Take Us to the World – Together! What a Sondheim Birthday Concert Teaches Us about Virtual Collaboration
Those who know me, know that I am a theater . . . Nerd? Geek? Fan? Promoter? Addict? So beyond the tragedy of loss of life and livelihoods caused by COVID-19, possibly one of the hardest emotional blows of the lockdown for me was seeing Broadway go dark.
I am a passionate believer that the arts, especially the performing arts, remind us of what it means to be human: frail and messy and sometimes cruel and flawed, but also sometimes surprisingly brave and optimistic and funny and kind. Sometimes heroic, in spite of ourselves. The best theater inspires us, makes us think and compels us to strive to be our best selves in all circumstances.
I like to think we are all capable of resilience in the face of any adversity, especially if we work together collaboratively.
With the prospect of live performances of any kind being cancelled for the foreseeable future, I have struggled to find any lessons in the pandemic, for personal life and more specifically for my business life. Until last night.
Stephen Sondheim, arguably one of the most prolific and revered composer/lyricists of the musical theater canon, turned 90 this year, and Broadway had been gearing up to give him a kick-ass celebration and acknowledgement of his contribution to the arts overall. Enter Corona, and the party moved to lock down.
“Take Me to the World – A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration” - presented by Broadway.com as a fundraiser for ASTEP (Artists Striving to End Poverty) – was set to live stream at 8PM EST Sunday April 26th, with a star studded line up of entertainers and theater notables, wishing “Steve” well. It was ambitious, technically challenging, and an extraordinarily emotional gut punch, as songs and lyrics hit home with painful resonance in the Age of Corona.
See for yourself, as it is available, at least for now, on YouTube.
The business lesson that hit me this morning is illustrated at minute 3:28, when a group of Broadway Musicians, all remote in their bedrooms, living rooms and closets, performed a flawlessly synchronized, frothy rendition of the "Overture" from Sondheim’s Musical Merrily We Roll Along.
This is not the only example of Zoom performances that have cropped up online, of musicians performing “together” but separately. There are toms of examples of virtual choruses and chamber orchestras, streaming together in separate cells on the Zoom Grid. Pretty dammed amazing that creative people are figuring out how to repurpose and make the most of collaboration tools that weren’t even really available several months ago.
It takes talent, relentless rehearsal and collaboration for an orchestra to deliver their separate parts live, sitting together in a darkened pit of a Broadway theater, when the conductor is literally an arm’s length away. But to do it on lockdown, coordinating harmonies, crescendos and accompaniment with singers, all remotely, feels Herculean.
It dawned on me that these virtual performances are musical metaphors for what is going on for service businesses, trying to adapt and innovate to serve clients in a lockdown world.
For most businesses, delivering consulting services to clients is rarely a solo performance. Even if processes and SOPS are "behind the curtain”, the best service businesses manifest carefully orchestrated, choreographed and integrated coordination and collaboration feats, with many moving parts. Players, on-stage and off, ensure that the show goes on.
As an example, in market research, where I tend to consult in the art and science of marketing, brands need to understand the world of their customers. Brands look to their insights partners to take them to that world, and uncover the consumer emotions and behaviors that will inform their strategies, products and communications.
So metaphorically the extensive research "cast and crew" must perform together, first and foremost to understand clients’ business problems, then to organize around a methodology, coordinate with partners to engage consumer respondents, program and administer surveys, collect and integrate data, then conduct expert analysis, informing the stories that guide brands to action. In the Time of COVID, executing against these challenges necessitates exceptional ingenuity for agencies to achieve virtual collaboration.
Have research businesses dabbled in remote or virtual collaboration before? Sure, especially for teams who are geographically dispersed, or working from home during temporary disruptions like storms or other calamities.
Few consultancies however, have a precedent to fall back on, for converting, literally overnight, to a totally virtual workforce and online alternatives to all facets of their businesses, with no "return to normal" on the horizon. There are firms who are innovating, defying COVID Chaos, in order to continue addressing clients’ challenges and projects. They are developing impressive work-arounds and alternatives to achieve harmony in the face of discordance, and deliver what clients need.
When we hear a Broadway pit orchestra play together, in live performance, the best experience is when the acoustics are great, the band is in time and in tune and they just sound sublime. In the Age of Corona, when the orchestra is playing remotely, and we see them in the virtual Zoom grid, and hear them through our less than fabulous desktop audio, and it still sounds credible and actually TERRIFIC, it gives us new appreciation for the collaborative success being accomplished virtually.
We don’t really have an equivalent analogy for the casts of players in consumer research who continue to deliver insights that brands need for good decision making. But the best insight agency partners, are adapting and developing tools and solutions, likely to become best practices, even once the crisis is over.
So what can we learn from the Sondheim Birthday Celebration? Beyond the Musicians'“Overture”, in life and in business, as we are longing to move beyond social distancing and get back to business, there are many other Sondheim songs that are strangely relevant now. "It Takes Two" from Into the Woods. . . "I'm Still Here" from Follies . . . "Hey Old Friends" from Merrily We Roll Along . . . all have new second meanings in the disconcerting spring of 2020.
My take? Brands should seek out these ingenious agencies who excelling at the innovative virtual solutions essential in the face of the pandemic, because they are likely to be the advisors who emerge as stronger, better partners, once we are "out of the Woods". And my advice to agencies is to communicate the clever, credible and reliable ways you are continuing to uncover insights for your audiences, through virtual collaboration despite COVID. Brands want to hear from you, and learn what you are ready to deliver.
Advance to minute 1:50:51 in the concert, where performer Raul Esparza who helped organize the evening, delivered a rendition of one of my favorites Sondheim songs, the source of the concert’s title: “Take Me to the World” from the musical Evening Primrose. Sondheim assuredly wasn't thinking about market research when he wrote the lyric, but it is poignant and worth a listen.
"Let me see the world with clouds
Take me to the world
Out where I can push through crowds
Take me to the world
A world that smiles. With streets instead of aisles
Where I can walk for miles with you
Take me to the world that's real
Show me how it's done
Teach me how to laugh, to feel
Move me to the sun
Just hold my hand whenever we arrive
Take me to a world where I can be alive"
Watch the whole show, if only for some entertainment that will genuinely cure what ails you (and consider a donation to ASTEP!) And while you are building your own strategies for virtual collaboration, for sure, stay safe, wash your hands and try to find something every day to make yourself smile.