Ted: "Yet I’ve seen—and I’m sure you have too—amazing people whose skill set can’t be conveyed by their resume."
Case in point: my father. Never finished College, but became an official in the state HIghway Department. Then, the state decided that non-degreed engineers could achieve the same status as College grads by passing a rigorous exam. Somehow, Dad didn't qualify for this exam! But who did they ask to create this exam?
This was a very thought-provoking piece. As a Project Manager working in the business world for my entire career, I actually feel Giuffre's philosophy has been confirmed by Harvard Business Review and other corporate influencers I've read who argue that building a team that feels safe, supported, and trusted and embodying principles of "servant leadership" yields the objectively best results in most cases.
In other words, if leaders pick the right people, stay out of their way, and offer them the support they need to work through problems, they will see better outcomes than the traditional methods of top-down control and planning, which simply aren't adaptive enough to keep pace with a much more highly complex, interdependent, and fast changing world than people were living in back at the time of Henri Fayol and other early theoreticians of management .
It was very interesting to read how this had been applied in jazz - the most democratic of musics - decades before the theoreticians and bean-counters had caught up!
I've been a manager on a team of eight project managers & business analysts for almost seven years and completely agree with your post. I've managed to build and maintain a team culture of openness, friendliness and mutual respect through fanatical attention to hiring the right people. I review every resume that is submitted in the course of a hiring campaign, and often identify candidates for interview who were missed by the hiring system or business partners. I value curiosity, basic friendliness and steadfastness in the face of ambiguity as the three most valuable qualities a candidate can demonstrate. I provide my team the opportunity to meet with late-stage candidates and provide direct feedback on whether they believe they would enjoy working with them. If a single member of the team were to give a negative opinion I would interrogate the reasons with the utmost seriousness. Thankfully there has never been one 'no' vote, and what's been more common is a unanimous 'Yes' for at least one late-stage candidate. If overall response is tepid and the business is in a position to keep looking I will lobby strenuously to keep the search open on the grounds it's astronomically more difficult to fix the ongoing problems that result from putting the wrong person on a team than it is to make the best decision possible in the first place.
Can you say a bit more about "steadfastness in the face of ambiguity"? I get the rest of this, and I think I might have a hint about this part, but I'd like to explore it more.
I've had experience of employees becoming resentful when they face ambiguity or unforeseen complexity in the course of doing their job, and hold it against management or their teammates for 'allowing' them to be put in a position where they feel insecure. Others merely wilt and are unable to make constructive progress without explicit direction. These are the types who often require micro-management and constant feedback to feel secure. What I meant by 'steadfast' is the ability to manage the sense of insecurity constructively and make progress even without explicit direction and not feel that it's someone's 'fault' that they didn't already have the 'right answer'. The best employees, in my experience, are motivated to try to understand what they don't know as well as they can and seek direction from that foundation without resentment at contingency/emergent complexity etc. Bonus points for identifying a new way of addressing a situation that improves upon whatever was known to the team in advance.
That's really good. Thanks. This matches up well with some stuff in my life, though not necessarily in the workplace. I am curious about something else now, though. How do you evaluate this in a candidate? How do you screen for this?
It's admittedly not an easy characteristic to screen for, and when I believe I see it it typically emerges in the sum of answers to a variety of questions over more than one interview. I will ask candidates to tell me about a time they had to reset expectations with a client late in a project, for example, or a time that they identified a new solution to an ongoing issue affecting their team. The kind of person I'm looking for will select good examples and want to tell me about those situations without requiring me to ask leading questions because they will be proud of themselves for having demonstrated the ability to do well in a difficult situation that wasn't due to their own lack of effort or preparation. How they tell the story is also important because I've found likely good employees will demonstrate the capacity to tell their story clearly and engagingly, selecting for details that clarify and advance an understanding of the situation versus merely take up space in the interview.
I also always ask candidates to tell me about a new piece of software or hobby they recently took-up and how they went about learning/applying it. If that doesn't land I ask them to tell me about an interesting article they read recently, or a good book, podcast etc. How people describe how they go about learning and what they're interested in is helpful in getting a sense of a candidate's personality, but the delight, or lack thereof, that they display when relating something they enjoyed learning recently is an even more important marker of their character. I've found the best teammates are the ones who are generous with their time and knowledge because they find passing-on what they know inherently enjoyable.
