Biggest Challenges Faced By A Senior Manager Strategy And Special Projects At Professional City Orchestra
Kevin's role as Senior Manager, Strategy & Special Projects at the Professional City Orchestra presents challenges inherent to a position "not critical to the day-to-day," requiring skill in navigating competing priorities and resource constraints within a fast-paced environment. Success hinges on "speaking the language" of various teams, understanding their work, and prioritizing effectively while minimizing disruption to their core responsibilities.
Executive/Leadership, Project Management, Communication, Problem-Solving, Teamwork
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Kevin Ma
Sr. Manager, Strategy & Special Projects
Professional City Orchestra
The University of Texas at Austin, 2014
MBA - UCLA Anderson School of Management
Business Management & Admin
Arts, Entertainment & Media
Business Strategy
Immigrant
Video Highlights
1. Balancing competing priorities and resource constraints while working across different teams.
2. Effective communication and collaboration are crucial to getting buy-in from various teams.
3. Understanding the nuances of each team's work and aligning project needs with their day-to-day responsibilities is critical for success.
Transcript
What are some of the biggest challenges that come with being a senior manager of strategy and special projects?
The way I think about that is very much tied to the title. Part of the challenge of being in a role that isn't critical to the day-to-day is that we're not involved with putting on concerts or music events.
Even though a lot of our work is important for the sustainability and future viability of the organization, we often rely on teams for their time and need to work with them. However, we're frequently asking them to do things that take away from what's critical to putting on a concert that night.
So for me, it's about speaking the language of every functioning organization. It also requires the ability to quickly pick up and understand what they do. This allows me to say, "Here's where I can help with your work, and here's what I need from you." Being able to meet people where they are is probably the biggest challenge.
Even though we work in the arts and nonprofit industry, it's still a fast-paced environment. In a resource-constrained world, it's about prioritizing intensely. It's also about maximizing our time while making things as easy as possible for other teams.
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