Another Year of Arts Management - 2026

 And I completed another batch of Arts Management at the Department of Dance, University of Hyderabad. It was a group of six - and we discussed many ways of how an artist can manage their career. 

L to R - Jecy, Devananda, Anupama, me, Thrailokya, Srividya and Siri Chandana

From setting objectives such as being secure, taking 100% responsibility for their careers,  and being process oriented we discussed concepts such as Growth Mindset, the Golden Circle, Artistic Vision, How to develop skills and expertise, Setting long, medium and short term goals, Performance management, Feedback, Communication, People skills, Marketing and Financial Management. It has been as satisfying as ever and I hope the students achieve their stated goals and more and more importantly, enjoy the journey and the learning process. 

Arts Management 2020 - Session 5

This was on Zoom, a first for me, but with some help from Shobhs who generously let me use her Zoom account and from Anjali who helped me screen share, we got a decent class going.

We are right now in the 'How' phase of the 'Why', 'How' and 'What' elements of Simon Sinek's golden circle. 'Why' is about your purpose, your artistic vision. We had covered one extreme of the 'How' - by looking at 'The Making of an Expert' by K Anders Ericsson - and his 10000 hours theory, deliberate practice and other factors. That was to become an expert, a lifelong journey.

Today we look at the other end of the spectrum - at Josh Kaufman's theory of  'The First 20 Hours - How to learn anything.'

Josh Kaufman says the following. That one can become reasonably good at anything, like literally go from zero to reasonably good, in just 20 hours. Now 20 hours is 45 minutes a day, give or take some, for a month which is easily done. (So one could use both deliberate practice and this theory together to get better in certain areas one is not good at.)

Kaufman lists a 4 step method to rapid skill acquisition. The steps are

1) Deconstruct the skill
(break it down into smaller pieces, the key elements that are important for the skill)

2) Learn enough to self-correct
(research, gurus, mentors, coaches, peer discussions - must help in giving enough understanding of the science, the process on the right way and how to identify and correct when things do not go right)

3) Remove barriers to practice
(removing access to phone and other distractions and delving deep into 1-2 hours of undisturbed work enables deep work and not superficial work)

4) Put in those 20 hours

Josh says that the major barrier to learning anything new is emotional and not intellectual. It is not that we are not intelligent enough, but that we fear the feeling of looking stupid when we try a new thing. However, after the initial phase of feeling stupid, we learn things very fast and become pretty good in a very short time. As long as a student is in the learning mindset and is fine with asking questions and accepting that she does not know everything, this part can be addressed to a large extent.

Secondly, Josh says that one must study the practice and identify the small set of things that are really important instead of going into the hundreds of complexities that make up any skill. Identify the key few practices and set of things to learn (from a coach, learn enough to self-correct) and practice those and you become really good in a short time. For example, he gives us a live demonstration of how he learned to play the ukelele, by identifying four key chords as against the hundreds that are there, and pretty much playing any song reasonably competently.

For the student then, it is important to first deconstruct the skill of dance. The students identified - in order of importance - Posture, Footwork, Hand gestures (mudras), Abhinaya, Tala, Rhythm, Stamina - which we grouped as A,B, C.

Practice:
Students can rate themselves on a scale of 10 (10 being perfection). On A and B, they had to aim to get to 8, using the methods suggested by Josh Kaufman, and identify clear steps to reach 8 and above. Aand B, because they are the most important.

Arts Management 2020 - Session 4

How to be an Expert
To look forward to a rewarding career, one needs to know concepts that will help in moving ahead. One needs to know how to sharpen skill, how experts work and train. To reach the top of the pyramid which is what everyone must aspire for, one must be exposed to the ideas about how experts are made.

Here I took inputs from a well-read article in the Harvard Business Review on 'The Making of an Expert' by K Anders Ericsson, Michael J Prietula and Edward T Cokely. Please read.

https://hbr.org/2007/07/the-making-of-an-expert

The main points made in the article are that superior performance does not come easy - it is the result of struggle, sacrifice and painful self-assessment. It requires a decade of deliberate practice, well-informed coaches and a scientific approach.

10,000 hours
The number of hours they pegged their research on of practice (deliberate practice) was 10000 hours.

