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Q: What does the "art of possibility" mean for business leaders?
Roz: The Art of Possibility relies on all the arts to develop a framework for transforming the way we define ourselves, our connections to others, and the environment we live and work in. For business leaders, it offers refreshing insights into many of the challenges people routinely face in organizations in the areas of leadership, management, motivation, teamwork, creativity, and personal and professional fulfillment. Success in today's business environment relies almost completely on an organization's ability to invent and innovate. This book shows how leaders can overcome limiting assumptions about what is possible—to reinvent obstacles that appear to be holding them back—whether a difficult customer, a competitor's product, or the defection of a talented employee—into new pathways for possibility.
Q: What lessons can today's leaders take from the world of the symphony orchestra and the role of the conductor?
Ben: The world of the symphony orchestra has traditionally been a maelstrom of competition, survival, backbiting, subservience, and status seeking. Many would say the same of today's business culture. Yet this is not an environment from which we can expect performances—in music or in business—that resonate with nobility, playfulness, inventiveness, brilliance. The idea of the all-powerful leader has given way to the belief that in order to innovate successfully, to perform beautifully, we need leaders in every chair. This book guides leaders in enabling every individual to recognize the leader in themselves, and to perform with passion, energy, and flair.
Q: You suggest that measurements of any kind—job titles, salary levels, performance assessments—hamper possibility. Why?
Roz: We've been conditioned to live in a world driven by what we call "survival-thinking." We are so concerned with personal advancement that we fail to take in the big picture, and either hold back in fear from taking exactly the kind of risks that would optimize an organization's chances to develop its contribution, or make moves that favor some at the expense of the whole. The Art of Possibility aims instead to provide the means to break away from an individual focus, which centers on measurements, comparisons, and competition as an end in itself—to focus on the visionary aspect of an organization: to enhance relationships, and bring out constructive forces for possibility.
Q: But isn't this an overly simplified way of looking at things? Don't we need some form of assessment in life—particularly in professional life?
Roz:Assessments are important for seeing where things stand at any given moment. They can show, for example, what an employee has accomplished and what is still left to be done to get a project off the ground. We are not against assessment—we are suggesting that ranking an employee against others is generally not a good method for empowering her to do her job with passion and commitment.
Q: As a leading family therapist (Rosamund Zander), and the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (Benjamin Zander) — you bring unique perspectives to how business leaders can resolve problems and explore possibility in the workplace. How does your partnership work?
Roz: Ben's public presence conducting orchestras around the globe, teaching generations of music students, and speaking to major corporations, often brings him face to face with challenging situations that call for new kinds of leadership and new conceptual frameworks. When these challenges appear to have broad implications, Ben brings them to me, and I then call on a lifetime of work with family and organizational systems to sketch out innovative new approaches for resolving these dilemmas. Ben then takes the new designs into the public arena to try them out. That is the essence of our dynamic, constantly moving partnership—and it is through this "team work" that the practices we outline in the book evolved.
Q: The stories you tell in the book really bring the practices to life. Can you talk a little bit about what the stories represent?
Ben: Arthur Andersen's sponsorship of a major orchestral performance before live television crews for thousands of underprivileged, troubled students. The woman in the nursing home who discovered that it is never too late to take a step, however small, for it can alter your experience of life. The Asian music student who was "number 68 out of 70" in his homeland, who saw suddenly that "it's all invented" and that you might as well invent a story that lights up your life and the lives of those around you. The stories illustrate how our common everyday assumptions give us our sense of what is real, and limit what we will try to accomplish. The situations these people find themselves in represent universal dilemmas: the fear of taking a foolish risk, the feeling that we don't make a difference, the pressure of competition and being compared to others. Each story shows the moment when the character suddenly sees something new, and bypasses his assumptions about impossibility, giving the reader a map for doing the same.
Q: Can you explain the story of the Silent Conductor?
Ben: I had been conducting for nearly twenty years when it suddenly occurred to me that the conductor is the only person on stage who doesn't make a sound. His picture may appear on the cover of the CD in various dramatic poses, but his true power derives from his ability to make other people powerful. This realization was so profound that it dramatically changed the way I conducted orchestras from that point forward, asking questions like "what makes a group lively and engaged" rather than "how good am I?" The focus shifted to how effective I was at enabling the musicians to play each phrase as beautifully as they were capable. In the world of business, as in the world of the symphony orchestra, a leader who feels he is superior is likely to suppress the voices of the very people on whom he must rely to deliver his vision.
