Culture that enables our best
Have you ever performed with a group where you did a pretty bad job, and then next week you performed with another group and did your best work?
You didn't magically get better in the span of a week. You are more or less the same musician. What probably happened is you were influenced by the culture. The culture at one institution enabled you to do your best work, while the other brought out the worst in you.
I've experienced this personally, and I know I'm not alone. Especially for musicians working in many environments, this roller coaster ride can create so much doubt in our abilities. Sometimes it is you. And more often than not, it's the culture.
We all want to be our best. So it is important to create cultures that enable our best.
Here are 4 ways to do this:
Make it safe to mess up. This sounds simple, yet it is not the default in the majority of our musical cultures. Technical perfection is often glorified and overvalued to the point that mistakes become shameful. This is not conducive to anyone doing their best. We can reverse this with intention.
Normalize having artistic needs. Musicians can be trained to be self-sufficient (a good thing) and subservient (not-so-good thing). The combination of the two means we abandon our artistic needs: we don't think we can have a musical opinion or ask for what we want creatively. We can create a culture where musical ideas are welcomed and valued from everyone - even if it doesn't end up making it to the final performance.
Promote a growth mindset. We are trained to be outcome-oriented. Anything we can do to help us focus on the process of progress would be helpful to a culture where we are determined to keep getting better.
Remind people they belong and we believe in them. This is so important because humans are forgetful. Telling someone they are loved and wanted once when they win the job is not enough. We need reminders from our leaders and our colleagues that we indeed belong here and have people who will support us.
Which one resonates with you? And how might you go about implementing it?
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