In his “surprising story about leading by listening,” Maestro Roger Nierenberg shares penetrating insights about leadership as learned from observing an orchestra at work.
In his recent book, Maestro (Portfolio, Oct. 2009), Nierenberg compiles leadership lessons that come from managers who have participated in his “Music Paradigm,” a management training activity he presents using a live orchestra as a demonstration tool.
Here are some of the leadership lessons that managers learn as they sit ‘inside the orchestra’ in the Music Paradigm program:
When Teamwork Is Deficient
Nierenberg asks the violins to play a passage, pointing out how all the bows change direction and angle at the same time. Then he said to the players, “Suppose, for some strange reason, that you’re tired of being part of the herd. This time, make up your own bowings.”
The group played the passage again, still correctly, but with a “hodgepodge of contradictory motions.” They still sounded like professional musicians, but with a certain loss of focus and expressive power.
That shows what can happen when every individual on the team is performing extremely well, but the teamwork is deficient, Nierenberg says. Sound familiar?
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You Have to Listen
Nierenberg asked one of the violinists what skills it took to play so well together, the way they did at first?
The violinist said, “First, you have to decide that you’re willing to go along with the rest. Then you have to listen very carefully to your colleagues, and find the way that you can contribute to the whole.”
“Wouldn’t it be more fun to do it ‘your way’?” Nierenberg asked.
“No, no, it was terrible when you asked us to do that,” she said. “I didn’t feel the support of the people around me, and I was no longer sure how to play. You see, we build off one another’s energy. When you have a group that’s well-disciplined in teamwork, it liberates you to do your best. Often, as an orchestra, we can rise to a level that’s much higher than I could achieve as an individual. When the orchestra plays really well, I feel privileged to be part of it, and I want to contribute.”
Now, that’s a teamwork attitude to strive for.
Only from the Podium Can You Hear It All
A woman was brought from the back of the room to listen from the podium. From the chair where she had been sitting, she said, she could only hear the instruments she was sitting next to, the French horns. “Up here at the podium,” she said, “you can hear everything.”
“It’s no accident—the entire room is set up that way,” Nierenberg says. “The podium is the place to which all information flows.”
Every organization has podiums, he notes. The important point is that from the podium you can see and hear to coordinate the actions of the group. It’s especially important to realize that the people in the chairs don’t have that view. They are like the woman sitting by the French horns. They can’t hear what you hear.
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Everyone Has to Abide by the Standards
Nierenberg’s next demonstration dealt with corporate standards. He asked the wind instruments (flutes, clarinets, trumpets, and French horns) to tune their instruments 1/4 step lower in pitch than normal. After a few moments to get used to it, they were able to play at the new pitch. But when he had them play together with the rest of the orchestra, which hadn’t retuned, the result was miserable.
“Yet,” Nierenberg points out, “all of the musicians were doing an outstanding professional job. This is the sound of an organization that can’t agree on the standards and processes to which it will adhere.”
In tomorrow’s Advisor, we’ll add a few more elements to the leader’s job description as seen by the Maestro, and we’ll take a look at an extraordinary program for dealing with all your job description challenges.
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