Corporate Seminars Aim to Make Maestros Out of Managers

Associated Press

(Original posting date: August 27, 2003)

By DAVE CARPENTER
The Associated Press

CHICAGO

The real estate executive was seated comfortably between the bassoons and the violins when the unexpected request came for her to take the podium and conduct Brahms' First Symphony.

"Uh-oh," said Kathy Engel, until now just a spectator and listener at concert performances.

Baton in hand, she managed — with hands-on guidance from a professional conductor standing behind her. Engel's debut was part of the program at The Music Paradigm, an arts-based training seminar designed to work with large organizations.

Experiencing an orchestra in action, the thinking goes, can provide a vivid lesson to managers and give them a new way to think and talk about leadership, communication and teamwork.

Call it organizational training in B (for business) major, Opus 35. That's how many companies and organizations have booked the symphonic training sessions this year at a cost of $30,000 to $60,000 each — orchestra included.

If an orchestra pit seems an unlikely place for corporate management lessons, Roger Nierenberg, the program's founder, conductor and motivational speaker, is quick to agree.

Music director of the Stamford (Conn.) Symphony Orchestra since 1988 and a guest conductor around the world, Nierenberg says he came up with the "improbable idea" for the program in 1995 as a way to get people more interested in orchestras.

But corporations proved so interested in the offbeat concept that The Music Paradigm has become a successful and growing business in its own right. Nierenberg has performed for dozens of multinational corporations and associations, working with the Royal Philharmonic in London, the San Diego Symphony, the Singapore Symphony and 50 other orchestras.

Using the metaphor of conductor as leader and orchestra as organization, the 56-year-old maestro has tapped into the small but flourishing market of arts-related business training programs, as corporations seek innovative ways to convey important messages and priorities to staff.

Arts-based training is a rapidly emerging field thanks to use by dozens of Fortune 500 companies, according to Harvey Seifter, a board member of the Arts and Business Council, a nonprofit arts service organization based in New York.

"The knowledge and the skill that artists have in creativity, teamwork, intercultural communication, collaborative management, dealing with change and envisioning the future — all of those are key areas for businesses," he said.

Nierenberg and his staff of six gather input from clients and tailor presentations to companies' preferences, working in insights and quips on topics ranging from restructuring to management change to diversity.

Managers are seated among orchestra members in rehearsal exercises to make them aware of the mastery of individual players and the ways they respond, or don't, to a conductor's baton. The result is an unusually melodic training session, although the music isn't really the message.

"It's not just entertainment, it's very effective in terms of moving the organization and getting it to communicate more internally," Nierenberg said.

"If you can talk about issues like 'We have to tune up' and 'We have to get in better balance,' that's a nice indirect way that enables people to confront issues that might otherwise be a little too sensitive."

The Music Paradigm turned a downtown hotel ballroom into a makeshift concert hall one recent morning and put 1,000 real estate broker-owners and managers at a Re/Max International conference into the "pit" with Symphony II, a Chicago orchestra.

The silver-maned, tuxedo-clad Nierenberg hailed the musicians as great artists, stress management experts and decision-makers, but cautioned: "Outstanding musicians don't necessarily mean outstanding results unless there is outstanding teamwork."

He animatedly "misused" his baton — demonstrating micro-management, self-indulgence and indifference — getting corresponding results from the orchestra. Then he stood to the side and let the musicians play, passably well, without direction.

But a great leader, he said, after putting Engel on the podium, shows the proper inspired touch and "enables an organization to feel that it can almost do anything."

Count Engel, a Realtor and general manager in Malverne, N.Y., among the converts to the artistic way of thinking.

"We've gone through training before on how to communicate with our people, but he's given me a wonderful perspective on how to take it out of the box," she said after her brief but "awesome" experience wielding the power of the baton. "I'm going to revamp the way I speak to people."

Nierenberg wants to help make classical music metaphors as popular with rank-and-file workers as sports metaphors. But he said his message isn't simply that companies should be like orchestras, as it's sometimes interpreted.

"It's not that. It's that the orchestra is a fantastic laboratory in which communication is intensified and turned into results almost instantly, so you can see much more of the process than with other kinds of organizations," he said. "Things snap into focus with great clarity in an orchestra."

Reprinted with permission of The Associated Press

 

 

Lessons in Leadership with Roger Nierenberg

 

A dynamic figure on the podium, Roger Nierenberg is well known as an orchestra builder and also the inventor of the highly successful educational program involving conducting, called The Music Paradigm. In this interview, he uses the role of the conductor as a metaphor for leadership and shares the history and vision behind The Music Paradigm.

DL: Tell us how your work as a conductor evolved into The Music Paradigm. Describe its impact and what lead to the impact.

RN: In 1995, I was the music director for two orchestras and was searching for ways to get more community leaders involved in supporting and experiencing the orchestra. Thinking about their challenges lead me to invent a new format based on two fundamental characteristics:

• People sit inside the orchestra among the musicians
• The discussion that takes place is not at all about the music

The impact from the first session was significant - more than I ever anticipated. The impact resulted from 5 major contributors:

1. Organizations talk about hot issues that are typically difficult to talk about because the issues are dealt with in an indirect way...through the use of music.
2. The session provides a holistic learning approach versus traditional cognitive learning (i.e. PowerPoint presentations). This type of learning engages your mind, senses, and sensibilities. The learning lasts longer and goes deeper.
3. The learning is not framed - the format is interactive. The teaching is not done by me at all but rather comprised of experiential exercises where musicians are unwillingly the teachers. Everyone draws their own conclusions and make their own discoveries. The discoveries and conclusions are metaphorical. The discoveries start about the orchestra and slowly evolve about themselves, and ultimately their organization.
4. The medium of music is the ideal way of demonstrating organizational dynamics because it happens in real time, is transparent, and fluid. At any one time, you can see a part of it or the whole of it.
5. The entire system is present in one room and all of the dynamics snap into focus.

