We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michael Polo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Michael, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.
In 2018, I decided to leave my Visiting Professorship position with the University of Florida, move to New Jersey, and pursue my business full-time, Partners for the Arts Abroad|LLC. This decision was the result of the several positions I held previously while pursuing my degrees over the course of fifteen years, most importantly, my role as President of Fine Arts College Council at the University of Florida.
At the time I decided to leave, my son was only two and my wife had a secure job. We had built the life we had been working on since we met more than 10 years prior. However, I knew if I had stayed at UF, I would be sitting in the same seat for the next 40 years and would be living a life of regret wondering, “what if I had decided to leave the security I had pursued and ventured into the real world of production and alternative education.”
What aided this decision was my tenure as President of the Fine Arts College Council at the University of Florida. In my first year at UF, pursuing my Ph. D., on a small assistantship, I was hit with a bill from Student Activities and Involvement, a group which collects fees from students to support student activities under the auspices of student government. I did the math across the 52,000 students on the campus and quickly realized the racket that was taking place. I called the Student Activities and Involvement Center and became aware of the mistakingly misplaced funds at a R1 university. Therefore, I decided to get involved and the following year, I had thirty organizations underneath of me, all within the confines of organizations affiliated with the College of the Arts which included music, theatre, art, literature, dance, and film. My sole responsibility was to provide leadership and funding to these organizations. Our budget allocated all of its funds for visiting guest artists, travel stipends for students for research activities, and special projects for productions and gear. To my dismay, I discovered that every faculty within the College of the Arts was happy with my activities, as we were often bringing in notable artists that outweighed the universities professors. I was often having to remind my student organizations that, “this is your money…not pond of cash for your professors to bring their friends to campus.” There were on a few occasions were I was confronted by a university professor about what how they thought the funds should be spent and my response was politely, “It is not your money.”
It was at this moment I discovered the value of visiting guest artists…and the thought occurred to me, “rather than bringing guests to us, lets go to them.” Hence the birth of Partners for the Arts Abroad|LLC in December of 2o15. Where the mission of the company is to provide access to art leaders and professional opportunities that individuals normally would not have access to. I am proud to say that more than 1,000 individuals from all four corners, different age demographics, and professional/artistic background of the world have passed through the Partners for the Arts Abroad programs and network.
Michael, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My business and brand is lies production and education by about unveiling the curtain of truth and providing young aspiring artists with opportunities the extend beyond a prescribed way of life. Therefore, young artists need to be encouraged to become their on producers. This is one item that all of my business associates encourage everyone coming through our programs, “learn to become your own producer.” However, there is one important caveat that we share with everyone…you will be more successful if you learn to produce someone else’s work rather than your own, it will only be a matter of time that your new selfless network will support your own creative projects.
In terms of the details:
how you got into your industry: Songwriter/composer
how you got into your business: The gardening work I use to do for my former teachers
Discipline: From my father
Craft: From my teachers
Products in education: www.viennasummermusic.com www.austriasummermusic.com www.spccfestival.com www.sofiasymphonicsummit.com www.londonsummermusictheatre.com www.lamusicindustry.com
Creative projects: You can hear my music and theatrical productions on request as they are in stages of crucial financial development.
I am proud of my network and the teams I have because it takes a team of inspired individuals to work hard with the promise of success at least 1 – 2 years in advance.
What are you most proud of…? The relationships I have with the networks I have established.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
In 2020, I had 60 productions scheduled around the world. COVID forced me to cancel all of these productions. One place where we were able to pivot was in 2021. It was unclear if we were going to be able to run the Vienna Summer Music Festival in Vienna, Austria. Therefore, my business partner, Vincent Connor and I were able to establish a strong connection with performing arts organizations in Florida and we were able to pivot the Vienna Summer Music Festival to St. Petersburg, Florida. The program was such a big success that we decided to run the program again in 2022 as well as in Vienna, Austria. This pivot provided a new network of individuals and established a US based program.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
Managing a team of individuals with a wide variety of personalities requires everyone on the team to be emotionally intelligent and committed to the service they are providing and the mission of the organization. In order to maintain a high level of morale, every member of the team must support each other and most importantly, not gossip about each others labor or differences in personalities. When individuals amongst a team begin to gossip, there will be a division and the team will not operate efficiently. When this begins, I address it immediately and when necessary I will mediate a discussion. If it persists and it is causing a detrimental effect on operations, then I unfortunately have to make a decision and make a cut where necessary. These kinds of decisions are never easy but sometimes it must be done in order operate effectively for the organization and it clients.
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Partners for the Arts Abroad | LLC