Lessons from conductors – musings about modern managers

Modern managers deal with a challenge. Mangers have to manage people who know more than they do. In the past, the manager was someone who did the job and was promoted to the management role. That meant that he usually had superior professional knowledge and could teach his employees how to practice the profession.

In many of today’s jobs, that is not the case anymore. Specialization and specific knowledge are commonplace and even if a manager knows about a specific profession, the speed in which profession change and evolve do not allow managers to keep this advantage for long. That is why managers need to learn how to manage people who are more proficient in doing their job then they are. And there are many professions from which mangers can learn how to do that. The profession of a conductor is one of them.

A conductor manages an orchestra to do a task. Create music. He knows and understands music. Perhaps he can play a few instruments. But he cannot do what the musicians in his orchestra are doing. I doubt that every conductor can play every instrument in the orchestra. And like a modern manager, even if he did, he could not do complete the task, the music, alone. He has to rely on his team. He has to facilitate the creation of music.

That is why I think the above TED talk by Itay Talgam is so insightful to modern mangers. By giving examples from famous conductors, Talgam exposes us to different method of management for modern team. As usual, I don’t want to ruin the entire talk for you, as it is a magnificent talk. I just want to point out a few messages I especially liked:

If you are a manger and you wake up every day depressed to go to work you should know something is wrong. If you don’t find joy in working with people, in trying to help them excel, then you are probably in the wrong role. The joy in management is found in enabling others to feel the joy of work all the time. How can you enable them to feel joy? Help them find flow; help them use their strengths a higher percentage of the day. Help them develop personally.  

A manger leads his team, not by control or authority, but by being there a 100% of the time, full in awareness and with a passion to help and enable learning and development. It does not mean that authority is not useful. When it is needed authority is there and should be used, but it is not enough to make the members of your team into partners.

And making your employees your partners is what modern management is all about. The task could not be completed alone. It is a shared journey. Many people today are not satisfied with getting their wages and doing what they are told. People spend a high percentage of their day at work and they want to enjoy it. They want to feel that it is about them. That they are part of the story. And a manager has to remember that. It is not about the manager’s story; it is about the team’s story. The part of the manager is facilitating the building of a shared story for the team.

They way to create a shared story is not using your employees as instruments, but treating them as partners. And if you treat them as partners, the results will follow. It is more than making sure the job gets done. In order to get the job done, you can put processes in place. But a manager needs to think beyond getting the job done and beyond the process. A manager, as a facilitator, needs to create the conditions in which these processes take place. Conditions that lead to flow, joy and happiness.

Authority is not about telling people what to do either. The worst damage you can do is giving clear instructions because it prevents the communication inside the team and prevents the development of people. It means that there is a big chance the team will fail when you would not be there. And it is not about you, it is about your team. It is about completing the task together.

Elad

“Follow Your Passion” – good or bad advice?

I just saw this intriguing talk by Mike Rowe in which he tries to make a case for the lost world of manual “dirty” skilled labour. I find his thoughts stimulating and inspiring, as someone who is his youth thought about trying to work for a time in manual labour. I also liked the idea that we need to respect every job because it is part of a greater web that makes our lives what they are. The main theme of the talk is Rowe’s realization that he got things wrong and the explanation of what they are.

One of those things is passion. He decides to “attack” the known creed: “follow your passion”. He actually says that it was probably the worst advice he ever got (!). his attack is done by giving examples of people who did not follow their passion but are doing great, like a pig farmer who collects food scraps from casinos in Las-Vegas because people’s leftovers are good food for pigs. He grows huge pigs in twice the normal speed and makes a lot of money while doing something that is good for the environment.  Right, he is smelly most of the time, but he is happy and rich. Rowe says, ask that pig farmer – “did you follow your passion?” and he will laugh at you. Rowe goes to give more examples but you get the idea (or you can watch the talk…).

And that got me thinking. Did I get it wrong? In my E-book, I devote a full chapter to passion and its importance in reaching success and happiness. I write a lot in this blogs about how people follow the conventional wisdom without thinking about it, and Rowe’s talk frightened me.  Was I following the conventional wisdom here?

After I thought about it I realised that I don’t agree with Rowe. I think “follow your passion” is a very good advice. But I think our disagreement lies in the interpretation we give to the phrase “follow your passion”. While – I think – Rowe interprets “Follow your passion” as “do something you love”, I interpret “Follow your passion” as do whatever you do with passion. In the E-book I describe how in my view, being passionate means three main things: Being interested in what you do, striving for change and improvement and sharing your knowledge.

Now, I don’t know that pig farmer from Las-Vegas, but I am pretty sure, that the moment he went into this industry, he followed some or all three of these rules. This doesn’t mean he loves the pig industry and sees higher calling in it. It just means that he does what he does with passion. And this leads to him being successful.

So, what does “follow your passion” means for you?

Elad

Why do we have to ignore our past success while doing our current work?

Elizabeth Gilbert is a writer. She is the writer of many books. Her latest book, “Eat, Pray, Love” is #1 New York Times Bestselling memoir. She is now working on a new book. The problem is she is overwhelmed with fear that the new instalment could not exceed her last success.