DL: Describe the process of transformation that occurs through The Music Paradigm.

RN: There is a great transformation that takes place from experiencing The Music Paradigm.

As the participants begin to interact with the orchestra, the musicians begin role playing and illustrate both dysfunctional and functional behaviors based on the interaction. The dysfunction that is created by the music, subconsciously leads the participants to look within themselves and their organizations. The music starts to sound like what is happening in their office and they begin to question their leadership. At the same time, the function that is created by the music, leaves participants with a picture of what their organization could achieve if properly lead. When you see the music that is created through great leadership and teamwork, organizations start to have more productive meetings, increased creativity, openness, inspiration and energy, and individuals become eager to consider ways that they can make their organizations work better.

DL: With more than 25 years of conducting experience, how has The Music Paradigm transformed your leadership approach?

RN: The Music Paradigm has transformed my leadership in so many ways. There is one story in particular that was a turning point for me as a conductor and leader. The larger instruments (i.e. double basses) take a longer time to produce a sound. These instruments tend to be slower and later than other instruments. As an inexperienced conductor, my immediate reaction was to tell them they were late - this seemed like the fastest way to solve the problem. I did not solve the problem, but rather created another. I not only had a timing issue, but now I had an unhappy bass section because they were embarrassed and felt badly about their performance. With experience, I addressed the problem in a different way by asking them to play earlier. I learned a valuable lesson through this request. By asking the bass section to play a leadership role by setting the tempo for the entire orchestra, their role was more active and engaged. I altered my relationship with the basses as well as their relationship with the rest of the orchestra. My bass section was happy and felt successful.

I am also fortunate because music has immediate results and allows me to reflect on my leadership with each second and each performance. If a musician misses a note, I am able to see if it resulted from how I conducted at that moment. I recognize that and will do it differently the next time. I am able to try different behaviors and see immediate results.

DL: Understanding that leadership in the business world varies drastically from the leadership in an orchestra, what advice do you have for business leaders in creating their orchestra?

RN: Behavior changes when you have a paradigm shift and re-map the territory in light of a new reality. The Music Paradigm shows a new reality. The real power, lies within the interaction amongst musicians - how they work together and how they relate to each other. Similar to an orchestra, the power of an organization lies in the people doing the work and how they interact with each other. The role of a leader, is to create the best possible space for this to happen including:

• Don't tell your musicians what to do
• Provide your musicians with a vision for the whole and guidelines about resources available
• And give them permission to get the job done

See the possibilities for yourself and shift the understanding for you and your people. The leader doesn't really have the big power. The leader has the power to create circumstances where others can excel and transcend what is possible. The leader does not do it alone, but rather creates the circumstances where others can do it and together you achieve the goal.

What Managers can Learn from Musicians
- and Vice Versa.

Global Magazine

The Orchestra as Business Model
By Pam Middleton

In Chicago, senior executives of a major financial services company file into a hotel ballroom for the opening session of a two-day leadership conference. Many aspects of the setting appear typical enough - a decorated stage with lecterns at either side and banners imprinted with the meeting theme: "Building a High-Performance Team for Changing Times." But something seems different: Several dozen seats are already occupied by men and women tuning musical instruments and leafing through sheet music propped up on metal stands. They neither look up at the arriving executives nor acknowledge them in any way.

What's going on here?

The executives search for an explanation in the printed agendas that have been handed out, some checking to make sure they're in the right place. They are.

When everyone is settled, the CEO announces that a special musical presentation is about to begin. A slim, handsome man steps briskly to the podium, the tails of his black tuxedo flapping behind him. Baton in hand, he raps everyone to attention, and the 65 musicians ready their instruments. In the next moments, the room is enveloped in sound. The opening bars of Brahms's Symphony No. 1, played with extraordinary clarity and depth, fill the air. For the executives seated among the musicians, the experience is as pleasurable as it is puzzling. They eye each other, searching for clues as to how all of this pertains to them. As the music continues to build, they are still not sure what's happening. The players remain totally focused on their music and the conductor - who is grinning broadly.

The man at the podium is Roger Nierenberg, best known as conductor and music director of Connecticut's Stamford Symphony Orchestra. His recordings include some of the greatest works of the classical repertoire; he has also served as guest conductor at a number of the world's most prestigious music festivals. But what is he doing at a business conference? Later, during a chat with a reporter who has sat in on the program, the answer begins to emerge.

These programs are about creating what I call an experiential learning activity, in which many things are taking place at the same time. What happens is that, without anyone explaining what's going on or telling you what you're supposed to be learning, the experience itself starts you thinking. You may not even be consciously aware of what you're thinking - or even that you're thinking anything at all. What you do know is that you're seeing something in a very different way. You may be looking at an orchestra, but you're really seeing something more universal. It's the way people interact - the way they make decisions about joining in that interaction or wanting to stop interacting. The important thing is that nobody is giving you instructions. It's your own discovery, and it can be mood altering and very healing.

ABOUT SIX YEARS AGO, says Nierenberg, he realized that an orchestral performance was an ideal symbol of organizational dynamics. While the conductor's position as a "systemic" leader is a fairly obvious metaphor, Nierenberg found a number of unexpected and often subtle links as he explored the concept in more depth. There is, for example, the criticality and transparency of communication between the musicians, as well as the immediate and longer-term connections between what the orchestra does and the results it achieves. Then there is each musician's intuitive reaction - to the cues received from both the conductor and other players. Add the need for innate skill, extensive training and the right tools, and this almost-perfect parallel is complete.

