Read They Told Me Not to Take that Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics, and the Transformation of Lincoln Center for Free Online Page B

befell our country in Iraq, or for the utterly unnecessary damage to lives and property caused by the catastrophic failures to prepare for Hurricane Katrina and to deal with its consequences. Similarly, many at Lincoln Center who ran excessive operating deficits, deferred building maintenance inexcusably, allowed endowments to remain stagnant or deteriorate, or permitted artistic drift did so with impunity.
    Not a single senior executive has been indicted for white-collar crimes associated with the disappearance of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns,Countrywide, MF Global, or Arthur Andersen as independent entities. Nor have senior management or outside directors of the likes of Bank of America, Enron, WorldCom, Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac been held accountable for stunning acts of omission and commission that betrayed the trust of shareholders and arguably violated the spirit, if not the letter, of dozens of laws and regulations.
    Analogously, the CEOs and board chairs of some of the non-profits that comprise Lincoln Center were not held responsible for the weakened artistic and financial state of the organizations they were charged to protect. For this reason alone real-life situations are recounted in the pages ahead, no doubt to the embarrassment of some, but only with the intention of helping others cope with similar challenges.
    This third sector of ours, nonprofit institutions, is hardly immune from the abuse and neglect of trustees and professionals. Lincoln Center’s constituents were governed by some trustee leaders who did not hold their CEOs accountable for performance and who violated the trust invested in them to manage risk. Tales of organizations losing their way do not go untold here.
    However, many with whom I worked took their responsibilities very seriously. These men and women were devoted to the common welfare, their egos in check, their energies unleashed, their resources generously offered. They accomplished nothing short of an institutional transformation. Prominent among them were the trustees of Lincoln Center, the parent body and the campus landlord, together with most of their constituent counterparts.
    They comprised in total some 525 of New York City’s most accomplished figures, drawn from all sectors of society. These trustees found in Lincoln Center and its resident organizations a cause worthy of their time and treasure. They, and the benefactors they helped attract, renewed Lincoln Center physically and programmatically for a new generation of artists and audiences. In the quest, they enjoyed the company of gifted and hardworking employees, driven to succeed.
    This is their story, too.
    M Y DAILY LIFE at the Lincoln Center was filled with tension and beset by provocation.
    The situation called to mind one of my favorite quotes from Machiavelli, who warned his Prince about the dangers of introducing change into an organization or a polity. His admonition, I discovered, was well worth heeding:
    There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
    For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order. The lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries . . . and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.
    Transforming Lincoln Center was not without blind alleys, strong-willed opponents, unexpected detours, speed bumps, and more than a few sleepless nights.
    I was helped by more than my community center, Fortune 50, and refugee professional experience to put it all into proper perspective. I was also assisted by a sense of humor.
    For example, when the members of the Lincoln Center search committee asked what I, as a candidate, would do to reduce embarrassing rivalries