MUSIC AS METAPHOR FOR BETTER BUSINESS
by Saragail Benjamin
As seen in WESTCHESTER COUNTY BUSINESS JOURANL and FAIRFIELD COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL, November 10, 1003
Published by Westfair Communications, White Plains, NY
Reprinted with permission
In Chicago, a real estate executive takes the podium and conducts a full orchestra in playing Brahms’ First Symphony, while other executives sit comfortably among the musicians, observing them play.
In Paramus, NJ, five hundred and fifty employees fill raw office space and play drums together, their music rocking their new corporate headquarters.
Why? These people are participating in music-based corporate training events. Dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies are finding that the skills musicians have with creativity, teamwork, cultural diversity, collaboration, managing change and envisioning the future translate profitably to the corporate arena, making music-based training a rapidly emerging field and an attractive training option. Big events are one way to bring music-based training into your company, but they’re not the only way.
Pretty much everybody loves music, and pretty much everybody, at some level or other, can make music, even if it’s just doing a pencil drum solo on a desk, playing air guitar, or conducting the radio; making music as a training metaphor available to anyone. For the Human Resources manager looking to expand on-site training to include music, for the CEO looking for more effective ways to communicate, for the team leader looking for new ways to get everyone on board, this is good news.
Here are two exercises anyone can use to bring music training into the workplace:
1. Listening. Get a team together, have everybody sit in a circle, and count to four, in rhythm, over and over, for about a minute. Stop. Ask if everyone was together. Usually, people haven’t been and will say so. Do the exercise again, this time asking people to really listen, so that they are absolutely counting in perfect unison. When I do this exercise with people, a dramatic transition usually occurs at this point. People not only start counting together, they seem to get onto the same wave length. Concentration is heightened. People are more aware of each other and their actions. Follow the exercise with discussion of how this kind of listening and concentration might impact on the workplace. Usually, the answer is that it would have an overwhelmingly positive effect. Ask the group to create practices that can be adopted to reinforce better listening habits at work - maybe using the experience as a touchstone and counting to four when someone isn’t all there. Whenever possible, let the group come up with their own answers and solutions. They’re much more likely to follow through on them.
2. Communication, creativity, listening, cooperation. Have each member of your group find a “percussion instrument” - a set of keys, pencils, a trash can, hands clapping, anything that can be “played” to make a percussive sound. Appoint a leader. The leader will set a beat, then play a rhythm, which the group will echo. Playing and echoing will repeat for about a minute, then leadership will rotate around the group. With this exercise, it’s immediately apparent that when a rhythm isn’t played clearly, the group is unable to repeat it. This is a great way to demonstrate the necessity of clear communication and articulation in the workplace. It’s also a great way to boost creativity. Having to think fast, in the moment of the music, is freeing, and helps people feel safe taking risks, which is the only way for innovation to occur.
Music training lets people come out of themselves, helping them gain self-awareness in a painless, fun way. It’s a metaphor everyone loves, and anyone can use.