JONATHAN COOK: Great leaders conduct teams that create harmony from diverse talents

Corporate executives can learn about leadership from great conductors. Benjamin Zander is famous for teaching the art of possibility to youth and businesspeople. Here in Johannesburg our own impressive, entrepreneurial maestro, Richard Cock, runs an inspiring session called “Sound Teams” with an ensemble of nine wind instrument players.

Participants learn about diversity, teamwork and leadership. For example, when the oboe and clarinet play loudly together, one tends to go sharp, while the other tends to go flat. With a double reed in the mouthpiece, the oboe either makes a definite sound or none, whereas the clarinet’s single reed allows for soft beginnings and endings.

Composers therefore write scores that accommodate the diverse characteristics of each instrument, and musicians need to respect and be patient with each other’s capabilities. In the same way, managers need to harness diverse characteristics in their team and teach members to appreciate different contributions.

It would be boring if every instrument played the same notes. Indeed, not only do they play different notes, but some may have long periods when they are not required at all. Silent musicians can contribute or disrupt those playing by their non-verbal presence, and of course they have to pay attention to come back in at the right time.

In an orchestra harmony requires individuals to limit their contribution when others should stand out. If the horn insisted on making its contribution assertively all the time, it would ruin the passage when the flute leads. What a lesson in personal humility, limiting one’s own noise to ensure the beauty of the whole.

The difference between performing and conducting illustrates some fascinating lessons in leadership. After the celebrated violin soloist Itzhak Perlman shifted into a conducting career, he pointed out four elements in this transition: from following the beat to setting the pace; from performing to creating; from avoiding mistakes to making things happen; and from seeing the parts to understanding the whole.

That’s a pretty good description of what is required as managers move up the leadership ladder. Leaders play through other people. The conductor is the only member of the orchestra without an instrument. Similarly, the CEO’s instrument is the organisation.

But let’s take that further. Just as there is a first violin who heads the team of violinists, a work team can be self-managed, with one of their number leading without giving up their expert job.

But an orchestra of 60 players with very diverse instruments needs a non-playing conductor to keep them together and lead them in interpreting the score coherently. That’s like heads of business units who have to leave behind their professional contribution to focus on setting the pace, co-ordinating disparate contributions, settling conflicts, and all the while ensuring that the product is a thing of beauty.

What about the CEO of a large organisation? Conductors work, such as business unit heads, with line of sight to their players. But they could not maintain eye contact with 5,000 people in a hundred orchestras in a hundred places. That job is done by the composer, who writes the score each conductor interprets, enabling their players to express the composer’s intentions in new ways suited to their audience.

Corporate leaders are like composers who create a score that lasts for generations of conductors and orchestra members, who in turn take that inspired composition and execute it in beautiful and sometimes quite different ways. The corporate “score” includes the purpose of the organisation, how it is designed with interlocking and mutually supportive elements, its strategy, and what meaning is conveyed in the detail of its execution.

Great leaders inspire professional followers to make diverse contributions in teams that, through their harmony, produce artistry in purpose, energy, and beauty. What a privilege to be a CEO artist!

• Cook chairs the African Management Institute.