7 Leadership Lessons from Jazz with Dr. Frank Barrett

In October, I attended a fascinating session by Dr. Frank Barrett, jazz pianist and author of Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz. The session was jointly organized by ISPI Vancouver with ICF Vancouver, CAPS, CRG International and coordinated by Brian Fraser, the lead provocateur of Jazzthink.

Dr. Barrett is an accomplished, long-time pianist and is currently a professor of management at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Against the backdrop of jazz, Dr. Barrett shared what Duke Ellington and Miles Davis can teach us about leadership and management. Using jazz as a metaphor for learning was a brilliant concept. I had so much to learn about learning and... about jazz. 

To demonstrate the principles of creativity and improvisation in jazz, he performed with three jazz artists from the Jazzthink Trio who he had met for the first time in the room! The artists had never performed with Dr. Barrett before. Without knowing each other, just by applying the principles Dr. Barrett spoke of, the jazz band enthralled the audience with amazing jazz improv. It was entertaining and very insightful. I almost forgot that I was attending a leadership training session! 

We all certainly 'hit the groove' in this session! 
Here are Dr. Barrett's 7 leadership lessons from jazz:

• Unlearning - disrupt outworn routines - challenge your routines and learn your way into new and different areas
• Say "Yes to the Mess" - affirmative competence that favors experimentation - be open to possibilities and the creative power of teams
• Learn from failures - use errors and mistakes as a source of learning. As Miles Davis puts it, 'If you’re not making a mistake, it’s a mistake.'
• Use minimal structure and minimal consensus - create just-enough structure to coordinate and don't wait for gaining consensus every time
• Take turns soloing and supporting - embrace 'Followership as a Noble Calling.' Make each other happen
• Create spaces for hanging out - create informal spaces to hang out where conversations about innovation and experimentation can happen
• Leadership as provocative competence - know the potential of your people, disrupt their routines and move them away from their comfort zones, remind them of their true potential

In his book, Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz, the 'Mess' refers to constant change and unstructured tasks we need to perform on a daily basis. Saying 'Yes' to the 'mess' means to develop an improvisational mindset, which means to leap in and take action. But saying yes is not about problem-solving, it is about improvising with what you have and believing that something new and creative will emerge. In that sense, if a leader says 'yes to the mess', it encourages everyone to take risks and perhaps create something amazing together!

In his book, you can find plenty of examples from Jazz to explain and highlight each of these principles. Besides the book, here are some other useful resources:

• You will enjoy reading one of his older manuscripts that discusses some of the concepts here. 
• Here is an interesting article by Dr. Barrett titled, 'If Miles Davis taught your office to improvise'.
• Here's an interview (with transcript) as a part of the HBR IdeaCast  series from Harvard Business Review. Lots of good stuff here.
• Another podcast that discusses some more personal examples from his career and how jazz helped him become a better Professor of Management by throwing away his teaching plan and developing a more improvisational, creative teaching style.
• Here's a blog by Ewan McIntosh that discusses Dr. Barrett's principles and shares similar leadership lessons that have been summed up beautifully by other musicians. 

What did I learn during Learn @ Work Week?

Learn @ Work Week, September 23-27, is an annual celebration recognizing the value of workplace learning and development in Canada.

As I read the phrase, 'Learn @ Work', I wonder where else would I learn.

But don't get me wrong. We learn all the time and we can learn anywhere. But when it comes to professional learning, we learn the most at work. Learning at work doesn't only mean attending a formal training session or a conference or attending a 2-day workshop once every six months. 
Learning at work means embedding learning into every task that you we do on a daily basis. There are many opportunities to learn at work especially when we are working on challenging assignments and projects. But these opportunities can be ad-hoc and may come far and apart. The goal of 'Learn @ Work' is to promote a culture of learning not only for this week but all year round by encouraging us to create and appreciate opportunities and learning events embedded in everyday work.

So what did I learn in Learn @ Work Week?

This week, I attended the  #CSTD 'Vancouver: Our Workplace is Learning! Cracker Barrel Event'. The format allows participants to pack learning in a single event. With 7 presenters and 10 minutes with each presenter, there was plenty to learn! 

The key takeaways are centered around what the presenters said. But are mostly based on my reflection from the questions asked during the presentation and my understanding drawn from the learning experience plus some research on the web after the learning event. 

1) Kal Tire - spoke about onboarding and induction training and how it successfully used blended learning to reduce the onboarding time and make better managers; faster. From 44 months in 2006, onboarding training now is completed in 10.3 months! 

Key Takeaway >> Focus on day 1 and the first week at work to design onboarding training. Keep the onboarding training about work processes, basic safety and technical training. Introduce a career development plan for continuous learning and mentoring.

2) Royal Roads University - shared the challenges and successes with their re-branding and marketing initiative. Royal Roads University’s 2012 rebranding campaign won a prestigious global award for this initiative. Loved the marketing material they shared, including the 'cube'! 

Key Takeaway >> Focus on generating buy-ins. Connect internal and external stakeholders towards the common objective. Re-branding is a lot about creating internal advocates who can 'get' the brand and help others 'get it'.

