Thinking Big Picture & Deriving Inspiration from All Around: Sleeping at Last

?? Music & Management Musings #30 ??

While I'm a technologist and technology leader, music is also a big part of my life and has been for quite some time. Because of that, I like to bring together the musical part of myself and the leadership side of myself into a weekly article.

This week's edition of Music & Management Musings is inspired (once again) by the artist Sleeping at Last, specifically connected to his concept albums looking at things that are grand as well as those that are minuscule, as sources of inspiration. One of my favorite albums by this artist is inspired by images and events in the heavens, titled Astronomy, Vol. 1 (the grand, and awe-inspiring) and he also has a project released in 2023 titled Molecule 1, composed of 'tiny pieces of music inspired by tiny moments'.

Let's dive in for some leadership musings.

Leadership Musings

Thinking Big Picture

I'm taking some liberties with this one, but I'd argue that in order to create artwork inspired by space and astral events requires the ability to think and see big picture ideas. Looking beyond what is happening on the surface of this planet, Sleeping at Last draws upon the planets as inspiration and literally looks to the stars for inspiration. The music he crafts is appropriately ethereal and moving, just as the heavens are. He largely leverages musical instrumentation alone to evoke the feelings that are stirred when viewing such massive, mystical and awe-inspiring things such as are found in space.

For leaders, we also must be able to see beyond the 'planet' that we live and operate on: the team that we lead, the product(s) we deliver, the problem(s) we help to solve on a daily basis. This is required in order to zoom out and identify new and creative solutions. Or to connect what may seem like disparate things in order to develop and lead the strategy of tomorrow or to better serve your customers today. In discussion with another leader yesterday, he referred to this as the ability to think and see 'laterally' (i.e. in those spaces that are tangential or parallel to your work but not necessarily tied to your work, delivery, etc - this was in the reference to a Sales Kickoff event, where we as technology leaders were listening to, learning from and absorbing the things that matter most to our sales partners, and thus end consumers).

Being able to plan for and be strategic with the direction of the team over a longer period of time also requires 'thinking big picture'. Thinking beyond what you do today, seeing technological advancements that exist or may come, seeing the trends of the industry you work within and connecting those dots for a strategic vision for the team. For me, this also requires thoughtfulness in terms of how much change your team needs to absorb, in what timelines and how to best encourage them to come along for the change and to drive it from their side too. This past year, my team absorbed a lot of change and not always with the most comprehensive of launch planning or communication. We're being much more intentional to think big picture impact for 'all of the things' that we'll be launching in the year ahead, not just for ourselves as leaders, but for the sakes of our team members as well.

Deriving Inspiration from All Around

As discussed above, Sleeping at Last draws upon the planets, the stars and astral events for his artwork. He also uses 'the tiny', atomistic or molecular things in life for inspiration. The things that we might pass over and allow to go unseen because they're 'ordinary'. There is inspiration to be found in the ordinary and the extraordinary and Sleeping at Last is an expert at finding inspiration all around him for creating beautiful and original music.

As a technology leader, I'm of course inspired by the technological advancements that we see in our space. AI is amazing and gives me so many things to think about for where and how we might operate differently and more creatively within my team. I get pretty jazzed to discuss these things and to think about them. But I also would argue that it's valuable to derive inspiration and to learn from things all over and all around us. I personally take inspiration from time with my kids, time outdoors, books I read, artwork I look at, music I listen to, house projects I work on and more. I believe there's something to learn at almost any given moment. I'm not always tuned in and catching the lessons at hand, but I do my best to do so because I believe that I can always be growing as a person and that growth as a person makes me a better leader.

I could say more about this. Creative thought is most free and fluid the more disparate types of life experiences you've had. Just because you're a leader doesn't mean you've arrived or don't have any room to grow. Leaders should inspire others, but we also need our sources of inspiration. Those sources won't be the same for everyone, but I would argue that they are many, frequent and highly prevalent wherever you may find yourself.

Back to the Music

OK, back to the music. As always, I like to end with at least one of the artist's songs that showcases the points I draw upon above. This week, since I reference both the Astronomy & Molecule albums, I'll share two.

To begin, my favorite song from the Astronomy album (originally recorded as part of his Atlas: I album nearly ten years ago):

Next, to the minuscule, the below is actually all 15 tracks on the Molecule 1 'album' (16 mins long):

#musicbusinessmusings #techleadership #inspirationallaround #bigpicturethinking