Where Music and Business inter-relate

Can we make the argument that good music (especially orchestral) is like a good business? We certainly can, and this comparison has been made often in business literature. I think the most significant aspect of this comparison is the synergy component which inevitably comes from the leadership, vision and right brain imagination component of what an orchestra’s conductor does. Can business, design and media professionals push the limits of how smoothly and seemingly effortlessly they manage their professional endeavors and their visions for what they do (if they have a vision that is). They certainly can, but here’s what I believe they need to do in part to make this become a reality.

Lets go back to the conductor analogy. Part of the reason the conductor can manage to do what he/she does is because there is a very well defined system (albeit vague sounding to the non musical world) by which not only does the conductor manage to convey musical meaning in terms of what notes to execute, but even the intensity, speed and style of rendition. The beauty of it is that there are multiple channels (instruments) through which the conductors energy is dissipated. Here another interesting analogy that only web designers might understand is in order. A good web site/page design, (as in very good) will succeed in delivering dynamic content to multiple browsers at multiple screen sizes, on different operating systems, on various devices accurately and in line with the sites overall objectives.

What does this mean for business, media and design professionals or for that matter any kind of person who has the ambition, need, or desire to lead? It means that you have to set aside serious time on regular basis to build the systems that help you communicate fluently with your relationships based on well understood and agreed upon systems of communication. Sounds complex? It isn’t really.  It just requires a bit of emotional intelligence and a design/proactive bent. You have to believe that there is a better way to do things before any of this even begins to make sense.  Being deliberate is essential. Making an inventory of the things and people related to those priorities in life is an obvious next step. It’s like putting together your orchestra band, you decide who gets to play and why. The next step will be you define what you will need to communicate to them, and what the best way to make that communication probably will be. Making a mind map can be enormously effective. Another key point with building such a smooth communication with any one or with groups of people is to be very conscious about this in your daily life. Just the act of being conscious about building your communication system with that entity as a definite separate phenomenon from your actual interactions with them is hugely powerful in developing ones mental sense of whats going on and in continuing to enrich the life long development of the communication systems related to that entity. I’d like to appreciate and acknowledge the various influences and inspirations that might have led to the above ideas: Stephen Covey (Being Proactive), Jim O’Toole (Ambition as a driver for leadership and the conductor analogy), Tony Buzan (Mind Maps).