If you are interested to explore the re-branding campaign, here are some articles:

- http://www.marketingmag.ca/news/marketer-news/royal-roads-launches-second-wave-of-rebranding-push-58739

- http://www.rebrand.com/best-royal-roads-university

3) BC Center for Ability Association - discussed the challenges of using online learning with a diverse group and how best to still keep it an experiential learning experience.

Key Takeaway >> E-learning has its place in this world but it can never replace face-to-face learning with a facilitator. As instructional designers, we need to identify the 'right mix' for the audience and training need. 

4) Justice Institute of BC - Showcased their home-grown PRAXIS tool that can be used to create customized immersive, real-life scenarios and problem-based decision making simulations. This was perhaps my favorite of the day! In 2011, JIBC won an Award of Excellence from the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education (CNIE) for Praxis, which was then named ExPod. The virtual simulation learning tool was selected for the award in the CNIE-RCIÉ Awards Festival, for “Excellence and Innovation in Overall Use of Technology for Learning and Teaching.”

Key Takeaway >> The ability to create real-life scenarios and add real-time coaching and feedback by the mentor was a highlight of this tool. The tool was based on solving problems, making decisions (both individually and in groups), getting feedback and learning from mistakes - all the ingredient of the perfect learning material!

Here's a case study of how Westminster Savings recently used Praxis to develop an earthquake scenario simulation to test their business continuity plan.

http://www.bccampus.ca/the-jibc-brings-learning-to-life/

5) Seaspan - Spoke about the business and training needs of the shipbuilding and marine industry and how it is bringing together diverse groups within their company to join the path to continuous learning.

Key Takeaway >> Even if 60% of the company staff doesn't have email-ids, learning can happen! :) The idea is to never let technology get in the way of a learning strategy. One of the objectives of the L&D/Training team is to build bridges between the various departments/divisions of an organization and help transfer best practices from one to another. 

6) Prospera Credit Union - Spoke about employee career development training and 'how they made it stick'. It was interesting to see the learning challenge presented in the form of 'snakes and ladders'. Snakes were typical training challenges and ladders were their small successes and wins along the way. This was my second favorite of the day. 

Key Takeaway >> All interventions come with known challenges and some unknown challenges. You need to design the training to overcome the knowns and then improvise to attack the unknowns. The solutions may not be dramatic or typical and infact may be very simple. The idea is to make small wins along the way. 

7) Telus - Spoke about the culture of a learning organization and learning 2.0 and how to get learning to mobile and multi-generational workforce.

Key Takeaway >> Learning has to be owned. For any organization, learning has to be a common philosophy that permeates the value system and organization culture. 

Learn @ Work (#L@WW) Resources

• Found some interesting Learn @ Work resources on the web including presentations, videos and podcasts: http://www.acevents.com.au/learningatwork/resourcecentre.html
• A new online resource has been launched to support Canadian employers, particularly in small and medium enterprises, in developing their workplace learning programs — Advancing Workplace Learning.

• L@WW plans available via the CSTD website:
• -Intact Insurance Learn At Work Month
• -WorkSafeBC "We All Co-Create Our Learning Experience at Work”
• -L@WW at The Home Depot

What Inspires Me

I recently reviewed the inspiration channel on LinkedIn. It is called 'What Inspires Me'. This channel is a collection of thoughts on inspiration 
contributed by 60 LinkedIn influencers. After reading some interesting posts on what inspires others, I sat and pondered about my own sources of inspiration. 

Inspiration can take various forms. Some get inspired by art and music. Others get inspired by sports. And yet some others get inspired by people. Although each source of inspiration has probably inspired me at some point in my life, I feel most drawn to the inspiration I get from people. People as individuals, including me, and people as a community of experiences. The social aspect of being human is what inspires me.

THIS is what inspires me - STORIES. 

Stories of people and their experiences; of their mistakes and key learning; of their inspiration and motivation.
And...my own stories to myself.

We hear stories all the time and listening to good stories always has a lot of meaning and influence. Storytelling started early for me. My parents are excellent story tellers. While both shared different kinds of stories, each story I heard, had a deep and lasting impact on my life. My parents continue to mold me with fascinating stories from their own life and the lives of others who they come in contact with. I try to continue the tradition by being a storyteller for my daughter. This is the familiar dimension to stories. We have all read and heard good stories, fantastic stories and inspiring stories at some point in our life.

But there is another dimension to storytelling. 

We also tell stories to our own self. 

Our stories to ourselves make us who we are and continue to shape our present and future. We tell ourselves stories that help us live, learn, cope, manage, love, forgive, forget and deal with countless other good and bad emotions. Stories make us and can change us depending on what we tell ourselves. We don't really remember events. We remember the stories that we told our self about the events. 

Our stories to ourselves can be so powerful. They can reshape, reorient, reinvent us in ways we never thought possible. Stories define our relationship with our own self and with others - people, nature, the universe. In that sense, our stories define who we are and who we become. 

If there are no stories, there is no us. We believe in our stories and that's why they exist, they grow in our heart and that is why we exist. 

Stories inspire me. What inspires you?

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, 

stories are the thing we need most in the world.” ― Philip Pullman