue, to help make the new structure work. I can iron out the wrinkles at our Headquarters operation, and what’s more, if you’ll appoint me, I’ll do something about the 15-year membership slide.”
So being a guy who makes lists, I had my own list of commitments or resolutions that I wanted to go to work on as our new Executive Director. Things like:
• Restoring a mediocre Harmony College to its former glories,
• Move all Headquarters operations into one building, creating one culture,
• To work on our chapters of concern and to create an aggressive plan to bring a lot of new chapters on board,
• To remodel and redesign our Harmonizer to make it whizzy, new, colorful and readable,
• To get into the “e” world as a major player,
• And finally, to appoint the best, new, young people possible to achieve all of the above.
And I’d grin with you about our younger population on staff here at Harmony Hall. You know what comes along with young people. Of course, that’s even younger people and just last week, the latest of 14 babies was born in the past seven years. And for me, it’s like becoming an instant grandpa over and over again.
So, in re-thinking my contributions from the seven years as Executive Director, I’d give myself fairly good marks and you’d give me good marks, too, wouldn’t you? I mean, sure enough, wouldn’t you? The reason I ask you for a response is that my review is coming up just in a couple of weeks and I could swear that I just heard Roger say he’d give me good marks.
So, about any contributions that has come from me being Executive Director, here’s a hypothetical question: So what? There are lots of ways to measure what we do. If I am to be measured on my dreams, intentions, and my activities, I know I’d get straight A’s. If I am to be measured on mission critical or enterprise areas, such as the number of chapters, fiscally sound districts, more registered quartets, more college competitors, more conventions, more competitors, more support for Harmony Foundation, more successful chapter meetings, more members, I wonder what my grades would be. I wonder what you’d give me. I wonder what I’d give myself. I wonder what we’d give each other.
I only remember three things from business school, and the first one is that the situation is always the boss, or that the real true situation always prevails, and emphasis on the word TRUE situation, and that the Socratilian principle of truth is that “A” is “A”. “A” can be called “B”, “C”, or “D” or whatever you wish it to be; however, “A” is always “A”. Another way to say it is that the first thing is always what . . . it’s always the first thing, of course. The second thing I remember from school is that the truth can always be found in the numbers. I’m not so sure that Arthur Andersen or WorldCom would agree, but assume with me for a moment that the numbers don’t lie. And the last thing I learned in school was that about the time you get it, it’s time to go. And so, it’s time for me to get ready to go, but thank goodness I’m here through August of ‘04 because I’ve really got lots more to do in the next 18 months.
When I got up the nerve to apply for this job, it was like, “You know, Darryl, you may be the one, you may be the guy with the answers, the fella who makes the difference.” And that was my true hope. I wanted to make a difference. So much so that the week before I started, on February 24 of 1996, I wrote this as my personal mission. “I stand for the possibility that through my work, the Barbershop Quartet Society will enjoy numbers that prove we are indeed an ever-growing fraternity and that men and their families all over this continent will join with us and not pass through life with their songs unsung.”
So, good friends, what would my grade be for seven years of tolerating this incompetency? I grade myself poorly. How would you grade each other? Of course, the good news is that over these seven years, upwards of twenty thousand men have joined our Society. Obviously, more have unjoined than joined. About a 5,000 net loss. And therein, fellas, lies our true situation.
So, Roger, I’m especially thankful that you asked me to deliver this particular Keynote talk, as our situation indicates that I have so much more to do in the next 18 months, and as I said before, I really want to be the one . . . the guy that has the answer, the guy that makes a difference.
I want to talk a bit more about the phenomenon called “our situation” and what follows is a quote by General George Marshall from nearly sixty years ago, when he said in an address to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who, by the way, were arguing about policy, about United States reputation, about the stock market, he said, and I quote, “My friends, we have a situation. Nothing political, nothing financial, nothing about our past or our future makes even a little bit of difference if it does not most directly benefit the men in the trenches in France.” You see, Marshall was afraid that the chiefs were avoiding the real situation. Now, set that aside for just a minute while you think with me about how easy it is for us to create a substitute situation. One which we refer to as the truth . . . while the real situation is eating our lunch. And here’s an example:
• Blue ribbon task force studies and recommends a new structure
• Board passes on a new Society structure where the chapter and the member are on top of the hierarchy
• Create a chapter support and leadership organization to nurture the chapter and the member.
