The Relevance of Music in Business Transformation

I have to tell you about a recent experience I had listening to the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) talk about how to engage employees during a business transformation. If you're like me, you're probably thinking, "Wait... did he just say that an orchestra conductor was talking about employee engagement?!??"

Ben Zander (www.benjaminzander.com) has been the conductor of the BPO since it formed more than 25 years ago. But in addition to being an accomplished conductor, composer, and musician Ben Zander has spoken to hundreds of business prefessionals and executives on the topic of leadership and engagement. I've listened to my share of "motivational" speakers over the years, but that's not what Ben is. He uses stories, music and musical concepts to get business professionals thinking differently about their immediate surroundings and how to become powerful leaders. Perhaps the best way to think about it is that as a conductor, Ben is the only person in the orchestra who isn't playing an instrument. In fact, he has the massive task of getting every individual member of the orchestra to perform in a way that makes the "whole group" work together to create beautiful music. Using the metaphor of the orchestra and his years of coaching and teaching experience, he demonstrates how he works with musicians to overcome barriers to corporate productivity. Listening to him talk, it's quite remarkable how his stories can be applied to the everyday business world - and helping employees overcome the barriers they face in productivity.

One of the most precious moments in the presentation was when Ben actually coached a live performance of a cellist - coaching him how to play a piece of music. The student played the piece in its entirety to start - and then Ben spent about 15 minutes working on phrasing and the mood behind the piece. He talked about what the composer was writing about when he wrote the piece of music and asked the student how he would express that knowing what the composer was thinking. At the end of the 15 minutes, the student played the piece of music again, and the transformation was remarkable. It sounded like a different piece of music altogether.

If you work for a company that is looking someone to help empower the senior members of your organization to lead and coach, words can hardly express how wonderful Ben is. Please check out his work at http://www.benjaminzander.com/.

The Latest from Jim Dower...

A few years back, I did some collaborating with a great musician from Fitchburg, MA - Jim Dower. We did a few gigs and wrote a few tunes together, and he also introduced me to some other great musicians. Jim is currently in NYC, and just released a new CD of solo piano music (Reinvention) and it is outstanding. You can check out more about him at www.jimdower.com but here's a quick profile: he's gigged on TV and on tour with Sam 'Soul Man' Moore, Sting, Elvis Costello, Ne-Yo, and Wynonna Judd. TV appearances include the 'The Late Show with David Letterman', 'Late Night with Conan O'Brien', 'Emeril Live' and 'The Today Show.' If you dig piano, bend an ear on his work... you won't be disappointed.

The iPhone as a Music Enabler?

Ok... so I'm totally jazzed about my new iPhone. Admittedly, it was a challenge to switch as a major Blackberry user for years... and while using the tactile typing interface of the Berry can't be matched by the iPhone, the world of apps that Apple has enabled with the iPhone is truly spectacular.

As a musician, I now have a suite of music-related apps at my finger tips. Those who know me know that I LOVE Pandora - the automated music recommendation and Internet radio service created by the Music Genome Project. I've written about artists that I've discovered simply because Pandora introduced them to me - and now I have a Pandora app that streams musical artists directly to my phone so I can listen when I work out, or when I'm driving in the car... it's awesome.

Another app, Concerts, serves up list of artists that are performing in venues that are in your local area. You can use it when you travel too - just reset your local area to wherever you are and you'll get a listing of artists playing near that location. Better yet, there's a feature that looks at your music collection in your iPod - and then notifies you when artists listed in your musical collection have scheduled concert dates in your area. How cool is that?? How many times have you missed a show of an artist you really like because you weren't regularly checking tour schedules...?Now you are notified in advance when the performers you like most are coming to a venue near you!

There are others... like Concert Vault, which allows you to search a database of live concert recordings and stream them to your phone; Shazam, an app that will identify a song title and artist for you when you hear it but don't know who the artist is (you just hold your phone up and let it "listen" to t a few bars and then it pings you with the info about the song); and don't even get me started on the apps for guitar players. More on that in another post.

When I made the switch, I never thought about how this thing would enable me to consume more music, but it has and I love it!!