Am writing this feeling oddly imbalanced - my left arm is sore from the first dose of the Moderna vaccine (!) that I received on Friday while my right is going about business as usual. The vaccine rollout is proceeding steadily here - we are not frontrunners but certainly it is progressing and there is little to complain about. After all these months of anticipation, it was a little surreal to be finally receiving the jab and feeling like perhaps this was the first step on a long road to finding closure from this strange period of our lives. All signs point to the virus becoming endemic rather than disappearing completely, but it’s still encouraging to think that we are slowly becoming better equipped to deal with this invader, this dark cloud.
Beyond physical immunity and better treatments and sufficient healthcare capacity, it’s also the lifting of fear. Restrictions from this latest wave are easing next week, and for the first time I feel reassured that when I return to the office/studio/streets, it will be at (statistically) lower risk than before. I’m cautiously optimistic; I sincerely hope this is the beginning of the (long, but present) end.
In other news, this past week was interesting as I finally made it to a training for Project Leaders that I had previously postponed because of casework. Typically these trainings are offsite and a fun, meaningful opportunity to meet colleagues from other offices and regions, though in current times we of course have to make do over Zoom. The virtual medium has its limitations, but I still learned a bunch of stuff and got to reflect a bit.
In particular, I was quite blown away by the final session of the week, “Project Leader as a Conductor,” which was facilitated by Raphael von Hoensbroech, a former consultant who is now Artistic Director and CEO of the Konzerthaus Dortmund. Just as it sounds, the session was about lessons on leadership from the perspective of an orchestra conductor, and Raphael interspersed his training with footage of him with the orchestra - demonstrating different conducting styles and their impact, interviewing the musicians for their views, illustrating the lessons through the music. It was an incredible, almost poetic sort of training. Some reflections from the session on what I want to do more of in the coming days:
Remember the role of a leader - to set and communicate a common vision and purpose, making the team greater than the sum of its parts.
Early on in the session, Raphael challenged us to consider the question: If the conductor/leader isn’t there, would the team continue to function? And therefore, what really is the role of the conductor? He illustrated this by stepping off the podium and letting the orchestra play on their own; the concertmaster became a bit of the de facto lead and each musician did their thing and the overall effect was still a fairly decently played piece of music (certainly well-played to my uneducated ears!) So it’s not just about the conductor maintaining tempo, or interpreting the piece, or even coordination between the players. Similarly, I feel that if I were to leave the team, they would probably be able to get on with things as per normal - the most senior consultant would probably step up and play a bit of a coordinating role, everyone would pull their own weight, and ultimately the project would still get delivered. So it was a challenging question, to consider what extra value I actually bring to my team.
Raphael’s insight for us was that the leader’s role is to provide a common vision & purpose for everyone. At every seat of the orchestra, he explained, there is a slightly different version of the music that every musician hears. Faced with infinite versions (and each being valid given the professionalism that every musician brings), the conductor’s version isn’t necessarily “the best.” Rather, the conductor has the benefit of hearing the version closest to the audience, and being freed of an instrument himself in order to focus on bringing the different versions into harmony. Similarly, I can see how it’s easy for each associate/consultant to focus on their own vision of what needs to be done for the client and do a really good job based on that, but it’s my role as the leader to bring the vision closest to the client/partner perspective and to guide my team toward that.
Going forward, I need to regularly remind my team (and myself) of the purpose of what we do - what specific objective we want to achieve for the client, and not let that get forgotten in the day-to-day of Excels and slide decks. My team needs to be able to see what bigger picture they are contributing toward - the context, the client needs, the overarching questions we need to answer. Only then, I think, will we be able to “make music instead of just playing notes” (in Raphael’s language); only then will the team create something more than what each individual could have done alone.
Choose to see beauty rather than faults - be intentional about deciding which mistakes to correct, when and how.
I have actually been reflecting on this one as, over the course of the week, I was also writing post-project evaluations for four of the associates/consultants on my team. I’ve now written 16 of these in the past ten months and they are fairly involved pieces of work - each evaluation has multiple dimensions to assign scores and comments to, and the comments must adequately match and elaborate on the scores as the whole piece is reviewed and calibrated by our career development team before being finalized. It helps that we have a strong feedback culture so I already take notes through the course of the project in order to give my team members 1:1 feedback every other week, but bringing all of those together in a report usually takes me 1-2 hours per evaluation. As I prepare the feedback and write the evals, I have found myself considering what strengths and areas for development to highlight versus which areas to let be because they are either not important or more an issue of style/preference rather than error.
Raphael’s training brought another dimension to this as he demonstrated for us what happens when a conductor repeatedly stops a piece to be replayed, or singles out a musician for errors. For many of us, the correction of mistakes - especially in a group setting, or if framed in a personal way - often leads to greater self-consciousness and lower confidence, which may spiral down performance even further. Honestly, if one were to spot and call out every item that could be done better by me and my team, there could be an endless list of things to say, but there is an art to picking what to correct and at what time, and how. I’m not saying we should not provide suggestions for improvement - in fact the emphasis on feedback & development is one aspect of our culture that I deeply appreciate - but as a leader, I need to be judicious. It would be too easy - and likely counterproductive - to correct every single issue, even with the best intentions. After all, most of us can only focus on a limited number of things to work on at a single time.
Beyond being selective about mistakes, I would also like to adopt an overall mindset of choosing to see the beauty rather than the flaws in the music, to follow Raphael’s analogy. I’ve heard in other trainings before that the ideal ratio of positive to negative feedback should actually be 3:1, which I’ve generally struggled to adopt - typically my ratios are more like 3:2, and I much more easily spot areas for improvement rather than commendation. Yet if I think back to my own experience as a consultant, I really did need positive affirmation at regular points throughout the project - it often made me more engaged and motivated. So it’s something I want to do more of - to consciously draw out and articulate all the good and meaningful things the team is doing, helping them to see the art and the value in their work.
Trust myself to be a leader just as I am - to bring my whole self to the role rather than feel the need to perform it.
During our small group discussion Raphael asked us to think about the advantages we have as leaders that enable us to do our job. It may seem self-evident, but it dawned on me that the position of leader itself is a huge advantage - that the team recognizes you as the captain of the ship and is open to your steer and direction. Raphael put it more eloquently in his closing address, in which he reminded us that we are leaders - we have been given the title and opportunity, and should not feel the need to prove ourselves as such by playing a part or seeking to impress. In fact ego is the enemy; we discussed how some conductors with their flourishes and antics steal the show from their orchestra and the music. I think the best leaders are secure enough in their position that they not only enable but encourage their teams to shine. Easier said than done, especially when there is often that cunning, niggling voice in the back of your mind that tells you to demonstrate your competence, intelligence, authority because how else can you show that you are worthy of this role?
I am reminded of a passage I read in (I think) Theology of the Ordinary in which Julie Canlis writes about the temptations of Christ. As Jesus is in the wilderness the Devil comes and tests him by telling him to do various things - to turn stones into bread to assuage his hunger; to throw himself off a cliff because God will save him. Canlis points out how Jesus was asked to prove his identity - “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread” - yet was far too wise to fall into that trap. He knew he didn’t need to prove anything because his position, who he is, does not need proof. It just is. So too should I know that all my positions and responsibilities are things that have been given to me, not things I need to earn by proving myself time and time again. Just as I am a child of God not through works of my own, I am also a Project Leader by grace alone. And so, there is nothing to prove, but (1) everything to be grateful for and (2) many things to strive for, to be faithful with what I have been entrusted with.