You're right about the Duke. Once he got to know his musicians, he cast them in roles in his pieces, like actors in parts. Very few of the bandleaders cared about their sidemen as much.
Totally agree with you. He was well known for writing pieces to utilise an individual’s skillset eg Steve Vai. That said, look at the mess that the final tour ended up being because of in fighting. I have the book about it (can’t remember name/author right now) but it was a disaster from a team perspective. Zappa’s answer was to disband rather than try and sort things out although I’m inclined to think that he was probably already starting to feel the early effects of his illness and probably didn’t need the hassle.
The book you refer to is Zappa The Hard Way by Andrew Greenaway, and I recommend it. Interestingly, I thought about Zappa while reading this post because his methods would appear to provide a contrast to those of Giuffre and Bley. I remember reading a Zappa quote in which he said something about not having any friends, or more specifically, that his immediate family were his only friends, which suggests that he viewed the members of his band as employees. I think both approaches--stocking your band with your buddies and hiring the best people for the job--have merit. I suppose it all depends on the outcome. I'd hate to have to choose between Frank Zappa and Paul Bley.
That’s the very book. It’s a great read. It’s funny. My feelings about Zappa the man have changed a lot since he died. I used to think he was great then, inevitably, stuff started coming out after he died and... well, maybe it’s how a lot people felt when the Cosby stuff came out. I still like Zappa’s music, a lot, but am more circumspect about the man. My issues! I don’t think Gail did his legacy any favours, and turning the kids against each other was a crappy thing to do. I never got to see Zappa live - did see the boys with Z, in Glasgow. Must have early 1990s. I then saw Dweezil in Edinburgh when he toured Apostrophe (2011?) - an unbelievable band, and what a torch bearer Dweezil is for Frank’s music. Shame Gail crapped all over it. Z we’re great live, but Ahmet is no musician, that’s all Dweezil. Come to think of it, I should look to see if they ever reconciled. Zappa definitely was not following the Giuffre approach for sure!
Harmony - that’s it! I’ve worked with friends and that was good but the best teams I’ve been on or seen had harmony. Working together seemed almost effortless.
Ted--Love your piece on Giuffre! I had the very good fortune of studying with him in the sixties, when he was teaching at the New School. A lovely man. I’m a guitarist, yet he taught me practice technique and, most important, phrasing.
To me, the phrasing—the swing element--is what stands out in “The Train and the River.” It recalls the Armstrong Hot Fives—no bass, no drums, but did they swing! The swing is the fiber—the neuroscience even—of that music. It is the tendons holding everything together—regardless of the instruments. In William Least Heat-Moon’s “Blue Highways,” the author observes boys flying kites. “No string, no flight,” he writes.
It has been observed that bands play better who play together the longest (viz. Ellington). I think this must comport with everyone being happy and getting along. Otherwise, how could the band stay together?
“The best people take unconventional paths”--right out of Thoreau, who also said, “One generation abandons the enterprises of another, like stranded vessels.” We’re always starting anew, with our “imperfections”! PG
I always felt that that was a key part of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' creative magic, for the "classic" lineup of Anthony Kiedis, Flea, John Frusciante and Chad Smith. There was (and is) always some degree of friendship and camaraderie between the four of them, even with Frusciante's issues and generation gap. (In his recent Joe Rogan interview, Kiedis described his learning music as a way to jam with his friends, and what he said in his autobiography checks out) While all of them are talented, I'll bet that chemistry makes an even bigger difference than that.
Giuffre sounds like my type of cat. I wonder if he also understood something I've often wondered: where one can create as much rock as you like, or as much jazz in a quintet with a select set of instruments, but while it might make lots of music it's all from just those limited combos of instruments. A handful of different combinations in a world full of instruments, much of which features the guitar. Personally, I'm all for more trios with a trombone, clarinet and guitar. Might create a new genre if you add an Irish penpal who plays the bodhran.
Audiences love to lump musicians into certain genres, styles if you will, and there are musicians who play to that level. Jimmy Giuffre was certainly not that kind of creative mind. Even when he was criticized for his "changing" sound, he kept right on going. He was an explorer and most definitely inspired his friend Bob Brookmeyer who went to teach composers not to sound like him and not to be afraid to sound like yourself. Thanks for this excellent reminder of why we listen and how we learn!
