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Management Skills in the Music Business

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I have recently had the pleasure of working with an extremely talented vocal coach, Dane Chalfin at the Leeds College of Music.

Dane wanted to improve his effectiveness in giving feedback to his students so that he could more powerfully influence the development of their vocal talents.

In my first session I taught Dane a basic feedback model which aims to:

  1. identify the specific behaviours that need to be reinforced or avoided
  2. describe precisely the impact of these behaviours on the vocal performance, on the long term health of the voice, and on the likelihood of the student having a successful long term singing career!
  3. asks the student what they think they could do differently (assuming we are trying to minimise a behaviour) or just asking them to keep it up – if it is a behaviour that we are trying to encourage.

Unlike many managers, Dane had no problem experimenting with what I taught him, and within days was reporting wonderful results!  He especially loved the way that now students were thinking about what they could change (posture, phrasing, breathe control – so many variables!) and learning to manage their own vocal performance – rather than relying on him to diagnose the problem and prescribe a solution.  Teaching students this ability to coach themselves is the hall mark of an outstanding manager and I am sure will stand Dane and his students in great stead.

Today I got to do a follow up session with Dane watching him work with students and it was a remarkable experience.  I was able to watch Dane work with a couple of talented young vocalists helping them to improve their vocal performance significantly in a matter of minutes.  In the space of a few minutes students would present the piece they were working on.  Dale would listen, observe and then coach them into trying new approaches and styles – which initially took the students well out of their comfort zones (‘this feels wrong’, ‘its really weird’).  However by using  feedback to help the students to recognise the impact of these new habits on their vocal performance and they were soon able to recognise the benefits of the new behaviours and pledge to practice them until they become habits.

It was a real privilege to see the process unfold and great to see some management techniques being used so effectively in the music business.

Barriers to Coaching

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Prem Rao writes a great blog and one of his recent posts identifies 7 barriers that prevent managers from coaching their team members as much as they ought.

Now I spend a lot of my time teaching managers how to coach and while I agree with all of Prem’s 7 I would have to add a few more barriers that I regularly encounter!

One is the perception that coaching takes a along time and is expensive.  While coaching can take several weeks to really improve performance it is usually used to address a problem or an opportunity that has existed for months!  Taking 6 -9 weeks to make real progress on an issue that is important but not urgent has to be a great use of any manager’s time.

But this brings us to another barrier to coaching.  Coaching is a classic Quadrant 2 activity in Covey terms – it is itself an important but seldom urgent part of the work of the manager – After all you can always postpone coaching for another day without the wheels falling off.  Secondly the issues that require coaching tend to be Quadrant 2 in nature – they are important but seldom urgent.  So we are caught in a double whammy – not only can we afford to postpone coaching we can also postpone addressing the issue that coaching would be perfect to address.

Another barrier is the perception that it will take up a lot of the managers time if they start to coach – in fact it will nearly always save time – especially if used in partnership with delegation.

Then there is the association of coaching with under-performance.  The perception that coaching is something that is done (certainly at middle and lower levels in the organisation) as a last resort effort to address under performance.  This makes it awkward for managers to broach the subject of coaching with high performers.

Finally I think that many managers fight shy of coaching because they are insufficiently secure in their own technical competence and believe that their own short-comings might be exposed if they start to coach.

The solution?

Set an expectation that every manager will coach every member of the team every week.  Train managers how to coach. Hold them accountable for this expectation and reward those that deliver! 

Not only will you see progress in terms of performance and value creation, you will also start to develop a culture where you really do ‘invest in your people’.

The Power of Praise and the Greater Power of Feedback

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“Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free – and worth a fortune.” – Sam Walton

“Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of feedback. They’re absolutely free – and worth a fortune.” – Mike Chitty

You see the thing about praise is that it can tend to be quite general.  When you praise someone for their great work they are not always sure exactly which aspect of the work you thought was so great.  I think praise is great – it just won’t always get you more of the behaviours that you are seeking.

When you give feedback the recipient understands exactly which aspects of their work you value so highly because you describe their behaviours and the impact that they had – specifically – significantly increasing the chances of you getting more of that type of behaviour in the future.

Progressive Managers and the Credit Crunch

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How best to respond in uncertain times?

Images in the media of managers clearing their desks and heading for home with their possessions in cardboard boxes makes us all think about our own job security.  So what should you do to maximise your chances of thriving through the credit crunch.

  1. Keep developing your staff – build their skills, knowledge and ability to add value on a weekly basis through coaching – being the leader of  a high performing team is perhaps your ultimate protection.
  2. Continue to invest in your relationships with your team members – in a tightening labour market your best staff will be looking for an employer that allows them to really create value and maximise their potential.  Poorer performers are likely to be keeping their heads down.  IF it comes to having to make redundancies you need to know who you to retain and who you can afford to let go.  Often it is the most able performers that take redundancy offers – confident in their ability to find new ways of making a living.
  3. Provide positive leadership messages.  Yes times are hard but the fundamentals of good business remain the same.  If we can increase quality and productivity and reduce costs then we will have an excellent opportunity to navigate through turbulent waters.  This could be just the right time to ask team members of that little bit more effort – however if you have left it until now to start providing positive, robust management….
  4. Manage under performers robustly.  You need to be rigorous but NEVER ruthless.  Reinforce what you expect from them in terms of quality and performance at work.  You really cannot afford to carry any passengers at this time and good people will be coming onto the labour market.  Work as diligently and as professionally as you can to get people up to the standards you demand.
  5. Delegate more – and use coaching and feedback to make sure that delegation works.  Use delegation to make sure that you have the time to focus on doing the things that matter most. Delegation enables you to create significantly more value for the business without increasing overheads.
  6. Keep your CV up to date and make sure that all of your  professional accomplishments are recorded.  Sometimes even the best managers are made redundant, so make sure to keep all of your networks well maintained.
  7. Invest more time in relationships with peers and your seniors.  Use your networks to the max to get a clear picture of what is happening.  Also use your networks to make sure that your team is getting a fair press and all of its achievements are recognised.

It is an unfortunate truth that tough times are sometimes when people are at their most responsive to the performance improvement message – and you will get recognition for making tough decisions.   Get rid of the dead wood and watch the remaining talent flourish.