Q: Can you explain the practice of "Giving an A"?
Roz: Michelangelo is often quoted as having said that inside every block of stone or marble dwells a beautiful statue; one need only remove the excess material to reveal the work of art within. If we apply this visionary concept to the workplace, it would be pointless to compare one employee to another. Instead, all the energy would be focused on chipping away at the stone, getting rid of whatever is in the way of each individual's developing skills, mastery, and innovative self-expression. We call this practice "Giving an A." It's a way of moving beyond measuring people against our expectations and helping them to realize themselves. When you give an A—to your boss, your colleague, even your competitor—your eye is on the statue within the roughness of the uncut stone. This A is not an expectation to live up to, but a possibility to live into.
Q: What is a "one-buttock player" and how can this concept transform companies?
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| Noticing that his body was firmly planted in an upright position on his chair, I blurted out to him: "The trouble is you're a two-buttock player!" | |
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Ben: We tell a story in the book about a young pianist playing a Chopin prelude in one of my classes. While he was playing the piece technically correctly, he was unable to convey the emotional energy of the piece. Noticing that his body was firmly planted in an upright position on his chair, I blurted out to him: "The trouble is you're a two-buttock player!" Once the pianist allowed his body to flow sideways, really catching the wave of the music and giving himself over to it, his performance was markedly different: he'd become an energized, impassioned, "one-buttock player." In the same way as it did for this musician, the access to passion gives momentum to efforts to build a business plan, it gives a reason to set up working teams, it gives power to settling individual demands, and it gives urgency to communicating across sections of a company. Leaders who are "one-buttock players" speak so passionately and surely to the people they lead that they enroll them in their vision, and create passionate performers.
Q: You say that in the realm of possibility, competition isn't as important as contribution. How can that be true in such a ruthlessly competitive business environment?
Roz: The competition game is all about success and failure. We judge ourselves by other people's standards, or by previous accomplishments—whether by how our competitors are doing or by how we performed this year versus last. So competition, like measurements, in many ways actually sets limits on what is possible. On the other hand, the contribution game is not arrived at by comparison. By focusing only on the aspect of contribution in what you do—to others, the company, and the world—you can transform from a person who is "out for himself" to a person who is out to make a difference. Leaders who view their colleagues, employees, and competitors that way can help transform the workplace into a vibrant, vision-led environment where people are energized by having a voice, and the world is inspired by the product.
Q: What is "second fiddle-itis"—and how can leaders help others avoid this feeling?
Ben: This is a disease that runs rampant in the world of the orchestra—popularly known as "playing second fiddle." Players whose parts are duplicated by many others (second violins, for example) often perceive their role in the group to be of little significance. A string player just entering a new position in an orchestra will often start out with great enthusiasm, but once it begins to dawn on him that the conductor doesn't seem to care or even to hear when players are out of tune, he quickly beings to show signs of the onset of the disease. Leaders must take great care to ensure that all employees—especially those at the front lines, who are particularly vulnerable to the ravages of "second fiddle-itis"—recognize that they, too, are a leading player, an integral voice, and that the company cannot "make its music" without that voice.
Q: Why is Rule #6 a good guiding principle for business leaders?
Ben: Many leaders still tend to believe that the company cannot succeed unless they are in charge of everything. This is also a hard belief to resist, since shareholders often hold CEOs directly responsible when a company's fortunes start to fall. But Rule #6, which states simply: "Don't take yourself so goddamn seriously!", helps us remember that taking the trials and triumphs of life too personally actually drags us down to a place where things just go from bad to worse. Even—and perhaps especially—in business, humor and laughter can be extraordinarily effective tools in helping us to "get over ourselves" rather than acting entitled and demanding, putting other people down, or assigning blame. Once we learn how to "lighten up," we learn how to see the essential value of mistakes, to view problems and situations differently. By doing so, we can find ways to turn seemingly impossible problems into opportunities for possibility.
Q: Many of the practices seem, at first glance, rather simplistic. But you say they are extremely challenging to implement. Explain.
Roz: The practices presented in this book are not about making incremental changes that lead to new ways of doing things based on old beliefs, and they are not about self-improvement. They are geared instead toward a total shift in our posture, perceptions, beliefs, and thought processes. They are about transforming our entire world. So while the practices are simple to understand, they are not easy to implement. Like learning to play an instrument, these practices require constant and thoughtful repetition to get them into our repertoire. Those who embrace these principles discover that much more is possible than most of us ever imagine.
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