A fairly common metaphor in the realm of discussions about corporate leadership is comparing a CEO to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. Since I will be speaking to a group of CEO’s next month, and since I played for a jillion different conductors, it seemed timely to do a blog about it and organize my thoughts.
I have no problem with this comparative imagery per se, except that most of the people who use this metaphor have never actually played in a major symphony orchestra. There are also quite a few conductors who talk about leadership, but again… to my knowledge, none of them have ever played in a major symphony orchestra either.
So I thought I would take a moment to set the record straight, no pun intended.
A conductor acts as a typical leader in the sense that very often they put the whole show together. It’s their idea to have an orchestra in the first place, they go out and scare up the money, and . . . this last item is awfully important: they pick which piece the orchestra is going to play.
So the orchestra is on stage, the conductor gives an upbeat and a downbeat and… this is where the fabled two roads diverge in a yellow wood. I don’t wish to shock you or anything, but all conductors are not created equal.
Once the conductor/leader has gotten everyone together, and he/she has presented the goal (i.e., the piece we are going to play), and they have given the “start” signal, one of two things happens:
The vast majority of these conductors proceed to instruct and micromanage nonstop. They see their role as “master controller” and “noticer of errors.”
However, a small handful of conductors (and you have heard of all of them) do something completely different: They become a master appreciators. Their leadership ability lies in their ability to see the potential of the players in the orchestra, and the have the grace, faith, patience, and humility (and perhaps cunning) to stand aside and let the orchestra solve the complex problem of getting the piece played.
This second approach is ever so much easier, and so much more effective, and yet very few real-life maestros actually use it. This is not surprising, given that the first “high-control” approach listed above is how we train people to think. We train leaders constantly to think in terms of themselves. The leader is the primary problem solver. The leader must lead by example. The leader must this. A leader must that. The leader is the star. All things emanate from the leader, and nothing comes from a guy on the loading dock.
Just take a moment to think about your overall academic experience and ask yourself this simple question: how much time did you spend thinking about your grades and your personal advancement, versus how much time did you spend thinking about anyone else’s grades or personal advancement? I was relentlessly taught (as a music student) to make myself ever more perfect, and not once did any music class talk about customers or what the audience wanted. I had totally narcissistic teachers telling me to be the same as them. It was all about me, me, me, but in my humble opinion, to be an effective leader or manager, you have to be able to stand in someone else’s shoes and see things from their point of view. In my limited experience, I have found that this broader view is rarely, if ever, taught anywhere. It was exceptionally rare that I encountered a conductor who even thought about the notion that a lowly bass player like me might have something to offer other than obedience.
Anyway, if you reverse-engineer the above-mentioned common leader-as-star management style a little bit, you discover that people who sell leadership training are obliged by economic necessity to exploit the natural narcissism and fear of looking stupid that plagues so many of us. The end result is a heightened level of self-consciousness, as opposed to just… consciousness.
Believe it or not, I actually wanted to play my best for every single conductor I encountered. I did not get paid more money for better playing, but believe me, playing a great concert was a lot more fun than playing a lousy one. However, the sad simple fact was, a lot of these conductors simply prevented me from doing so. Here I was, a pretty darn good bass player, and after decades of study and experience, and thousands of hours of practicing, I pretty much knew how the part “should go.” But instead of focusing on making a better experience for the audience, most of the time I had to tread very carefully, and spend most of my energy on fulfilling the conductor’s need for attention and sense of control.
And here is something else I have not thought about in years: The majority of conductors would actually get extremely confused by the enormous amount of information and emotional energy that was was swirling all around them. Their “must maintain control” training made them react by slowing the tempo, lowering the overall volume (this was referred to as “getting the palm”), and just generally restricting the amount of emotional energy being expressed. In order to feel that they were “in command,” the average wannabe Maestro would actually repress, rather than exploit, all of the massive capabilities around them. I am not kidding. And of course, this repression of energy made the concerts much less exciting.
This is where the Principles of Applied Stupidity are so important. I confess I kind of sort of approached this book as a bit of a gag, but the fear of looking stupid has a lot to do with the fear of the loss of control, and it is important for a leader to overcome that fear. The best conductors all handed control of the piece over to the orchestra. They knew that we knew “how it goes,” and if left to our own devices, and if we were just generally praised and appreciated by an authority figure, we would do our absolute best.
One of the main Principles of Applied Stupidity is, “let other people solve the problem,” and the best conductors put their own problem-solving ego aside and deferred to the superior problem-solving capability of a hundred highly trained individuals.
To my knowledge, my presentations are the only ones where anyone will tell you to be a superior leader by thinking less and doing less. It may not puff up your sense of self-importance, but 18 years in the trenches of the Boston Pops bass section taught me that it works.
© Justin Locke
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