Music can lead to high-performance teams

I recall growing up in West Des Moines, Iowa, and being an overachiever—not in the typical Asian immigrant way of the academic striver, but in the way that someone aiming to make the most fantastical of Ivy League resumés might act. I was in two varsity sports, tennis and soccer, played clarinet in the marching band (which is a serious sport in the Midwest), serving as concertmaster of the school orchestra as well as two city-wide youth orchestras, elected class president and student council treasurer, and of course, participated on the math team which won the state championship. In case you’re not familiar with Asian families, getting straight As and being on math team qualifies as legitimate pursuits—those other activities were considered a distraction. In fact, my parents kept trying to get me to quit a lot of my activities, and I remember my violin teacher chiding me “Jack of all trades, master of none”. For some reason, there is something in my personality/character that only allows me to be happy when juggling a lot of different skills.

Fast forward to today, and in addition to my main job skills of being a physician-scientist highly skilled and knowledgeable about clinical/regulatory strategy in therapeutics development and the business thereof, I am not only a member of After Arts but also perform in a chamber orchestra called Camerata Notturna, perform standup comedy regularly at The Comic Strip in NYC, take voice and violin lessons with an aim to put on a recital in a few months, play competitive tennis at a club pro level, and enjoy singing at NYC piano bars with Broadway singers. So why extend myself in such a way? Honestly, it is about self-fulfillment. However, I think being in such a variety of activities?does?enhance my ability to be effective in my work, and I’d like to share some thoughts about the role of music.

There are three areas I’d like to highlight regarding my musical endeavors: discipline, collaboration, and leadership. For those of you who haven’t seriously pursued music, the discipline required to perform at a high level can be astounding. Malcolm Gladwell described a base layer of 10,000 hours of practice, which sounds reasonable. This is just to establish competence mind you—plenty of us practiced such long hours to end up with no performance opportunities—there are so many intangibles associated with success in music, talent of course being one, and those long hours just get you to the starting point. You also need serious work after having developed those skills to play music in a chamber group—you need to master your individual part to be able to dovetail it into what the others are doing. Without a mastery of your part, it would be impossible to adjust to the shifts in tempo, the musical phrasing, and the occasional slip ups that might occur.

Next, I’d like to talk about collaboration. In the article by Ben Wolff, Nick King described the metaphors he was hearing at work which were all in terms of winning. In general, music is not a contest, particularly when playing chamber music. The fact is that you have, in my case in two pieces I recently performed at Carnegie Hall, between five and eight different minds tackling a major piece of music that lasts approximately ten minutes. There are thousands of different group decisions to be made regarding tempo (speed), loudness, and phrasings. I am amused to think about some of the behaviors I’ve seen at work and how they would play out in a rehearsal. The arrogant individual who just tries to talk the most or loudest, the bulldog who squats in their position and refuses to listen or budge, the irresponsible one who doesn’t have any answers because they simply haven’t prepared. The thing about a chamber group is that we all end up on stage together—and all those maladaptive behaviors would torpedo any performance.?

An overwhelming majority of the time, differences are resolved organically in the groups of which I have been a part. Why does this happen? First of all, there is a recognition that we are a single team—in the case of chamber music, you know that at the end the entire group performs together?on stage in real time. Someone who decides to play faster than the rest of the group is not going to succeed, and neither is the group. Secondly, musicians generally treat each other’s ideas with respect. Often times we will try several different tempi in order to see what we like best—in general, the group naturally decides what sounds and feels best. I really haven’t seen that recalcitrant musician who brays against the group that they know best.

Finally, I want to talk about leadership. The picture I have painted so far is that of absolute equals. I was being a little misleading—the fact is that you must have a certain amount of leadership. In a chamber music group, this can be subtle, but without someone who nudges things along, there is a risk that there is no direction to the decisions made and what is being rehearsed. Often in a chamber music group, this task falls on the first violinist, but sometimes it is someone who simply guides the discussion, perhaps due to seniority, or perhaps natural leadership ability, or by musical knowledge. Of course, this is most explicit in the music director of an orchestra. I have found it fascinating to have played under so many batons in my amateur career and realized that there are so many ways to display leadership. Just as in leading a corporation or a team, you can find examples of autocrats, dictators, influencers, motivators, etc. That is partly why I’m so excited to be embarking on my next adventure: a one-week intensive conducting workshop. Perhaps I’ll share more thoughts after that experience.