"Didn’t I know that people are always happier when they were with their friends? So group productivity is an easy problem to solve." [Why does Notes have text formatting, but not comments?]
I thought this was a given.... like, the best bandmates / songwriting partners are people who would be lovers in a different life.
Of course that really depends on what you're trying to create: is it art or just another disposable corporate product?
I recently read that (some? many?) corporations are finding that if three close friends are working in a company, they are less inclined to quit, enjoy working more, and of course are more productive. But yeah, all the ppl I play with are ppl I really like a lot. The last jerk (but great player with many good ideas) I played with was around '06. He got pissed at me and left. Everything's been roses ever since.
I hated working with arrogant jerks. I didn't care how well they played, it didn't remove their attitude. If everyone on the gig enjoys each other as people and players, the music can transcend the setting.
It makes total sense. Management is the greatest scam of the last century and deciding everything on data is nothing but counterproductive. Both are an oversimplification of how reality works with no room for the subtle. Artist know that.
No work of art ever went down in history because someone follow the rules to the letter. What's happening is pretty much the opposite: we remember the rule-breakers, the trailblazers, the artists that were deemed too crazy.
To my mind there are two CEO/companies who have followed this path and I'll refer to their books; Maverick follows Semco and their interviews are by team and not manager, and the Happy Manifesto covers similar practice in a modern IT company. Hiring people who get on is great, but you've got to balance that with diversity of thought, some of the best breakthroughs come whilst (politely) arguing.
Thank you. Just passed this on to my management team who are probably scratching their heads on to why I asked them to read on article on Jimmy and Jazz. The same reason I asked them to read Hemingway's "Clean Well Lighted Place" as it illuminates the essence of our business. Hospitality: providing and creating warmth, and grace.
Ted: "Yet I’ve seen—and I’m sure you have too—amazing people whose skill set can’t be conveyed by their resume."
Case in point: my father. Never finished College, but became an official in the state HIghway Department. Then, the state decided that non-degreed engineers could achieve the same status as College grads by passing a rigorous exam. Somehow, Dad didn't qualify for this exam! But who did they ask to create this exam?
Yup. None other.
This was a very thought-provoking piece. As a Project Manager working in the business world for my entire career, I actually feel Giuffre's philosophy has been confirmed by Harvard Business Review and other corporate influencers I've read who argue that building a team that feels safe, supported, and trusted and embodying principles of "servant leadership" yields the objectively best results in most cases.
In other words, if leaders pick the right people, stay out of their way, and offer them the support they need to work through problems, they will see better outcomes than the traditional methods of top-down control and planning, which simply aren't adaptive enough to keep pace with a much more highly complex, interdependent, and fast changing world than people were living in back at the time of Henri Fayol and other early theoreticians of management .
It was very interesting to read how this had been applied in jazz - the most democratic of musics - decades before the theoreticians and bean-counters had caught up!
I've been a manager on a team of eight project managers & business analysts for almost seven years and completely agree with your post. I've managed to build and maintain a team culture of openness, friendliness and mutual respect through fanatical attention to hiring the right people. I review every resume that is submitted in the course of a hiring campaign, and often identify candidates for interview who were missed by the hiring system or business partners. I value curiosity, basic friendliness and steadfastness in the face of ambiguity as the three most valuable qualities a candidate can demonstrate. I provide my team the opportunity to meet with late-stage candidates and provide direct feedback on whether they believe they would enjoy working with them. If a single member of the team were to give a negative opinion I would interrogate the reasons with the utmost seriousness. Thankfully there has never been one 'no' vote, and what's been more common is a unanimous 'Yes' for at least one late-stage candidate. If overall response is tepid and the business is in a position to keep looking I will lobby strenuously to keep the search open on the grounds it's astronomically more difficult to fix the ongoing problems that result from putting the wrong person on a team than it is to make the best decision possible in the first place.
Can you say a bit more about "steadfastness in the face of ambiguity"? I get the rest of this, and I think I might have a hint about this part, but I'd like to explore it more.
