As you reflect on the past year, I want to encourage you to look beyond the next twelve months and begin to develop a Long-Term Vision for your ensemble. Creating a long-term vision is the first step to truly transforming your ensemble and leading them into the next phase of their journey.
Taking the time to develop a long-term vision, moves you from being reactive in your planning process to truly being proactive in the development of your program. A reactive mindset is when a director is trying to put out fires and struggling to find the right path for the ensemble. This mindset limits growth and increases the director’s stress.
Most short-term plans come from limiting the scope of your vision to a concert cycle, music assessment or the marching season. These plans often lead to inconsistent decision making from year to year, a lack of continuity in repertoire choices, and inconsistent results in recruitment and retention. As a result, directors experience more stress from a constant sense of urgency and unclear priorities. All of this is a recipe for burnout!
When you take time to think about where you want your ensemble to be in five years, you can begin to make better choices about the repertoire you choose, the interactions you have with your administration, and the plan you develop for long-term recruitment and retention.
So, what’s the first step in developing a Five-Year Vision?
First, begin to think about your ideal program. What does it look like? How many students are enrolled? How many ensembles are you leading? What type of repertoire are they performing (be specific: list some pieces of music you would like to conduct in five years)? What type of support do you have in place for your program (boosters, alumni, community support)? What type of relationship do you have with your administration?
Take a few minutes to really answer these questions and develop the “ideal ensemble”. This is the vision for your program!
The next step is to take an assessment of your current situation. Where is your ensemble currently? By listing where you want to be and where you currently are, you can begin to formulate a path to get your ensemble to that destination.
Now, you can begin to make long-term decisions about your program.
Musicianship: Instead of programming for each concert cycle, ask yourself what pieces would help move my ensemble closer to perform the repertoire I want to play in five years? You will begin to teach musicianship skills through performance and repertoire. The repertoire will help you identify areas of weakness, so you plan warmups and exercises to develop the skills they need to be successful.
Growth: With your vision of the future ensemble, you can break down what continued growth looks like over the next five years. 20% growth year-over-year will double the size of your current program. 10% growth year-over-year will increase a program of 60 ensemble members to over 90. Knowing where you want to be will allow you to find out why students are leaving the program and begin problem-solving strategies to decrease your attrition rate. You can effectively measure the number of students you need to recruit for the following year.
Community Support: Knowing where you want to be and where you currently are allows you to focus on developing stronger relationships with key stakeholders in the boosters, alumni, and community. Developing these relationships and sharing your vision for the ensemble will allow them to buy into the process of developing a support network.
Administrative Support: This is more than just the budget requests each year. The relationship you have with your admin will determine what you are able to accomplish in terms of travel, scheduling as the program grows, and creating new initiatives for your students. Developing a relationship with your administration is knowing what they want to accomplish and sharing how your program can help them with parent involvement, student leadership and growth, positive community awareness and more. Begin taking steps to build a mutually beneficial relationship with your administrators.
Developing a long-term vision for the ensemble isn’t just necessary for the growth and stability of the program, it is an essential responsibility as the leader of the ensemble. As you begin to reflect and think about what is next, I want to encourage you to look beyond the end of the school year and truly define where you want your program to be in the future.
