Never a Wrong Note

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here at JLC. If you're on our YouTube channel and not the podcast channel, you'll probably be surprised to see a picture of Herbie Hancock with his hands on the beautiful piano that he played all through his career as a jazz musician. And today we're going to get a little bit of life wisdom, but certainly leadership wisdom from Herbie Hancock about following a principle that he never met me, never heard of us, but he follows a principle and appreciated something that Miles Davis acted upon. That is it's dangerous to make people's thinking wrong. We would say it's dangerous to make people's thinking wrong in a meeting. Certainly true in a performance, and meetings are truly performances. So you're going to get a little bit of Herbie Hancock here, and then the JLC team is going to come back in and give their reactions to what they just saw and heard.

In the middle of one of the songs, during Miles's solo, I played this chord that was so wrong, I thought I had just destroyed everything and reduced that great night to rubble. Miles took a breath and he played some notes and he made my chord right. And I could not figure out how he did that. It sounded like magic. You know, it took me years to figure out what actually happened. Here's what happened. I judged what I had played, Miles didn't. Miles just accepted it as something new that happened. And he did what any jazz musician should always try to do, and that is try to make anything that happens into something of value.

Okay, so there's really not much I can say to that. He already had me tingling on the way he described that. And I don't know if you've been around Herbie Hancock and his speaking before. He's wonderful to listen to. As far as we are concerned as learning group, as consultants, coaching people, I'm really curious. I'm really curious how that very short little snippet landed on you guys. What resonated with you? Julie, you want to start us off?

The thing that resonated with me is when he said that he figured out that he judged what he played. And. And as a leader, we spend so much time trying to get our words right and making everyone's voices, getting everyone's voices in the room. And sometimes things don't work out the way that we had hoped and we beat ourselves up. We have this self talk when in actuality, what happened may have been exactly what needed to happen. And so I love that permission to look at what we assume are mistakes. And say, no, that was right, that was perfect for that time and there's no judgment needed.

Oh my God, Julie. It's so hard sometimes for us to swallow that, that everything that happens is exactly what was supposed to happen. And when I went through my own dialogue training, everything that was said, that's what was supposed to been said. Anything withheld, it was supposed to be withheld. And I watch very often in my early days as a consultant and it's a lot of years ago now for the old guy, worrying and trying to fix words and make sure everybody got. It's exhausting. Rather than be vulnerable, allow the words to unfold and stay out of judgment. That was magnificent. Thank you. Vince, tell me how the thing landed on you.

Yeah. So as I looked at, what resonated with me was the leader's ability to create a safe space for his subordinate. In this case, Miles could have turned to him and said, this is absolutely wrong, this is the wrong note. He could have made it very clear non verbally that it was incorrect. But instead he chose to empower the moment. And that created a safe space for Herbie Hancock to continue on with the song and the performance. And they had a great night. And so it just reminds me of being in a meeting to head the importance you have as a leader to set the tone and the condition, the environment, set the safe space for your people to whether it's a mistake or exactly what was supposed to happen to allow the meeting to flourish so that you can get to the outcome. I just saw a great correlation.

I am so taken with that piece you just gave us. I watch people waiting for someone to say something that they see as wrong and then jump in rather than, wow, that's interesting. I didn't understand how you saw it that way. Tell me more. Those two phrases that we teach early on, tell me more and I don't understand, have such power, such power. And it stops me from dropping into that, you know, hey, that wasn't right, that was wrong. You played the wrong note. I don't know how many of you play music or have performed music or we've all been performers of some kind. If you feel like you're in a space of judgment, everything tightens up and you're not vulnerable, you're not loose, you're not clear. Things fall apart. Vince, that was great. All right, Aim. What happened to you when you watched that?

So echoing Julie and Vince but what caught me was in the beginning when he said, you know, I played this chord and Miles took a breath and then played some notes. And I know it was a little literal breath in that situation, but it's so important that as leaders and as sometimes facilities, we allow ourselves to take the breath, really listen, think about what's happening, and then open up that space for all that good thinking to happen. Or in this case, beautiful music. So that take a breath was, I thought, such a great line.

I think beautiful music is akin to great thinking because what they are really doing is they're playing off one another. And as we facilitate people, we help them hear the other person acknowledge and extend. It's just. That was great, Amy. That is the work, and it is the work of making something elegant. And I have been in meetings where I watch the leaders hold their breath. They're so anxious they're not going to get the right ideas. It's just fascinating. Nicole, what got you?

I love the idea that the unexpected leads to something new. And I feel like in this example that we all watched and heard, you could see that it still led to something great or led to something that might never have occurred otherwise. And as you said, Ray, I've watched leaders be so afraid of anything unexpected or any sort of surprise in their conversations or meetings. They do not want to be surprised or have something unexpected could happen in their meeting setting. And I think that's really, we're missing out. We're missing out on the newness that can occur.

It's beautiful. We miss out on creativity, the desire, the actual. They design themselves to be invulnerable. I have watched leaders of great stature give their handlers the questions they're willing to accept. So when the leader goes, any questions out there, they're going to get exactly the questions that they wrote down and handed out to people in the audience. I'm like, really? I think we could do more. I think we can play better music. And how do we always truly acknowledge people, respond respectfully, and make every effort never to make the note or the thinking wrong. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been a JLC Media production about everyday leadership conversations. We hope you enjoyed it. And we have such incredible gratitude for Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock and how they brought to us in live order, one of the most elegant lessons that the JLC team utilizes to really work never to make someone's thinking wrong in a meeting. Best of luck. Come see us at gojlc. Com and learn more about the JLC principles and protocols. Thank you again for listening.