Deliberate Practice
Deliberate practice is a specific form of practice where the practitioner does not just put in time, but the quality of effort. The practitioner picks up specific aspects of his skill and works on them deliberately. She creates scenarios in her mind and at simulating real-life situations and practices with intense concentration.

In deliberate practise there are two types of learning
- Improving skills one already has and is good at (working on making the strengths stronger)
- Extending the reach and range of skills (which means one must improve on what one does not know well, or what one does not know at all i.e. working on the weak areas).

Practising these two aspects requires a considerable amount of concentration. Now, the experts feel that one must decide how much practice one is good. For some two hours, for some four and for some even more. The key is to bring quality and awareness to every practice session so one improves one aspect, one becomes really good and one aspect.

The difference between a normal performer and a high-quality performer is deliberate practice.

Who is an Expert
n expert is defined as one who
- turns in consistently superior performances to peers (and in all conditions)
- produces concrete results
- whose expertise and skill can be replicated and measured in a laboratory (should know the science behind what she is doing)

Practice
To analyse practice sessions, deconstruct them into strong areas and weak areas, and pick specific areas to work on, in every single session. Also figure out how to bring higher awareness to each session to get insights into the science behind the performance.

Art Management 2020 - Session 3

In the third session, we focused on the purpose, as part of the process of moving forward. So we watched as we always do, Simon Sinek's classic TED talk 'Start with why'.

Simon Sinek illustrates the simple idea of the golden circle -  three concentric circles of What (outermost), How (middle) and Why (innermost). He says that most of the world does mediocre work because we go outside in - from the 'what' to the 'why' (most don't even know the why). The what is what's visible and easy to see, while the why is fuzzy and needs some thought and conviction.

To do inspired work we must first start with Why.

Why
The why is our purpose. Why are we doing this? What's the purpose of my art? My effort? All that I would like to achieve over a period of 20 years or even more. The idea is not to let the limitation of time lessen one's vision. Simon Sinek talks about belief - about what one believes as their cause. He cites examples of the Wright brothers, Martin Luther King and we can take any number of great people and their inspired work and one way or another, they all began with their why. Of creating something that makes a difference to the large section of society - solves of problem or provides joy.

Using the purpose, the student is asked to write down their purpose. It could be as simple as saying that 'I want my dance to give joy to the world'. (Then everything that one does aligns to that purpose.) Or one could aspire to create happiness in the world, or make it a more loving space, or heighten awareness of culture or politics through one's art.

The 'why' has to be something bigger than ourselves. When we aim for something bigger than ourselves, we become bigger people for it.

Q. What is your purpose? Your long term vision?

How
The 'How' is the process of achieving the Why. One must know the most efficient way to achieve one's goal. The How of it. Typically this involves two things - the culture or values that one brings to the work. Honesty, discipline, a learning mindset, pursuit of excellence, respect, love, innovation, devotion - any of these values when practised as a group or an institution, to increase efficiency, becomes one's culture. It is the 'way' we do things.

Q. What are the values you would like to adopt to achieve your why? Your way?

Another How, is knowing productivity techniques to improve one's efficiency in the pursuit of getting better at the craft. This involves techniques and concepts that help the student gain expertise in a more efficient manner. It includes an understanding of how to become an expert, learning theories, deconstructing skill, understanding feedback and monitoring mechanisms, time management and so on.

Q. What is the process to adopt to gain expertise in the art?

 What
The What is the most easily visible thing - the product. Not the aspiration, not the grand dream. Just the bare product. It's basic physical work. What do you want to achieve? Or, what are your goals? We run through the process of goal setting, set short, medium and long term goals.

Q. What are your immediate goals? or, What is the work you need to do to achieve your goals?

Simon Sinek's talk is layered and involves about leadership, inspired work and personal excellence. If our Why is clear, it will guide us through times when we doubt ourselves. Since the purpose is something bigger than ourselves, and one must not hesitate to dream as big as one can and hold the vision.

Practice:
Write out one's vision or purpose in as clear a statement as one can. It should inspire, guide, be the reason to get up every day and work towards it.

While at it, one can also attempt the How and the What.

Art Management 2020 - Session 2

The second session was an introduction to the concepts discussed in Dr Carol Dweck's book 'Mindset' - mainly the Fixed Mindset and the Growth or Learning mindset. This book and its concepts are a must-read for everyone who wishes to maximise thier potential.

