9 Reasons a Theatre Degree Trumps a Business Degree
A friend of mine penned this article back in 2013 and I never go to an interview without it.
When you hold a creative arts degree, there's always a concern that you won't be taken seriously in the business world. I believe that this article lays out exactly why theatre degree holders have some of the best business minds in the country.
"There IS no weakness in having a theatre background. There is only strength. Here are just a few skills that a theatre degree gave me that have served me enormously well in business:
1. You have advanced critical thinking and problem solving skills: taking a script and translating it into a finished production is a colossal exercise in critical thinking. You have to make tremendous inferences and intellectual leaps, and you have to have a keen eye for subtle clues. (Believe it or not, this is a skill that very few people have as finely honed as the theatre people I know. That’s why I listed it #1).
2. You’re calm in a crisis: You’ve been on stage when somebody dropped a line and you had to improvise to keep the show moving with a smile on your face, in front of everyone. Your mic died in the middle of a big solo musical number. You just sang louder and didn’t skip a beat.
3. You understand deadlines and respect them: Opening Night is non-negotiable. Enough said.
4. You have an eye on audience perception: You know what will sell tickets and what will not. This is a very transferrable skill, and lots of theatre people underestimate this, because they think of theatre as an ART, and not as a BUSINESS. I frequently say (even to MBA-types) that theatre was absolutely the best business education I could have gotten. While the business majors were buried in their books and discussing theory, we were actually SELLING a PRODUCT to the PUBLIC. Most business majors can get through undergrad (and some MBA programs, even) without ever selling anything. Theater departments are frequently the only academic departments on campus who actually sell anything to the public. Interesting, isn’t it?
5. You’re courageous: If you can sing “Oklahoma!” in front of 1,200 people, you can do anything.
6. You’re resourceful: You’ve probably produced “The Fantasticks” in a small town on a
$900 budget. You know how to get a lot of value from minimal resources.
7. You’re a team player: You know that there are truly no small roles, only small actors. The show would fail without everyone giving their best, and even a brilliant performance by a star can be undermined by a poor supporting cast. We work together in theatre and (mostly) leave our egos at the stage door. We truly collaborate.
8. You’re versatile: You can probably sing, act, dance. But you can also run a sewing machine. And a table saw. And you’ve probably rewired a lighting fixture. You’ve done a sound check. You’re good with a paintbrush. You’re not afraid to get your hands dirty for the benefit of the show. In short, you know how to acquire new skills quickly.
9. You’re flexible: you’ve worked with some directors who inspired you. Others left you flat, but you did the work anyway. Same goes with your fellow actors, designers, and stagehands… some were amazing and supportive, others were horrible and demoralizing to work with (we won’t name names). You have worked with them all. And learned a little something from every one of them."
How To Buy a Candy Bar: Addressing the Soft Skills Gap
Welcome to How to Buy a Candy Bar 101. I have a theory, and I'd like to share it with you.
As adults, we don’t realize how the little things we learned as children have contributed to our behavior and success in the workplace. I’m going to tell you a story and then lay out the relevance to the current soft skills gaps in the workplace.
When I was about 10 years old, I always wanted to go get candy with my best friend and we would do that on occasion.
I was reminiscing with her about our trips to the store when it hit me that this process is completely gone. Because of safety, the internet, and your basic helicopter parenting, things have changed.
Back then, the journey to the store was a serious trek and involved a LOT of work.
First, we had to figure out how we were going to get the money. Of course, we started off by asking mom, who always said no, but we had to try, right?
After she said no, then it was a mad dash to search every pocket, bowl, vase, and surface for loose change. We would also raid the ‘penny bag’ if we were desperate.
Once we had the money, we walked to the store. It was about a 20-minute walk from her street to the store. We went down peaceful, tree-lined streets and 4-lane booming metropolitan thru-ways. It was like playing Frogger, but with real people and lots of cars.
Once we got to the store, we could get the regular/lame candy on the floor, like Good and Plenty’s or Snickers, but the good stuff, like malt balls, Turtles, and giant gobstoppers were behind the counter. So, we had to face the candy keeper and ask him to get us what we wanted. We also had to calculate how much of our favorites we could afford because the good stuff was always weighed on a scale.
After we got our candy, we were off to check out at another counter where we had to talk to the money man and count our change out for him. And finally, the 20-minute walk home.
We would always sit beneath a tiny tree in her front yard and enjoy our candy score.
Now, let’s look at the average candy trip for a kid today.
I’m thinking of my niece. She would log on to Amazon and hit a button – or she’d ask my sister to buy the candy bar at the store and that was it. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just how the world changed.
Here’s the important part.
What I listed above for my candy trip was learning how to negotiate, how to have situational awareness, performing several calculations, and a lesson in how to creatively find and make a dollar last.
These are tiny things that older people did as children. But, when you add in screens, all the conveniences of online ordering and delivery, and issues of the modern world, those experiences just aren’t happening.
Playing outside is a similar experience. Kids just don’t play outside alone very much for safety reasons - not to mention the fact that they have more than 3 channels on TV.
I can’t count how many times I got lost in my own neighborhood or explored a friend’s neighborhood just to have something to do. We would even play with the neighborhood kids simply because they were outside and available.
These little experiences built over time taught me how to do a few key things.
- Learn and read my environment
- Negotiate and interact with strangers
- Work with people I might not like too much (the neighbors were really weird!)
- Analyze and determine when a situation was safe or not safe
- Determine who to ask for help and whom I could trust
Now, let’s look at the top skills missing in the workplace today. This is according to Fortune Magazine's analysis from May of 2023.
Half of the top 10 skills missing are soft skills.
- Creative thinking
- Analytical thinking
- Technological literacy
- Curiosity and lifelong learning
- Resilience, flexibility, and agility
- Systems thinking
- A.I. and big data
- Motivation and self-awareness
- Talent management
Can you see the correlation? In my opinion, more than a few of these are directly related to my adventures in purchasing candy and playing outside.
I think part of the issue is that not having these interactions is causing part of the soft skills gap that we're experiencing.
But what parent in their right mind would ever think “I have to teach my kid how to buy a candy bar today?
So, what can we do about it?
With kids, we can be aware that they need to have these experiences to grow into adults who can think critically and creatively. This will help them work with and lead people they don’t know or don’t like.
Let them learn how to fail. Let them handle their own purchases in stores – even if you are standing there for moral support. Encourage them to entertain themselves without a screen.
For those in the workplace now?
We all just need a little understanding of the fact that you might have to teach someone ‘how to buy a candy bar.”
Be patient and realize that the some of the younger generations aren’t lacking, they just never had to learn this stuff.
They can teach us so much as technology whizzes by and we can teach them the skills that you learned without even knowing it.
There’s a bit of a ‘generation war’ right now. GenZ created the ‘OK boomer’ moniker, GenX throws shade at millennials all the time, and Boomers don’t seem to like anyone.
Rather than complaining about the other generations and their perceived shortcomings, why don’t we lift each other up? We can help each other, improve our culture and productivity, and close that skills gap.
What's your opinion? Did you learn how to buy a candy bar?