Headline, July06, 2013

'''THE MUSIC -OF- LEADERSHIP​'''

There's a lot to be said for Vision and Values, but what about the voice of leadership? Its's not a widely discussed subject, but the masters-level players -and you know who you are-  recognize speech as the ''A'' skill of Leadership.

Jean-Louis-Gassee, head of Apple's products division in the 1980s, once explained what made Steve Jobs so mesmerizing : ''Steve could charm the skin off a person.'' The very French Gassee was referring to Job's ability to convey such passion and conviction that the listener and speaker became one, united in a single goal or vision.

Job understood that if you can't win people's attention, you damn well can't win their approval.

Leaders are judged even more by the music of their words than by whether they live up to them. Leaders who connect enter our imaginative space. It's a huge space, one in which there's very little competition   -which should make it prime real estate for any leader. Enter singing, and you are like Tide before Cheer, Fab, and Yes were invented. As the poet Malcolm de Chazal once said, ''The ear has no eyelids.'' If this is prime and empty mind space, then why don't leaders and students understand how to colonize it?

One reason is that ours is a visual culture: We focus most of our efforts on on seeing and on what is seen, Leaders and marketeers rely on visuals to carry meaning. But words are so robust and physical that to use words like a singer is to nail home deep conviction in another person. Have you ever listened to how a really great vocalist turns a word, makes it move? Listen for how certain songs run right past your reasoning brain. The nest stop is your primitive consciousness  -smack into the space where the capacity to fall in love resides.

The ears are prime emotional real estate; the eyes are pure judgement. Marshall McLuhan, the great interpreter of visual culture, must not have appreciated this enough. Folklore maintains that McLuhan's wife suffered a bizarre form of deafness. She was supposedly deaf only to the sound of her husband's voice.

U2's lead singer, Bono, understands this terrain. He calls King David the ''Elvis of ancient times.'' That's a tremendous insight. The equivalent today would be if Bill Gates had convinced people to buy Microsoft and and to start speaking in Microsoft code. And Bono acknowledged that, in large measure, the King's success came from being a poet, and a songwriter. Like the King, King David knew how to strum a person like a instrument.

Max Atkinson, once a professor at Oxford, was one of the earliest leadership-music analysts. Imagine listening to people as if they were performing unplugged  -unaccompanied by anything but their audience's heartbeat. That's how bold Atkinson was. How much boredom he had to endure to find the Holy Grail of sound. He'd show up at the speeches and analyze the words against the rate of applause. Applause produced the spikes on the speakers EKGs

And then Atkinson discovered  that there are about half a dozen verbal devices that will incite a rock-star reaction in public. The more of the devices that you can use together, the stronger your connection to your listeners will be. And when one author tried to research all the rules, he had his research called, ''the Human Menome Project'', for the work done in memes, the building blocks of meaning.    .

So, Dare to be Shakespeare. Afraid of poetry? Get over it. The simplest, most connective language is poetry. Look at Springsteen's ''Land of Hope and Dreams,'' which is full of poetry. Or take for example what the great Steve Jobs once said:

''There are so many exciting things in our headlights that will take us through the next three or four years. Only after that we will send people out in the darkness.'' That is pure Abe Lincoln.

That's pure !WOW!. If you understand what I mean!!?

The most followed leaders are romantic poets whose songs have bled off the page and into life. What a great excuse leadership is : You can sing............even  ''if in real life''............you're just a doctor, lawyer, student, teacher, professor, samurai, or an Indian chief.

Sing your heart out. And others will follow.

Welcome to !WOW! the playground of the world!

With respectful dedication to the students and professors and the great people of Peru. Join up on !WOW! The World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

The world's greatest Exhibitionist.

ALL, Please share this very unique post forward!

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless