blueprints

Part 4
Bent nails
and short Boards
When Something Goes Wrong—And It Will
Of course, you want everything to go smoothly and well. But things do
go wrong. Both the important news and the good news is that an arts organization
is not a hospital. For us, a crisis involving injury or any kind of
life-threatening event is rare, though of course such an event can happen
at a poetry reading as easily as it can anywhere.
To handle a crisis at any level of importance, you need the ability to
make good judgment calls, which requires a level head. When you’re just
learning about a problem or already in the middle of one, your adrenalin is
high. Make the time to pause for a moment, take a deep breath, and calm
yourself. If you know you aren’t the calm person in your organization,
immediately call the person who is. It doesn’t hurt to designate an organizational
emergency point person in advance.
Consider first what category your emergency falls into: major or minor.
Does it require instant action, or do you have a bit of time for consider-
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