When I used to hire musicians to play in recording sessions, I never auditioned anybody. Instead, I used trust. I would ask other musicians, that i knew well and trusted, for their recommendations. They never steered me wrong. But just to make sure, I double checked their recommendations against the recommendations of other people that I also trusted. I got, I kid you not, 100% good results. The only time I had to fire someone was when I ignored these trusted advisors and put too much trust in my own perceptions alone.
I do remember one day when someone was trying to “get on my list.” It was a young violinist, and out of th blue she sent me her resume with all her academic credentials listed. I almost did NOT hire her because of this act; this person clearly did not understand that certifications from people unknown to me were worthless. You get first-time hires in the freelance music biz solely on peer recommendations, and the implication that she thought I would accept the recommendations of strangers who themselves were not good enough to be hired for a high end gig like this made me question her sense of how the business really worked. In other words, I did not know if I could trust her.
Degrees by themselves, to me and I think increasingly to most people, have very little meaning. Ask yourself, when you see “a degree,” does this automatically make you trust that person? I have known people in the music business who had PhD’s from prestigious universities,and I do not exaggerate one bit, they were totally incompetent. One guy was tone deaf, another could not comprehend 5/8 time. These people were employed as music teachers at high school and university level as well. Once this incompetence gets on the faculty, how you even begin to trust any certifications from such an institution?
More and more I am focusing (as a speaker/ consultant / iconoclastic thinker) on the issue of trust. This is what really matters in any organization or relationship, or society as a whole. Trust is hard. Trust takes guts. It takes trial and error. It’s easily lost. It’s what makes a brand. And it was the expert management of mutual trust that made the great conductors great. –jl