In the pre-mindset stage, we have the following questions
1) How to succeed?
2) Are we are good enough?
3) If we are not good enough, is there any way we can become good enough?
4) Do we have the intelligence and the talent to make it big? To achieve the life we are scared of dreaming up for ourselves?

The Mindset answers these questions and shows an empowering way out of this confusion.  It shows a clear path to the chap at the bottom of the class to outperform those who are leading the pack today.

My Story - Fixed Mindset and Failure
I shared my cricketing story. Of how I walked the path to be a first class cricketer rather easily and then lost my way at the final hurdle. The things that had stood me in good stead - a good coach and mentor, a good peer group, a good work ethic - were abandoned by me and my performance dipped. Instead of seeking answers and correcting myself I sabotaged my career after making it to the top 60 medium pacers in the country (assuming 30 states!). End of story. The wrong mindset is purely to blame. Not politics.

How The Mindset Could Have saved Me - And Can Save The Students Now
"The Mindset - A New Psychology of Winning" by Dr. Carol Dweck opened my eyes to what I had missed. I had been infected by the Fixed Mindset (that I could not ask for help or work hard because I was 'talented' or because I was 'supposed to know') so much that I could not seek corrective action when I knew I badly needed it. If I had adopted the learning mindset I could have rectified the mistake in a week's time with a good coach. I could have then worked hard at it with the new guidance and recovered lost ground. What could have been set right in a session or a month cost me an entire career. As simple as that - what had come in the way was my belief that I 'should know' and hence 'I will not ask'. Also that since I am 'talented' I cannot not know such basic issues. And if I am talented I should not be working hard because talented people do not work hard.

Highlights of The Mindset
Intelligence grows as you use it. So don't paint yourself into a corner based on your performance now.

A failure is not the end of the world. It is a blip in a long journey you have ahead of you. All growth comes through failures so don't worry about one failure. (However, try not to make the same mistake twice. Make new mistakes which is a sign of growth. Making the same old mistakes shows that you are not learning.)

The key to success is hard work + growth oriented learning.

The Fixed Mindset
Let's consider the Fixed Mindset.

A person with a fixed mindset has a desire to look smart (defined as doing things easily, the short cut seekers who believe they can show up and things get done by mere attitude or posturing. In our mind the hero is someone who walks in simply and scores the perfect ten, hits a hundred, saves the world - without putting in any effort because he or she is blessed with talent or intelligence or even genes. So we mistakenly assume that's how it is done - easily. However what we miss is the fact that the heroes expetise is the result of hard work over the years. The heroes work very hard behind the scenes. Even the hero would have failed in his first attempt.)

By making such wrong connections, the Fixed Mindset person believes that hard work is pointless - it is not for talented people.
This lack of effort leads to failure at the next level.
Repeated failure and dropping performances makes the person avoid bigger challenges and give up.
The person gets defensive when mistakes are pointed out and ignores feedback.
This person gets jealous of others success.
The Fixed Mindset is about showing how much he knows and defending that, not about learning.
In the end, due to lack of a correcting mechanism, lack of purposeful, growth oriented effort the person fails to achieve his potential.

The Learning Mindset or the Growth Mindset
On the other hand, the growth or learning mindset is highly empowering.

Here the person has no desire to prove that he is smart - the only desire is to learn. She has no desire to say she knows everything.
She believes in effort, and not fancy words like intelligence and talent. When the results are not to satisfaction, she works doubly hard.
Since she works hard, she loves challenges.
She loves taking tougher challenges and grappling with them. How-far-can-I-go is her mindset and not how-will-I-look-to-the-others-if-I-fail.
Learning Mindset people persist in the face of setbacks because they are keen to crack the problem.
This mindset allows them to take help from any source, including competitors.
They learn from all criticism, and from those who are doing better than themselves.

The learning mindset is about questions and increasing the limits of learning. The learning mindset allows you to say you don't know what you do not know. The moment you say you do not know you buy yourself a lot of freedom to learn. All you need to do is say I do not know and the world is ready to help you. You can ask anyone.

The Growth Mindset is about hard work, high standards and equipping oneself with the right tools to handle the process. This is their biggest strength. they do not hide their shortcomings.