I've had experience of employees becoming resentful when they face ambiguity or unforeseen complexity in the course of doing their job, and hold it against management or their teammates for 'allowing' them to be put in a position where they feel insecure. Others merely wilt and are unable to make constructive progress without explicit direction. These are the types who often require micro-management and constant feedback to feel secure. What I meant by 'steadfast' is the ability to manage the sense of insecurity constructively and make progress even without explicit direction and not feel that it's someone's 'fault' that they didn't already have the 'right answer'. The best employees, in my experience, are motivated to try to understand what they don't know as well as they can and seek direction from that foundation without resentment at contingency/emergent complexity etc. Bonus points for identifying a new way of addressing a situation that improves upon whatever was known to the team in advance.
That's really good. Thanks. This matches up well with some stuff in my life, though not necessarily in the workplace. I am curious about something else now, though. How do you evaluate this in a candidate? How do you screen for this?
It's admittedly not an easy characteristic to screen for, and when I believe I see it it typically emerges in the sum of answers to a variety of questions over more than one interview. I will ask candidates to tell me about a time they had to reset expectations with a client late in a project, for example, or a time that they identified a new solution to an ongoing issue affecting their team. The kind of person I'm looking for will select good examples and want to tell me about those situations without requiring me to ask leading questions because they will be proud of themselves for having demonstrated the ability to do well in a difficult situation that wasn't due to their own lack of effort or preparation. How they tell the story is also important because I've found likely good employees will demonstrate the capacity to tell their story clearly and engagingly, selecting for details that clarify and advance an understanding of the situation versus merely take up space in the interview.
I also always ask candidates to tell me about a new piece of software or hobby they recently took-up and how they went about learning/applying it. If that doesn't land I ask them to tell me about an interesting article they read recently, or a good book, podcast etc. How people describe how they go about learning and what they're interested in is helpful in getting a sense of a candidate's personality, but the delight, or lack thereof, that they display when relating something they enjoyed learning recently is an even more important marker of their character. I've found the best teammates are the ones who are generous with their time and knowledge because they find passing-on what they know inherently enjoyable.
I'll try to stay on point, but wouldn't it be great if this could be applied to government at all levels? Jus' sayin'.
You're right about the Duke. Once he got to know his musicians, he cast them in roles in his pieces, like actors in parts. Very few of the bandleaders cared about their sidemen as much.
I'd put Zappa in this category, too.
Totally agree with you. He was well known for writing pieces to utilise an individual’s skillset eg Steve Vai. That said, look at the mess that the final tour ended up being because of in fighting. I have the book about it (can’t remember name/author right now) but it was a disaster from a team perspective. Zappa’s answer was to disband rather than try and sort things out although I’m inclined to think that he was probably already starting to feel the early effects of his illness and probably didn’t need the hassle.
The book you refer to is Zappa The Hard Way by Andrew Greenaway, and I recommend it. Interestingly, I thought about Zappa while reading this post because his methods would appear to provide a contrast to those of Giuffre and Bley. I remember reading a Zappa quote in which he said something about not having any friends, or more specifically, that his immediate family were his only friends, which suggests that he viewed the members of his band as employees. I think both approaches--stocking your band with your buddies and hiring the best people for the job--have merit. I suppose it all depends on the outcome. I'd hate to have to choose between Frank Zappa and Paul Bley.
That’s the very book. It’s a great read. It’s funny. My feelings about Zappa the man have changed a lot since he died. I used to think he was great then, inevitably, stuff started coming out after he died and... well, maybe it’s how a lot people felt when the Cosby stuff came out. I still like Zappa’s music, a lot, but am more circumspect about the man. My issues! I don’t think Gail did his legacy any favours, and turning the kids against each other was a crappy thing to do. I never got to see Zappa live - did see the boys with Z, in Glasgow. Must have early 1990s. I then saw Dweezil in Edinburgh when he toured Apostrophe (2011?) - an unbelievable band, and what a torch bearer Dweezil is for Frank’s music. Shame Gail crapped all over it. Z we’re great live, but Ahmet is no musician, that’s all Dweezil. Come to think of it, I should look to see if they ever reconciled. Zappa definitely was not following the Giuffre approach for sure!
But he certainly didn't hire them because they got along with each other or even with him.
Giuffre, being a musician, understood harmony, that was especially important with who he played with.
Harmony - that’s it! I’ve worked with friends and that was good but the best teams I’ve been on or seen had harmony. Working together seemed almost effortless.
In the Wee Small Hours is one of my favorite Sinatra albums.
