We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nicole Cacciavillano a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Nicole thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about your team building process? How did you recruit and train your team and knowing what you know now would you have done anything differently?
When I first started throwing events, I was also a teacher. So, like any teacher, I held internships and provided opportunities for people to come and learn about different parts of the music industry. I liked my interns green. It gave me an opportunity to really work with them, get to know each other on a personal level and share with them why I run my business the way that I do.. The majority of my current staff were interns 10 years ago. They did a good job and I noticed. What I noticed most wasn’t their ability to market themselves, but their interest in knowledge and their PASSION.
Building a team that understands your .mission and is just as passionate about seeing it through is crucial. A strong team is the foundation of any successful business. A strong team is built of trust and respect. It takes time and dedication. It is about people, relationships. Doing right so right will be returned to you.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
In 2007, I founded Sub.mission: a dubstep crew in Denver, CO motivated by “the potential for moving people through sound, not hype.” Sub.mission is responsible for over 15 Years of iconic dubstep and bass music events, including Electronic Tuesdays – Colorado’s longest running electronic music weekly.
In 2012, I created the Sub.mission Agency as a way to share Denver’s passion for the underground sound with the rest of the country. The independent agency paves an avenue for newcomers and niche artists to share their sounds with new and diverse audiences. Sub.mission can be credited for dubstep’s growing momentum across America.
I achieved a long-term dream-turned-goal of operating my own venue when The Black Box opened in November 2016. The 500-capacity sound system club is a powerful manifestation of the vision, moving people through sound, not hype. I have been committed to independent music and the community it fosters and keep that at the heart of the venue’s day-to-day operations.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
I believe in bringing people together who have complementary strengths and are allowed to do work that uses their respective strengths. When you get people to do more of what they are naturally good at, you work with people not against them. When you allow people to go where their natural gifts take them, they do all the running because they want to. You’ll quickly discover that people do what they love and love what they do. And, in performance terms, they’ll excel with surprising ease.
Most people do not know what they are naturally good at. They either don’t believe they are better at something than others, or they have been led to believe that they should be good at a range of things regardless of their personal talents. Awakening people to their inherent strengths can be an eye-opener for many people. In a time when the main competitive difference between organizations lies in the contribution of your people, it is one of the key duties of my role as a leader.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Many of us give the very best of who we are every day, yet all too often struggle to feel like our best is good enough. Understanding, and at times challenging our own expectations and perception of others’ expectations is key to identifying and transforming unrealistic expectations that compromise our ability to approach others
with compassion and extend that compassion to ourselves.
Self-expectations and the expectations placed upon us can be realistic or unrealistic, helpful or hurtful. When our expectations are made explicit and realistic, they can be the foundation for dreams, ideas, and possibilities. They can feed us, inspire us and help us to show up in our lives. If we are holding ourselves or someone else to an unrealistic standard, then we can learn to adjust these expectations. It is only when conscious of our expectations that we can examine how realistic they are. We can increase our compassion resilience by making a conscious effort to notice the “shoulds” in our life and the effect that such expectations may have on us. We must first notice and name our expectations if we are to better align them with reality. We may set more reasonable expectations of ourselves – and build more satisfying relationships with others- when we talk to people to clarify their expectations. Only with open lines of communication can we be clear about what the expectations are and whether we can reasonably meet them.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.blackboxdenver.co
// www.subdotmission.com - Instagram: @mz2phresh
- Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/Sub. missionDubstep - Linkedin: https://www.
linkedin.com/in/nicole- cacciavillano - Youtube: https://www.youtube.
com/c/Subdotmission
Image Credits
Carmen Adams