- Listen first.
- Value silence.
- Leave room for other voices.
As a professional musician in a past career lifetime, I can relate to these lessons.
I found while trying to perfect the presentation of a piece, whether for competition or recording, that when I recorded a song and played it back, I systemically got better. That’s because I received FEEDBACK from an unbiased media. Indeed, some of the best expressions came from the pauses or silence. In performing, from my point of view, I needed to keep putting the music out there. However, from the listeners point of view, the pauses or gaps led to dramatic tension that improved the listening experience. I could only come to this realization by making the effort to get objective feedback.
I also found that people responded when I performed. If I’d never taken the risk to perform in public, I’d never gotten the encouragement to keep on going, practice to get better, and be invited to a variety of venues, through my college years and beyond. Fortunately, I also had a sponsor–my mother–who encouraged me to keep practicing.
These simple lessons from music are invaluable to the practice of project management.
All the best, from Randall Englund, Englund Project Management Consultancy