When I got into being a speaker, there was one nagging question that I relentlessly sought to answer: why were some of the conductors I played for in the Pops so much better than others? Seemed like a worthwhile study in effective leadership.
There was another odd bit of data that I was constantly gnawing on: there was no such thing as an “almost great” conductor. They were either absolutely fabulous, or they were mediocre. There was no middle.
Finally, in writing my most recent book, “Getting in Touch with Your Inner Rich Kid,” I have finally stumbled upon the answer.
In the book, I compare my “poor kid” school and “rich kid” school experiences. One of the biggest differences was the study halls. In the poor kid school, we were stuck in study halls when we did not have class. And the rich kid school, there were no study halls. It was assumed that everyone would find a comfortable spot in a lounge and do their studying there.
So in the poor kid school environment, there was a presumption of laziness. There was tremendous emphasis on having control over a class of kids. There was also tremendous emphasis on the elimination of mistakes. This culture of “poor kid” school learning (which I sometimes refer to as “classroom conditioning”) is pretty much the model for the majority of public schools. There is a presumption that you can’t trust the students, that the teacher must motivate them… and of course we have to have “accountability” via standardized tests.
So, back in Symphony Hall, we would occasionally have conductors come in who pretty much saw themselves as a musical form of a standard schoolteacher. They emphasized their authority and centralized control, they felt it was their job to motivate us beyond bland disinterest, and they were constantly on the lookout for mistakes to correct.
The trouble was, the musicians in the Pops are all crazed fanatics. I personally spent something like 5000 hours in stuffy little practice rooms in order to have the extraordinary privilege of playing that orchestra. So the group, as a whole, was already highly motivated. Furthermore, mistakes were exceedingly rare, and when they did occur, they were self-correcting.
Sad to say, the conductors who saw themselves as bureaucrats in a system of hierarchical authority were so immersed in that system that they did not know any other way to function. And since they were in a leadership role, we found we had to somehow adjust to them, and we would always end up mirroring that energy back to them.
On the other hand, the star conductors understood that all that fabulous potential energy was pre-existing within the orchestra. They knew that their job was simply to offer the perception and recognition that all these hard-working players were so eager to get.
The latter seems very simple, but it’s actually very hard to put that much trust in that many people, especially with so much on the line. If you’ve been immersed in a “non-trust” system all your life, it’s very hard to completely reverse that energy. It is also hard to just accept that much wealth coming at you (without asking, ‘what’s the catch?”) if you are not used to it. This requires optimism and trust. The ones who had the guts to toss all their training and go with trusting the orchestra were the ones who made it to the bigtime. It was seldom a question of musical talent.
Virtually all of the “non-trust” system conductors found that they were much happier going back to a school / civic orchestra environment, where there are lots of mistakes to catch and lots of disengaged players/students to try to motivate.
This is not just about music. If you are a CEO with 30,000 employees, you have to be able to trust them. If you assume they are all out to do the company harm, your policing efforts will ruin your company morale, just as I saw it happen in an orchestra.
This issue of trust vs. non-trust approaches to life is only one chapter of the new book . . but it’s an important one. In retrospect, it was obvious that in the rich kid school, there is tremendous emphasis on developing trust. And it was not blind trust in distant authority; no, you were very carefully taught to trust people who were trustworthy, and to place trust in yourself. And in the poor kid school, there was tremendous emphasis on mistrust, both of your peers and of yourself.
Trust is kind of important, because the entire monetary system is based on it. It certainly makes sense that poor people have very little trust, and rich people have tons of it. The best conductors were able ot accept the enormous wealth we musicians were eager to give them. The non-trust conductors assumed we were trying to do them harm. Sometimes we would accommodate them, it seemed to make them happy.
© Justin Locke
ps fyi I survived hurricane Sandy– 4 days without power but finally back on line!
