[originaltext] Interview with Nick Ularu About leadership and team buil

Interview with Nick Ularu About leadership and team building in arts and culture
Reporter: Welcome Nick, our audience must be eager to know your ideas about leadership and teambuilding in arts and culture.
Nick: Thanks. I think everybody who wants to pursue a successful career, specially in the arts, have to consider himself/herself a world citizen from the beginning. I think one of the most dangerous notions in the contemporary society is the provincialism. I was trying always to keep my Romanian roots but I felt always the need to connect myself with what’s happen in the world. I can understand the fears of loosing the identity but due to the development of the technology and information it is practically impossible to ignore some of the advantages of the scary globalization.
Reporter: But now, because we got together again here, in this amazing and--I might say--unbelievable country such as
the USA, let’s talk a little about your experience here, first. Then, because I know that you are teacher and a set designer in the same time, maybe you can tell me how you can handle this.
Nick: I had a cultural choke in my first six months in the USA. It is hard to accept that the American administration doesn’t subsidize the arts as the majority of the European governments do, specially because the USA is the most developed country in the world. It is amazing to see an artist as Robert Wilson doing his experimental projects in Europe, with European money, with budgets one cannot dream to have here in the USA outside of the entertainment industry, and coming to present these performances in the USA. Speaking about evil, it is still hard for me to associate the concept of industry with the concept of arts, like the film industry or entertainment industry. I was wondering always if directors like Fellini or Bergman would exist or survive as artists in the American film industry, and how their films will look like. Thanks God, the American art survive based on the private sponsorship and on the artists ambitions and frustrations.
Reporter: Is your career as a teacher helping the artistic side?
Nick: To be honest it was more easy to handle this in Europe. My career as a teacher is occupying almost all my time over the academic year. It is frustrating to refuse some of the project proposals just because I don’t have the physical time to do it.
   But this was always a major problem for me. I think I need more lives to do what I want to do or at least days of 36-48 hours. I like teaching because I have the feeling that keeps me young...
   Working with young artists is as wonderful and painful as the love is. I hate teaching in an environment where there are more concerns about the politics, political correctness, power, etc. than education.
Reporter: Do you feel that your students are going to become your followers? What is your teaching technique, basically? Is it just listen to me, and do that or the far more difficult. Let’s see what you have to say about the issue?
Nick: MY philosophy of teaching is that the students must be the followers of their own talents, not mine. All I try to do is to develop their own personality, to make them open and confident in their powers. In my opinion a teacher must be first of all, honest with his/her students. One cannot do education by pleasing always your students in order to have good evaluations for your tenure.
Reporter: What about the teamwork both in classes and at the theatre- is something different from other countries, in term of relationship between the members?
Nick: The teamwork is crucial in the theatre. One cannot do theatre without collaboration and discipline. What about actors coming late to the performances they are involved in? What about not having the costumes or sets in time? Every aspect of the theatre production is as important as the entire production. We can easily transgress this to a teamwork. Actually I will suggest theatre classes/notions to any business school.
Reporter: How do you see yourself as a leader? Do you think that this should be a natural ability, or something you can learn in time? What is your greatest quality as a leader? When and how did you realize that about yourself?.
Nick: I’ve been in this position for some many years at different levels and I can say by my experience that the leadership is not for everybody. Actually I think that the worst work situations are created by the people who have the power but are not leaders. You can find a lot of books teaching you to improve your career, to become a millionaire, to become a leader or to loose 20 pounds by night. But how many people become millionaires by reading those books ? I truly believe that you can learn a lot of tricks on how to deal with people/situations but a really leader is born, not made from books. Speaking about myself I think one of the qualities I tried to improve in time is to see the situation I am dealing with, from different perspectives. As much as I’m getting older as much I begun to be less radical in my opinions.
Reporter: There is a theory, saying: "no matter how Well people are doing, they can do better." I remember that you use to have something very similar to me as a student: you have to create crises and than to hit the bottom of it, in order to get further and create something. Do you still stand by it? What do you think about changes?
Nick: Yes, I still think that in order to get further and create something, it doesn’t matter what, you have to evaluate, where you are, what are your week points, what you have to achieve, etc. It is not necessary to pass through a crisis situation or to hit the bottom, it is necessary to understand your potential, even if you like it or not, and to keep a positive/constructive attitude.