The Conductor doesn't Make a Sound

[Itay Talgam: Lead like the great conductors, TED 23:24]

The conductor who recognizes he doesn't need to make a sound can focus on making other people powerful. This is a lesson out of Ben Zander's playbook, and one today's leaders would be well served paying attention to. Unless the conductor constantly connects his effectiveness as a leader to how others are playing, he's likely to blame his players when things go badly.

Managers need to internalize this lesson -- if your people feel engaged, energetic, and connected, they'll likely feed you information that's valuable to you as a leader.

Also, many managers often plow ahead with what they know becoming prescriptive with their teams, as in this is what you need to do, this is how you do it, and so on. This undermines the confidence of the players, and eventually cuts any innovation or diversity of approaches from the ensemble and the results.

Not to mention that players are much better at collaborating when they are finding their own rhythm to do so. This and some others were the key take aways from the styles illustrated by Itay Talgam in this TED video:

• Happiness and joy are about other people's stories - the audience, those unseen
• Let it happen by itself - don't interfere
• Become a partner in motivation - when it's needed, authority is there
• Being in control in a very special way - the conductor creates a process and also the conditions under which the process plays out
• The player is telling the story
• Doing without doing it

The part about clear instructions and sanction, well, I confess that gave me a little pause. I've always worked best in a more collaborative environment, which may be the reason why social media suits me. What do you think? Aside from loving the video, as I know you will.

Comments

[Brian Driggs]

I *love* this post.

We are the conductors. We lead the conversation as keepers of the interview questions. Our questions evolve over time as we become more intimately familiar with the community. We must make sure the various parts of the project work in harmony - keeping the pipeline full of leads, sticking to our timeline of a new story every Monday morning, and presenting the stories in a consistently high quality manner. We are nothing without the enthusiasts willing to participate in the process and share their stories with us and they are better represented by having a structure to keep their performance consistent.

Without the orchestra, the conductor is just a character waving a stick. The orchestra might be able to carry a tune just fine without a conductor, but when they work together...

[Peter]

Thanks Valeria (a lovely 20 minutes)

I hear/see something different.

For me conductors make silence - what we hear as music is the resistances of mastered note(s)against mastered silence.

Of course I have no idea (and I was waiting for this to be raised) but I like the notion that the conductor's instrument is the silence and the patience to break it with all the orchestra's art.

Peter

By the way, may be in your part of the world wide woods in September.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Brian - glad you enjoyed the post. I LOVED the video, so that came across in my thinking and post. The whole idea is so contrary to what many experience at work that it by and large remains a distant dream. That's right, without the orchestra, the conductor is just a character waving a stick. What a privilege waving that stick is!

@Peter - if only.

[Carey Giudici]

Thanks Valeria,

I've been recommending this video to many friends. The great conductor relinquishes ownership. This makes him or her a leader, and adds value to every activity. Same with any other leader too.

A link to your piece will be in my WP blog, bit.ly/cdAUG and my next weekly newsletter, bit.ly/2rRLWd. Keep up the great work!

[Valeria Maltoni]

Thank you, Carey. Glad the video was an inspiration. I've been following the work of great conductors for several years now, so it resonated with me.