More Dudamel or Davies?
Imagine a full concert hall where a philharmonic orchestra performs the overture to Wagner’s Tannhäuser. Imagine how the highly focused, sweaty, and intense conductor expressively leads the orchestra with full attention. The roaring brass section. The alternately chirping, alternately galloping string section. The grandiose fortissimo that hits you with full force and make your vagus nerve ring and chest sing.
Imagine now a smokey jazz club where a quintetto performs some tracks from Kind of Blue. The musicians are expressing their artistic ideas freely, and taking turns in creative solos, whilst the others support intuitively. You can feel the intense focus as the musician creates the improvisational melodies on the spot, performing and experimenting simultaneously.
There are some obvious few similarities between those two types of organizations. Both are highly specialized, and the level of craftmanship is extraordinary. In both cases the musicians create harmonies, and the outcome is more profound than the sum of the parts, both performs state-of-the-art music. But in essence, the two organizations function in quite distinct different ways.
The leadership differs. The philharmonic orchestra has a quite hierarchical leadership, where the conductor at the helm directs the orchestra in a very precise manner. The orchestra becomes his (yes, it´s still predominantly a man) instrument. In the jazz-ensemble, the musicians are taking turns in leadership, and oscillating between leading and following. And if there is a Kapellmeister, he (yes, it´s still predominantly a man) is playing an instrument as well and is part of the band.
In the orchestra, you rely on well-worn routines and familiar rules, whilst in jazz-band you view those routines as blocks to learning. The orchestra performs with operational excellence according to highly specified pre-defined sheets, whilst the jazz-band are organizations designed for innovation. In the latter, the improvisational capabilities are highly developed and novelty are encouraged, or even expected. Jazz musicians are constantly challenging themselves to pushing boundaries and dance with uncertainty. There is a story about the great jazz-musician Miles Davies where he gave the band a new key to play the song in a half second before they started, on stage! “one, two, one, two, three.. C-minor!”. Miles was known to never stop challenging the musicians to stretch themselves, to force them to be in the moment and explore the edge of their comfort zone. Hence, jazz-performance are different every time, you will never hear two same versions of “Take Five”, whilst Mahler´s five always sounds like Mahler´s five.
Just as any innovative organization creates boundaries that allows for autonomy, so does jazz-bands. You could get mislead to believe that there´s no structure in jazz-bands, but there is a clear framework with just enough structure to support freedom and autonomy, encourage experimentation and maximize diversity. Without clear boundaries, coordination would be impossible, and no magic will happen at all! Orchestras at the other hand organize around predictability and clear instructions on detailed level.
So.. given that those two examples represent two quite disparate, yet highly functional organizations, which system corresponds the best to the needs in your organization? What kind of leadership do you need you practice? Do you need more of Dudamel or Davies in your organization? I believe that both organizational variants have relevant analogous settings in different business contexts. But in an increasingly complex, ever-changing and messy world, my hunch is that many organizations need to learn more from Davies rather than Dudamel. Maybe this also goes for you personally? Maybe you need to sharpen your improvisational capability and affirmative competence to navigate this uncertain reality better? Maybe you just need to say "yes to the mess "and throw yourself out there, without life-lines. This conclusion was also well put by a friend to a business partner I met: “Stig, you need a little bit more Thelonious Monk in your life.”. I know I do!
I can highly recommend Frank Barretts´”Yes to the mess” if you want expand on what we can learn from Jazz in leadership & organizational development.
