Guest Blog! Chris Botti: Lessons in Innovation and Leadership

Chris Botti: Lessons in Innovation and Leadership

By: Rich McLaughlin

Tuesday, November 9, 2010, Princeton, NJ.

There are lessons for all of us around innovation, teamwork and leadership if you watch good jazz musicians do their thing.  Last night I got to see some wonderful creativity in action.  I went with my oldest son and a friend to see Chris Botti, jazz trumpeter, and his band perform.  I’ve been a fan of Jazz since grad school and been fascinated watching good jazz groups perform.    Botti has a knack for recruiting great talent to play with him and bringing out their best, and if you pay close attention, you can pick up the subtle things he (and all the players) do to help make it a memorable performance.  Including:

1) Surround yourself with people who have talents and strengths, you don’t.  Each of the people up there with Botti are exemplary musicians in their own right.  Many could headline their own shows and have Botti playing for them.  In the corporate world, it takes a leader with a clear sense of him/herself to be courageous enough to surround themselves with people of equal talent – people who are not afraid to share their divergent views and ideas for making something meaningful come from their collaboration.

2) Be humble – Botti feels no need to make it clear “who’s in charge” up there.  If anything, he’s gracious to a fault, constantly pointing out the individual player’s contributions while not even mentioning his own.  This rubs off on the others as well.  No one on the stage last night tried to hog the limelight.  They were all quick to deflect attention from themselves and point to the others.  Another way a leader shows the importance of the team (vs. him or herself) is by letting the others have their moment in the sun.  While for most of the songs, Botti would start out and “set the tone”, he would quickly allow others have their own solo moments so they could showcase their unique talents.  This would be the equivalent of a leader in a team meeting letting each of the members assembled a chance to express their complete thoughts on a topic/idea and take the time to make sure it is understood and considered.

3) Care - It was clear watching Botti and his band that there is genuine affection for each other.  They all seem interested in each other’s success.  When one member was doing a solo, you see the others show some very specific non-verbals.  The members not playing will:

• move out of the spotlight, so it’s only on the player of the moment.
• look down or away from the audience to signal that the attention should be on the other member, and “not me”.
• stay “present” and pay attention often nodding along with the music as a way of saying “I’m listening.”  They are not, to use a corporate analogy, checking their blackberries, starting distracting side conversations, tuning out, etc.  In many ways it is a fundamental show of respect that is understood and reciprocated when it’s their turn to “speak.”

4) Encourage play – Botti encourages the others to play and experiment within the boundaries of the song.  First and foremost by doing it himself, and by smiling and nodding when he sees his bandmates doing it.  And like all good improv artists, one member’s experimentation leads to another picking up on it and expanding it, until they’ve created something new within the framework of the original.

It is out of this mutual experimenting (while staying within the confines of the song), that the listener gets a whole new experience – a song that is familiar yet, at the same time feels fresh and different.  Much like what many of us try to do every day with our own customers – give them an experience with our product or service that is comfortably familiar AND at the same time different and unique.

Monar would like to thank Rich McLaughlin for letting us use his article as today’s blog.  We share his vision and see innovation and leadership as working hand-in-hand in successful organizations.  More on Rich here.