How To Change from Fixed Mindset to a Growth Mindset

Ask for help
Learn the process
Do small acts that change things
Get mentors and coaches
Get over the-world-owes-me and denial (that you don't know)
Play against better players
Set high standards
Don't give up and instead make small progress daily
Find something harder to do when things are achieved easily.

Mindset - Fixed and Growth Mindset
We discussed the two governing mindsets and students played roles of both mindsets. In the end we understood that the learning mindset can free them from a burden of 'knowing' and enable real learning. For a detailed review of the book, click on link.
https://harimohanparuvu.blogspot.com/2012/06/mindset-carol-s-dweck.html

Fixed Mindset Characteristics	Growth Mindset Characteristics
Desire to look smart	Desire to learn
Avoid challenges	Embrace challenges
Give up easily	Persist in the face of setback
Get defensive	Seek help to find ways to improve
See effort as fruitless	See effort as the path to mastery
Ignore useful negative feedback	Learn from criticism
Feel threatened by others' successes	Find lessons and inspiration from others success
Plateau early and achieve less than their full potential	Reach even higher levels of achievement as a result and get closer to potential

By adopting the Learning or Growth mindset the person at the end of the line can slowly worm his way up the chain. Success is a given for someone with this mindset. Clearly, there is no escape from effort if one wants to succeed.

Practices:

• Make notes of your Fixed Mindset and Growth Mindset behaviors. 
• Start practicing Growth Mindset behaviors to move ahead.

Art Management 2020 - Session 1

It,s that time of the year again when I teach the Art Management course at the University of Hyderabad. This year it's a large group again - the numbers have grown considerably since the first batch of 9. As always it is a women-dominated group with 15 young ladies, Chetana, Krishna, Pooja, Bhavya, Hymavathi, Soumya, Ala, Lasya, Gayathri, Satya Prasuna, Aashika, Shilpa, Sruthy, Ritisha, and one young man from South Africa, Niveshan Munswamy.

The first session was about setting the lay of the land. I found out a bit about them and their aspirations, introduced myself to them, shared the curriculum and then told them what my proposed aims of the course were.

My objectives for this course were to make the student

1) feel secure
2) take 100% responsibility for their career
3) get a process orientation to move forward in their career

Being Secure:
To be secure in my definition is to be clear about what one knows and what one does not know. And to be ok with that. Most insecurity comes from the enormous effort of wanting to hide what we do not 'know' and pretending to 'know'. It's simpler to say 'I don't know' especially when we do not know, because it opens up a discussion, and answers and perspectives.

When we say 'I know' it ends the discussion, stops further learning. However when we say 'I don't know' it starts a discussion and there is stuff to learn. Even when we do know something, we only know a perspective, and we must welcome other perspectives and discussions to deepen our knowledge.

Being secure is to be comfortable not 'knowing', being ready to 'learn'. It's a simple shift in thinking that makes the student drop her insecurities and don the robe of a student.

Taking 100% Responsibility:
This means one takes complete responsibility for one's career. It includes one's efforts to learn, to get the best of the environment, to get the best out of the teachers and peers. It involves not giving excuses, not blaming others for anything - not even 1%. 100% responsibility simply means that one is completely free to choose one's method of learning, of charting one's course and following it wholeheartedly.

To take complete responsibility, is to be completely free. There's no one else to blame. Your mistakes, your learning is yours.

Process Orientation to Move Forward:
The path forward for the student after the course must lead in a direction that produces concrete results in the student's chosen path of performing, learning, teaching, research etc. The artist's vision is developed, the long term aspirations, medium and short term goals are set clearly. The path being established, the ways to achieve the goals are discussed. The right mindset to adopt to achieve their potential, process of preparation, the making of experts, the methods and tools of learning, basics of marketing management, financial management, event management, leadership, people skills, communication, negotiation skills, networking - give them enough tools to practice and take their career forward.

Practice: 

• Ask more questions.
• Catch yourself jumping to defend yourself, trying to prove you are right (can instead argue your case with a 'I feel...')
• Stop giving excuses, stop blaming. You are fully responsible for everything that happens to you. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, find ways to get the outcomes you desire.
• Try to figure out the process in all that is not going right, so you can control the process and get the desired result.