I never really "got" this idea, at least not all at once. It was very organic and came in little pieces without my knowing exactly where it was going. Then, suddenly, to my amazement, it was there.

Nierenberg titles these presentations "The Music Paradigm." At corporate meetings, their purpose is to leverage the orchestra model as an experiential learning activity for company executives. Since developing the concept, he has been invited to present at more than 80 corporate conferences in the United States by such diverse organizations as Bristol-Myers Squibb, Lockheed Martin, Lucent and Sears. Bank of America called him in, for example, to lend an outside perspective following its merger with NationsBank. But despite radical differences in philosophy, markets and daily operations, virtually all of Nierenberg's clients are grappling with the same issues: how to help their senior management deal with increased competition and the need for almost constant performance improvement. In simpler terms, Nierenberg uses the orchestra to help companies deal with change.

Admittedly, he isn't the only individual on the speaker circuit to address change, nor is he the busiest. A corporation looking for a keynote speaker to galvanize its troops is still likely to go with regulars like Tony Robbins or Jack Welch. But over the past few years, more and more companies have been going outside the box and bringing in Nierenberg.

It's a decision that works out well more often than not. "The Music Paradigm made what's complex simple, in a way that people could understand and digest," says one Bank of America senior executive. "We came away understanding basic and simple issues that are important to our company in a time of merger, of being empathic and understanding toward others. What we were trying to reinforce through that whole meeting was teamwork and personal respect for one another."

Once Nierenberg is contracted for a presentation, he hires a local, established orchestra for the performance. He then spends several hours in discussion with the client's top leadership. His goal is to get a full understanding of the organization's strategies and objectives, as well as a clear sense of the content, theme and desired outcome of the conference.

I ask them to tell me what effect the conference would have if it were a huge success. Then I try to find a way of working with the orchestra and the audience to make that happen. Having learned about the organization's issues and objectives, I custom design exercises for the presentation that will dramatize those points and make them come alive in real time - and for real - in front of the people attending the meeting.

Apart from informing the musicians of the pieces they'll be playing, Nierenberg tells them very little else prior to the presentation. That way, he says, they, too, reap the benefits of experiential learning. "As a musician, you can sometimes feel that what you do is terribly impractical and frivolous," says a violist with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. "But when you're really reaching people through a Music Paradigm performance, you can feel that it is the most important and amazing accomplishment of the human spirit."

There are many reasons why companies call on me. We all know that in today's environment, things are changing faster than ever and that people have to respond by changing themselves. But it's not easy to change yourself. Perhaps you've been doing your job very successfully and you have developed a certain mind-set about it, a certain procedure about it. Suddenly, that job is no longer necessary - at least not in the way to which you've become accustomed. You're told, "Our business model is changing, so we need you to do something differently." This new mission and the behavior it requires have to be communicated in such a way that encourages people to embrace change. It can be helpful to provide some kind of experience in which people suddenly see things in a different way, some kind of "Aha!" experience.

Executives entering a ballroom that has been set up for a Music Paradigm presentation react with an array of emotions - delight, dismay, curiosity and, most palpably, surprise. It is evident from their comments, murmurs, body language and facial expressions that their expectations have been shaken - which is precisely what Nierenberg wants. Indeed, the setup of the room is designed to create a "stranger in a strange land" mood among the attendees. Some of the familiar trappings of corporate conferences are removed; instead, executives find themselves in an altered environment, inexplicably surrounded by musicians readying themselves for a performance. Once the orchestra begins to play, the sense of strangeness is heightened. In the audience, mouths drop and eyebrows arch. Nierenberg keeps conducting, allowing time for the listeners to dismiss their normal expectations. He then works for the next 10 to 15 minutes to make the executives feel safe in this new environment.

I explain that we have found ourselves inside an orchestra, but if we use our imaginations, we could be inside an organization that is very much like their own. It is made up of professional people who are highly trained, intelligent, motivated and ambitious. They are individual experts who must work together as a team because the success of the entire organization depends on it.

NIERENBERG AND HIS orchestra perform a variety of classical standards - in addition to Brahms's First, he favors Elgar's Enigma Variations and Mozart's Jupiter Symphony. The program is selected to depict a range of musical approaches, alternating forceful and subtler messages. He stops the music often to engage the audience members actively in what is going on.

With the utmost care and politeness, he asks them to describe what they're thinking and feeling, to question what they see, to relate what is happening there to their normal work experiences. Often, he will invite an executive up to the podium to conduct - with the maestro's help, of course. Meanwhile, Nierenberg is also facilitating a most unusual discussion about the many qualities required to cope with change - focus, concentration, coordination, multitasking, commitment, interpretation and skilled judgment.

"I could see people looking back and forth at one another and smiling," says a recent program participant. "You don't get that with a speech, which is a one-way affair. This involved contact between other members throughout the whole meeting." Another attendee - a senior executive at a major oil company - likens the conductor's baton to a leader's vision for the organization. "By itself, it has no meaning, but in the hands of a competent conductor, it causes the organization to do what it can't do by itself," he says.

My role is to relate what the musicians are doing to other kinds of work that organizations do and to convey this connection to our audience. In doing so, I sometimes ask the orchestra to become deliberately dysfunctional - to compete with each other, to ignore my direction, to pretend they are being evaluated on individual achievement and not that of the group as a whole. The audience is astounded by the frenzied cacophony that results when the musicians are unmanaged! They come to trust me because they see that I don't have a thesis, and that I'm not lecturing to them. I set up these exercises so they can see for themselves the dynamics of what's going on. Their interest in the orchestra is an extension of their interest in themselves. It goes deepest when they just experience it.