• Some of our very best men . . . the guys in the trenches . . . have poured their heart, soul, energy, and talents, in short, everything they had to offer into a failing system to say nothing of the investment of more money than I dare mention.
So, while this is going on, your Executive Director . . . the guy who really wanted to make a difference . . . didn’t have the stones to fix it, and simply joined in an atmosphere where nobody wanted to create an uproar or to make anybody else feel poorly or upset. I joined in the process of creating some other situation to deal with while denying the truth, calling “A” something else, directing our assets, our energies other places, largely ignoring our failure. That was ‘95, ‘96, ‘97, ‘98, now it’s 2003, our chapter and our member are still at the top of the hierarchy, yet we’re still not sure how to be with either our chapter or our member. It’s easy to waltz around the real true situation, is it not?
In this job, it’s real easy to be dissatisfied, and I often have to catch myself by remembering just how good our overall situation is in our Society. How much better we’re singing and performing, how well we communicate, how well we do at training and serving our members, and I know you’re as proud as I am to be a part of it all.
And I’m awfully proud of President Roger. He’s my personal choice for monkey of the year. Roger is not real satisfied with about anything. His ideas are profuse, as is his ability to get and to keep us all involved. Yes? You ought to try working for him!
And I’m proud of this Board and our committees and so is Roger. I just read Roger’s next Harmonizer article and it’s all about our 2002 accomplishments. And he’s so generous about the work of our Society Board and our committees, and the staff as well.
And I’m so proud of our staff Directors, Frank and Greg, and, of course, John and the others. They couldn’t do a better or more professional job and that’s true of our entire hardworking staff at Kenosha. And I’m so very proud of Dee Vesevick. Dee has been one of us for almost 18 years. She has served thirteen presidents and seventeen different Boards of Directors and I would tell you that you will have lots of time to say goodbye to Dee; but truth be told, my most wonderful assistant, my great personal friend, will be retiring just after Montreal. Dee, I appreciate you, and I love you for your invaluable work and your long and dedicated service. And we all wish you every best in your retirement.
And I’d tell you that I’m proud of the love of my life and my partner, Meredith Flinn. I’d never have had this great opportunity had Meredith not said, “If they choose you, let’s go to Kenosha. You’ll do good work and we’ll have a great life,” and we have had. But at first, it was a giant struggle. It was like I was going to something and Meredith was leaving something. But after we got our wheels under us, life has been large in Kenosha. And so, Meredith, in front of witnesses, I want you to know that I appreciate not only your support of all that I do, but for your personal involvement in the mission of Harmony Marketplace. The irony is, of course, that we’ll have the same struggle as we leave the people and the things that we love so much in Kenosha to head back to Canton, Ohio.
You know, one old lady said to another old lady at a Baptist church service one morning . . . said, “Ain’t that preacher done yet?” and the other old lady said, “Well, he’s been done for a good long time but he just can’t quit.” So I’d like to begin the quitting process by paraphrasing General Marshall, and reminding me and us that anything we do at the Board or the District President level or at the staff or in our planning or budgeting process that does not most directly affect 7:30 to 10:00 p.m., 840 times a week around North America, is folly and may even be an attempt to create a substitute situation.
And as I familiarize myself with ‘03 Work Plan, I see fabulous opportunity. I’m particularly interested in the new Chapter Counselor program and the energy that Dick Powell and his group brings to that initiative. And we should all be critically interested in the Music Man initiative as devined by young Rob Arnold. Maybe it will be Rob or Dick who is the one who brings us the answer, who is indeed the hundredth monkey. Maybe it will be Paul Tamblyn and the new and revitalized work of the Chorus Director Development committee, and doesn’t it do your heart good to know that these three opportunities I just mentioned, and many, many more, have been designed to speak directly to our real and true situation . . . the one that happens 840 times a week all across North America.
Well, I’m done, and I’d like to finish by saying how very proud I am to be a part of the staff, and this Board, and I’m thankful to have been asked to join the long parade of men who have been honored to speak at this podium.
Thanks, everybody . . .let’s harmonize.
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