Brent Reidy is the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries at New York Public Library, where he oversees four libraries, 450 staff, and 50 million items. Before that, he spent nearly a decade as an arts consultant and several years leading the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. He’s seen a lot of institutions from the inside, and he chooses his words carefully.

I recently sat down with him for an episode of Arts Unscripted and near the end of our conversation, he dropped this gem:

“Great art does not require a trail of misery. And if your perfect concert exhausted your staff, it wasn’t a perfect concert.”

To say that resonated deeply would be an understatement. And when put so directly, I hope most leaders and teams would agree: obviously true.

So why don’t we act like it?