Nierenberg has no plans to trade in his baton and tails for pinstripes and a career in business. But his Music Paradigm experience has heightened his respect for business leaders - not to mention his own street credibility in the corporate community. He talks admiringly of the thoughtfulness, skills and concern for people that he's observed time and again in his encounters with executives. Reading his fan mail, one gets the distinct impression that the feeling is mutual. The letters, from conference organizers and attendees, reflect a broad consensus on the relevance of the orchestral model - and on the value of the Music Paradigm in helping executives understand their role in implementing organizational change.

I learn constantly from these experiences. They have transformed the way I think about my orchestra and raised new possibilities for how an orchestra can work. I've learned about these organizations and the people who lead them, and viewed the commonality of issues they often share - with each other and with my own organization. Most of all, perhaps, I've acquired a real optimism about the future of orchestral music and its place in our society.

July 26, 2001

By ELAINE SCIOLINO

 

	Susana Raab for The New York Times Roger Nierenberg uses his role as conductor to teach leadership skills to Lyn Ravert, a corporate executive.

ASHINGTON, July 25 — "You are going to have the experience of a lifetime!" Roger Nierenberg exclaimed as he led a business executive to the podium, turned her toward the National Symphony Orchestra and put a baton in her right hand. "By putting the baton in your hand you are going to feel the leadership message going out and you're going to feel the responses coming back," he said. "What the orchestra is playing is really emanating from this little thing."

"Very nice," replied the smiling executive, Lyn Ravert, a senior manager with Cubic Transportation Systems of San Diego. Then Mr. Nierenberg, music director of the Stamford Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut, guided her baton and whispered instructions in her ear as they bent and dipped in unison and moved the orchestra through a segment of the last movement of Brahms's First Symphony.

Even though her only audience was the people onstage, Ms. Ravert later called the experience sensuous and sobering. "It was a golden experience," she said. "I felt so drenched in the music, so willing to throw myself into the moment. I also felt a tremendous sense of responsibility. I didn't want to squander it."

Sensuous and sobering might not be the first words that come to mind in describing a classical music performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, but this was not business as usual; it was an up- close demonstration of how music making can be a metaphor for money making.

For two evenings earlier this month, Mr. Nierenberg demonstrated "The Music Paradigm," a management-awareness seminar he created seven years ago that uses orchestral teamwork as a guiding principle for corporations. Onstage with him were 65 musicians and almost as many guests — board members, high-powered donors and potential donors and their spouses and friends. They came for a 90-minute indoctrination that was part musical performance, part audience participation and part inspirational pitch.

"The orchestra is an ideal laboratory for doing simulations of organizational dynamics," he said. "Communications are so fast you can experiment with one behavior and immediately see the results. It invites people to question their assumptions about organizational issues in a nonconfrontational way."

Mr. Nierenberg's Web site (www. stamfordsymphony.org) makes even more sweeping claims, stating that his program "can revolutionize executive training and redefine the role of music education in the 21st century."

For the National Symphony, the demonstration had a less lofty purpose. It was a cost-effective exercise in rewarding existing donors and attracting new ones. Mr. Nierenberg hired the symphony last year to do a similar event underwritten by a Washington-based business. This year the symphony turned the tables and hired him to perform with its musicians, who were already contracted to work.

The symphony certainly needs the money. Only $10 million of its annual budget of about $26 million comes from ticket sales, another $7 million coming from the Kennedy Center's main budget. That means $9 million comes from gifts and grants. So it was to be expected that guests were given elegant, black-and-gold folders containing news of Kennedy Center productions and explaining the benefits of contributing to the symphony's corporate annual fund.

"We thought we might make friends with people who wouldn't find their way into the audience," said Robert C. Jones, president of the National Symphony Orchestra, "and that they might be interested enough to come back and even support us."

The exercise, which Mr. Jones hopes to turn into an annual event, also fits nicely into the long-term strategy of Michael M. Kaiser, the Kennedy Center's president. A passionate fund-raiser, Mr. Kaiser is determined to transform the Kennedy Center into the country's pre-eminent arts education center. This fall, when the Vilar Institute of Arts Management opens at the center, he wants it not only to train arts administrators but also to educate board members. He also has an ambitious plan to build a national museum for the performing arts and a new administrative headquarters.

For his seminar, Mr. Nierenberg likes to use music by Brahms because of its variety and "the big effect the baton can have." He could not use a work like Beethoven's Seventh because it is "a very motoric kind of music, which has an inevitability." And he would not use Baroque music because it was written before the job of conductor was created and because each piece has one mood and tempo throughout.

One of his exercises is to showcase and humanize the musicians. "These artists make what they are doing look very easy," he told his audience on the evening of the first performance. "But what you see depends on years and years of training the body. Not only are these people of talent, they're also people of tremendous character, tremendous persistence, of willfulness to always strive to improve."

But most of the demonstration is designed to show how orchestra members function as a team — with and without leadership. At one point, Mr. Nierenberg asked the violinists to relax and let their minds wander as they played. The result was discord; the audience snickered. "This exercise proves that you can have individuals executing their own instruments perfectly well and have terrible teamwork," he said.

At another point, Mr. Nierenberg barely moved his baton as he led the orchestra through the music. "It certainly is not inspiring," Elisabeth Adkins, the associate concertmaster, told him. "We are not even told what to play."

Lewis Lipnick, the contrabassoon, said: "You're stifling the music. You're taking any of the composer's intent out of the music."

Mr. Nierenberg called the style one of "indifferent leadership."