From these feelings, Gilbert generalizes about the problem of creative people. In her talk in TED (I don’t why I can’t embed talks from ted to this blog, but press on the link to watch it), called: “Nurturing Creativity” she describes the problem creative people face. The problem is the fear that their next work would not be as good as their first one. The fear that their best work is behind them. Her claim is that taking this fear inherited into creative people’s lives, it is not surprising that many young creative people die young, many times by their own hand.

I could relate to that concept (not taking my own life, the fear). I am truly proud of my e-book, “Playing it to excellence and happiness in real life”. Even though it is not New York Times #1 bestseller, the responses I get from people who read it are great. I am currently working on a new e-book. But, will this one be as good as the next one? It is actually frightening to the point of paralyzing.

Gilbert advice (which is described in a very entraining way, I recommend watching this talk) is that you just do your job. You should just be proud of going out there and trying. She talks about the ancient Greeks believing that a spark of genius is a touch of an outside divine source, thus, not feeling guilty for not succeeding. She says we should try to implement that thinking into our creative process. I think I generally agree. Some complementing thoughts though:

1. You should really not care. If you are passionate about what you do, and enjoy doing it – just do it. If passion is there, results will follow, because people connect with passion. What you did in the past, people expectations, what other people think is right – all of these are not important. Go with your passion.
2. It is true that there are some people who created something and after that only lived on the reputation of that creation. But a lot of other people did not. There are numerous examples of writers whose second book was better than their first one. Who says you next creation would not be better than your last? Actually, usually creative people don’t reach the top immediately. They work and improve along the way. In some point of their career, there was a work worse than their last one. Look at Gilberts Bio. Not all her books became bestsellers. Who says that this time must be the peak? What you need to remember is that this time you have the experience you did not have when you created your last master piece. That experience is surely on your side.
3. There is no true way to know what will succeed. Not in art. Not in writing. Not in business. Don’t believe the experts – many times they are wrong. Don’t believe the surveys – people don’t know what they want. So there is actually no way to predict if your next work will be a success. If there in no way of knowing, the only option is to do your best. If you keep doing that and create something great, success will come. It does not work the other way around.
4. You cannot say that because something worked in the past, than a similar thing will work in the future. The only standard that matters is your own personal standard. Something that was unique and remarkable one day ceases to be so after a certain time. Your job is to find your true unique voice that you feel is right. If you keep doing that and create something great, success will come. If you keep pushing (or changing) the standards, you will improve.

 Elad

Initiating

 

photo by hypertypos

Today, Seth Godin talks in his post about the differences between reacting, responding and initiating. He claims that most people react and respond most of time and don’t initiate enough. To quote the master himself:

“We tend to reserve the third bucket, initiate, for quiet times, good times, down times or desperate times. We wait until the inbox is empty or the new product lines are due (at which point the initiative is more of a response). It’s possible to spend an entire day blogging and twittering and facebooking and never initiate a thing, just respond to what’s coming in. It’s possible to spend an entire day at P&G (actually it’s possible to spend an entire career) doing nothing but responding… “

I have written in the past about setting aside “thinking times“. I explained how important it was to incorporate such times in a permanent manner into schedules.  What Godin talks about is the same phenomena. People save the thinking part, especially the one dealing with the future, to better times. To less busy times. To when we will not be under such a pressure. You know what, these times never come. This is why one of the last paragraphs of Godin’s post, got me thinking. This is the paragraph:

 ”Think about the changes you’d have to make (uh oh, initiate) in your work day in order to dramatically change the quantity and scale of the initiatives you create”.

Godin is right (well off course he is…). If we focus all day long on our own rut, without taking our heads up form our desk (or screen), we would not be able to accomplish anything. So how can we initiate? I believe the answer lies in a blend of a number of ideas. Passion and “thinking time”. I already suggested a few ways (1, 2) to achieve the elusive goal of creating “thinking times”. I want to go for the wider point this time. In my E-book, “Playing It to Excellence and Happiness in Real Life – Five Concepts I Learned by Playing Basketball, Working and just Living”, I talk about how passionate people want to learn as much as they can about what they are passionate about and about how passionate people change their surroundings by casting doubt and creating new methods. I think you would be able to initiate the most, in areas you are most passionate about. I think you would not have to set aside thinking time to such areas, because – if you are passionate about something, you think about it all the time, and create thinking times naturally.

Some people would say their job is not that exciting and that there is nothing to initiate and change. They would argue that they job has nothing to be passionate about. “I work as a cashier in a supermarket. I am a cog.What can I change? What is there to be passionate about?” A lot! Think about it – have supermarkets been the same throughout history? What changed? Are there difference between supermarkets – what are they? If you are passionate about what you do and set a time to really think about how to make the most out of what you do, you can reach excellence and make a difference in any position. How will your manager react (and as Godin explains, he will react) when you come up with a new idea?

But what Godin says can be even more important. If you can’t take the initiative in your own work (lousy boss, no one listens to you etc.) do it someplace else. Develop a hobby. Volunteer. Taking the inititave by it self is important. In my E-book i call this – focusing on the process.  The minute you start setting aside thinking time, being passionate and initiating, only good things will happen to you. In the end, your attitude will move into you job or you will be presented with other better opportunities. People who are passionate and who initiate always have more choices.

BTW – is the post an initiative, a response or a reaction?

Elad