loz6


Two of the kids volunteered to write letters of apology to those who had been disturbed at the hotel, and others thought of additional ways to brighten our image with the people of São Paolo.No one felt blamed or made wrong.We left the auditorium with everyone in high spirits, ready to give two invigorating concerts.Yet, while most organizations use the term vision liberally, we have found that few have articulated a vision in such a way that it serves that purpose.A mission statement characteristically draws a picture of the company’s future, including its position in the marketplace, and designates the steps to fill out the design.This kind of statement may motivate people competitively, but it does not provide a guideline for all aspects of the company, nor does it inform people as to its meaning and direction.There is no long line.Mozart’s soaring duet from The Marriage of Figaro lifted the prisoners’ spirits high over prison walls in the film The Shawshank Redemption.I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about.Truth is I don’t want to know.Some things are best left unsaid.I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it.I tell you those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream.It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away.And for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free.In this way, a vision releases us from the weight and confusion of local problems and concerns, and allows us to see the long clear line.A vision becomes a framework for possibility when it meets certain criteria that distinguish it from the objectives of the downward spiral.It cannot imply that anyone is wrong.It contains no specifics of time, place, audience, or product.It gives over its bounty now.If the vision is peace on earth, peace comes with its utterance.When the possibility of ideas making a difference is spoken, at that moment ideas do make a difference.It invites infinite expression, development, and proliferation within its definitional framework.For that moment the real world becomes a universe of possibility and the barriers to the realization of the vision disappear.A goal—even the goal to be Number One in office design in America—is invented as a game to play.Games call forth a different energy than the grim pursuit of goals in the downward spiral.They draw out the creativity and vitality of the players, without denying that the level at which they play may have something to do with whether the team qualifies for the next round.Under a vision, goals are treated as markers thrown out ahead to define the territory.If you miss the mark—How fascinating! Neither you nor the vision is compromised.In the pursuit of objectives under a vision, playing is relevant to the manifestation of the possibility, winning is not.Examples of VisionsHere are some examples, from our interactions with organizations, of visions that meet the criteria of frameworks for possibility.I grew up thinking that change was cataclysmic, Waugh said, and probably accompanied by music.The way we’ve done it here is to start slow and work small.Why aspire to be the best industrial lab in the world?Why not be the best lab for the world?A senior engineer created a picture of what For the World meant to him.People from the rest of the company became so enthusiastic about the image that about fifty thousand of them bought the poster.A vision is an open invitation and an inspiration for people to create ideas and events that correlate with its definitional framework.Tonal OrganizationsA vision can also be likened to the tonality of a company or group—the key in which the piece is written.Atonal music—music with no home key—never developed into a universal art form precisely because there is no sense of destination.How can you know where you are unless you have a point of reference?Music that explores only simple tonic and dominant harmonies is boring because there is no room for development.Or analogously, how inspiring is it to work for a company governed only and forever by its habitual way of doing things?Complexity, tension, and dissonance can give life to an organization as they can to music, but they do not present a coherent structure unless you can hear the home key, or connect to a vision.When a vision is leading an organization, it is instantly and steadily accessible to all members of the group.A vision is the organization’s own toes to nose.Our budget has tripled, and we are running comfortably in the black—a most unusual situation for a nonprofit classical music organization—yet we’ve never raised the price of our lowest priced tickets, and we give away any returns to homeless shelters.Recordings that are compared favorably with major professional orchestras, programs and talks to get people who have never been to a classical music concert excited about music, a tradition of preconcert talks that are now drawing almost a full house, and an annual event where we team up with the phenomenal Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble to put on a great concert and a huge party with wild dancing.And when we want to do something like take the orchestra, two choruses, two children’s choirs, and eight soloists—four hundred musicians in all—to Carnegie Hall in New York City to do Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, we find a way to do it.When the office staff insisted on renting a storefront in a busy urban shopping area, I remember being puzzled as to why they were so adamant—since the majority of our business is conducted on the telephone and computers.We have installed a bench there so people can sit and listen and eat their lunch.He said, I like very much contribution.But what about money?You have to make money! My answer was that money has a way of showing up around contribution because money is one of the currencies through which people show they are enrolled in the possibility you are offering.That answer apparently was not enough for him.He rapidly countered, But what about the stockholders?At this point his diminutive wife standing at his side gave him a firm jab to the ribs and said, No, not the stockholders, the children!—because it turned out the company produced the motor for a tiny children’s car.And, in fact, that distinction may never have been clearly articulated as a vision, so it was the more easily lost, and with it the framework of possibility it could have provided.At that, the man laughed what I like to call cosmic laughter, because he got the whole thing in that moment—how absurd human beings are, and how magnificent.When the boxcar arrived, she looked down and saw that the boy was missing a shoe.Why are you so stupid! she shouted at him, the way older sisters are inclined to do.Can’t you keep track of your things? This was nothing out of the ordinary except that those were the last words that passed between them, for they were herded into different cars and she never saw him again.Nearly half a century later, Alice Kahana is still living by a distinction that was conceived in that maelstrom.She vowed not to say anything that could not stand as the last thing she ever said.Is she 100 percent successful?We would have to presume not.Such a distinction is not a standard to live up to, but a framework of possibility to live into.We come to trust that these places are dedicated to the notion that no one will be made wrong, people will not be talked about behind their backs, and there will be no division between us and them. These environments produce astonishing results that can take people in wholly unexpected directions, perhaps because all their gates are open—inviting us to play in the meadows of the cooperative universe.I often begin my Monday master class at Walnut Hill with a topic that has only tangential relationship to music.It is a way of getting the students to think of their lives in a wider context than the daily routine of practice, classes, and occasional performances.As a teacher I have an enormous opportunity to create possibility in every conversation.One class launched into a fascinating discussion about risk, danger, and breaking through barriers.They know by now that what I mean is, Talk about the dreams and aspirations in common, talk about spirit, talk about being. But I wasn’t altogether prepared for the mastery with which they spoke of both music and the space program as possibility.Sound can explore the soul, coax out dreams and possibilities that before were lost in inky blackness.A beautiful sonata escapes gravity.


0

    Whoops. Looks like there are no entries available here.