He led the piece again, this time focusing only on eliciting responses from particular musicians who played the melody. "I had the feeling you didn't know we existed," Lynne Edelson Levine, a violist, said afterward. "And if you're a viola, that is not a good thing."

Mr. Nierenberg was trying to prove, he explained, that, "I know the score and I want to make sure that every note gets played exactly just so. And I sought control over every aspect of it. This is micromanaging."

The most dramatic moment came when Mr. Nierenberg asked the orchestra to play conductorless. The musicians turned to the concertmaster for guidance, and after a tentative start, began nodding along with her and playing with remarkable confidence and consensus.

"Didn't it sound as if it was one mind?" Mr. Nierenberg asked. "What you saw was an organization acting with one intelligence and it had nothing to do with the podium. There was that moment: `We're on the spot. We have to take care of this.' There was leadership emanating from all parts of the organization. Everybody's figuring out, `What do I need to do to make this happen?' And there's a fantastic, magical ability to reach consensus and so quickly!"

Then he joked, "As a matter of fact, this exercise, when the orchestra does it this well, it's a little depressing."

One audience member asked if the result would have varied had the orchestra been composed of musicians from different orchestras rather than musicians with years of communal experience. The answer from the associate concertmaster was yes. "In fact, we all fall back to a familiar place," Ms. Adkins said. "We just did what we normally have done for many years. We're used to functioning together."

At the end of the demonstration, Mr. Nierenberg asked the musicians to play the entire last movement, making sound "as if you were inventing it yourself." He invited the guests to stand behind him. "We've shown that the baton can give a kind of vision around which the orchestra can align, the organization can align around the vision and thereby reach a higher level," he said. The baton, he added, "makes no sound, it only creates the space for sound."

The exercise apparently worked. Virnell Bruce, vice president for communications at the Boeing Company, a major Kennedy Center donor that is underwriting the symphony's 2002 trip to Europe, was participating in Mr. Nierenberg's presentation for the third time. "When you're sitting onstage, it's the experience of being alive and being in the music — with the vibration and the loudness and the sound," she said.

Rodney MacAlister, director of the Washington office of the Houston-based oil company Conoco Inc., came away with a concrete business tool. Before heading home, he stopped by the Kennedy Center gift shop and bought two batons at $5 each — one for the conference table in his office, the other for the executive who invited him to the event.

"I was struck when the maestro said that the baton represents the leader's vision for the organization, that by itself it has no meaning but that in the hands of a competent conductor it causes the organization to do what it can't do by itself," Mr. MacAlister said. "I have this gigantic gavel like a croquet mallet on my table. I call it my time-management tool and I pick it up when people are getting wordy. Now whenever I get to acting like a gavel-wielding leader I'll reach for my baton. I think a lighter touch is in order."

Kennedy Center Strikes Right Note With Businesses

Washington Business Journal

By Christine Cubé, Staff Reporter

The stage came to Iife as a cacophony of strings and violins joined the rest of the orchestra, preparing to play before an empty house.

Only this was one show the Kennedy Center had never done before.

More than 100 people sat on the Concert Hall stage July 17 as the National Symphony Orchestra took part in a first-ever seminar for executives and upper-level managers of some of its corporate contributors.

The Music Paradigm is a unique look at effective business leadership through the teamwork and precision of 65 musicians and their effort to play the finale of Brahms' first symphony.

It was easy to distinguish the executives from the musicians. The suits and business attire gave them away. They also sat with wide eyed anticipation, getting a rare look at how an orchestra pulls together to make music.

Eugene Shugoll, executive vice president and CFO of Bethesda marketing research firm Shugoll Research, says having an orchestra demonstrate leadership is "different from someone getting on a stage and talking about it using slides."

"I learned how important a conductor really is," Shugoll says. "He doesn't just read notes, he makes the orchestra play a symphony. I have found in business, it's very similar. It's very hard to teach a person to be a manager."

THE OFFICE/ORCHESTRA ANALOGY
But that's exactly what guest conductor Roger Nierenberg-the music director for the Stamford Symphony Orchestra, who led the seminar did for participants in the July 17-18 workshop.

"The concept was fascinating because of the analogy of the orchestra making beautiful music together and a work force pulling together to create something," says Lyn Ravert, senior contracts manager for San Diego-based Cubic Transportation Systems.

Nierenberg asked participants to look at the orchestra as a business organization- one that maintains a strong vision in the face of deadlines, adapts to change, improves listening skills, focuses on the company's vision and speaks with one voice. Through his conducting, Nierenberg also showed participants how an indifferent leader or a micromanager can affect an organization.
CLOSE UP
Companies participating in the workshop

* IBM * PricewaterhouseCoopers * Caine Consulting Group * Riggs National * Lockheed Martin * KPMG Consulting * Procter & Gamble * Boeing

Paula Akbar, a first violinist with the National Symphony Orchestra, says it was gratifying to have someone point out the multitasking of the orchestra through this business model.

"A musician may be extremely talented, but if they're missing one facet or skill, they may not be a team player," Akbar says. "You have to know your business well enough to trust someone else's ears."

Robert Jones, president of the National Symphony Orchestra, says the special program will help build future audiences to the symphony.

This year, the symphony expects to raise $9 million through fund raising and $10 million in ticket sales. Its revenue is projected at $27 million this year.

"This is a way of thanking companies for supporting us by giving them something of value," Jones says. "It's a way of introducing them to classical music through a program that's designed to benefit them in their profession."

HITTING THE RIGHT NOTE
Nierenberg created the Music Paradigm (www.themusicparadigm.com) seven years ago while looking for a way to bring the experience of music to community leaders. What he found was the approach had huge appeal to business people.

