Bosses take the baton to learn about teamwork
• CEOs recently discovered that harmony and hitting high notes is as vital to business as it is to music
To the uninitiated, an orchestra conductor appears somewhat superfluous — a figurehead leading a group that already knows what it’s doing. But that kind of thinking is like expecting a company to perform without a CEO to guide its pace and direction.
There are so many parallels between running a business and leading an orchestra that CEOs were invited to try their hand at being a conductor as part of the Johannesburg International Mozart Festival this month.
It was an afternoon of entertainment with a few lessons woven through as business leaders had fun stepping out of their comfort zones.
Six CEOs had each chosen a favourite composition and top conductor Richard Cock gave them some private lessons in keeping the beat. Then it was show time, in front of an orchestra of 35 musicians and an audience at the Linder Auditorium. There were plenty of jokes to hide the jitters.
“Conducting an orchestra is a whole process. We all have to be in tune with each other and playing from the same hymn sheet, so it’s a good metaphor for management,” says Cock. “You are controlling 35 people who really want to look good, nobody wants to look stupid.”
He asked the oboe to lead the tuning up, showing that delegation is important.
First up was Market Theatre CEO Ismail Mahomed, who chose the Radetzky March by Johann Strauss as the piece he wanted to conduct. Mahomed was already sweating, Cock joked, but he reassured him the march was straightforward.
“All you have to do is count one, two and don’t stop,” he said. He gave Mahomed a final piece of advice: “Take your hands out of your pockets.”
After a fluffed start, Cock interjected to remind Mahomed about the need for an introductory beat. “Starting is absolutely crucial because they have to be able to breathe, so it’s crucial for them to see the preparatory beat. Don’t just go in.”
Next up was Contiki SA general manager Kelly Jackson, who warned the orchestra she was tone deaf. She had chosen Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air on the G String for its soothing qualities, despite Cock’s warning that the piece was difficult to conduct. “It needs more control,” he said. “You’re not just going ‘de-da-dum, do you call this a real job?’ Slow pieces are difficult to control.”
Jackson started, but again the beginning was hesitant, and Cock stopped the orchestra. “They’re all hesitant – make it very clear,” he advised Jackson.
Star of the guest conductors was Mark Hawkins, a former dancer and now artistic director of Moving Into Dance.
“I’m getting into a panic,” he said as he stood in front of the orchestra. “Whenever we do a bad performance, we blame it on the conductor, so I guess it’s pay-back time.”
He’d chosen the Trich-Trach Polka by Strauss and conducted it with sweeping waves, lots of wiggles and a neat pirouette before ending in the splits.
The audience loved it, but Cock kept a straight face. “Here’s a conductor who thought the flair was more important than the beat,” he said.
“We don’t watch anyway,” one musician joked. “If a conductor has three hours of rehearsals, he’s going to sit on a stool telling you exactly how he wants to do it, then in the concert, all of a sudden, he’s dancing all over the place, so it’s better just not to watch.”
Just as there are different management styles, there are different conducting styles and some hog the limelight to the detriment of the team.
“A lot of them like to stop and explain the history of the piece and sometimes the music gets lost. If you talk too much, the musicians don’t have the opportunity to play,” Cock said.
St Stithians College rector Dr Tim Nuttall said the event wouldn’t send him back to work with a changed management style, but it did add value.
“Learning comes from taking this kind of risk,” he said.
“One really learns by taking a
‘CONDUCTING AN ORCHESTRA IS A WHOLE PROCESS. WE ALL HAVE TO BE IN TUNE WITH EACH OTHER …’
plunge into something that is out of one’s comfort zone as a leader, and that brings a breath of fresh perspective, thoughts and new opportunities,” he said.
Learning through an entertaining experience also helped to build a team, he said.
“One of the insights was the sheer variety of personalities in the conductors and what they brought to the show, which shows the value of having diverse personalities in a leadership team,” Nuttall said.
The musicians confirmed that the conductor’s attitude as well as their skill affected their performances. They said they could tell how their day would go as soon as the conductor walked to the podium.
“Everyone comes to the orchestra with their own problems at home or after a bad journey and they just want to be treated like real people and they want to feel confident in what they are doing,” Cock said.
“The main job of the conductor is to make you feel comfortable and confident in what you are doing. It’s not only here that in the first 20 seconds you know what the leader’s mood is — this is about parallels with other lives because an orchestra mirrors what goes on in the rest of society,” he said.
The event was supported by Business and Arts SA. Its CEO, Michelle Constant, said what the business leaders learnt through the exercise wasn’t valid only for an orchestra.
“If the leadership isn’t what it should be, people start late or don’t even come in,” she said. “The person at the top determines how everybody feels about themselves and what they are doing. As a manager, if I walk in and I’m twitchy, the staff will feel that. If I go in and have fun with them, like Mark did, there’s a difference.”
While the event was more about enjoyment than illustrating serious management practices, there were strong parallels, Cock said.
An orchestra has four teams — strings, wind, brass and percussion – and each needed clear instructions about what to do, and each has a hierarchy.
“It’s about managing those teams and making sure they gel properly because each team has its own problems,” said Cock.
For example, a conductor must take into account “articulation”, which means the strings don’t sound as quickly as the blow of a trumpet.
“It’s a compromise you are dealing with all the time, and in real life, you are compromising all the time.
“The basic thing is about communication, and if your communication is good — not only verbal, but visual — it makes life a lot easier.”
Cock also runs hour-long Orchestrating Change sessions for companies, using nine musicians to demonstrate management styles and team building.
“We start in a straight row where they can’t see and hear each other, then I reorganise the seating so the communication is better,” Cock explained.
He demonstrates the need to tune in and fit in with other people and ends by forming a choir of the company’s employees.
“They see that by literally standing shoulder to shoulder, they can sing better,” he said.
“When you are isolated, it’s really hard, but come together in a close-knit team and it’s much easier.”
‘IF THE LEADERSHIP ISN’T WHAT IT SHOULD BE, PEOPLE START LATE OR DON’T EVEN COME IN’