Transitioning from accomplished soloist to conductor can be challenging for many new leaders. You can’t just trade in your bassoon for a baton and hope it turns out well. Shaping the flow of sound emanating from diverse players into a cohesive, beautiful composition requires different skills and a different mindset. As a wise man once said, “You can’t whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it”—and an orchestra takes a skilled conductor with technical expertise, artistic vision, passion and people skills to lead it. New leaders must set the tone early on, and both new and experienced leaders need to keep a vigilant ear on organizational tone, as teams sometimes find themselves—for a variety of reasons—out of sync and out of tune. Dissonance will leave the organization underperforming and at risk of losing its way and its stars. Here’s how leaders can “take it from the top” and establish (or reset) the organizational rhythm, melody, and harmony.
Contact me at BobWestbrooks.com or on LinkedIn and let’s talk about how I can help you or your organization refine its sound.
Rhythm
Your organization has an operating rhythm, whether you know it or not. It may not have a precisely definable time signature or pattern, but it is something that one can intuit from the organization’s information sharing; expectations on project deliverables; meeting, email, and phone etiquette; and other patterns of behavior.
The most observable beat in an organization is the frequency and nature of information sharing between the leader and the organization in the round. Yes, it can be problematic to share too much information, just as it can be problematic to share too little information. Establish regular, routine organizational-wide information sharing (at appropriate intervals for your organization), so that your staff can see you waving your baton and measuring time at predictable beats.
Another important beat in an organization is the frequency and nature of the recurring senior leadership meetings. What is the specific purpose of your standing meetings? Do these meetings largely accomplish this purpose? Did you inherit the frequency and nature of the meetings (and are just “continuing the tradition”)? Have you critically examined whether the frequency and nature of your meetings have continued relevance and value for all participants? Do your meetings emphasize both the relational and transactional aspects of the job? If not, fix ’em. It’s essential that you and your senior staff be in sync so that consistent information flows down through an organization’s components. It can be a big morale buzzkill when someone from another component scoops a staff member on important organizational news that their senior leader neglected to share.
The third component of rhythm is the tempo of project-level work. Thrash metal shredding tempo may be necessary and even exciting as your team faces and conquers some crisis, but a steady staccato tempo is just not organizationally sustainable (or easy on the ear). An adagio tempo sometimes has its place to allow an organization to catch its breath, but it can make for a monotonous and unchallenging work environment. Modulate your organizational tempo to adjust for true crisis and otherwise pace the organization for short-term and long-term success. Just as a conductor sets rhythm and tempo through the sheet music and with the small gestures of his baton, communicate project level expectations through written expectations and small gestures with staff. I’ve had my share of time-sensitive projects over a 30-year career, but let’s face it, not everything is an emergency or a crisis. I have held teams back from racing, telling them: one day I’m going to need you to work long and hard hours on a project, but this is not that project. Conversely, I’ve had to intervene when projects dragged and persuade teams to step it up. Be sensitive to after-hours or weekend emails that are not emergencies, and if you just can’t resist the urge, learn to use Outlook’s delayed delivery function.
Melody
Every organization should have a strong melody that connects team members to a compelling mission.
I have found that most people perform at their best when working in an environment where there is a compelling mission, a clear vision, and they are afforded optimal autonomy. You communicate your organization’s compelling mission through a solid melody.
I appreciate that not every job is dedicated to solving world hunger, global peace, or curing cancer. But as a leader, if you stare at the mission long enough you may just find some hook that makes it unique and resonant with staff and your customers/clients/stakeholders. Researchers call them earworms—those familiar pop melodies and hooks that get stuck in your head. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be reduced to a formal mission statement. I once served in a federal government leadership role for an organization that was created in part to coordinate the efforts of other government agencies. Our melody was “find the win-win, whenever possible.” Not bad advice in most circumstances, but we intentionally placed the accent on collaboration through this melody line and it was a constant refrain that guided all our work.
The most compelling melodies are often the simplest. At Life is Good, it’s optimism as in “spread the power of optimism.” At Walmart, it’s thrift as in “save people money so they can live better.” At LEGO, it’s inspiration as in “inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow.” Even government agencies (especially government agencies?), can compose a compelling melody to energize staff. At USAID, it’s “promoting and demonstrating democratic values abroad, and advancing a free, peaceful, and prosperous world.”
A memorable and compelling melody will help ensure your team is playing off the same sheet of music and energize their performance.
Harmony
Effective leaders set parameters through rhythm and melody, while allowing space for team members to improvise and harmonize.
Playing off the same sheet of music doesn’t mean everyone is playing in unison. Making sure your team is marching in lockstep (brief transition to marching band metaphor) can be powerful, but it is also more difficult the larger the ensemble. Insisting on things being done one certain precise way can be an exhausting and impossible task. And frankly it’s sometimes boring. Harmony is a pleasing combination of different notes that give a song greater dimension and shape.
The discipline required to set and maintain the organizational rhythm and the creativity to compose a compelling organizational melody are a relative breeze compared to the trust required to allow staff to harmonize. A bad harmony will quickly sour a song and may leave the audience heading for the door.
While a symphony is a collective performance, find ways to let your stars shine, harmonize and improvise—and do so in a way that doesn’t trap others in the shadows. To balance these interests, practice the concept of optimal autonomy. Most people desire to be left alone to do their job, but that is just not often realistic. Few can be afforded absolute autonomy in an organizational setting. Optimal autonomy is dependent on a number of factors. Here’s how I would explain it to my staff.
Optimal autonomy is founded on the principle of earned trust. Quite simply, I would tell my direct reports, the degree of autonomy I am able to afford is directly proportional to my confidence level in you on a specific task. Confidence levels are never granted automatically and cannot be demanded. They can be based on position or grade level. I would not, for example, give an entry-level auditor the autonomy to prepare and submit a Board of Directors memorandum without appropriate guidance and oversight. Confidence levels can also be based on lack of prior track record with me. I would not, for example, give a new employee the autonomy to respond to a Congressional request without appropriate guidance and oversight. Additionally, confidence levels can also be affected by prior track record with me as well. In this regard, I have found that the following competencies in the federal workplace from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management engender greater confidence:
- Accountability (holding self and others accountable for results; accepting responsibility for mistakes; determining objectives and setting priorities).
- Flexibility (being open to change and new information; rapidly adapting to new information, changing conditions, or unexpected obstacles; willingness to do what it takes to get the job done); and
- Resilience (dealing effectively with pressure, remaining optimistic and persistent, even under adversity, recovering quickly from setbacks).
In calculating earned trust, I place a premium on these competencies. Confidence and autonomy can be quickly gained. Staff are encouraged to think of confidence levels like a bank account with credits, debits, and an adjusting balance.
Putting in All Together
The metaphor of music is a helpful way to think through the skills required of a conductor in today’s work environments and ways to increase organizational cohesion. There is no one size fits all approach. This much is true: don’t leave it to chance and don’t assume the traditional approach was and is right in the current workplace. While some organizational environments require a regulated, metronomic cadence, other workplaces can be jazzed up. A workplace environment review and leadership coaching/mentoring can help you define or refine your sound.
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