Now companies hire Nierenberg to do this seminar for its managers, and he enlists the help of whatever orchestra happens to be in the client's area.

"A lot of people have preconceived ideas about classical music and those ideas inhibit the experience of the music. I was looking for another kind of subject matter to demonstrate the music," Nierenberg says. I saw how powerful it was in conveying the music when the orchestra was presented [as] kind of a metaphor."

Lead Softly, but Carry a Big Baton

Fast Company

 

Symphony conductor Roger Nierenberg knows a thing or two about creative management. How else do you get the piccolos and the percussion to stay on the same page?

"You!" says the orchestra conductor, waving his baton at a couple of stocky fellows in the percussion section. "You are so right for this!

It's the last session of Bank of America's Florida sales convention, and 200 or so managers and executives are sitting amid an orchestra of classical musicians. Conductor Roger Nierenberg is striding toward the two executives he has singled out, his tuxedo coattails flapping.

"I'm now radically shifting your relationship with this organization," says Nierenberg, leading the men up to the podium. "The orchestra is going to play. Your job up here is to listen."

"But I want to conduct!" protests one of the men. A woman seated in the audience calls out: "See what I have to deal with every day?" Everyone laughs.

Taking a team of talented, independent players and turning them into a well-tuned symphony is routine for musical conductors. Now Nierenberg, 54, whose day job is leading Connecticut's Stamford Symphony Orchestra, has created a program called "The Music Paradigm." He teaches managers at companies such as Georgia-Pacific and Lucent Technologies how to be better leaders by giving them a musician's-eye view of a conductor at work. Here are a few lessons and observations from the maestro.

A leader is someone who commits to what hasn't happened yet.

I'm always a step ahead of the musicians -- I'm showing them where the music needs to go and why. If you get scared on the podium, you start following the orchestra. Musicians hate it when you do that.

A leader defines for the team what kind of moment they're in. Is this a moment of transition? Is this a dangerous moment? Your job as conductor is to get the orchestra to act together -- powerfully. So what do you do? You can't be calling out to people, "Act now! Act now!" That creates disorder. Instead, you say, "Here's where we're headed."

Don't blame the orchestra.

I had one experience where I had only one rehearsal with a major orchestra before a concert, and it went absolutely horribly. So when I stepped out in front of the audience the next day, I was sure that the performance was going to be an embarrassment. To my astonishment, the orchestra played perfectly. What I hadn't realized was that during the practice, the musicians were reading from illegible photocopies, so all of their energy was going into deciphering what was on the page. By concert time, they knew the music well enough to get the job done. What did I learn? Never assume. Be sure you know the cause before you decide that you have to fix the problem.

Give people permission to be their best.

When teams don't execute as well as you'd like them to, your tendency is to think you have to adjust your connection with the team. But a lot of times, people are unconsciously waiting for permission to do what they're capable of doing. That may seem blatantly obvious to the leader, of course, but the team members need to be told. They're trying to gauge the right level of participation. People often are completely capable of a much higher level of performance, but they haven't gotten the green light from the podium.

Contact Roger Nierenberg by email (nier3534@aol.com).

Sidebar: To Get Results, Hit the Right Note

If you're in charge of a team that's been underperforming, how do you change its behavior? How do you communicate without offending or alienating members? "No one wants to underperform, yet so many people do," says conductor Roger Nierenberg. Why? "Because there are an enormous number of parameters for judging performance, and most people don't know what aspect to work on. But as the leader, you stand on a podium and therefore have access to the big picture. Things that are amazingly obvious from the podium are not at all clear from the chair. Your job as a leader is to communicate a sense of how things could be -- and to show people how to achieve that vision.

"How do you do all that? By giving direction, not criticism. Direction points to the way things could be. Criticism, on the other hand, points to the way things were. It doesn't enlighten people. Direction tells people what to do, whereas criticism tells people what not to do. Here's a criticism: 'The percussion section is playing too loudly.' A direction is, 'Make sure the audience can hear the woodwinds.'

"It's much harder to process a 'do not' instruction than a 'do' instruction, because the 'do not' means you have to locate a behavior, inhibit it, figure out what to replace it with, and then replace it. The 'do' instruction means something more direct: 'Do this.' You're offering a new vision, a different tool. Leadership is about preparation. It means actually inventing a whole new experience and then communicating it to the people you work with. If your team executes your direction and the results improve, then people begin to put their trust in you. That's how you gain credibility as a leader."

Making Beautiful Music By Managing Complexity

The Systems Thinker

By Janice Molloy

 

What words do we use to describe a team that's functioning well? Whether we realize it or not, we often use musical terminology: We say we're "in unison"; we're making a "concerted" effort; we're "attuned" to each others' concerns; and, at our best, we're "harmonious." In a sterile office environment, it may be difficult to draw more substantive parallels between our workgroups and a highly trained, professional orchestra. Yet Roger Nierenberg, musical director of the Stamford Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut, has designed an interactive experience that lets businesspeople learn lessons about collaboration and leadership from within a world-class musical ensemble.

Nierenberg calls his program "The Music Paradigm." In addition to serving as a conductor and musical director, since 1996, Nierenberg has presented his unusual brand of seminar for a wide diversity of companies, including Lucent Technologies, Lockheed Martin, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. What do executives of these organizations hope their employees will gain from a 90-minute immersion into the inner workings of a symphony orchestra? Unique and memorable insights about the contribution that each "player" makes to the whole, the importance of effective teamwork, and the impact of different leadership styles on performance.

Up Close and Personal

When participants enter the room for the program, they expect to take part in a normal business meeting or training session. Instead, they encounter a philharmonic, its members clad in formal performance garb, waiting to play. Attendees can choose to sit in front of, next to, or behind the musicians, who are grouped in "functional teams" throughout the venue.

