The Grandin Lesson: Who's in charge?

I shot this photo is of the final night of operation of the Grandin Theatre before it was re-opened under the Foundation in 2002.

FRONT Opinion

By DAN SMITH

A nasty personnel dispute that spills over into a public relations nightmare is the type of embarrassment that any non-profit organization would look upon with a kind of bone-chilling dread. But that is exactly what happened with the previously squeaky-clean-appearing Grandin Theatre in January, bringing up serious questions about who’s in charge.

The Grandin, an independent specialty-movie house in Roanoke, is structured to be operated through the Grandin Theatre Foundation with Executive Director Kathy Chittum in charge of daily operations. She reports to the board. Below her was General Manager Jason Garnett, a popular, hands-on figure, who was often given much of the credit for the Grandin’s success. Chittum fired Garnett a couple of days ago for reasons that she refused to explain even to the board—which has several new members and has had considerable turnover in its eight years. Chittum told the board that the firing was “a personnel matter” and that it was, essentially, her call.

The firing caused a public outcry. Chittum, whom I have known and liked for years (I was on the original board), would not speak to me about the firing. According to board members, she told the gathered group to ignore the protests and calls for boycott because it was just an Internet row that would blow over quickly. The board, weakened over the years and compliant, went along. Many of the members apparently didn’t even know what questions to ask.

The details of the Grandin’s public embarrassment aren’t nearly as relevant here as the case is instructive to all non-profit boards of directors and executives who work at their direction. “Who’s in charge?” is often a nagging, troubling question after years of board turnover and it is a question that must be asked on a regular basis. It should immediately follow the question, “What is our mission?”

The Grandin could have avoided the black eye it has received simply by having the firing—the equivalent of a CEO firing a CFO in this case—reviewed by an executive committee and giving the parties a complete hearing. Non-profits in general and the Grandin in particular (it was re-opened in 2002 after a large public fund-raising campaign) are public trusts and must be operated openly, without the slightest hint that they belong to anyone other than the public stakeholders.

The Grandin’s case is a classic in how to turn a difficult situation—the firing of a popular and valued employee—into a PR nightmare that could threaten public support and, thus, public funding. That threat is not one an organization like the Grandin can afford, operating, as it does, on thin margins. An organization like this simply cannot afford to lose, say five percent of its base support because of a personnel dispute.

Look back at the dissolution of Mill Mountain Theatre a year ago. A situation much like the Grandin ugliness (the firing of popular Pat Wilhelms, who ran children’s programming) brought into public view the weakness of its board of directors and led to the closing of the theater when serious financial problems were made public. MMT lost crucial public support when an imperious executive director wound up with mud on his face and the face of a beloved organization.

Both of these mini-scandals should be instructive to non-profit boards and executives who need constant reminders of their responsibilities not only to each other, but also to the public. Service on these boards is not simply a line on your resume; it is a public trust with responsibility to independently understand how the organization runs and who is in charge of what. Executive directors must be responsible to the board for every decision they make every day and must not be allowed to explain any decision as being made because that’s “the way we do it here” or to simply say “that’s a personnel decision and the board doesn’t need to be involved.”

When the future of the organization, its public personae and its reputation are at stake, the board has the duty to be involved in the decision, no matter how apparently niggling and meddlesome that may appear. The public properly expects public organizations to be run openly and with accountability, honesty and integrity.

That does not appear to be the case with the Grandin—whether or not it actually is—and a valued Roanoke treasure could be imperiled because of weak-kneed, un-informed compliance by the board.