The Art of Possibility

A recent Microsoft study of more than 30,000 people across a wide variety of companies found that 41% of the employees are considering leaving their jobs. Is it possible to reverse this alarming trend? Benjamin Zander, founder and conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, assures us it’s not only possible, the leadership method is teachable!

So what does an orchestra conductor know about managing unhappy employees? More than you might think. In a landmark Harvard study, orchestra musicians were found to be more dissatisfied with their jobs than even federal prison guards. Yet the musicians of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) report no such discontent. In fact, many credit Zander’s leadership with their continued happiness in their chosen careers. Zander says the difference comes down to one idea: “I’d been conducting for twenty years, and I suddenly had a realization: the conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound… He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful. That changed everything for me.”

Zander calls his approach the “art of possibility,” and encourages leaders to adopt three governing habits.

1. Embrace your team’s future capacity, not their current reality.  Zander opens each Season with the BPO by giving his musicians a perfect performance review, and each class he teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music with the announcement, “Everybody gets an A.” He then has everyone he leads write him a letter, dated in the future, explaining who they will become to justify their exemplary score—and he enthusiastically expresses his belief they will succeed. Immediately the mindset changes from uncertainty to possibility. “As leaders,” Zander says, “we’re giving out grades in every encounter we have with people. We can choose to give out grades as an expectation to live up to…or we can offer grades as a possibility to live into. The second approach is much more powerful.”     
   
2. Lead from a position of positivity.  Zander argues a leader’s belief about the outcome of a project has more effect on the team’s success or failure than even the talent of its individual members. “Never doubt the capacity of the people you lead to accomplish whatever you dream for them,” he says. “Imagine if Martin Luther King, Jr. had said, ‘I have a dream…I wonder if people will be up to it?’” To help his team members view any problem they encounter as a “speed bump, rather than a brick wall,” Zander teaches them to respond by throwing their arms in the air and shouting, “How fascinating!” in their loudest voice. While Zander acknowledges this particular exercise doesn’t always work in an office setting, he maintains that leaders who refuse to view difficulty as failure lead teams who refuse to stop trying. If you believe your team will succeed, they will believe it, too.
3. Don’t just embrace out-of-the-box thinking, assign it.  Zander maintains that challenging our hidden assumptions—whether they concern approach, process or people—is a key to success we often overlook. “Every organization,” he says, “every human endeavor has to have someone whose job it is to notice what assumptions are being made…[because] assumptions are often roadblocks to innovation.” Every leader has team members who think just a little bit differently—who pick up on nuances missed by others, or approach old problems in new ways. Zander encourages leaders to view these team members as assets, rather than disruptions, and to assign them the task of presenting out-of-the-box ideas whenever the team is brainstorming or problem solving. Zander believes every leader has the potential for greatness, if we have the humility to change our mindset from what we can accomplish to what we can help others accomplish. “As leaders,” he says, “it’s our responsibility to create excitement, to generate interest and understanding.” In recent years, Zander has traveled extensively, sharing his leadership lessons with corporations as varied as Microsoft, NASA, and the United States Army. Regardless of who he’s addressing, his inspiring message to leaders remains the same: “Every day, we wake up to a world we can shape. The sooner we realize this, the faster we can get started.”
   

Are you looking for ways to lead your team effectively during these changing times? Let us share more leadership lessons from empowering leaders in an online workshop. You bring the team members, and we’ll create an immersive learning program, linking real-life examples with your individual workplace issues.

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