The orchestra for any given performance comprises professional musicians, who participate in the program on a freelance basis. They meet for the first time an hour before the presentation to rehearse a selection of classical music, such as Mozart's 41st or Brahms's 1st Symphony. After a brief familiarization period, the group soon produces beautiful music together.

"Functional" and "Dysfunctional" Performances

A symphonic performance serves as an ideal laboratory for studying organizational dynamics for several reasons: Observers can easily view the entire system at once; communication among players is transparent and instantaneous; and the connection between behavior and results happens immediately. When the parallels between an orchestra and a business seem less intuitive, Nierenberg translates the musicians' behavior into terms that managers can understand and relate to. For instance, he points out that an orchestra has an "org chart": Each "division" - such as strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion - is divided into "teams." The string division consists of five teams: first violins, second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses.

In the teamwork activities, the audience compares the results when the orchestra plays normally and when, for instance, the first violins play slightly out of sync or when the violas and double basses are missing. In each case, the differences between the "functional" and "dysfunctional" performances are subtle but audible. The participants gain a dramatic understanding of the interdependence of the group as a whole, and of the importance of each individual and each team to the quality of the final "product."

As part of the session, the musicians also describe their experiences of playing in these counterintuitive ways - it takes effort to contradict the instincts they've developed through many years of practice and performance. Because the conductor works with a different group of artists each time he conducts a session, the performers find the exercises as surprising as the participants. In unscripted and unrehearsed responses, they convey the richness of the flow of information that travels throughout the ensemble. By following the conductor, taking cues from each other, listening to feedback, and making continual, minute adjustments, the players are able to remain together and on key.

From Neglect to Micromanagement

But the most striking aspect of the presentation involves leadership. To dramatize the impact of different leadership approaches on performance, the orchestra plays the same selection in several ways: as they normally would with a conductor, on their own without a conductor, with the conductor carefully controlling every aspect of the performance, and with a "guest conductor" - an employee from the organization participating in the session, guided by Nierenberg's gentle and expressive hand.

Even the untrained ear can perceive variations in the style and tone of the various scenarios. When asked to play without a leader, the orchestra plays accurately, but the music lacks emotion and pace. When Nierenberg micromanages the performance, the group sounds stilted and somewhat flat. When the inexperienced conductor stands in, the performance is tentative and uneven. But when the maestro confidently wields the baton once again, the musicians respond with a lush and expansive rendition.

Nierenberg describes the group's performance without a conductor as "business as usual." In the absence of guidance from the podium, the players turn their eyes to the concertmaster and listen to each other with greater intensity. In this way, they manage to work together remarkably well.

So, if an orchestra - or, by extension, an organization - can function successfully without a leader, then what purpose does a conductor - or general manager, president, or CEO - serve? Nierenberg suggests that the leader's first job is to provide others with a sense of the big picture. From his or her central position, a conductor is able to see and hear the whole, gather information from the music, and convey that information to the group. At the end of the session, Nierenberg invites the participants to stand behind the podium as he conducts, to better understand the unique perspective of the entire system that the leader holds.

Even more important, a skilled conductor infuses the notes of a musical score with meaning, inspiring the orchestra to perform with richness, depth, and emotion. In this way, Nierenberg argues, strategic, visionary leadership can make a qualitative difference in a team's functioning. Noting that a conductor must provide guidance in advance of - not simultaneous to - the orchestra's playing a note, he states that "leaders are people who commit themselves to things that haven't yet happened." If they make a commitment - and engage others in creating a vision - when the time comes for people to act, they know what they need to do to bring that vision to life.

For conductors don't make music directly; the people they lead do. Similarly, leaders can't precisely control their organizations' operation - but the people who work for them can. For that reason, an effective conductor focuses on enabling people to execute their jobs well: revealing things about the music to the players, showing them what's important, and lifting them out of their silos to gain a sense of the whole.

In contrast, when asked to describe their experiences under a controlling leadership style, the musicians report that the group may be more together in terms of timing, but they give less emotionally and feel less able to make their own unique contributions to the overall effort. The leader's dominant style actually prevents them from doing their jobs effectively by blocking the flow of information, isolating the players from their network of colleagues, and squelching their creativity.

The Power of Feedback

It's easy to overstate the parallels between an orchestra and a company. Obviously, vast differences exist. For one thing, members of a musical ensemble perform at the same place and the same time, while company employees generally conduct their business in different locations and sometimes even in different time zones. Also, feedback processes in a business are seldom as direct and instantaneous as those that take place during a musical recital. For instance, the musicians respond to feedback as they tune their instruments, making subtle adjustments until their output corresponds to that of the oboe. This process generally takes seconds to accomplish. In an organization, we may not receive data about the results of a certain activity until months - even years - after we took the initial action.

Nevertheless, this kind of multimedia session offers a powerful alternative to the "talking-head" approach so prevalent in many training programs. Just as with a computer simulation, participants in these workshops witness in real-time the results of different scenarios and the impact that changes in certain variables have on an organization's performance. And for those of us not in the position of leading a large enterprise - and even for those of us who are - the experience of standing behind the podium as the music swells serves as a tangible reminder of the beauty and promise in effective teamwork and inspirational leadership.

Janice Molloy is content director at Pegasus Communications and serves as managing editor of THE SYSTEMS THINKER

"Bravery In the Arts" The Music Paradigm

The National Business Review, New Zealand

FACING THE MUSIC: Leading lights in business and government refresh their management skills

Throw a bunch of CEOs and lawyers among the players of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and you get  a management seminar.