One of my favorite albums of all time. Rolling Stone recently listed it as one of the top ten concept albums of all time ( https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-concept-albums-1234604040/frank-sinatra-4-1234604530/ ).
Thank you!
Ted--Love your piece on Giuffre! I had the very good fortune of studying with him in the sixties, when he was teaching at the New School. A lovely man. I’m a guitarist, yet he taught me practice technique and, most important, phrasing.
To me, the phrasing—the swing element--is what stands out in “The Train and the River.” It recalls the Armstrong Hot Fives—no bass, no drums, but did they swing! The swing is the fiber—the neuroscience even—of that music. It is the tendons holding everything together—regardless of the instruments. In William Least Heat-Moon’s “Blue Highways,” the author observes boys flying kites. “No string, no flight,” he writes.
It has been observed that bands play better who play together the longest (viz. Ellington). I think this must comport with everyone being happy and getting along. Otherwise, how could the band stay together?
“The best people take unconventional paths”--right out of Thoreau, who also said, “One generation abandons the enterprises of another, like stranded vessels.” We’re always starting anew, with our “imperfections”! PG
I always felt that that was a key part of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' creative magic, for the "classic" lineup of Anthony Kiedis, Flea, John Frusciante and Chad Smith. There was (and is) always some degree of friendship and camaraderie between the four of them, even with Frusciante's issues and generation gap. (In his recent Joe Rogan interview, Kiedis described his learning music as a way to jam with his friends, and what he said in his autobiography checks out) While all of them are talented, I'll bet that chemistry makes an even bigger difference than that.
Giuffre sounds like my type of cat. I wonder if he also understood something I've often wondered: where one can create as much rock as you like, or as much jazz in a quintet with a select set of instruments, but while it might make lots of music it's all from just those limited combos of instruments. A handful of different combinations in a world full of instruments, much of which features the guitar. Personally, I'm all for more trios with a trombone, clarinet and guitar. Might create a new genre if you add an Irish penpal who plays the bodhran.
Anyone who plays bass clarinet and bassoon is okay in my book!
Audiences love to lump musicians into certain genres, styles if you will, and there are musicians who play to that level. Jimmy Giuffre was certainly not that kind of creative mind. Even when he was criticized for his "changing" sound, he kept right on going. He was an explorer and most definitely inspired his friend Bob Brookmeyer who went to teach composers not to sound like him and not to be afraid to sound like yourself. Thanks for this excellent reminder of why we listen and how we learn!
"Didn’t I know that people are always happier when they were with their friends? So group productivity is an easy problem to solve." [Why does Notes have text formatting, but not comments?]
I thought this was a given.... like, the best bandmates / songwriting partners are people who would be lovers in a different life.
Of course that really depends on what you're trying to create: is it art or just another disposable corporate product?
I recently read that (some? many?) corporations are finding that if three close friends are working in a company, they are less inclined to quit, enjoy working more, and of course are more productive. But yeah, all the ppl I play with are ppl I really like a lot. The last jerk (but great player with many good ideas) I played with was around '06. He got pissed at me and left. Everything's been roses ever since.
I hated working with arrogant jerks. I didn't care how well they played, it didn't remove their attitude. If everyone on the gig enjoys each other as people and players, the music can transcend the setting.
Thanks for this.
We learn this as children and then the adults get involved....
Worse yet, we become the adults who got involved.
“Imperfection is, in some sort essential, to all that we know of life.....” sounds like Monk’s “Ugly Beauty”
It makes total sense. Management is the greatest scam of the last century and deciding everything on data is nothing but counterproductive. Both are an oversimplification of how reality works with no room for the subtle. Artist know that.
No work of art ever went down in history because someone follow the rules to the letter. What's happening is pretty much the opposite: we remember the rule-breakers, the trailblazers, the artists that were deemed too crazy.
To my mind there are two CEO/companies who have followed this path and I'll refer to their books; Maverick follows Semco and their interviews are by team and not manager, and the Happy Manifesto covers similar practice in a modern IT company. Hiring people who get on is great, but you've got to balance that with diversity of thought, some of the best breakthroughs come whilst (politely) arguing.
Thank you. Just passed this on to my management team who are probably scratching their heads on to why I asked them to read on article on Jimmy and Jazz. The same reason I asked them to read Hemingway's "Clean Well Lighted Place" as it illuminates the essence of our business. Hospitality: providing and creating warmth, and grace.