The OffBeat #32: Instrumentation in Leadership

Striking up the band

One of my favorite aspects of living in NYC for almost 10 years was the incredible access to live music. Pre-COVID, I’d catch a show at least twice a month. I saw countless artists at venues like Music Hall of Williamsburg, Terminal 5, Webster Hall, and The Bitter End, plus live jazz at clubs like Smalls (including my high school friends, saxophonist twins Peter & Will Anderson) and The Standard (including jazz drummer Allison Miller, who I took lessons with in high school and have long revered for her talent—and her name). I loved attending performances at Carnegie Hall as much as I delighted in subway station performers’ sets.

Even amidst the lockdown of 2020 and 2021, our Brooklyn neighborhood came to life with porch concerts and block parties. And COVID Saturdays and Sundays lent themselves to scavenger hunts through Prospect Park in search of unpublicized brass band pop-ups and jazz quartet improv sessions.

Now, having been back in Philly for a year, I’m finally getting back to prioritizing live music. And the scene here is nothing to sneeze at. In recent months I’ve made it to Johnny Brenda’s, World Cafe Live, and two shows at The Mann Center. It also doesn’t hurt having local professional musician friends.

Back in 2018 I started a Note on my iPhone called “Meaningful Moments.” I don’t remember what prompted me to create it, but since then any time I experience deep-seated, full-body contentedness or euphoria—one of those unnameable, you-know-it-when-you-feel-it sensations of “everything is perfect right now”—I jot it down. It does the double duty of a) ensuring I encode these rarified moments as retrievable memories and b) providing an emotional piñata in the middle of my day when I need it. At a glance, I’d say a solid 50% of the memories on the list are related to live music (example: seeing Alanis Morissette play Jagged Little Pill, acoustic, start-to-finish, at the Apollo in Harlem on December 2, 2019).

I’m like the eight billionth person to name music, performed live or not, as a rapture generator. There are all kinds of reasons music is so emotionally powerful, like the fact that your brain generates dopamine while listening. For me—and I’ve thought about this a lot—I think it’s chiefly the idea that there can be silence on an empty stage, then a group of people with only their instruments and voices can create something that sounds so freaking good. It’s mind-blowing.

The conceit that instrumentation—the particular combination of voices and instruments used in a piece of music—powers the impact of the performance is useful in the working world. The value of what you build is not a product of any one member of the band; it’s the quality of the collective.

When I think about building, managing, and leading a team, this quote from Anne Helen Petersen comes to mind:

“Aspire to putting yourself in situations that aren’t filled with other people like you. Cultivating that sort of empathy becomes a groove, a pattern, a way of trying to navigate the world: instead of reflexively rejecting things that don’t replicate your own experience, you lean towards them with curiosity.”

Conceptualizing your team—whether you lead one full-time, are spearheading a team project, or are a member of a team—through the lens of instrumentation has multiple implications:

• Harmony requires variety. No one wants to listen to the same instruments play the same notes at the same time. A barbershop quartet without four-part harmony is just some dudes in boater hats.

• Something will sound off if even one person’s not finely tuned. Sound checks and tuners serve a purpose. If you’re not starting from the same middle C, you won’t end on key either.

• You need a clear set list. Everyone needs to know what you’re playing, in what order—from the opener to the potential encore.

• The longer you perform together, the tighter the sound. Have you ever seen a concert when it’s early in the tour, and then again later in the run? There’s a massive difference in the chemistry of the group and the confidence of the performance.

• Listening is the most impactful skill to hone. Actively tuning into your teammates helps you uncover their individual time signature so you can get into a groove together. Music would literally not exist without listening.

• Someone needs to keep the beat. I ascribe to former Home Depot CEO Frank Blake’s leadership philosophy of the inverted pyramid: the leader sits at the bottom of the organization, providing a strong foundation and absorbing the complexity of the business that flows downward with gravity. It’s part of why I’ve so long translated my experience as a drummer to workplace leadership—the drummer sits at the back of the band, holding down the rhythm without the frontperson fanfare. The inverted pyramid topples without its tip and the band falters without its drummer, even if it’s not instantly obvious.

The cool thing about instrumentation is that it can flex and adapt to different music arrangements. The same core group of artists can add guest stars, change seats, or even double up on certain instruments as needed. And the band plays on.

Have a great week,

Allison