I picked it up wondering if it was going to be one of the business-management genre books that have been feeding into my charisma project. Not directly, it turns out, and where it does, mostly by contrast. Nonetheless, it proved a stimulating read, both in the dimensions in which I found myself persuaded, and in those where I found myself wanting to argue back.
Possibly that is the definition of a stimulating book! Anyway, one of the areas I found particularly useful was where he discusses performance- blocking behaviours โ i. The problem with these is not just that they are counter-productive, but also that they are highly contagious. Now, one of his central points in the whole book is that how well people do is primarily determined by their behaviour, which is in turn primarily a response to environment and situation.
Thus, blocking behaviours can be at least mitigated if not cured by seeking to understand what stimulates them. So his is a message of hope โ we see these behaviours all around us and indeed participate in them , often seemingly locked into negative cycle of discouragement โ but we are not doomed to stay locked in them. I thought it was useful to make that point before looking at the details, which I found resonating uncomfortably with a host of rehearsal habits that one finds in varying degrees of severity in many conductors and their choirs.
We see this in rehearsal every time a director gets impatient with their singers. Not many directors shout at their singers very often, but more resort to sarcasm. When it becomes endemic, rehearsals descend into a weary trudge through the act of note-bashing.
Have I bitten off more than the choir can chew in my programming? This is counter-productive not only for the effect it has on them, but it also undermines your opportunity to affect the outcome, by removing the problem from your circle of influence into your circle of concern.
