Only Human
By Betsey Nash, SPHR

It’s hard to be a public figure, even a little one. When I had a radio talk show in the late 1980s I would be recognized by my voice a couple of times a week.
The ego loves it, to a point. Said point was it happened often while I was in line at the market on a weekend, scruffy as heck, no make-up, about as far from the articulate, outgoing radio persona as I could get. I just knew someone wanted to say, after meeting me, “Oh, now I see why you’re in radio.”
I’ve been reflecting on our small town dynamics since I heard that the contract with Conductor and Musical Director of the SLO Symphony, Michael Nowak, was terminated in secret, with a misleading press release, and bungled communication with the orchestra members.
I’ve concluded it is hard to be the employer of a public figure, too. Just ask the City of SLO’s City Manager, Katie Lichtig, how much fun it’s been to place Police Chief Steve Gesell on administrative leave, while the whole city wants to know why.
The City, of course, is a public agency, expected to conduct business in a transparent way that welcomes inquiries and opinions from citizens. The Symphony is (merely) a well-loved community institution, but it has responsibilities to its donors to act with integrity, if not complete transparency.
So what do these institutions do when they come up against the public/donors’ demand for full disclosure and the requirement that personnel matters are confidential — as they should be? They dance.
As for the Symphony, they either misled the community or someone at The Tribune misinterpreted the press release. “Stepped down” is not the same as “contract severed.”
If the Symphony Board was trying to help Nowak save face, they should have gotten his permission first, and a signed agreement that he would not disclose the real reason for the termination. Of course, he says he doesn’t even know the real reason.
Not having access to the Board, I have to speculate, like everyone else, about that “real” reason: Was he, as someone heard, spending too much money on guest artists, without permission and beyond his budget?
Was it a “programming disagreement,” as I have also heard? Or did he do something unacceptable enough that the Board determined that the lesser of PR evils was to tick off the community and let him go?
Was something — anything — the last straw? In the absence of information, we make up stories.
In the HR biz, we sometimes don’t tell people the real reason they are being let go. But the employee usually knows on some level what it’s about — finances, job performance, policy violation, or philosophical differences?
It has long been an HR rule that the employee should not be surprised by the reason.
The employer should have laid the groundwork in some fashion, either with counseling, discipline, performance evaluations, and/or plain old discussions of the situation, whatever it may be.
To the Symphony Board’s credit, it is not explaining. I know it’s hard for the rest of us, but it really is none of our business. I would feel better if I were convinced Nowak knew the reason.
I was a member of the Symphony Board of Directors that hired him 31 years ago. Much as we are attached to him, it is a private, personnel manner.
By the way, unlike most non-profit organizations, where the Board hires only the executive director who then hires everybody else, with artistic organizations like the Symphony, the Board hires both the artistic director and the executive director.
The musical director hires and supervises the musicians, which is why they are feeling so betrayed.
Last weekend at a fundraiser in Los Osos, the woman taking my ticket recognized my voice the minute I said “Hello” — 25 years after I went off the air! Since I looked pretty good, it was a gratifying moment. But it has been a long time since I was on the radio and the Symphony Board. I only know one of the current members, barely, and I would not presume to ask for details.
Dave Congalton, who took over my radio show those many years ago, interviewed Nowak on last Monday’s show, and called on me to “step forward, out of the limelight and begin a private outreach to… see if whatever differences… can be resolved professionally.”
I’m here as an HR professional if the Board is interested. But I don’t dance.

Betsey Nash, SPHR, has a long history of community volunteer work, starting 33 years ago with the SLO Symphony and the Land Conservancy Boards of Directors. She is a senior certified human resources professional and former radio talk show host. “Only Human” is a regular feature of Tolosa Press.