This seemingly bizarre but successful match  called the Music Paradigm  was introduced to New Zealand this year by Rudd Watts & Stone, ABN Amro and the NZSO.

Using the arts to refresh management skills has taken off overseas. Examples range from the management book Elizabeth I, CEO, which concludes the English queen used great leadership skills to lead England to victory and prosperity, to the Globe Theatre's leadership seminars which use Shakespearean plays including Henry V and Julius Caesar.

But it's an entirely foreign concept here  how would the CEOs react?

Enthusiastically, as it turned out, which delighted the arts partners, both keen innovators.

The NZSO was also relieved. The day before the first Auckland concert, the orchestra had an unnerving experience when players flew to Hamilton for a concert. Because of a crash at Hamilton airport their plane was diverted to Auckland  so they caught a bus back to Hamilton, performed the concert and caught a bus back to Auckland again.

And they had had only a quick run through the chosen piece for the evening, Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony (though they had performed it recently), with seminar leader and conductor Roger Nierenberg, before the event.

The Music Paradigm works by putting business leaders into what seems like a situation totally divorced from their usual workday ­ the heart of a symphony orchestra  and showing them business lessons can be taught at the point of a baton. Mr Nierenberg takes them through a rehearsal, seeking their feedback on the playing, conducting and interpretation and relating it to how they run their own organisations.

The symphony orchestra ran a comprehensive marketing campaign before the event but Rudd Watts admits it had a little difficulty communicating the concept. The firm says there was a certain amount of internal marketing based on "trust us, we know what we are doing."

So it was a perplexed-looking group of people that filed into the Auckland and Wellington town halls for the seminar.

By the end of an entertaining and exciting evening, the participants  a mixture of Rudd Watts' lawyers and their clients  were relaxed and reinvigorated. Rudd Watts says clients and staff felt the event had an impact on them and made them re-evaluate the value of leadership and teamwork within their own organisation.

The seminar was a continuation of the firm's long-time sponsorship of the arts. But it saw this partnership, worth around $25,000, as the ideal opportunity to link commerce and culture.

There were strong business benefits.

Rudd Watts says the seminar feedback confirms it is a premier law firm that can think outside the square for the benefit of its clients.

The Music Paradigm provided a unique educational forum for Rudd Watts' staff and guests and introduced a new, exciting concept that caught the media's attention.

Because it was a positive event that saw Rudd Watts' staff sitting with clients in an educational and enjoyable forum, it could only build on the good relationship the firm has with those clients.

Concept Makes Sound Business of Symphonies

The Florida Times Union

Sunday, April 26, 1998

Roger Nierenberg, who steps down as the full-time conductor of the Jacksonville Symphony at the end of the season, is excited about a growing business of his that is receiving national attention.-- Stuart Tannehill/Staff

Grand finale: Nierenberg conducts last Masterworks.

By Bob Phelps
Times-Union staff writer

While Roger Nierenberg hopes to continue making return engagements as conductor emeritus of the Jacksonville Symphony after this season ends, he is excited about a growing business of his that is receiving national attention.

Called Music Paradigm Co., the business was featured in late March on the CNN program Business Unusual.

Through his company, Nierenberg introduces the artistic concepts of symphonic music into the management of corporations. That may sound like an artistic pipe dream, but CNN cameras caught Nierenberg in the act of demonstrating his concept with high-powered managers of Bristol-Myers Squibb, a multinational pharmaceutical firm based in New York.

Charles Tharp, human resources director at Bristol-Myers, said his firm has paid Nierenberg $15,000 for each of seven sessions to teach management the cooperative and reactive concepts of orchestral leadership. Tharp said the money came out of the firm's $45 million a year training budget.

''I think people are sometimes surprised that we use this kind of technique,'' Tharp said. ''It's not a Harvard Business School professor but rather a conductor.''

Nierenberg recently has used players from the Tucson Symphony Orchestra in training sessions with Citibank executives and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in a session with BellSouth in Atlanta.

The concept is to show managers how musicians follow not only conductors, but take cues from other players both inside and outside their sections to achieve the harmony and perfect timing of classical music.

A side benefit, Nierenberg said, is that while influential business people are learning management concepts, they also are gaining new appreciation for orchestral music.

''What I constantly hear in these sessions is: 'I will never listen to an orchestra the same way again.' Or, 'The next time I go to an orchestra, I will know what to listen for,' '' Nierenberg said. ''The Music Paradigm is the most powerful tool for symphony audience development I have ever seen.''

He said it also gives musicians a new outlet for sharing their talents.

Beth Newdome, the Atlanta Symphony's assistant concertmaster, said she participated in the BellSouth session about a month ago.

''Roger is amazing at this,'' she said. ''It's a brilliant idea, and he executes this just fabulously.''

He demonstrates the pitfalls of miscommunication or lack of communication by allowing each player to improvise independently, all at the same time, turning a classical piece into a cacophony.

''He would conduct in a very clear manner, and he would then conduct in a very wishy-washy manner, and then he asked players how they felt about that and then he would ask his audience how they perceived it,'' Newdome said. ''Somebody came up to me afterward and said, 'I'm going to start coming to the Atlanta Symphony.' ''

Nierenberg said he thinks this could develop into a benefit for economically struggling orchestras.

''What it is that I have discovered and invented is a way of thinking to address the coming challenges for orchestras in a way that is true to the art form and has two transformative effects,'' Nierenberg said.

''One is it transforms the conception of what classical music is about for people who had previously thought that it wasn't relevant to them. It also has a transforming effect on the musicians who play it because they see that what they're doing has a relevance for many people's lives, and they see an additional way of bringing inspiration to people's lives through music.''